The Blog / Archive

In a workshop I did last week, a woman said, “I am often in back to back 30-minute meetings for seven or eight hours. How can I stay present for all of them? It’s exhausting!”  Yes. It is. Seth Godin writes about this concept–emotional labor is what many of us do now. We’re not digging ditches or building buildings; we’re showing up day in and day out and working with other people, solving problems. The woman in the workshop wanted me to give her a way to check out of some of these meetings. I get it—it’s really hard to … Read more

A client and I were working on her presentation. As often happens, as soon as she started to “present,” her personality flattened out, her voice contracted to a monotone, and her eye contact vanished. The content she was delivering was good, but it was hard for me to know what was important and what wasn’t, since her inflection and pace gave everything the same weight. “Hang on,” I said. “Let’s try something. I’d like you to give this presentation to a class of kindergartners. Just imagine that’s who you’re talking to—a room full of 5-year-olds.” She smiled, leaned in, made … Read more

I was having a coaching session with a new client last week, and he related that about 50% of the time when he has to give a work presentation, he dreads it. It always goes fine, but from the moment he finds out about it, he wishes it were over. I asked, “What do you say to yourself about dreading the presentation?” He responded, “I don’t know why I feel that way—it’s stupid, I shouldn’t. It always goes fine. I always I tell myself I shouldn’t feel that way, there’s no reason to.” I said, “Well, one of the first … Read more

Here’s a lesson I keep having to learn: Lots of times, what I need to say is nothing. I am learning to ask: what do I want to accomplish by saying this? See where my true intention is. If the candid answer is something along the lines of “I want to show how wrong he is,” maybe I should just stay quiet for now.

When do you default to your old habits? I’m thinking about this today as I recommit to budgeting, and meal planning, and generally being more intentional. All the tools I need to be good at this stuff are literally at my fingertips—apps, information, lots of ways to monitor and measure. But the driver of all those tools is my intention, my willingness to make it happen. Recently at the gym, I was working on a gymnastics movement that has eluded me for a long time. And I was getting it! It was working! I was finally doing the thing that … Read more

I’ve seen it a thousand times.  The person who was just sitting with me, talking excitedly and passionately about their work, stands up to present, and suddenly they turn into a different person. They go into “presentation mode.” It’s like the change in altitude from sitting to standing flips a switch in their brain, and their personality drops away. Does this happen to you? Have you seen it happen to other people?  I think this goes way back to when we had to stand up in front of the class and give book reports or talk about what we did … Read more

Recently I was out of town on business for a whole week. I was staying in a hotel, and before long I felt like I knew the place inside and out. On the fourth day of my stay, I got up early and went in search of coffee. The elevator door opened, and three things happened, in quick succession. First, there was a man already on the elevator. I had thought, all week, that I was on the top floor, so I was very surprised to see him there. I stepped in and said something brilliant like, “Oh! I didn’t … Read more

There’s a moment that comes right before you say something. A moment when you’re drawing in breath to speak, when you can alter the course of what’s coming next. In that moment, where are you? What are you thinking about? Are you two steps down the road of the discussion you’re having, trying to win an argument? Are you marshaling the evidence to prove that you’re right? Are you conceding a point that you really believe in? Are you apologizing before you’ve even asked for what you need? In this moment before, what do you want to happen next? That … Read more