Tips and Insights about influencing people toward shared goals.
Whether when musing about the news or choosing our next job/project, we can trip up thinking that we are here to change the world. We’re not. There’s something more delicious for us to do: change our world. The world is too distant, distracting, and depressing. It’s full of spiky obstacles, shiny objects, and competing ideologies. […]
The word commiserate comes from Latin: “Com-” meaning with + “miserari” meaning to lament (from “miser” which means wretched). We have a habit of commiserating. We respond to others’ disconnected, low-buzz state by disconnecting ourselves. When someone is miserable, we join them. If we don’t, they get more miserable. If we do, then we are […]
Most of our time at work we focus on Do: getting done all the stuff that needs to be done. This is sometimes called Execution. We rightly invest time, energy, and money improving our Do. Sometimes, we pull back to examine What we should be doing (and why we should do it). This is sometimes […]
With all of the evil in the world, we could believe things are becoming worse. Or we can recognize that the same sorts of bad deeds have always happened. But now we’re exposing more. Thanks, Internet! And we can feel better knowing that bad always withers in the light. So keep on shining yours. In […]
We all always want to be happy, growing, and free. We can think about freedom in two ways. There’s freedom from the things that bug us, stop us, or threaten us. Then there is freedom. The difference is in how these two ideas feel. When we think about things we want freedom from, we are […]
Cognitive dissonance unconsciously drives us to twist things to match our beliefs about ourselves, each other, the situation, and the world. We are all subject to it. Yet every day, we take in all sorts of new and vital information. Some of it will trigger our cognitive dissonance. To get the benefit of this information, […]
When our buzz is low, we can’t leap to the high buzz we want. Frustrated to Elated, for example, is too big of a jump. But we can raise our buzz to something slightly better. Take three deep breaths then ask, “What’s a thought that feels slightly better than this?”In less than a minute you’ll […]
What we expect to happen tends to happen. No sense in expecting the worse, then, eh? It’s time we start to curate our expectations. In your corner, Mike P.S. Give it a go. You’ll be pleased.
If we react to what we see happening around us with hate, anger, or blame (no matter how righteous), we will only prolong what we’re seeing. Hate them and they dig in, raise their defenses, and entrench in their ways. Love them and they will transform before your eyes. In your corner, Mike
We might push, posture, protect, or prattle to get results in a meeting. Or we can let go, listen, learn, and lean in. Which aprroach is more likely to generate results that last beyond the end of the meeting? Right. In your corner, Mike P.S. And love. P.P.S. Which approach is more enjoyable, more likely […]