The Doing is the Practice.
The doing is the practice. When we’re coaching, we teach clients the best ways to practice for a presentation or a speech. But the real truth is—every day is a chance to practice. Every conversation is a chance to practice intention. How am I hoping to affect the person I’m talking to? Am I being …
Competing Commitments
Lately I am finding myself in the middle of competing commitments. I have committed to directing a play, Jeeves Intervenes, that opens on February 5. I have committed to the William C. Friday Fellowship for Human Relations, a two-year journey in which the fifth seminar takes place this week. I have committed to an engagement …
Let’s All Slow Down Just a Bit
I don’t know about you, but 2022 has gotten off to a very busy, maybe a little overwhelming start. My typical response to having a ton do to is not, as my desktop photo would remind me, to “slow down since there is so much to do,” but instead to try to speed up to …
The Argument for Making Things Harder
Modern living is all about convenience. If we can have what we need, when we need it, at our fingertips, that’s a good thing. Right? The introduction of email (and its siblings, texting, IM, Slack, etc) was supposed to make our work lives more efficient—no more waiting for a call back before you could move …
How We Hide, and How to Show Up
Being in front of people can be scary. It makes us feel vulnerable and exposed. And what “being in front of people” means varies from one person to the next. For some folks, the sentence “Let’s just go around the room and quickly introduce ourselves” is the scariest form of being in front of people. …
Why Am I Losing My Voice on Virtual Calls?
A client shared recently that she had gotten a very dry throat and a cough while giving a virtual presentation. After asking a few questions and consulting with Ignite CSP coach Nathan Crocker, here’s what I think was going on. My client was presenting to a large group she didn’t know, and she described the …
How Big Is Your Pan?
When I was in college, I took a lot of sociology classes. In one, I remember the professor sharing the (possibly apocryphal) story of a woman and her daughter who come to her mother’s house for dinner. All three generations are cooking together, preparing a pot roast for the meal. The youngest watches her mother …
Just Ask.
I’ve been seeing a specific kind of strained communication more and more lately. See if this rings a bell for you: Two or more people are having a discussion that needs to lead to an outcome: a decision, an understanding, a set of actions. Somewhere in the back and forth, at least two people stop …
From the Archives: Just Start.
A good friend and I have been saying this to each other lately—“just start.” There are a ton of quotable quotes with this idea at their core: The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. (Lao Tzu) The secret of getting ahead is getting started. (Twain) The way to get started is …
The Blessing of Finite Resources
I’m a huge fan of the HBO drama “Succession.” The third season ended last month, and I’ve been reading articles and listening to podcasts about the writers, the actors, the showrunner, and the rest of the creative team. In one interview, Mark Mylod, the director of many of the episodes, spoke about the decision that …
