“…To Make You Feel Special”
Recently I was chatting with a friend about intention (that’s just how I roll). She shared that she had spoken recently with a man whose job as an interviewer means he’s always talking to new people. His goal with each interview is “to make the other person feel special.” I just love this! What if …
The Myth of Multitasking
The myth of multitasking is that we can do more than one thing at a time. In fact, when you’re “multitasking,” you’re rapidly switching back and forth between tasks. Similar to the principle in physics that two objects can’t occupy the same space at the same time, we can’t focus on multiple tasks simultaneously. And …
“I Just Want to Tell You That I Can Be an Oversharer…”
Long-time friend and blog reader Josh got in touch last week, looking for some advice. He told me: I have an interview for a position that would be really…prestigious. I’m wondering if you have any tips for avoiding my biggest interview bugaboo – “oversharing.” Ah! This is pretty common, especially with more extroverted folks. The adrenaline of the interview …
The Real Job of the Car Salesman
If I asked you what a car salesman’s job is, you might say, “Well, it’s to sell cars.” Yes, for sure. But if they go into work every day with the default intention ”I’ve gotta get people to buy cars,” I bet they’re not very successful. If “to make the sale” is the salesperson’s intention, …
My Book Is…Chinese Pants?
Lately I’ve been indulging in the favorite pastime of a recently-published author—I’m checking out how the book is doing on various online platforms. When I hopped over to the UK version of Amazon, everything looked fine…at first. The eBook version of the book was there and available, just as I hoped. But when I clicked …
How Your Familiar Systems Are Tripping You Up
As my daughter Nora and I were making our way to Scotland to get her set up at school, we noticed something. On the US side of the trip, we were pros. We had all our paperwork in order, we rocked the security line like the seasoned travelers we are, and we definitely patted ourselves …
Competing Intentions: The Cage Match
On August 24, I wrote about some ways to handle competing intentions that might surface on your team. In that situation, you’re all working to be intentional communicators, but people have different priorities. Today, let’s think about what happens when you don’t have the luxury of a shared vocabulary around intention. For example, you’re preparing …
What’s Different When We’re There in Person?
I attended a funeral last week. The woman who passed away was a family friend, someone important to me. The funeral was held in the city where I grew up, about two and half hours away. The funeral was held in person as well as streamed on the church’s Facebook page. I had two choices: …
What About When I Just Don’t Feel Like It?
What should we do when our mood is at odds with our intention? We know that we need to focus on the long-term impact of our communication. We know that getting frustrated or irritated won’t advance our cause. But we’re only human. We get annoyed, we get tired of running into the same obstacles, and …
How Can I Handle Competing Intentions?
I got to spend some time last week with a wonderful team of people doing incredibly cool work. We were talking about my favorite topic: intentional communication! This team has chosen to really engage with the idea of intention, and to work it into their culture. In fact, they begin meetings by asking what intentions …
