Are you paying more attention to your mind or your dog?
A Saturday morning dog-training class in the park raises a question about which one of you is actually in training.
Writing
Notes from the room
Short pieces on the questions owners avoid, what pressure does to a decision, and what twenty years of running a company taught that no certificate covers.
More time than money, or more money than time
Every founder starts with more time than money and builds habits to match. The math reverses. The habits rarely do.
Training your brain, the ultimate power move
Dr. Edith Eger died last month at 98. She sounded exactly like my mother, another Edith, born in the same city and sent to the same camp. They held the same belief, in almost the same words.
The hardest thing you will do today is relax
What if the best thing you could do right before the hardest conversation of your week was relax? Eight years of martial arts, a tennis commentator, and an FBI hostage negotiator all landed on the same answer.
The scars only you can see
A 1980 Dartmouth study on scars that were wiped off before the interviews, and what we project onto other people’s reactions.
The kind of certainty that limits you
Tempur-Pedic asked us for sheets. We only made pillowcases. We said yes anyway, the promotion flopped, and the warehouse full of unsold stock became our best selling line.
Why saying I am sorry feels so uncomfortable
I snapped at my husband over a recipe, saw it instantly, and still changed the subject. The resistance was not about his reaction. It was about what the apology seemed to say about me.
The real reason you are not changing
Only about one in seven high risk heart patients follow through on the changes that would save their life. Robert Kegan has an answer for why, and it is not motivation.
Questions are for when you are struggling, or so we think
Commentators at the Australian Open could not work out why the world number three was asking her coaches questions. She was winning. That is exactly the point.
Pattern vs. Exception: A Simple Leadership Filter
My team treated every return like a five alarm fire. One question changed how decisions got made, and cut the number of things that felt like emergencies.
The story I never questioned
A Byron Katie workshop on New Year’s Eve, taken reluctantly, and the story that did not survive it.
What ‘having it’ actually looks like
A client was sure sales did not respect his marketing team. One question changed what he was looking for in the room.
The one question most leaders never ask themselves
Some leaders drain energy from a room and some generate it. The difference starts with a question about where you are right now.
The questions that give you away
A COO was furious at her design team. Her questions had already decided the answer before anyone spoke.
Start listening. Lead better.
We listen worst to the people we know best, because we are sure we already know what they are about to say.
Why your brain makes you defensive, and how stories get around it
Defensiveness is the brain protecting an identity. Stories reach the same place without setting off the alarm.
Are we even having the same conversation?
Two people, both speaking English, walking away from the same conversation with two different meetings in their heads.
The question gap: what supercommunicators know
Some people never ask a single question in a conversation. What the research on supercommunicators says they are missing.
You are not your personality
A client was sure her impatience was genetic. Personality is a set of practiced thoughts, and practice can change.
Your brain called. It wants you to look up.
We spend on face cream and step counts while aging our brains every time we look down at a phone.
The water glass test: are you interrupting too soon?
A client who could not stop interrupting, a glass of water slid across the desk, and no lecture required.
The leadership paradox: what if questions, not answers, drive success?
We admire leaders who move fast and know the answers. The ones who pause and ask tend to build stronger companies.
They can’t ask me that!
The knee-jerk reaction when an employee asks for something unexpected, and what it protects.
Everyday leadership and lollipop moments
A stranger interrupts dinner to say thank you for something long forgotten. Leadership is often invisible to the leader.
Closed doors and open minds
A wedding at a five star hotel, a closed door, and what an open mind found on the other side.
Stop interrupting. Start listening.
Listening involves more than the ears and none of the mouth. A 95 year old grandmother explains it best.
It’s tough, now what?
A ritual with a business partner: name that it is hard, then decide whether you are doing it anyway.
Tennis constantly reminds me how I get in my own way
A fused ankle, a frustrating game, and the ways we coach ourselves out of our own performance.
How to test drive a new thought
The follow up to the first newsletter: what happened when readers actually tried the thought on.
Try on a new thought
Trying on jeans at Nordstrom and trying on thoughts work the same way. Most do not fit. Keep the one that does.
Margalitism
Curiosity built my business. It’ll grow yours.