“I hate black-eyes peas but I choke ’em down… One of these years it’ll bring me good luck!” I had this thought this morning, having watched my social feed fill with comments just like this throughout this first week of the year, and having lived in regions where this practice is sacred I know I’m […]
Self-Reflection is often uncomfortable, but some of the best personal growth opportunities come from those not-great-feeling moments. My spouse is a Boomer-cusper, and many of our friends are in their 60’s and 70’s. We were sitting around a firepit recently trying to solve all the problems of the universe… as you do around a fire! […]
Today is NOT Employee Appreciation Day – making it the PERFECT time to express appreciation to the people around you. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Errrr… I mean… Nobody expects spontaneous appreciation! 😉 Why does this matter? I’m glad you asked! ,Gratitude improves retention. 53% of people say they’ll stay longer if they feel more […]
(Part 2 of a 5-part Series) Most people do not regularly experience gratitude at work, either as recipients or as an active intentional practice of their own. And yet we know that just generally, when we feel appreciated, we feel and do better. What would happen if we purposefully made gratitude a regular part of […]
(Part 1 of a 5-part Series) At its core, gratitude is an excellent antidote for the isolation which has become such a problem for so many of us. While the COVID-19 pandemic put a painfully bright spotlight on the problems that are caused by isolation, the truth is most of us are more functionally isolated […]
White privilege shows up in the weirdest places. Very long story distilled radically: My dad retired to Mexico and remarried (briefly) several years ago, and I have a half-sister who is 15. Her mother is Mexican, and my hermanita (little sister) grew up and still lives in central Mexico with her older sisters. They are […]
“I didn’t know you were gay. I thought you were in the military!” I’m actually not going to write about my complicated relationship with that comment from a former colleague but suffice it to say it stopped me in my tracks, made my blood run cold, and if I had a “panic meter” on my […]
His skin was SO black, and SO shiny, I was convinced he was a robot, and I was scared. I was about eight years old, and my dad was a non-traditional student at the university in the nearest big city (Green Bay), and being a consummate People Person, he was always inviting people to our […]
“Dang, Mom… you have a ‘work voice’!” I like to think of myself as pretty authentic at work. I don’t hide my tattoos, I don’t hide my ~thoughts~ (this isn’t always a bonus, by the way…) and I think I usually bring my “full self” into my professional pursuits. So I was caught off-guard when […]
Caveat: Mindfulness should NEVER be proposed as a band-aid for getting people to suck it up when dealing with toxic situations, even though it can help us as individuals deal with those situations in the short term. If you notice somebody doing this, call them on that shit. It’s unethical and speaks volumes about their […]
