There are a few things that happen to me when I’m in the grips of a stressful situation. In my youth I was vaguely aware of these sensations in my body, but never gave them much thought. Even as an emotional Mt. Vesuvius was erupting on the outside, it didn’t occur to me that those sensations had been trying to draw attention to something in advance of my outburst. Had I been paying attention; I would have understood that my body was trying to tell me something!

By clues I mean things like; my throat goes dry as I’m becoming anxious, I feel heat in my head that wasn’t there a moment before, my neck and jaw become tense, and sometimes I find that my mind just blanks out as the emotions come rolling in, leaving me with nothing articulate to say, but a body full of feeling to somehow dissipate.

Even though I haven’t always paid attention, my body has consistently given me distinctive clues about my levels of stress and anxiety.  The more...

One of the first obstacles we bump into as we begin a mindfulness practice is that we see just how distracted our minds actually are.

As we work towards developing the ‘focused awareness’ that is the goal of most mindfulness practices, we have no choice but to come face to face with all of the distractions running through our minds at any given time. The work of the practice is to learn how to observe these distractions with curiosity and compassion, rather than frustration and judgement.

It’s no easy task especially at the beginning. However, within this practice of observing our distractions, we also have to re-learn what is likely a long-neglected skill: beginning again.

A mindfulness practice is an exercise in beginning again.

In noticing our thoughts, recognizing distractions, and then instead of being frustrated with our monkey minds, we teach ourselves to just notice, to be compassionate towards ourselves and most importantly, we learn to begin again.

We use...

I don't see many articles about this, but was happy to see this one that I wanted to share with all of you:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/youve-survived-cancer-what-comes-next-11568599621

As a cancer survivor, this article really hits home. I've found the 'post treatment' phase of this disease to be incredibly challenging, and I know many others who experience the same challenge of not only keeping your health on track, but your mind, emotions and overall psyche.

The more clients I work with on this, and with my own experience, I see Cancer as being as much a mental challenge as a physical one, and life 'post treatment' can be even more challenging than the treatments themselves. When you are in the throws of cancer treatment, you have your armor on. You are in survivor mode, your 'people' are rooting for you and you know you have your medical team trying their best to help you (if you are one of the fortunate ones to have good medical coverage). However, once all that is done and...

What’s holding you back in your life? This is a question I ask all my clients at some point in our work together. And it typically makes them pause. Stare blankly back at me, and shrug.

Lots of things. Nothing. My obligations. My boss. My husband. My low self-esteem.

These are common responses. And ultimately, they are all true.

And yet, they’re not.

For most of us, we fail to realize that each of these ‘obstacles’, each of these barriers is only true because we have decided they are. Let me put this another way.

Your perception of what’s holding you back is only real if you decide to allow it to be so.

Yes, your obstacles, your challenges, the things in your life that you think are ‘holding you back’…only exist because you’ve decided that they are the shackles keep you from achieving your goals.

Are they real? Sure.

Are they something you have to navigate and perhaps even conquer to get to where you want to go? Probably they...

I'm a sucker for juicy words, particularly  words that sum up a great thought in a simple and clever way. Oftentimes the best words, are not in our mother-tongue...enter Ganbatte!

Ganbatte is a Japanese word that essentially means "go for it"!

I've heard it tossed into conversations among my Japanese friends, peppering notices of big projects, promotions, life events, etc. When someone has something big going on, their friends tell them 'Ganbatte'! Go for it, do your best!

We don't really have an equivalent expression in English, certainly not one that punctuates news of an upcoming challenge with support and encouragement.

Wishing others to do their best has way of coming back to us tenfold.

As an employer or leader, this is particularly true. A key component of productive leadership is the sincere commitment to creating an atmosphere where your staff or organization can excel, innovate, shine, and succeed. That doesn't mean all leaders have to be touchy-feely, self-help...

Are there places in your life where you know that you are 'just going through the motions'?

You will never find your edge, you will just keep 'doing a good job'.

We want to bust through the boundary of 'good', and we can only do that by being intentional, by focusing, by being thoughtful.

When you are good, when you are confident, when you are a high functioning indiviudal who has enjoyed some modicum of success...there is also a high risk that you will become complacent. Whe you are 'so good' at doing what you do, there is also a signficant risk that you will become equally good at skating by. Maybe 'skating' for you, is someone else's stretch. Good for you. But that means you are leaving a lot on the table!

When you don't challenge yourself, you are shortchanging yourself and you are denying to world the real impact of your gifts and skills.

"Readiness happens in action, not in contemplation" -Brendon Burchard

No doubt you've noticed...the world feels a bit like it's taken a trip with Alice through the Looking Glass.

The negativity in the air is thick, the vitriol we are all exposed to on a daily basis is both toxic, and nearly unavoidable.

The world is desperately calling for leaders. Calling for leadership.

And yet....all but crickets on the leadership front.

To be fair, there are amazing beacons of light out there. Individuals who are rising to the challenges of our day, making themselves servants to the movements and efforts that need them. There are people who have the courage to face this tsunami of hostility with thoughtfulness and innovation. Though not as many as we need.

So, what will it take to be a leader in this new world order? What skills are required? What traits will support success?

I believe that becoming a High Impact Leader is something we should all be thinking about.

If you are successful in work and in life. If you are an achiever, a doer, a thinker, a giver; then...

The end of 2017 is fast approaching, and many of you have likely been working on budgets, year-end reports and other tracking information at work.  Indeed, it seems that everyone wants data, plans and analysis in the final hours of the calendar year, all aimed at setting the table for a productive and profitable new year.

But what are you doing to set yourself up for an impactful and meaningful 2018?

Just as a business tracks its annual outputs and progress, so too should you take some time to consider what you have accomplished, what you could do differently, what you didn’t quite get around to in this current year.

Thoughtful contemplation (not judgment) of your current state is invaluable in terms of thinking strategically about your priorities in the new year.

Imagine each year is a new mountain that you are setting out to climb. In the spirit of making sure you leave no stone (or opportunity) un-turned,  you load your proverbial backpack full of everything you...

I’m consistently amazed at how serious people are.

Or maybe I should say, at how ‘seriously they take themselves’ and their work.

Somehow humor and levity seem to have been sucked out of our homes and the workplace. The world seems to have an air of heaviness and thickness that permeates pretty much everything.

Those who can approach this ‘heaviness’ with a sense of humor and light stand out in the crowd.

Who doesn’t want to feel good? Who doesn’t enjoy a laugh? I’m not talking about being the class clown. I’m not talking about ill-placed and poorly times pranks. I’m talking about allowing yourself and those around you to enjoy the humor that is frankly everywhere in life.

The best way I have seen this manifest in the workplace is through self-deprecating humor. One of my favorite people that I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with is a man named John. John is an incredibly accomplished individual, a jack of all...

We are preparing for a Hurricane here in Florida. A big one. Now, I'm a mountain girl, and the whole concept of preparing for an act of God to potentially wipe you off the map is slightly intimidating to me. In fact it's absolutely terrifying! There is a pervasive feeling in the air, as ethereal and icky as a spiderweb that you accidentally stepped into, or an itch you can't scratch: Fear.

We don't typically get many opportunities to experience real 'fear' in our first world lives (thankfully). However, when we do, those experiences have a lot they can teach us (yes, I'm trying to shift my mind to think about Irma as a 'teaching moment', and not Armageddon!)

Because the thing about fear is; it really doesn't care if it stops you dead in your tracks, or if you plow on right through it.

Fear is just a state of mind where you allow your uncertainty to paralyze you. And the only one who can control your 'fear response' is you!

You can't typically change the circumstances around the...