Competency No. 5

Anyone who knows me well knows that Lake Michigan, the world’s fifth largest lake, is my happy place here in Wisconsin bringing me calm, clarity, gratitude, and creativity. One visit can bring powerful shifts in perspective and unlocks big ideas. A recent trip to a new access lake point, Two Rivers, brought an unexpected adventure: Getting caught in a riptide. My way back to shore became a lesson...

My guest this week is Sathya Sethuraman, a financial Services and insurance industry strategist and thought leader who's served for 20+ years as a trusted advisor to Fortune 100 global insurance and financial service firms. Sathya’ s also my friend and a coach. Sathya’ s  realizing, as he applies to certify in more advanced ways with the International Coaching Federation, that taming our acti...

Many of us struggle with fear and uncertainty—the very opposite of presence—when speaking with powerful people. It’s 100% normal; and more pronounced in these intense times. And yet leaders like Jevon Koh, a business development and global digital partnerships director for a giant financial services firm, find that his Christian faith, his easy-going nature, and living abroad give him a vital and...

UC Berkeley educator and program director Amy Azuma's long used humor to shift intense moods and energy. In her adult years, she's shifted from using humor as oppositional defiance to a tool for finding and creating presence, with herself and with others. In a delightful interview, Azuma shares how finding the funny in the serious can bring feelings of joy, relief, and become an excellen...

With Gallup reporting most U.S. workers find 50-hour work weeks normal, no wonder many of us struggle maintaining presence as we work. If our typical flow becomes back-to-back meetings, presence (which I'm defining here as peace, calm, and present with ourselves and others) can feel impossible. As my coaching practice has grown, I've challenged how I relate to time because  my job requir...

Silence creates space for us to feel, meditate, connect with ourselves, and to think. So says Helio Fujita, an HR executive from Brazil who took a Buddhist pilgrimage over the spring to punctuate a 19-year-long, highly successful corporate career. There he found he could further grieve the loss of his father and gain clarity on what's next. Our interview describes the wisdom, insights, and th...

My guest today is Coach Whitney Stern. She's a certifying executive coach based in Seattle, Wa., a business leader, and a yoga mindfulness instructor with a big purpose: To empower others to lead, communicate, and build strong teams with kindness, confidence, and empathy.  As a certifying coach, Coach Whitney's  undergone a learning curve with presence, active listening, and communicatin...

Every new podcast needs some small clarifying words on what brings us here in the first place. In our introductory episode, learn what inspired Competency No. 5, guests we'll interview, what we'll learn, and why maintaining presence, when we coach, lead, and live our lives has never felt so vital. An essay on this very topic lives here via Medium , a channel I populate frequently. You ca...