Manage to Engage

In the last episode, we discussed why it’s more effective to plan using the “12-week year,” as opposed to the 52-week year. 365 days is just too much time, and your plans will get lost. 12 weeks, however, creates pressure for you to do something.   Today, we get into some of the tactics that a good manager can use, every single day, to keep themselves accountable and turn their plans into a realit...

When it comes to the passage of time, the beginnings and endings are all made up. The weekend, the New Year: these things don’t REALLY exist. Human society, however, is hyper annualized. Memberships, resolutions, taxes – almost everything is constructed around a 365-day cycle.   But when we try to plan our lives around a 365-day cycle, it just doesn’t work. So, to start this series on Annual Plann...

To conclude this series, I want to share an active meditation that is designed to make you more aware of your experience and help you surrender. After the meditation, we will look closely at what that experience reveals about our relationship with addiction, craving, and desire. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.

For part three of our four-part series on Surrendering to Change, we explore how choosing to surrender to the practice and making one small change can result in a domino effect that produces profound change in other areas of your life. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.

In the last episode, we discussed the two orientations of change. You can either choose to stay who you are and change your behavior – like eliminating your morning cup of coffee – or you can choose to surrender to the process of changing, allowing it to teach you something about yourself – like discovering the reason you keep telling yourself that you can’t do anything in the morning until you’ve...

Today we look at addiction and change through the lens of a morning cup of coffee. We end up identifying with certain habits and routines related to our addictions, incorporating this assumption that it’s part of us. We say things like, “I’m a coffee person.”   And some of us also have this relationship with overwhelm – because, like anything else, being busy can be used like a drug.   So, for par...

To wrap up this series on letting reality win, I want to share a tool you can use to develop meaningful metrics for personal progress: The Parental Barometer. If you pay attention, you can learn a LOT about yourself, and what you think about yourself, from a quick conversation with your parents. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.

In the last episode we discussed how, through our choices, we create our own empowerment – this can be hard to realize, but it’s always true. However, this isn’t easy. It can require tremendous self-management to, in the briefest moment, overcome your negative thoughts and choose to do something, instead of reacting.   To continue our series on letting reality win, we discuss the techniques you ca...

For part two of our four-part series on how you can let reality win (and stop getting in the way), we focus on the profound impact of making just ONE heroic choice – a choice in defiance of your shadow – every day. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.

There is no perfection in progress, and you’re never going to go anywhere trying to achieve it.   We like to tell ourselves the story that we aren’t doing enough, or haven’t gotten far enough. We like to focus on the one time we fail over the many times we take a small step forward. For some reason, we like to pursue perfection as a goal – and then we give up when we fail, but that’s not being fai...

In the last episode, we reframed the Self vs Other problem as a conflict between your small self and your Big Self – your ego-driven needs VS your soul-level values. Today, to finish this four-part series, we go over an exercise that will help you self-manage your smaller self, leaving more room for your values. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.

Today we dig to the real problem at the root of the Self vs Other problem: the needs of your shadow (or your ego) versus commitment to your soul-level values.   If we really want to solve this millenia-old issue – and become better managers in the process – we have to kick the scapegoat out of the room, take a long look inward, and make ourselves accountable for the solution. I’d love your feedbac...

Today, for part 2 of our series about Self vs Other, we ask an important question: How is the self different than the other? We break down the metaphysical barriers between these concepts to find the universal connection rooted in our soul-level values. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.

This episode starts a new four-part series about one of the biggest sources of conflict throughout human history: the relationship between self and other. You can still see it everywhere today, especially in business.   In part one, we explore how this conflict plays into workforce hierarchy, resulting in The Game of Incentive. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the...

This is the last episode in our four-part series on meaningfulness, and we are wrapping this topic up by exploring how you can facilitate more meaning in your business.   The best employees are those that resonate with your deeply held values, or your organization’s values – but sometimes there is a disconnect that needs to be managed before your employees are bought-in and engaged. We’re fighting...

You might have heard the phrase ‘if you think what you’ve always thought then you’ll do what you’ve always done and you’ll have what you’ve always had’ – but I think there’s one more, earlier step: if you be who you’ve always been, then you’ll never change.   Continuing our series on meaningfulness, this episode focuses on how you can better align yourself with your soul-level values to create cha...

This episode is part two of a four-part series on meaningfulness. In the first part, we defined meaningfulness – and today we’re going to learn a process for creating it. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.

This episode starts a new four-part series exploring meaningfulness.   We all experience meaningfulness from time to time... but what exactly is it? For such a universal phenomenon, it can be surprisingly difficult to pin down. So in this series, we will break down this cliché and overused word to turn it into something more concrete and attainable – starting with a definition. I’d love your feedb...

This is the final episode of our series on The Five Stages of Engagement. In stage four, Thrival, people tend to become high achievers and achieve financial success – but in doing so, they generally don’t find happiness. In stage five, Flow, we transcend success to find ease and fulfillment. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.

This episode is part four of a five-part series on The Five Stages of Engagement. When we decide that life being “good enough” isn’t good enough – or we just get bored with the sameness of Security – we ask ourselves, “What else?” Asking that question is the door to stage four: Thrival. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.

In part three of our five-part series on The Five Stages of Engagement, we discuss how you can get out of the patterns of Crisis or Survival to reach stage three: Security. At this stage, you’ve taken more responsibility for your personal power, and you understand your agency in what happens to you. Life is “good enough,” but is that enough for you? I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a ra...

This episode is part two of a five-part series on The Five Stages of Engagement. Stage two is Survival – when we experience chronic, moderate levels of difficulty, and just getting through the day might feel like a battle. But even if feels like a challenge, but there is a way out. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.

This episode starts a new series on The Five Stages of Engagement, a model we can use to identify our level of engagement with life and move towards a more engaged state of being. Today we are focusing on the first stage, Crisis, which is characterized by acute overwhelm, drama, and fight or flight response. We discuss its value in certain situations, and the problems associated with living in Cri...

This episode wraps up a four-part series about how to relate to problem solving productively, on a spiritual level. We examine a real-life case study of someone who is struggling to engage with problem solving and consider: Are you being courageous or cowardly? Is that fear holding you back? Are you thinking about your feelings, or experiencing them? Is there a lack of stillness in your life?   Th...

This episode is the third of a four-part series on how to relate to problem solving productively at an existential level. Is happiness one of your deepest values? What if it interfered with your ability to solve your problems? Paradoxically, what if your need to be happy is precisely what’s making you not? We talk about this and other issues around how you relate to problem solving in this final e...