The Art and Science of Thriving

As a coach, I get most of my clients to start with their personal vision, purpose, and values.  There is just a ton of science around how and why using vision and values helps you improve productivity and performance, find more profound well-being, and live a more fulfilling life. And, really who doesn't want that? In this episode, I explore the significance of personal values in decision-mak...

In this episode, we explore the reasons why people often struggle to say no and the potential positive impact of embracing this powerful word.  Drawing from psychological research and personal experiences working with professionals in the community and public sectors, we uncover the three primary reasons behind the hesitation to decline requests for additional responsibilities.  We also delve into...

Warning: the contents of this podcast will help you live a better life. Its true. You will learn some of the secret sauce ingredients in today's podcast on how to feel a profound sense of well-being while excelling at life. So let me ask you this: If you had a choice as to whether you could live a thriving life, would you choose it?  If you knew there were specific steps or actions, based on...

This podcast focuses on the many benefits of striving for excellence or a thriving life, even if you don't make it. It is not actually about reaching excellence, but rather the journey to get there. One large obstacle many people feel exists in reaching for a thriving life is that it isn't possible to achieve it. There are too many daily struggles, obstacles or challenges to possibly rea...

Have you ever wondered what really makes a difference for improving your performance, achieving more, or reaching a thriving life? Do I need to be happier to achieve higher performance? Stronger? Be a girl? Or a boy? More outgoing? There are a LOT of myths out there about what positively impacts performance - say, the 10,000 hour rule, or being outgoing - that science has shown us is just pure pop...

Why are some people and teams able to consistently achieve their goals and improve their performance? Even when their goals are a long way out, or hard to attain? One difference maker is accountability: their ability to hold themselves accountable, even through difficult times, to achieve what they said they were going to achieve. I have seen several clients lose their pace for improvement or thei...

This week's podcast sits squarely in the awkward space between desire and achievement. Fairly consistently, large reputable surveys will find that a large proportion of the populace is looking to improve themselves, achieve more, or reach a fulfilling life. Yet we also know from other research that people generally are going about it the wrong way, and they are not overcoming their obstacles...

Have you ever been in back-to-back Zoom meetings, with dozens of unread emails, and people knocking on your door, and you suddenly realize you can’t focus or think straight? Or maybe someone close to you has died, and you spend so much time in grief, mourning, and dealing with your emotions that you don’t seem to have the energy or ability to think straight and make decisions. In this podcast, we...

Most of my podcasts focus on helping individuals so they can improve, achieve more, and live a thriving life while maintaining balance and feeling less overwhelmed.  Today our focus will help you thrive at work.  Most people work on teams, and studies show that most teams suffer in reaching their goals and doing the kind of work they are set out to do. This podcast is helping you thrive at work by...

One of the top reasons people are feeling overwhelmed at work and even in their personal lives is from not setting, or not having people respect your personal boundaries. A recent survey found that 59% of managers in the United States feel pressured to work through lunch. This means their boundary for non-work personal time on a break is not being respected. You might experience this as something...

A big challenge I hear a lot about from my clients and listeners is how can they achieve their goals, or get more work if they are stuck in meetings all day? If you are feeling overworked and under-rested at work, how do you find the time and space to focus on the important things? The things that you want to work on? Does it sometimes feel like you are on an unending treadmill of meetings, emails...

Have you ever found yourself feeling unmotivated or uninspired in your daily life?  Did you ever wish you could be as engaged, motivated, and thriving as some of the superstars you see around you? There is a magic sauce I teach my coaching students that can make them more productive, engaged, thriving, and happy. It is one of the first steps in any of my coaching programs, and any kind of improvem...

A large part of what I do daily is to help people to learn how to live an engaging, productive, and fulfilling life while building positive relationships, maintaining life satisfaction, and feeling less overwhelmed. I also work with many people who feel like their life is a little stuck, and they aren’t getting as much out of their career or personal life as they thought.   Today’s podcast fits sq...

The largest study completed on how high performers became so good at their skills, regardless of what it is, and how they maintain their peak performance, found that high performance habits were key to achieving their success.  Similarly, various studies have found that up to 45% of your daily activities are actually habits.  Really strong habits occur automatically in your subconscious, whether y...

Are you happy with your life? Do you wish you could find ways to be happier? Or, like many people, do you feel happiness is something out of reach, or maybe something you will work on once you get through some other important stuff? A large part of what I do daily is to help people learn how to live an engaging, productive, and fulfilling life while building positive relationships, maintaining lif...

In this episode, I am going to get a little personal. I think one of the most important lessons we can learn is that we will all fail. And throughout life, we will all fail repeatedly.   One of my favorite quotes is "it's not whether you get knocked down. It's whether you get back up". In this episode I share a personal tale of how I failed repeatedly - and I mean repeatedly -...

As a performance coach, I often coach and teach people and teams about how you can achieve a thriving life, achieve more in your day, or achieve higher performance in your job. One of the most important pillars for achieving those things is creating and maintaining energy. You want to get things done at work, but also have the energy to enjoy your family at the end of the day and find balance in y...

What would you say if I told you that you could literally change your mind and have a direct impact on your attitude, motivation, energy, and more specifically your performance? That you could proactively do something that would increase your level of performance at sports, education, and really any activity? And that there is a rather straightforward way to do this? This podcast is all about how...

Wouldn’t it be sweet if you could quickly put together the pieces to set yourself up to have your best day possible? I had a coaching client once tell me that they had had enough neuroscience, behavioral science and high-performance learning from the coaching sessions, and now they wanted to know how to practically put it together and implement. Well, that is what today’s podcast is all about. Tod...

This week we are getting tactical and practical. In the last podcast, we talked about the art and neuroscience of courage: what it is, how your neural paths work when you build courage, and some high level strategies for developing courage. This week we are getting tactical on the specific steps you can take to build courage. In this podcast we cover: Definition of the component parts of courage S...

Today's podcast is all about courage. We know from high performance studies that high performers use courage to plan out, chase and achieve their most important goals and dreams, and to stay focused on them when the going gets tough.  And we know from neuroscience studies how and why courage can be created and used to achieve your goals. Some of the things that we will discover in this podcas...

Do you know why January 19th is called “quitters day”?  Research conducted by Strava using over 800 million user-logged activities in 2019 predicts the day most people are likely to give up on their New Year's Resolution is January 19.  I think most people know that New Year’s resolutions don’t typically work. But you probably still want to lose that weight, pick up that skill, or get that ra...

If you are feeling seriously stressed, or even overwhelmed, it can feel overwhelming itself just trying to figure out what to do to address your stress.  I often get asked what are some quick, short-term hacks that one can use to quickly get out of stress. In reality, you will likely need to do several things at the same time, and it will depend on your context and whether you can control the caus...

I am here today to tell you that you are wrong. Well sort of.  Most of us know what a stressful day is like. Many of my clients mention feeling busy, overwhelmed with inputs and ultimately stressed through many if not most of their days. And statistics will back them up. Surveys are showing that since the pandemic, more Canadians are more stressed, more often.  Most people think of stress from thi...

In this podcast I am focusing on 7 different ways you can improve yourself, your focus on your career/job, your overall approach to life, or really anything you are working at in life.  I am a huge fan of constantly seeking little improvements here or there. Little 1% gains consistently achieved can, over time, grow into some major gains.  It is in that spirit that I record this podcast, focusing...