Halloween approaches, and right behind it, the presidential election in the U.S. Friends and clients alike are expressing anxiety about the outcome–will it be a “trick” or a “treat”? It’s normal to feel on edge about something outside one’s control, something that matters in a big way. If fretting could influence the outcome, I would
Someone tried to assassinate Trump this past weekend. I read the headlines and watched the news coverage of what little was known in the immediate aftermath. Within hours, lurid speculation and accusations began to circulate online in a nauseatingly familiar way. My dad was an old-school TV news anchor, and he drummed into his staff
Recently, I was listening to Brené Brown’s podcast on AI, with futurist Amy Webb [“What’s Coming, and What’s Here” https://brenebrown.com/podcast/whats-coming-and-whats-here/] What struck me most about their discussion was a comment Amy made about the huge changes barreling our way: “Where I grew up, we had terrible wind, terrible cold. And when you learn how to
How many times a day are you provoked, goaded, inflamed? Maybe you read a headline, overheard a conversation, or saw something on social media that REALLY got to you. Or perhaps you had a personal, direct interaction that you are still wrestling with, days later. Welcome to the Sea of Hyperarousal. Hyperarousal is a physical
I don’t live in the Middle East. I’m not a congresswoman working in American politics. I wasn’t at the school that suffered a mass shooting the other day. I’m not a pregnant woman in Texas, unable to get a legal abortion. But I read about it, and I cared about it. I’m also not a
It was July 2020. I was facilitating a Zoom call with a client, a team whom I’ve trusted and loved for many years. Our topic that day was the murder of George Floyd and how this affected us, and what plans we should make to address it. I’m a white woman (yes, we were all
Most of my coaching clients right now are worried. Wherever they work, they see scared, burned out and/or resentful people trying to hang in there. But it’s a VUCA* world—and rather than that world being temporary, it looks like it’s here to stay. At least for awhile. Humans aren’t wired for protracted VUCA conditions. Feeling
Recently I was coaching a client who is seriously considering not only a job change, but a career change too. She wanted to explore being a dance teacher or a child psychologist, but worried that “I’ve been an engineer all my life, I don’t know how to do anything else!” This led to a conversation
One of the most important things I learned in coaching school was the impact of a powerful question. A lazy or unimaginative question doesn’t spark much, but a powerful question can break open entirely new vistas of action and inquiry. It is one of my favorite parts of being a coach. When my clients are
We are haunted. Not by things that go bump in the night, but by the ghosts of people, places, and things that no longer exist, or no longer exist the way they did in the Before Times. A favorite restaurant closed, a previous home razed, streams of work and client relationships vanished. People moved away