Tag Archives: commitment

Fingerprints

I feel like the Lorax. They cut down the magnificent old-growth trees on the floodwall. I live on the south bank of the White River, and the Army Corps of Engineers has been floodproofing my neighborhood for 15 years. The latest iteration of the plan involved the industrial scale de-treeing of the levee. Nobody asked my opinion, and I’m in a stage of resentful mourning.

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The Word of the Year

Often, we set too may goals or resolutions for the New Year. We’ll have goals for health, relationships, career, finances, etc. Having too many goals risks not getting enough done in any area. I call that the shotgun approach.

Consider instead the laser approach of having one focus to direct decisions in all life areas. This is a practice I learned from Christine Kane 5 years ago. It’s called the “Word of the Year.” Forget SMART goals. Instead, all you need is one word.

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Burned Out

We had great intentions when we moved our young and growing family into a tough, inner city neighborhood. We were going to be part of the solution. We invested 10 years of our lives there. And boy do I have some stories.

Here’s the thing. With all the good that we did, something was increasingly missing. It took ten years of living there and three years living other places to figure it out.

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Building Trust– Repairing Old Damage through Reconciliation

For the past four years, helping teams build high-trust relationships has been a significant portion of my consulting practice. My clients and I achieved some decent results together, but something was missing from my approach. Up until 2010, I had assumed that 2 people who have a damaged-trust relationship can shake hands, agree to work together, “let bygones be bygones,” and move forward in a trusting way.

I was wrong.

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