It’s easy when considering ideas to consider personalities, likes and dislikes, ego, and hierarchy. The healthiest teams and the most successful people put these things aside and value their ideas based on their merit. Becoming merit focused takes a great practice of integrity. I say ‘practice’ because integrity takes practice. Don’t think of it as a binary quality. Each time Read More …
I’ve recently spent a few days visiting some close friends abroad. I was in town specifically to visit them and not to be a tourist, so I had a lot of time just hanging out in their house and doing things with their family. Within about a day I easily slipped into a routine and a place within their family, Read More …
Every time there is a reason to push away there is an opportunity to move in. We have all experienced moments of rejection. A moment when we have felt outed from a group. Pushed away from a loved one. Patronized by a friend. In these moments it’s easy to play into our own stories of being unworthy, an outcast, or Read More …
Giving an order without buy-in creates resentment and sabotage. If I command you to do something that you do not agree with, the only thing keeping you in-line is your fear. If instead I collaborate with you to create buy-in, then you do the thing not because you want to please me or avoid punishment, but because you agree with Read More …
I recently listened to a talk delivered by Neil Gaiman, one of the cut comments he made was “I realized that my job had become responding to email and that I wrote as a hobby.” This is a feeling that I think many people get as their inboxes become overburdened with seemingly urgent messages on a daily, if not hourly Read More …
In my life it’s very important to feel centred. Centred is to be over my feet and balanced emotionally and spiritually. I often feel pulled on by strong connections. They can tug on the parts of me that feel a need to please others, or when I extend myself vulnerably, or when I receive someone into my closest spaces. When Read More …
Effort orientation allows you to focus on the process instead of the result. Learning and growth happen when you challenge yourself to step outside of your comfort zone and not be critical of the outcome. By focusing on effort instead of results you free yourself from perfectionism and bias yourself toward movement. Results orientation is where successful lazy people thrive. Read More …
I just finished teaching a swordplay workshop in Fort St. John, a small city in northern British Columbia. The organizer of the workshop had anticipated more than 20 people coming out to the workshop but on the day we only ended up with 6. I think our friend here was quite disappointed and understandably so. It can be disheartening to Read More …
If you want to avoid conflict, avoid integrity. The act of acting with truth will inherently lead you toward conflict. By standing for an idea you make that idea less malleable, less willing to bend or hide. The more proudly that idea stands the harder it is to squish it past others that do not comfortably co-exist in its space. Read More …
A friend of mine recently admitted to me that the last year of her life had largely been flailing about trying to find her way. This comment reminded me of a robot I had read about years ago. The robot, shaped like a starfish was designed to be able to locomote across alien terrain through a process of self-modelling and Read More …