“Success is the peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing that you made the effort to do the best of which you’re capable.” ​- Coach John Wooden Some of my coaching inspiration came earlier in life from the teachings of John Wooden, legendary UCLA men’s basketball coach. Th

We just kicked off the Northwestern University OLCC coaching cohort of Spring 2021! I have a mix of emotions - mostly excitement meets self-doubt. I’ve started this learning journey, which I thought would be all about skills-based elements and frameworks for coaching. As it turns out, my capacity a

This week I read Ryan Smerek’s chapter Thinking Dispositions that Foster Learning. He explored many concepts including Curiosity, Carol Dweck’s Fixed Mindset, and concepts around intellectual humility. (There is far more to discuss around these topics than one post allows!) But I wonder: if Curio

I am starting to think that the art of storytelling, specifically the story of our own life, is one of the most important to know, hone, and own. I don’t mean the kind of stories we tell others to aggrandize ourselves or paint a picture of who we want to seem. It is knowing that our experiences an

"With great power comes great responsibility" - Stan Lee, Spider Man. Well, with great power comes the responsibility to teach and cultivate a learning culture. In reading Ryan Smerek's chapter on Leadership and Learning he points out, "Leadership in the service of learning is about creating the c

It's August. Back to school! Time to "officially" learn! It was all so straight forward when we were in school and told what to learn. It was on a syllabus. We knew what was coming our way and that our knowledge would be put to some pretty straightforward test at the end of the semester. In the ad

I'm not sure I've ever thought about the difference between these two terms. In hindsight, I think I have used them interchangeably. But futurist Dr. Bob Johansen makes an important differentiation between these two words, and the necessity for seeking clarity over certainty in an increasingly comp

"The biggest failure of leadership is to treat adaptive challenges like technical problems" - Heifetz & Linsky, Cambridge Leadership Associates Adaptive Challenges: - Can only be addressed through changes in people's beliefs, priorities, loyalties, and habits - Has no known solution or solution i

It's week one of my masters program and I'm reading about Robert Kegan's (1982, 1994) theory of mental complexity in adulthood - that is, how adults make meaning in their world. There are three levels: first the socialized mind, second the self-actualizing mind, and third the self-transforming mind.

I watched a Ted talk this week that made me incredibly excited to be a coach! Atul Gawande gives an inspiring talk on how getting a coach can help “paint a more accurate picture of reality” for us and help take us to the next level of anything we do. Why is it that elite athletes have coaches thei

Seeing a therapist is tough work! Rewarding, empowering, scary, fulfilling. I was talking to my therapist about my leaving the workforce after having my second child. My whole life I have been competitive, achievement-oriented, focused on winning. Now I was not working, at home with two young child

This Alan Watts quote can be a profoundly life-changing concept. It has in part inspired much of my coaching practice. So driven to an end, to a goal, to winning, to achieving, I have let elements of life go by unappreciated. Not until I had my children did I start to slow down, if only a little b

I got the opportunity to read Edgar & Peter Schein's Humble Inquiry this quarter. There are so many truths, wrapped up in simple messaging. Some, I feel compelled to share here: • In American culture we often substitute telling for asking... • Asking fosters better relationships • Asking for i

Brene Brown's TEDtalk video The Power of Vulnerability has 54 million views, the Youtube version has 16 million views, and her book is a bestseller. There must be something about vulnerability that piques our interest, to say the least. We love seeing it in others, and yet, see it as weakness in o

There is nothing more that my pandemic mind needs than a weekly (or nightly) dose of Ted Lasso. This clip is a wonderful reminder for us to all "be curious, not judgmental" *some profane language included in clip

This week I read Raymond Caldwell’s (2003) article about the different, or more aptly, the complimentary attributes of Change Leaders vs. Change Managers... To oversimplify, the former set the vision, the latter put it into action through empowerment and real-world, day-to-day agenda-setting. Thes

It turns out that we experience/process independence and loneliness in the same place of the brain as that of physical pain. How do we help create independent thinkers if we are evolutionarily wired to want to conform to the group? This feels like a conundrum, and a muscle that needs to be conscio

I'm starting to think that one of our greatest hindrances as humans are our assumptions. That is, we think we see the world as it is, but we do not. We see the world as we are in it; our assumptions about all sorts of things color our lens. Very little is black and white then (except for certain va

In reading Richard Carlson's article about Perceptive Communications for Building Effective Business Relationships, I was struck by the quote, "It is the receiver who determines whether or not communication takes place; not the transmitter." Wow, is that a paradigm shift! I don't know about you, bu

Otto Scharmer, Senior Lecturer in the MIT Sloan School of Management, has a great piece around the four levels of listening... • Level 1 is downloading. We are taking in facts and judging those facts • Level 2 is factual listening. Here, we have an open mind. • We are even disconfirming/con

"Embrace the truth that persistent problems often have no clear answer...resist the temptation for certainty and speed." - Peter Block Peter Block (2011), in his highly practical book Flawless Consulting, ends with a section, The Struggle is the Solution. He calls out the simple yet paradoxical rea