How Denial Can Quietly Ruin You
Everywhere we turn these days, we hear people decrying the evils of “fake news.” But what about the fake news we create for ourselves; the subtle denial processes we go through to avoid looking at uncomfortable truths? In our consulting and coaching practice, we often deal with clients who have successfully evaded the truth about their own circumstances until the inevitable day when they can no longer avoid confronting reality. By then, the situation has often become so exace
Is the Allure of Success Leading You Astray?
How easy is it to sacrifice your values in pursuit of success? Said another way, what are you consciously or unconsciously willing to give up in order to get what you’re aiming for? In our book, Thriving in Business and Life, we dedicate a chapter to the importance of infusing our values into everything we do, including our vision crafting. Values, ideally, are like a compass that helps keeps us true to our own values-based North Star while we pursue our passions. But, unless
How to Know What You Really, Really Want
In what may be the most unlikely reference we’ve ever made in one our blog posts, we’re recalling for this post some lyrics from a Spice Girls’ song: “I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want.” The song then goes on to say: “If you want my future, forget my past.” Granted, not exactly the most poetic lyrics ever written, and yet they introduce several important points related to the process of creating powerful visions. Here’s what we mean: While it may seem obv
Why Your Unconscious Mind Craves Meaning
Vision statements. Most of us have made a few with colleagues over the years and can recall the hours spent in discussion, carefully wordsmithing, scribbling on flip chart paper and a white board, finally agreeing on the perfect vision statement, then filing it away or posting it on a wall and pretty much forgetting about it. If you’ve had that experience you may be wary of the practice. So were we, until we began experimenting and eventually developed an entirely different p
How to Apply Shawn White’s Secret Technique for Winning to Your Life
Have you ever seen an athlete going through their pregame or pre-run visualizations? Olympic Gold Medalist, Shawn White, is a huge fan of these type of visualizations (or as some call it, “visioning”). When interviewed about the topic on Impact Theory’s webcast, Shawn shared that he identifies what he’ll accomplish and then sees himself doing it successfully. It's not something casual or laid back though. He really gets into his process with questions like, “What’s it going t
How Slowing Down, Can Actually Makes Things Go Faster
Sometimes following that adage: “Don’t just sit there, do something.” is the right strategy. At other times, we’d be better off reversing the advice and following the Zen saying: “Don’t just do something, sit there.” In our book Thriving in Business and Life we reference the Titanic disaster and detail five practical strategies for avoiding disasters in life and at work. First, slow down. Yes, there are times when we need to act fast. But, overall, most of our decision making
How Hard Work Can Thwart Your Vision
Thriving is a state of mind and a way of living. Ironically, what most often interferes with thriving is our obsessive efforts to survive. Many people—both in their personal lives and at work—often feel like success means being able to keep their heads above water. That’s staying alive, but it’s not much fun and it doesn’t really seem like success, it’s more like not drowning. So, how do we do both? How do we take care of our day-to-day responsibilities plus develop a thrivin
