When people talk about depression other people often start talking about psychology, psychiatry, and medical conditions no one understands the magnitude of who hasn’t experienced them or studied them. Today I’m only going to talk about my experience. If it doesn’t apply to you, I hope you still find something to learn from it. If it does, I’m confident you’ll find something helpful in it. As far as I know,[…] Keep reading →
People are looking to pick up activities to improve their lives all the time. Nearly everyone recognizes they could do something to improve it. Maybe they want to get more fit, make more money, be more creative, have more fun, feel more excitement, or whatever. Some do. I’ve done a bunch and I’m glad I did. The more I do, the easier the next one becomes. But many don’t. I[…] Keep reading →
[This post is part of a series on Communication Skills Exercises for Business and Life. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] A couple of my Communications Skills Exercises begin with asking people what their passion is, including “Meaningful connection” and “How to make someone feel understood: confirm and let[…] Keep reading →
A longtime reader and friend told me a way he put together to make himself feel better, going back to my 2009 post, “Less, please“. He said “You know how I get to feel better when I’m feeling down? You have your burpees and SIDCHAs. I do my Joshua Spodek Ten. Whenever I feel down, I set a goal of getting rid of ten things.” He described that he had[…] Keep reading →
How to up-lead After my leadership seminars, someone always says “This material is great. I can see how it will improve my life. I’m starting to implement it. But you know who could really use it? My boss!” Most of my clients who have problems at work wish they could change their bosses, a process I call up-leading or up-managing. Come to think of it, our success developing up-leading skills[…] Keep reading →
On another forum I got into a dialog about the mental models of introversion and extroversion I found relevant, given my posts here. My goal on treating the mental model of the one-dimensional introversion-extroversion is deeper than examining this one mental model. It’s to show how much people can confuse mental models with actual observations. Without that confusion you can reject models that inhibit you. They see the mental models[…] Keep reading →
[This post is part of a series on Communication Skills Exercises for Business and Life. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] Has an interviewer ever begun a question with “Can you tell me a time when …” or asked you about your experience? Such questions arise in job interviews,[…] Keep reading →