To some people, ritual is a bad word. Many folks recoil at the religious association, even though most rituals aren’t religious. For others, the thought of following set, predetermined actions makes them feel boxed in. But rituals are inescapable. We are creatures of memory and habit. The only question is whether our rituals are intentional […]

When it comes to setting personal or professional goals, how do you determine what makes your list? We’re often tempted to commit to important or urgent tasks that have been nagging us for a while. But that’s a mistake. A woman in our 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever private Facebook group faced this […]

Every year comes freshly stocked with 104 weekend days. That’s 28 percent of all available days in the year. It’s like a full quarter! The trouble is that we treat our weekends like a slush fund to bankroll more work. We’re forfeiting a tremendous amount of time we could invest in better uses. Almost a […]

I’m a fairly conservative person but not when it comes to setting new goals for myself or for my business. We may think setting conservative goals is wise, but it actually makes us and our teams less productive. Too many leaders believe they’ll accomplish more if they lower the bar and set goals they can […]

Did you skip lunch last week—either by gobbling down something at your desk or forgoing food altogether? The odds are good that you did. A 2012 workplace survey by Right Management found just one in five employees take actual lunch breaks. That’s a problem because both the lunch and the break are good for you.

We’re several weeks into the new year at this point. If you set some significant goals, you might be feeling the challenge of sticking with them. That’s especially true if you’ve got a bad habit holding you back. Do you have a habit you’re struggling to break? Sometimes it can feel impossible. We’ve all been […]

I’m a serious reader and have been most of my life. Most leaders I know are. We realize there’s a major ROI on time dedicated to reading. As I’ve blogged about before, reading makes us better thinkers, improves our people skills, and helps us master communication—not to mention the rest and rejuvenation it offers. We […]

When I coach people on reaching their goals, I advise them to be flexible on their strategies. The goal might be sacred, but we can change strategies as often as we need. But that’s not a blanket endorsement of flexibility. In fact, flexibility can significantly damage our productivity if we’re not careful. How?

We’re used to hearing about people getting sick at the office. Someone brings in the cold or the flu, and it spreads. But that’s not the only thing that goes viral in the workplace. For a couple of decades now, researchers have been studying something called emotional contagion. It’s important for leaders to understand because […]

As a leader, the health of your marriage directly impacts your effectiveness. Nothing will undermine it faster than a bad marriage. And few things will advance it like a good one. But it’s not easy. All marriages are works in progress. I’ve been married to Gail for thirty-eight years, and we’re still working on ours.