I bought The Practice of Groundedness: A Transformative Path to Success That Feeds–Not Crushes–Your Soul by Brad Stulberg because I loved a book he wrote with Steve Magness, Peak Performance. I gave that book a top review and named it one of the top five books I read in 2018. I expected a lot from The  »  Read More

Many people who exercise have a workout buddy they go to the gym and work out with. Runners have running buddies. Those buddies increase the likelihood that you’ll exercise or run on days when you’d rather sit on the couch and eat pizza. They develop along with you so you’re sharing similar problems and  »  Read More

This year, summer officially starts on June 21. Maybe you think it “really” starts earlier, on Memorial Day. That’s the start of “psychological summer” for me. Either way, summer will be here soon. It’s time to make up your summer reading list. Here’s how I do it and the story behind the method. My father  »  Read More

Your Growth Journal is the place where you can collect your observations, ideas, hopes, and plans for how you want to do things. Here are some ways to make it as useful as possible. “Journal” means every day. Take a few moments every day to write things in your journal. Make your journal time a time of  »  Read More

Sure, it’s important to keep up with your business reading, but you should read some fiction, too. It’s fun and it engages you. You get lost in fiction in a way you usually won’t with factual material. The good news is that reading fiction will help you become a better leader, too. Researchers from  »  Read More

1941 was a momentous year for my parents. My father graduated from the Lutheran Seminary at Philadelphia and was ordained a Lutheran pastor My parents got married. They moved to rural upstate New York for their first parish. My father threw himself into the work of being a pastor. He called on all the people in the  »  Read More

Some of the most powerful, breakthrough ideas happen when you adopt practices that are common in other fields. The easiest way to find those practices is to spend a little time every week reading blogs and websites from other fields. Ten to fifteen minutes will get the job done if you do it regularly. This is only one  »  Read More

Leaders are readers. Reading helps you discover ideas to try and expand your mental models. In this post, I point you to reviews of recent business books. You’ll find pointers to reviews of The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, Burn the Boats: Toss Plan B Overboard and Unleash  »  Read More

Before you assume that a problem is a supervision problem, check to determine if it’s a learning problem. If your team member lacks the knowledge, skills or abilities to do their job acceptably, help them learn what’s needed. Consider a range of options. “Training” is only one of them. Today  »  Read More