“…there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” 
Hamlet, act 2, scene 2.

I had a chance to see Eddie Izzard’s one person Hamlet. It is an amazing performance, watching her do every character at once, sometimes simultaneously. 

I have read, performed and studied Hamlet for years. About 30 to be exact. Every time, I hear something new. Perhaps it is because I am in different stages of my life, and different parts resonate with me now that didn’t at other times.

This one got me thinking:
         Act 2, Scene 2
         “…there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

In my work, we talk a lot about emotional intelligence. All I could think of was Jack Canfield’s theory:
          Situation+ response =experience

The situation is what it is. We can’t control it. What we can control, is how we respond to it. THAT is what shapes our experience. 

How we think about something, and choose to respond is what makes a situation good or bad. It is our thinking that makes it so.
​
Thank you Shakespeare for the eternal lessons of life.

If you're leading a team, managing change, or navigating conflict, how you think about challenges shapes how you respond—and how your team grows.
Through engaging, interactive workshops, I help professionals develop emotional intelligence and an improvmindset, and practice communication skills drawn from 30 years of performing and being an actor.
Want to bring these lessons to life for your team?

Let’s connect. Reach out to book a workshop that transforms mindset into action.
#LeadershipDevelopment #TeamWorkshops #EmotionalIntelligence #ImprovMindset 

Hey look! I had an AMAZING interview with Jason Cavness!

Conscious businesses are built on intentional leadership—and one of the most powerful (and often overlooked) skills is deep listening.

Real listening isn’t just waiting for your turn to talk. It’s tuning in beyond the words, picking up on what’s not being said, and responding with awareness.

Let’s say a leader notices a normally reliable team member seems off. Instead of assuming or brushing it aside, they check in. Through a real conversation, they learn the employee is dealing with a personal health issue and struggling to keep up. Because the leader listened—really listened—they can adjust the workflow, rally support, and keep the project on track before things spiral.

Want to build this into your leadership training? Try this:
🔹 Ask yourself, “What did you hear?”
🔹 Then go further, “What wasn’t said?”

Deep listening saves time, energy, and resources while strengthening trust. It’s a game-changer.

Are you ready to level up your lsitening skills and leadership presence? Let’s connect. Contact 

​#ImprovMindset
#ListenwithoutAgenda
#Leadership #DeepListening 

What’s the Most Impactful Thing You Learned in 2024?

According to a recent HBR article, many leaders name the importance of thoughtful listening and fostering strong, supportive relationships.

How do you do that?

Read my book!  https://a.co/d/2riJ5Vf
#ListenwithoutAgenda
​
Available NOW at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop.org and anywhere else!

I grew up looking at this sign often and I never realized how funny it is. It was just some thing that was always there. Street Rd. Nothing special about it, nothing funny about it, it was just the name of the road. This is a Road named Street. Street Road.

It wasn’t until I took my wife to visit the area where I grew up and she looked at it and said “Street Road. That’s funny“. Suddenly, I saw the name in a new light. Why would you name a road Street Road?

Sometimes you overlook things that are right in front of you, because they blend into the everyday surroundings. This is why it never seemed funny to me that near where I grew up we have a road named Street Road. (The word road is beginning to look like not a real word.)

I always told new employees in my company that I really valued their input and questions when they started working. They were the only people who didn’t have the rose-colored glasses on, so they could see things that I could no longer see - for me, it was all normal. I had to rely on the newcomers to let me see things in front of me that maybe needed addressing, or changing. But it had become so familiar to me, that my eyes just glazed over when I saw it.

There was an exercise I did in graduate school to help with noticing things as they are. It involves touching objects — calling them by their name, then moving to the other side of the room and touching a different object,  then calling it by its name. As in, I would touch a chair and say “chair“. Then cross the room and touch a backpack and say “backpack.“ The second step is starting to move faster — touching objects and calling them by the names of things they are not. Example: I would touch the chair and say “orange juice.“ And then cross the room and touch the backpack and say “vacuum cleaner.“ The goal of the exercise was to disconnect the defined name of an object from the object itself, so that you stopped ignoring something because it had a specific name (and therefore a finite and specific value) and started focusing on objects for all the value they had. When you looked at the chair, you didn’t see all of the detail, or dirt, or scratches. You just acknowledge the “chair” and then moved on. This exercise helped me to focus on the specifics and the details of objects by disconnecting the object from its predetermined, and agreed upon, name.

In business, we can potentially get ourselves in trouble if we use the same solution for every problem. We ignore the details in front of us, keep the status quo, because change is scary and difficult. But what if we challenged ourselves to see new solutions? New options for situations we have looked at every single day? Well then, the possibilities are endless.
​
We can look for our own personal Street Road. (Still funny.)

You might have heard of OMG or ROFL.  Well, here’s a new acronym to help with your communications at work: LARO 

What does it stand for? Listen, Acknowledge, Reflect and Offer.
 
When you are in a work meeting, and people are blocking the forward motion of the conversation by saying ‘yes, but that will not work because of…’ or ‘we don’t have the resources for that…’ or ‘that’s a bad idea…’, they have lapsed into CRITICALthinking rather than staying in DIVERGENT thinking. CRITICAL thinking is about evaluating, DIVERGENT thinking is about problem solving and solutions. There is a time and place for both methods, however, shutting down creative problem solving at each turn is not a useful strategy.

Try LARO to keep the conversation moving forward:

 - LISTEN to the objections that people are bringing up. 
 - ACKNOWLEDGE they are bringing up a valid point. Critical thinking is necessary for strategic planning. 
 - REFLECT back what you hear. This allows the person to know that you heard them, and understand what they are saying and feeling. 
 - OFFER alternatives to move them into the possibility of problem solving. Use sentences like:

• “What if (blank) was not a factor… What could happen then?”
• “What if we had the resources…. What could we do?” 
• “What if we tried it, what might happen?”

 Try it! Report back. I’d love to know how it works for you.