January 11, 2019

The Mirror in Us: Mirror Neurons & Workplace Relationships

“We use the same cells to build a sense of self, since these cells originate early in life when other people’s behavior is the reflection of our own behavior. In other people, we see ourselves with mirror neurons.” Marco Iacoboni, author, Mirroring People, The Science of Empathy and How We Connect with Others Emotions and actions are powerfully contagious. When […]
January 11, 2019

10 Quotes to Inspire Your Work (and the rest of life)

It’s easy to become cynical in these times – even about our own aspirations and possibilities. It’s more important than ever to understand what we believe and how our actions are aligned with our behavior. Here are ten quotes that are food for thought – opening up the fields of possibility in how you think about your work every day.  […]
January 1, 2019

The Ultimate Diet – The 7 Day Mental Cleanse

It’s always diet season, isn’t it? Seems a day does not go by without another article on dieting. But, what about your mind?  Are you willing to try out a really challenging but ultimately very rewarding new kind of diet?  Then the 7 Day Mental Cleanse is for you. If you believe, as I do, that thought is the real causative […]
October 29, 2018

Guilt & Regret ~ the Emotions Series

“Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.”  Henry David Thoreau We’re a long way from Walden Pond; even Thoreau’s contemporaries rarely lived such a contemplative life, but let’s take some time now to ponder two […]
October 10, 2018

Mindful Work – AM to PM

This article was inspired by the work of Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hahn’s book, Work: How to Find Joy and Meaning Each Hour of the Day.  For those of you unfamiliar with the work of Thich Nhat Hanh (affectionately known as Thay) the Zen master, poet, peace and human rights activist was exiled from his homeland of Vietnam in 1966. […]
October 7, 2018

Why is Conflict So Hard? How to Manage it More Productively

Despite the worn-out demands that the workplace is no place for “”personal feelings,” people bring all of their unresolved emotional baggage to work – and there is little we can do about that. Outmoded collective beliefs that endure like – work life and personal life should be separate – speak to a lack of knowledge about the new science  of emotions […]
January 13, 2018

The Language We Use in the Workplace

         What role does the language we use to describe our work play in our emotional life and behavior?  Words are not experience, but words shape experience.  The language we use is a reflection of our dominant thinking patterns, as individuals and as a culture.  Language frames our structure for experience. How much of the language we […]
January 1, 2018

The 8 Enablers of JOY

When was the last time you experienced joy? To answer the question it helps to remember what joy feels like in your body. Like all other emotions, joy has its own unique biological signature. We memorize emotions in our bodies.  With those emotions we experience less often, we may have to work a little harder to recall how they felt.  […]
December 12, 2017

Communicating Intentionally ~ the Basics

  Photo by Ali Kazal on Unsplash The Intentional Workplace blog began with this post. What could be more basic than to understand the nature of communication? But more important, how we communicate and why. The message was simple but seems to grow more important every day  – everything comes down to how we communicate.  All the things that we want and need start […]