There is the joke about the efficiency expert who concluded his lecture to a group of business leaders with a note of caution: “You need to be careful about trying these techniques out at home.”

“Why?” asked a man in the audience.

“Well,” the expert explained, “I watched my wife’s routine at dinner for years.  She made lots of trips between the refrigerator, stove, table, and cabinets, often carrying a single item at a time.  One day I told her, ‘You’re wasting too much time.  Why don’t you try carrying several things at once?”

Let me take a guess that most of the time you are a fairly patient person.  Except when you are not.  If you are anything like me, you may have lots of patience in some situations or with certain people, and far less with others.  Sometimes even relatively minor challenges or inconveniences can be triggers. For example, I struggle to be patient when I ask my son for the 3rd time to stop reading and practice his instrument and he ignores me and reads on. Or when all I want is a quick text reply from my wife, and I see the three little dots “…” in the text box as she’s typing, for what feels like forever, in response to what I thought was a “yes or no” question.  Somehow my patience vanishes.

The beginning of the calendar year has always evoked a sense of reflection and the possibility for something new, often leading us to set resolutions for the year.  Rather than resolutions, I prefer to have an overall theme.  Like a play, movie or symphony, an over-arching theme knits all the elements together like a thread for the pearls. For 2019, the theme word that keeps coming up for me is nourish.  

We wouldn’t think of handing our children they keys to the car without first teaching them the rules of the road and how to drive it. Nor would we let them drive in more dangerous conditions before they are experienced and mature enough to manage the responsibility. Yet many parents are handing over access to technology to their children without really assessing if they are skilled and mature enough to use it wisely and safely.  On the surface, our technology (devices, apps, social media, games, etc.) appears innocuous.  It is just a way for us to stay connected, find information we need and provide us with relaxing entertainment – right?  

Progress.  We are surrounded by it and can hardly imagine life any other way.  As a species, we have developed an incredible array of technological tools that have improved our lives and advanced society.  Yet progress often comes with a potential downside; in this case, the same technology that is enhancing the way we communicate, navigate, learn and create is also altering our brains, and affecting our relationships, health and wellbeing in negative ways.  As two coaches who work in the field of health, resilience and mindfulness, we are seeing the undesirable consequences of technology in the lives of our clients, our children, as well as in our own lives. 

If you have been through the Mindful Wisdom program, you recall that Week 7 was about how to manage our focus.  We imagined our focus to be like a stage and learned that the stage is very small. If our thoughts are the actors, our focus stage can only hold two to three at a time. Any new thoughts will bump an existing thought off the stage. We also learned that it takes a lot of energy to keep unwanted 'actors' from jumping onto the stage.  So a key to maintaining great focus is to periodically recharge that part of your brain that...

It all happened in a flash.  I was biking quickly along a main road in North Vancouver racing to catch the Seabus. I was running late and needed to catch the next sailing to make my client meeting downtown.  I was in a bike lane alongside a steady stream of traffic to my left.  Several cars further ahead were making right-hand turns at the next intersection.  Neither of the two vehicles nearest to me had their signals on and appeared to be driving straight through.  But as I approached the intersection with speed I ...

“There are so many great opportunities!”  As I work with people these days I am amazed at the opportunities they have in front of them – new projects, programs, partnerships, markets and networking opportunities.  And these are just some of the opportunities in front of them at work.  There are also new books, blogs, podcasts and leadership development webinars, courses and assessment tools.  Then there are their personal lives!  Endless sports, leisure and creative opportunities for them and their children. The abundance is almost dizzying.  Yet, somehow all this abundance doesn’t leave them feeling fulfilled.

For those of you in Vancouver (or people in your network) who are interested in the Mindful Wisdom training program, there are two publicly offered programs starting in April.  Learn the skills you need to bring a new level of 'fitness' to your mind.

Today I’m on it!  For many of us, the day begins with the best of intentions.  We may even have a morning routine that clarifies priorities and plans for our day.  But despite good planning and best intentions, too often our day ends with us feeling weary and not sure that we have made progress, let alone made a difference.  After 8 or 9 hours of responding to urgent report requests, emails and attending meetings and calls we often feel like Sisyphus - we have rolled the rock up the hill but tomorrow it feels like it is right back where we started.