My colleagues and I are pleased to announce a new 60-hour ICF accredited program on Resiliency Coaching.

For the first time in a long time, I am taking a break to talk about gratitude and letting go. I won’t bore you with all the details but suffice to say that the past few months of my life have thrown me some real challenges and some fantastic opportunities.

A big one was the heart attack my husband suffered this past Tuesday. Yes. And he is one very humbled and lucky person. Almost 15 years ago, my husband, Steve, went through a seven-way by-pass surgery. You read correctly – Seven! He was 59 and asymptomatic. He was “doing me a favor,” establishing a baseline as he turned 60. His lifestyle choices and a job requiring sensitive and expert navigation were indeed contributors to his health stressors. Whew, no heart damage, a little intricate plumbing, and off we go to our optimistic future.

This past Tuesday, we are both older and perhaps a bit wiser. Steve paid attention to the discomfort in his left chest. Rather than pushing through to his intended goal of playing pickleball that morning, he drove himself to the emergency room. Their doctors quickly administered nitroglycerin that mitigated a much more horrific outcome. An angiogram and other tests gave us the best possible outcome, and he left the hospital a few days later with new medications, including nitroglycerine, a new travel companion for us both.

These past few days, I have ramped up my practice of gratitude. I have stopped the car and looked at the sun coming up over the Green Mountains. I have told my friends that I love them. I have been generous with time and resources. And mostly, I have extended my gratitude for health professionals and their humor, tenderness, and seriousness.

Steve and I will readjust and reframe how we move forward together. One thing that Steve has agreed will help him accomplish his goals is his work with a coach and other professionals. My most enormous gratitude is the opportunity to rely on the talents of others, allowing me to go back to my most cherished role, being Steve’s wife, friend, and love.

As you think of closing out 2019 and moving into 2020, what goals do you have for your life, and who can help you achieve them?

Greetings. As I was setting up my new office in Boise, Idaho, I came across this document. Although this document came from a leaderhship training I attended almost 20 years ago, it's relevance and importance seems even greater for today's leaders.

The Highly Developed Person

From The New York Times:

Putting Down Your Phone May Help You Live Longer

By raising levels of the stress-related hormone cortisol, our phone time may also be threatening our long-term health.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/well/mind/putting-down-your-phone-may-help-you-live-longer.html

Below is the preface to an article by Alexandra Natapoff. I have attached a link to the full article. Why should we care about this subject? An acquaintance of mine recently contested her traffic violation with the Vermont Traffic Bureau. Her only avenue to fight the ticket was to appear in court. There are no other options.

  I took my car to the dealership where we purchased it for an oil change and routine maintenance.  The dealership owners keep a refrigerator full of 4-ounce water bottles – very considerate of them. I finished one and, and getting ready for my second, asked an employee if they had a recycle for the empty plastic bottle. He said no and told me to toss it in the wastebasket.

Over many years as a consultant, trainer, and educator, I have been asked to provide training to build teamwork among employees. I’ve done lots of these training over the years. Recently I had the unexpected experience of working as a team, and this blog will share my surprising learning’s from experience.

At some point in our lives, we all likely think about what we would do if we had a do-over opportunity. I’m no exception.

Donald Trump recently and publicly tweeted that he is against domestic violence. Since the opposite of against is approval, this position seems like a logical no-brainer. It is also a perfect example of binary thinking.

So much of our time can be caught up in the mundane  - just staying current on daily living with work and chores can be enough. My husband Steve and I decided to break our routine and head to Washington D.C. for the march. We were two among thousands of people who came out to protect our democracy.

Hypothetically, let’s say you go to your medical facility and they advise you that the medical professional you will see today is through medical school (accredited) and has decided not to take the licensing exam. The new medical practitioner will reduce the cost of your visit by 50%. What do you do?

Misogyny: Looking Back

Alyssa Milano decided to elevate the Weinstein misogyny to a broader discussion of serial misogyny that has existed, and continues to exist, in what many of us hoped was a more enlightened society. Sadly, looking back,

On a recent trip to visit my brother and sister-in-law in Williamsburg, Virginia, Steve and I navigated the perils of I-95 through NYC, Baltimore, and Washington, DC. The infamous hazards include texting drivers, constant roadwork, and more than a handful of multiple car accidents.

The 2007 movie “Bucket List,” starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson and written by Justin Zackham,popularized the term. In the movie, two terminally ill cancer patients race around to experience things they have always dreamed of doing and had never done.

Last week April Armstrong (one of our Justice Coaching Center coaches and consultants) and I attended four-day coach certification training on mBIT (multiple Brain Integration Techniques). Over the past two years, I became drawn to the notion (and subsequent research) that our complex neural networks operate in the heart and the gut as well as the brain.

As we head into a new and surprising presidency, we are experiencing more tumult than usually accompanies the traditionally peaceful transition of power in our democracy. We are witnessing the appointment of “business” people to cabinet positions who have little or no experience in running governmental organizations.  This has led to widespread concerns about the difference between running an organization focused on profit for those who own a piece of the corporation (stockholder) and those who have no stake in its success.  

Recently my husband Steve celebrated his 71st birthday. In 1995, my father died at the age of 71. I have a choice here – which filter will I use to live my life to its fullest? I could certainly choose to worry that my husband’s age has some weird correlation to my father, my father’s health issues, and my father’s genetics. Or, I could clean that filter and see my husband for who he is today. A robust, funny, cognitively sharp, energetic husband, father, and grandfather. I choose the later.

Every situation is different. Every person is different. Every organization and culture is different. Supervisors, managers and leaders need to be able to assess and determine the correct mode of intervention or support to effectively address the complex issues and relationships within an organization.  Supervision, mentoring and coaching are three divergent methods of support; each has value when applied in appropriate situations.

Put More Play in your Labor Days

By April Armstrong

I am recently back from a weekend “workcation” in Vermont, with my amazing colleagues at the Justice Coaching Center. Our mission? To devise a tactical approach to help hundreds of judicial officers in large court transition smoothly to new information systems with no disruption to the Court’s productivity. By Monday we had the plan.