“I really like them personally…it’s just... ” Have you heard or said this? I’m guessing so, at least once or twice, right? How about this one? “Don’t take it personally.” Is there a faster way for you to absorb comments as personal? Likely not! When preparing to have a difficult conversation (perhaps termination meeting) [...]

Do you have any birds in your life? That person who has to have the last word in a discussion or argument? Maybe you fall into this sometimes? How committed to being right are you? It feels good when you are right, when your argument succeeds. And sometimes we invest a lot of energy in the [...]

In a Columbia University study, managers were subliminally exposed to words that were either rooted in cooperation (mutual, shared, collaborator as examples) or competition (winner, loser, opponent as examples). The managers who saw the cooperation words were much more likely to share knowledge and resources than their "competition" word colleagues. We take in so many [...]

I'm feeling it - are you? I have days where I'm angry about this virus--or angry about the limitations that have resulted from it. And, I also feel hopeful.  So stumbling on this St. Augustine quote really struck me - "Hope has two beautiful daughters: Anger and Courage." My anger is about the way [...]

In the last week, I have had three very different conversations, with one very common theme: testing. So and so is a nice person, that's where it starts. Maybe you've started there too. Then, the butt happens. We stick our rear end out and disrupt the niceness with a tester, which sounds like this: "but [...]

It's been two weeks since the last newsletter and the amount of unrest and injustice happening hasn't diminished.  I've been reading and watching to understand racism and white privilege so I understand more about myself and ways I can get into action. Nesso Strategies was built on a platform of world domination for Good™, [...]

Recently San Diego opened our beaches for swimming and surfing. This was just after a period of time where the bioluminescence caused the water to glow in the hours after sunset. This beautiful glow is the production and emission of light from organisms, especially algae, which are also associated in the daylight with what [...]

I’ve been an athlete as long as I can remember. Playing sports of all kinds, even ones that I’m not sure classify as a sport (marbles, for instance). A number of years ago, on my journey of self-exploration and creativity, I decided to learn to dance. In particular, I decided to learn to line [...]

A recent dialogue among a leadership team was about how to provide feedback to the next level leaders. The conversation evolved into how we rate effort in ourselves, as a path to rating effort in those we evaluate. Think for a moment about how much of what we expect of others’ lives in our expectation [...]

 As we exit the busiest time for travel (holiday season), and enter the messiest for weather, I find myself with a little extra airport time while planes (or runways) de-ice and people get testy.  I'm sure you know what I mean, and perhaps have even felt that energy yourself now and again. In those moments of [...]