I was attending the ALA's Annual Conference a few weeks back which led me into a week-long volleyball tournament. Listening to Rick Rigsby inspired me in all the right ways to begin anew, in this time and space, even as strange as it is at times. He grabbed my attention with this quote: "Champions are champions [...]

I have an aversion to the sound of a vacuum cleaner. It goes back as far as I can remember, and my physical response is the same as nails on a chalkboard - goosebumps all over my body along with chills and shivers. I was enduring Roomba (my robot vacuum) last week, thinking about [...]

Playing to win is not the same as playing not to lose.  The Olympics are my favorite season, particularly the summer games. A time when the world gathers in alignment to cheer and celebrate incredible athleticism and the human condition. I will watch any sport, sometimes knowing them pretty well, other times learning a [...]

We are fast approaching the celebration of the US Independence, aka Fourth of July. I have been wondering the value of independence in a different way – how independent we all claim to be, and want to be, and operate as such. I was driving this morning and almost experienced a collision as another [...]

Don’t they? Ever immerse yourself in a project where you were confident your team, your boss, or others involved would have the same process? Yeah, me too. And, even though everyone wants the same outcome, the process and mindset make success complex. That’s the human experience. The best we can do is to align [...]

“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 [...]