Staying Afloat in a Sea of Uncertainty
Countries are at war. Banks are failing. The stock market is teeter-tottering. Inflation is behaving like a spoiled brat, refusing efforts to control it. Politicians are taking dirty laundry and gleefully hanging it out for all to see. And all of this is coming in the wake of a worldwide pandemic, which created a mental health crisis worldwide.
If you’re feeling a bit more stress, world events could be playing a role. If you want to feel less stress, read on for some scientific news and some practical ways to easily lower the angst.
To say that times are uncertain is an understatement. To say that every person has to feel the pain of the uncertainty, live in the stress of the uncertainty, and rule their lives based on what can only be guesses at possible outcomes is incorrect. Not everyone has to suffer in uncertain times. As a matter of fact, visionaries, great leaders, and innovators often thrive in uncertain times, because they see the opportunities that the upheaval...
In Praise of Family Farmers
In the past week, did you eat anything? Did you drink anything besides plain water? Did you sweeten something with sugar or monk fruit or stevia or honey? Do you have fresh fruit in your kitchen, canned goods in your pantry, meat and veggies in your refrigerator and freezer? Then you are the end user of thousands of unseen and often unappreciated farmers, growers, ranchers, dairy farmers, beekeepers, fruit farmers, vintners, etc. etc. etc.
Every day should be National Agriculture Day. Last week was the official one, and I hope the people who grow, farm, ranch, harvest, and collect food for us so we can eat felt appreciated. Farmers work hard to provide food for American families – according to the USDA, 96% of the farms in the US are family-owned and operated, and most of them – 88% - are small operations that gross less than $350,000 a year. Before you get all excited and decide to go out and start your own small family farm, realize that one good, multi-purpose...
How Can You Be as Happy as This Cat?
Happy Act Happy Week! And if you’re not happy and you know it, it’s OK to not be able to give an Oscar-winning performance. In this week’s newsletter I’ll help you find your way back to happy with a few mental wellbeing tools you can use any time, in the privacy of your own head. Or you can just watch funny cat videos - whatever works for you is good.
Have you ever thought about our amazing range of emotions and how quickly they can switch up, based on what’s happening around us? Research at UC Berkley identified 27 distinctly different emotional states of mind, and also showed that they are interconnected, allowing us to slide easily and quickly between them. What are the 27 emotions they identified through a research study with over 800 participants? Here you go: admiration, adoration, aesthetic appreciation, amusement, anger, anxiety, awe, awkwardness, boredom, calmness, confusion, craving, disgust, empathic pain, entrancement, excitement, fear,...
How Comfortable are You Asking Questions?
I have a question for you – how comfortable are you asking questions? Questions are a fundamental learning tool, and yet many people spend a large part of their lives being uncomfortable about asking questions. It could stem from a desire to be or seem perfect, it could be because they don’t want to be nosy or pry, or it could be because they don’t even know how to formulate a question to get the information they need. Often, people don’t ask questions because they don’t know what they don’t know, so have no idea they even should be asking a question.
Today is Albert Einstein’s birthday and is also Ask a Question Day. It’s not a coincidence that they are the same day – Einstein is widely regarded as one of the most flexible-minded inventors largely because of his ability to continue to ask questions long after most people would have given up trying to make something work. A tenacious curiosity is a fundamental building block of...
Beefing Up Your Leadership Skills
Are you a team lead? The team can be a work team, a sports team or a family team – most people lead some sort of team, whether they know it or not. Some people enjoy the role of leader, helping people develop their full potential, while others are intimidated or uninterested in taking a leadership role. No matter where you fall on the leadership continuum or what sort of team you lead, it pays to know how to shape your words and actions to help your people understand and want to follow you.
In 1938, Sears Roebuck & Company began an ongoing survey of their employees, looking to understand important yet difficult to quantify concepts like loyalty, satisfaction and organizational behavior. Their longitudinal study attracted sociologists, anthropologists and psychologists, all of whom parsed the survey results in a myriad of different ways. In many respects, this was the beginning of a strong corporate human resources focus. Fast-forward to now, when the science of the brain...
Training Dogs and People
Even if you don’t have a dog, you just might learn something about leadership, your own self-development, and training humans from this newsletter, so please humor me on this one.
As a life-long dog person and someone who’s been deeply involved in dog sports all my adult life, you might guess that dog training is something I’ve done a lot of, and you’d be right. I’ve trained my own dogs, as well as worked with people to train their dogs to show in conformation competition, which is what you see when you watch the Westminster Kennel Club, the National Dog Show and the AKC National Championship dog shows on TV.
I’ve also worked with people and teams, coaching and consulting, teaching mental wellbeing, team dynamics, leadership, and communication skills. What I’ve discovered is that when training people and when training dogs, many of the same skills are needed.
Many people add a furry family member during the winter holidays, live with the...
Welcome to the Last Day to Party - Sort Of
Today is the day when Louisiana blooms, not with bougainvillea's riotous blossoms, but with partying people, parades and portable adult beverages. Today is the last day before Lent begins, the final day of the Mardi Gras season, and it’s traditionally a day for gluttony of all sorts before the Christian season of atonement and deprivation starts. Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday, Carnival Tuesday and Pancake Tuesday are some of the names this day gets called.
- Mardi Gras is Fat Tuesday in French.
- Carnival Tuesday is a pretty good description of life in the over 50 countries where the weeks before Lent are a big, decadent blow-out of a public party.
- Pancake Tuesday is the day people prepared for Lent by cooking and eating all the things they couldn’t have during lent. Things like butter, eggs, milk …mmmmmmmm, pancakes…
- Shrove Tuesday is a day of repentance before the Lenten season begins. From the looks of the parties being held in celebration of Mardi Gras,...
Why Yes, Today IS Valentine's Day - How Could You Tell?
If you’ve seen a billboard, heard a radio or TV commercial, been inside a store or even just poked your nose outside your front door in the last week, then you already know what today is. Did you know that, in addition to Valentine’s Day, it’s Galentine’s Day, Madly in Love with Me Day, International Flirting Week and National Week of Chastity? Heck, I’m feeling a bit whiplashed with those last two happening at the same time, aren’t you?
This day is fraught with so many emotions and expectations. For happy couples, it’s a celebration of their connection and commitment to each other, wrapped in feelings of love and joy. For unhappy couples, it’s a reminder of what they once had and don’t have now, and that can bring with it sadness, despair and a feeling of letting loved ones down. For those who aren’t part of a couple, it can feel like they’re an outcast in a sea of togetherness and aren’t living up to societal...
Yet Another Thing that Needs Lifting and Boosting...Sheesh!
Could your self-esteem use a boost, and just how the heck could that be accomplished? Let’s talk about that this week.
This month is International Boost Self-Esteem Month, intended to shine a light on just how tough most of us are on ourselves. If you grew up hearing phrases like, “don’t blow your own horn” and “don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back” then maybe you think it’s not OK to recognize and appreciate your strengths, talents and abilities. If you live or work with someone who is constantly belittling you, perhaps you’ve come to believe in their opinion of you instead of your own. And maybe, like most people, you feel pretty good about yourself most of the time and now and then doubts creep into the dark corners of your mind, gutting your self-esteem for a little while, until you regain your mental balance.
High self-esteem, not to be confused with egotism or sociopathic tendencies, is a healthy regard for who...
The Time to Plan is Now
It’s the last day of the first month of the new year. And it’s cold. OK, it’s winter and it’s supposed to be cold. Seriously, Mother Nature – 18 in Maine, 4 in North Dakota and minus 1 in Minnesota? The freezing temperatures are coast to coast, north to south, and make me want to hibernate. You, too? Then today is the perfect day to cuddle up to your computer and plan a vacation!
On this National Plan for Vacation Day, let’s look at how a perk at work gets treated like a jerk. Over half of Americans don’t take all their paid time off from work. They have the benefit of vacation and personal days, in addition to sick days, and yet they don’t take full advantage of the benefit.
That, in spite of the fact that in the most recent comprehensive study of vacation time as a benefit, 63% of workers said a generous paid time off package was a deciding factor in whether or not they would accept a job offer. Clearly we want to be offered vacation...
