The Focus of a Mindful Leader

For today’s leaders, mindfulness—training the mind to be more focused and aware—is becoming a survival skill and a cornerstone of self-leadership. The pressure on leaders is increasing, as are the pace of change, the volume of information available, and the scale of complexity.

The Liminality of Spring

April is such an in between time. As spring starts to rush in, glimmers of joy are evident—the early dawns, the return of bird songs, patches of green, the emergence of some daring flowers—and it’s hard not to get a bit uplifted and eager for newness. Coincidently, where I live in Colorado, April is mud season. In the mornings there…

America’s First Chief Mindfulness Officer

One morning in 2015, I opened my Sunday New York Times to find a profile of Mark Bertolini, the CEO of healthcare giant Aetna, on the front page of the Business Section. The story was not a typical business story, but rather a vulnerable and personal portrait: the story of a corporate leader’s personal journey into meditation and his vision…

Should You Be Your Authentic Self at Work?

When I began my career as a management consultant, I was reluctant to be authentic. As a Black female who had just finished grad school, I was all too aware of potential negative stereotypes that others might have about me based on my age, gender, and race. As a result, I made it my mission to come across as pulled…

A Mindful Solution to Mindless Meetings

Meetings are a way to arrive at solutions, voice opinions, share and receive team feedback. So why are roughly 59% of meetings a waste of time? Furthermore, meetings can cause companies to lose billions of dollars in revenue annually. Why haven’t we yet found an antidote to mindless meetings? Maybe we’re not looking in the right place. A Tip from…

How to Be a Better Human at Work

Many of us are aware of the mindfulness revolution currently happening in corporate America, but perhaps less of us know about the interest in empathy that’s coming on its heels. Over the past few years, I’ve received requests to teach empathy at a social media giant, a large healthcare company, and a worldwide leader in hospitality. These companies have been…

Is There a Place for Compassion in Business?

I recently coached a senior executive I’ll call Stephanie, who was grappling with a pretty common dilemma in the business world: her organization’s profits were nowhere near where they had been projected to be, and her impatient CEO wasn’t happy about it. She and her colleagues were feeling intense pressure to perform and feared that they would lose their jobs…