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Ordinary People Taking Action
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Gratitude4/5/2018 It was years ago, and my email signature said “With gratitude” before my name. I received the feedback that it was not professional and that it should say “Thank you. Kind regards. Sincerely… I needed to use a more professional phase.” The person providing me with this feedback was senior to me, so I listened and changed my signature to “Thank you.” It felt generic, but I decided it wasn’t a fight worth fighting.
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The Freedom to Fail4/4/2018 Guest Post By: Jenna Powers, HR Director at Amazon
I am sitting in the café on the second floor of Amazon’s Doppler building, craning my neck, looking for a vantage point where the Seattle sun isn’t glaring so badly against my tablet screen and I can read what I’m typing. My phone is alive next to me, resting on the weather page for Cary, North Carolina. It is 77 degrees in Cary today, but the forecast for Saturday is 43 degrees and snow. I’m running a 100 mile race in Cary on Saturday. Absent lightning or some other real, physical danger to runners, races don’t get canceled. Not even for 43 degrees and snow. But maybe you’re still on the part about running 100 miles. Yes, this is a thing. Yes, I will run and walk for approximately 24 straight hours. No, I won’t sleep in the middle of it. Yes, I will stop and use the bathroom. Yes, I will eat real food, but on my feet while moving. No, I’m not happy about the weather forecast.
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My first job.4/2/2018 That first paying job. It’s exciting and scary, and so often, it begins to shape our attitudes around work. As a sophomore in high school, I took my first job as a stockperson for Nordstrom. I remember it clearly. My job was to clean out the dressing rooms, hang or fold all the clothes, and restock the items on the sales floor. My department, referred to as “Brass Plum”, sold clothing for teenage girls. It placed no limits on the number of items brought into the dressing room, a policy our customers seemed acutely aware of. It was not uncommon for me to face twenty, thirty or more clothing items, crumpled on the dressing room floor. “Oh, just leave them, someone else will put them away,” I’d hear the girls giggle. They were right, someone else would. And that someone else was me.
I worked hard in this job. I quickly realized that stocking dressing rooms was not for me, so I wanted nothing more than to prove that I could be a cashier, and then a salesperson. I wanted to advance so badly for two reasons. One, it would provide more customer interaction. Two, it was a way to contribute more to a company I loved working for. I felt that I truly mattered. As my new employee orientation made clear, people within Nordstrom cared deeply about the employees – at all levels. My onboarding taught me the following:
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Spring Cleaning Takes on a New Meaning3/30/2018 Guest Post By: Vaishali Jadhav
Facilitator, The Center for Professional Education at The University of Texas at Austin President, Conscious Capitalism, Austin, Texas This week is my birthday! If you know me, you know I LOVE my birthday. I have lived a very blessed life with the most amazing people around me and to spend this time feting them is an honor. Because my birthday is in March, spring cleaning takes on a new meaning as it’s a time for physical cleaning and deep reflection. When cleaning a year ago at this time, I came across a file folder that would change the course of the next year. This file folder was filled with thank you notes from people who had written to me when I was teaching leadership classes at Whole Foods Market. I had recently taken a different job within the organization that didn’t require me to teach, so this folder was buried under a pile papers. I sat down and read a few of them when a feeling of complete dread came over me. While I was working at a company that I loved, I wasn’t doing a job that I loved. That evening, I shared this experience with a good friend. She wisely asked, “If you had a job where a person would write you a thank you note, wouldn’t you do that job every day?”.
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Scarcity vs Abundance3/29/2018 For the past week and a half, I’ve taken a little detour from my usual schedule to invest in some training. I was recertified with Insights Discovery last week and I am attending The Leadership Circle certification this week. As a facilitator myself, now acting as a participant, I am reminded again how hard it is to sit and listen to anyone talk for hours. Even the very best facilitators start to sound like they are speaking gibberish after a while. On the flip side, my head is like a popcorn maker full of kernels that’s going to explode with popcorn, I mean knowledge, at any moment.
One of the topics popping around in my head is how we go about problem solving. Specifically, whether we look at problems from a place of scarcity – playing not to lose – or from a place of abundance – playing to win together. According to Gallup, 70% of work culture is created by leadership – their actions, behaviors and tendencies. In my career, I have worked with leaders who operate from a place of scarcity, as well as those who operate from a place of abundance. I almost always prefer abundance.
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Guest Post By: Jenna Powers
Director, HR at Amazon What would you do if you knew you would fail? You read that right. What would you do if you knew you would fail? This past weekend was the 22nd running of the Barkley Marathons, a 100 mile race in northeastern Tennessee that likely first reached those outside the ultra running world with the documentaries Where Dreams Go to Die and The Race That Eats Its Young. I won’t detail all the race quirks in this post (you can read more about it here); the most important thing to know is that this race is hard. Far more difficult than a standard 100 mile race, of which there are dozens in the US and globally every year. In 22 years, the Barkley has been completed just 18 times. Given the number of entrants each year (a process which is tightly controlled; the race is extremely difficult to get into), that means there is a 2.5% finishing rate. That means some years there are no finishers. 2018 was one of those years.
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I call bullshit.3/27/2018 Author: Joshua Miller New Book: I Call Bullshit: Live Your Life not Someone Else's Announcing Thinking People Consulting's first book club. Date: Monday, April 30, 2018 from 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM PST Registration Information I hope this note finds you well! Wait, I take that back. I hope this finds you more than well. I hope you’re living a life that’s both fulfilling and full of joy because you’ve shaped it by making choices in tune with who you truly are as your most authentic self. Is that not the case? Are you actually doing things the way you think you should be doing them rather than how you want to be doing them? Guess what? You’re not alone—the bulk of your team is feeling that same nagging feeling of there has to be more than this, and they want answers.
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Who is your Wicket?3/26/2018 I know that not everyone is a dog lover. But for those who are, you know what I am talking about when I say that dogs just have a magical way of getting into your heart. This post is about a dog, recently named Wicket.
It’s a long story of how Wicket came to join our family, but I’ll give you the short version. A few months ago, interested in adopting a Pug, I left my contact info with a local animal shelter. Last week, they finally called to tell me that a Pug, approximately 7 years old, had been brought in. The dog had a severe eye infection that would require his eyes to be removed, was extremely skinny and had a major skin infection. He needed surgery immediately and was thought to have been overbred and neglected. The surgery went well, and two days later, he was up for adoption. Sarah from the shelter reminded me that he is an older, special needs dog. I left work immediately to meet the dog at the shelter.
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Design Thinking for Your Life3/23/2018 Guest Post By: Dorothy Mankey
Founder, Coreisma Consulting Recently I came upon a concept I can’t stop thinking about. I had participated in a design thinking workshop called “Designing Your Life” developed by Stanford professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Their goal was to teach participants how to use design thinking to create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do for a living, or how old we are. If you’re not familiar with design thinking, it is a process and a way of thinking about tough-to-solve problems. Design thinking draws upon empathy, logic, imagination, intuition and an iterative approach to explore possibilities of what could be — and to create desired outcomes that benefit the user. Design thinking requires you to leverage the following key elements:
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Lemon Trees and Human Potential.3/22/2018 Every Mother’s Day, my family asks for hints before they head out to shop for a gift. Last May, I let them know I wanted something a little different – a lemon tree. Why a lemon tree? Well, for starters, I am a huge lemon fan. Lemon blueberry cake is a top request on my birthday, and when I am in the mood for a sweeter drink, a lemon drop is my first choice. Lemonade on a summer day is a slice of heaven. Then there is lemon juice squeezed over a salad or piece of fish – delicious. Just the smell of lemon trees makes me happy. So, it was settled – I would ask for a lemon tree.
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