Find your zone, connect to the world, tune into your purpose and then get specific
I once had the fabulous opportunity to chat with a group of executive administrative assistants on their final day of a national conference. They had spent a few days exploring what it takes to create positive energy for themselves and their organizations. When I met with them, they were elated, excited and maybe even a…
When we’re running from moment to moment, task to task, we lose perspective
Are we so afraid of spending time alone with our own thoughts that we find tasks to occupy every moment of our waking day? We must stop consuming our days in this unmitigated busyness. When we’re running from moment to moment, task to task, we lose perspective. Events and circumstances start to feel all-consuming. We…
And gain significant advantages on how you deal with people
Humans are genetically programmed to look for facial and behavioural cues and to quickly understand their meaning. We see someone gesture and automatically make a judgment about the intention of that gesture. And we've been doing this for a long time. As a species, we knew how to win friends and influence people – or…
Get what you want by stressing less about outcomes
Some of the biggest conflicts we face are about the frustration we feel when we don’t follow through and achieve what we’ve set our minds on. This causes us to become prickly in our relationships and take our irritation out on others. When I first started working in law enforcement, there were all kinds of…
Get rid of the negative thoughts and distractions and focus on what's important to you
The news is filled with folks complaining. From politics to economics and everything in between, people are focused on what we don’t have rather than what we do. It’s such a deeply-rooted problem that it makes me wonder if our focus is the primary culprit for all the unhappiness we perceive. When we imagine ourselves…
Positive, hard workers are in high demand. And it’s easier to be dedicated to a meaningful cause
Bengali poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore made a profound statement about finding your purpose in life: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” This seems contradictory to much of what we hear about finding happiness. The consumption-driven media continually…
Overexuberance can lead to lost opportunities
It’s no secret that we all have different styles when it comes to communicating. Some people are articulate communicators and others aren’t. Some people get right to the point while others tell a story first. Mix communication styles and add emotion and it’s likely that important elements will be missed entirely. Take this example: Justin…
Painting was therapy at first, ‘so I wouldn’t spiral into depression.’ Now she has her own gallery
Troy Media publisher Doug Firby and travel editor Lisa Monforton are part of a group of Canadians who call themselves ConnecTour. Starting in May in British Columbia and ending in October in Newfoundland, they hope to make an 8,000-km bicycle journey across the country, discovering how the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped our lives and our…
Radical change, or change to please someone else, rarely sticks
Jerry started smoking when he was in Grade 5. Over the course of his life he has tried many times – once when his uncle died from lung cancer – to give it up. Then, one morning, at the age of 37, Jerry woke up feeling like an old man. He stubbed out his cigarette,…
These simple daily exercises can help you face up to the inevitable tension in your life
The spate of mass shootings in the United States has caused most of us to pause. Bad stuff can happen to good people. We wonder what we would do if we found ourselves caught up in such violence. Sometimes just hearing about such tragedies can lead us to feel tense and uncertain. And that can…