Our monthly lunch & learns with our leadership program graduates is leaning more and more towards personal success practices rather than hardcore work topics. But topics like stress, and failure, and loneliness, and forming new habits, and managing your time are hardcore work topics. Whether we like it or not, we live integrated lives.
Practicing Practice
I lead a monthly lunch & learn series at work for past graduates of our in-house leadership development program. It’s a discussion based program where I curate content – often a First Round article or Ted Talk – and we eat sandwiches and share our thoughts. It’s relatively well attended, though I couldn’t get any interest in the month I chose the theme diversity (the general squeamishness indicative of a bigger problem).
Public Speaking (aka bribing your audience with free lunch and door prizes)
I’ll always remember the time I gave a presentation on blue whales. I was a sophomore in college, studying abroad in the Netherlands (in a legitimate castle of all places), and due to give a speech to my honors class about an animal. Or maybe it was something I had seen a museum? It might have had to do with evolutionary history? I’m not sure – but I chose the blue whale.
Working Through Work Fuck-Ups
Yesterday, I discovered a mistake in my work so exasperating that I ended up in frustrated tears. It was a legacy mistake, something I didn’t do myself but had been affecting my world for a few years without me knowing. Because I didn’t know. And it’s my responsibility to know. Three years ago, there was a question that didn’t get asked and it’s going to have some sucky consequences.
The Blessing of Busy Days
There is simply a lot to do. A lot of urgent things. A lot of important things. And a good many that are both urgent and important.