On today’s episode of Wonder Your Way to Brilliant, I am thrilled to welcome Leigh Flemming into the conversation about Courageous Connections in the workplace. What blows me away about Leigh is how deeply committed he is to developing people and how willing he is to do the hard work of Reflective Leadership. Leigh realizes that leading people well does not happen by accident; it is an act of deep intention. In our conversation, Leigh shares about his experience taking on a leadership role, the conversation that was a turning point for him in thinking about the kind of leader he wanted to be, and how he goes about balancing all that a leader must attend to.

Today on Wonder Your Way to Brilliant I am talking about the incredible acts of courage that are taking place around the country as our children...students... join together to teach our nation’s leaders what it means to care well for people. Students, teachers, and families are joining together to call out the insanity that has ensued from our failure as a society to value each other over personal greed and self interest. It is a courageous act of connection and one that is near and dear to me as a parent, educator, and member of a society that I pray can be sculpted into the kind of place that feels safe for all our children.

We hold meetings in order to harness the collective energy, wisdom and creativity of everyone in the room, but often we fail to harness all the potential. While there are many reasons why, one is the failure to ensure that all the participants leave behind what they were working on before and find connection with each other. In today’s episode of Wonder Your Way to Brilliant, we offer strategies for creating courageous connections among colleagues and collaborators for a better experience at work and more productive meetings.

Have you ever felt like people at work do too much complaining?

Have you ever felt unsettled by the fact that you can find yourself complaining or being more negative at work than you wish you were?

This month on Wonder Your Way to Brilliant we are talking about Courageous Connections in the workplace and this week I am taking on better ways for us to connect in the workplace. I am curious about what it would feel like to transform some of the workplace dialogue that focuses on complaining and criticizing into dialogue that builds deeper and richer connections.

Many people spend more waking hours at work - I calculated it at a minimum of 93,600 hours for most people -  than they do with their families or engaged in any other activity, but what’s the nature of the connection we have with the people we spend all that time with? In today’s episode of  Wonder Your Way to Brilliant I first examine many of the stories that either consciously or unconsciously keep us from investing more in building connections with people at work. I share what I believe to be the compelling reasons why I believe this is worth examining more closely and some tips (and a nudge) to get started.

The strongest relationships are those in which the partners make a commitment to intimacy. It is so easy to fall into the day to day routine of life or to regularly unload on your partner as the one who has the ‘privilege’ of absorbing all your exhaustion, overwhelm and frustration from life. Whereas intimacy comes so naturally during the early days of a relationship, we can unwittingly lose sight of the fact that intimacy is a choice and a practice, not something that happens automatically. In today’s episode of Wonder Your Way to Brilliant, as a culmination of our month-long exploration of Courageous Intimate Connections, I offer 10 Tips for Deepening the Connection in Your Intimate Partnership. You can download a PDF of the tips on our Facebook page: Wonder Your Way to Brilliant.

How often do you find yourself blaming, passing judgment on, or getting frustrated with your partner for not doing enough to make you feel better when you are upset? This has been a very familiar narrative for me AND one that I am working hard to break because not only is it very hurtful, but it is completely unfair to my partner. It also usually leaves me feeling way worse and eventually eats away at the trust and love in the relationship. So what’s the alternative? This is what I take on in today’s episode of Wonder Your Way to Brilliant. However, fair warning...The solution is not for sissies!  Like all spiritual growth, it requires a fair bit of self-reflection and inner strength. The payoff, however, can be huge!

On this episode of Wonder Your Way to Brilliant, we continue the conversation about Courageous Intimate Connections with a discussion about The Context for Love. On one level, we can certainly imagine a relationship in which one partner acquiring two box seat tickets to a hockey game would be received as way more romantic and loving than preparing a candlelit dinner, but why is this the case and how can we use that understanding to deepen and grow an ever more connected and loving relationship with a partner (or friend)?

Have you ever felt really sad or pained by loss or rejection?

And which of the following is more likely to occur…

• Someone tells you that you are taking too long recovering from a broken bone and you should just get over it - OR
• Someone tells you - or you tell yourself - that you are taking too long getting over the pain of emotional loss or rejection and you should just get over it and move on?

In his book, Social: Why Our Brains are Wired to Connect, Matthew Lieberman explains that both physical and emotional pain register in very similar ways in our brain and that our lack of understanding of the significance of our social wiring causes us to make choices in life, leadership, education, and in all facets of life that are counterproductive and even harmful to our well being. Join me for today’s episode of Wonder Your Way to Brilliant as I share a bit about his research and how it bares out in a personal story of my own.