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Alan was sitting there, wide-open, vulnerable, and hurting. He had just shared with four of his peers that he’d been moved laterally at work. Again. He was holding a stiff upper lip, as much as possible. But it was clear to all of us that he was hurting.

This was in a peer development group, a group of 5 people who meet for two hours twice a month to support one another in their personal development. And this was important because, in a typical group situation, one of the following things would occur:

• Alan would have said nothing at all and would suffer in silence.
• There would have been an awkward silence, and someone would deftly change the subject.
• Alan would have been met with empathy or sympathy to make him feel better.
• Suggestions would be made about how Alan might “fix” this problem.
• The group would have commiserated with Alan, supporting a “victim” identity.

None of these things happened. Something else did. You see, the purpose of the group is quite different from a typical group. Here’s what happened for Alan…

[Read more…] about Why You Need a Framework for Personal Development

Personal development — if it is to be effective — requires a strategy. A process. A way to get from here to there.

If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you are doing.” — W. Edwards Deming

In this article, my purpose is threefold. I will show you:

1. What a workable strategy looks like.
2. That a workable strategy includes peer support.
3. Why you need a strategy.

Let’s do this…

[Read more…] about A Workable Strategy for Personal Development

I’ve noticed seven ingredients are present in healthy, happy, highly productive relationships:

1. Deep Trust
2. Productive Conflict
3. Solid Commitment
4. Strong Accountability
5. Stellar Results or Outcomes
6. Meaning and Purpose

(I wrote about these six in my prior post here.)

I’d guess many people would agree these are great things to have present in a relationship. Yet so often these six things are not present, not in balance and not in high doses, or not consistent. They are intuitively obvious to a degree, yet since they are so often not abundantly and consistently present something must be amiss. What might that be?

[Read more…] about The Empowerment of Compassion x Skill with Emotions

I’d like to share seven ways to expand your ability to become the biggest and best version of yourself. Seven interconnected and interdependent ways to become healthier, happier, and highly effective. When you transform yourself, you transform your life.

The seven ways are:

1. Deepen Connection and Trust

2. Engage in Productive Conflict

3. Strengthen and Hold Your Focus

4. Practice Radical Candor

5. Mind Your Results and Impact

6. Infuse Meaning and Purpose into All You Do

7. Take Time to Reflect

Let’s unpack these a bit and talk about why these seven ways are powerful.

[Read more…] about Seven Powerful Ways to Grow Yourself and Transform Your Life

Personal development is the process of gaining self-knowledge and achieving, accomplishing, or experiencing some desired, intentional result.

If this statement doesn’t make sense to you now, I hope it is more clear by the end of this article.

For me, this has been a 3 week period of expanding my self-knowledge. It hasn’t been pretty. It’s been messy and hard, actually. And I’d like to tell you about it.

Before I do, there is some groundwork to attend to.

[Read more…] about The Inconvenient Truth of Personal Development