I find it fascinating to ponder this question: “What if I were to actually live out the lessons I’ve learned from my mistakes, big and small?” One of our mentors at Sól Recruiting, Coaching, and Consulting is a former turn-around CEO who has successfully transformed multiple companies over his career. He shared that one of his favorite questions for himself and for his employees is, “Well, didya learn from it?”

This summer, I (along with 145 million other people) binge watched the gripping miniseries Adolescence. The premise is stark: a teenage boy murders a girl in his class after a spiral of rejection and online humiliation.

100,000 hours. That is how much the average person will spend at their work over a lifetime. Jason Jaggard shares this information in his book Beyond High Performance.

One of our mentors at Sól Recruiting, Coaching, and Consulting is a former turn-around CEO who has successfully transformed multiple companies over his career. During a recent workshop he shared a great way of upgrading how we share problems.

Most people avoid boredom. When I was little, one of my most frequent complaints to my parents was, “I’m so bored!” I always wanted to be doing something.

When I directed high school Shakespeare productions, I had a different experience of the show than the rest of the audience. As the director, I knew the lines, the blocking, the jokes, and when these were missed or delivered imperfectly, I noticed and was frustrated.

Recently, I’ve had a season of joyful contentment and gratitude. I’ve been pondering what has changed, since the season before this one had more frustration and discontent.

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” This quote from G.K. Chesterton highlights how our mindset shapes our experience. 

“What is the crossroad at which I find myself at this point in my life?” This is one of my new favorite coaching questions. I found it in the book The Answer to How Is Yes by Peter Block.

“What is my contribution to the problem I am concerned with?” This ownership question comes from the book The Answer to How Is Yes by Peter Block. When Ifeel frustrated or stuck, I find this type of question powerful.

Until recently, the story I told myself was that watching my kids on my own for an extended period of time was stressful. It seemed that my patience was finite, that I could only take so much before I needed a break or lost my cool. These experiences could lead to an apparently logical and convenient conclusion: that I’m just not that good at parenting small children—that it just doesn’t suit my nature and therefore perhaps my wife should take this part of running our household.

There is a time and a place for the question, “How?” but it’s not where we should begin. This is what Peter Block, the author of the book, The Answer to How Is Yes, argues.

In an article titled Self-discipline is easy, actually: clarity vs. force (sic), Dan Koe argues that rather than trying to change your life, you need to begin by spending enough time with your “anti-vision.” Here’s part of the article. 

Part of the vision for The Good Leaven Letter is to share thought-provoking distinctions that act as good leaven for your life. A section I read by Dan Koe in his e-book Purpose and Profit: A Guide to Discovering Your Life’s Work shares such a distinction.

Can you touch your toes? This common stretch is often used to test flexibility. Perhaps you’re like me and not very flexible. If you’ve tried to improve and had a hard time making progress, it might be that you’ve been operating according to a common misconception that flexibility has to do with muscle or tendon length.

Have you ever said something like “I’ll complete that by the end of the week,” and then found that you ran out of time or you simply forgot to finish the task?

Have you ever been interrupted in the middle of a task? The interruption might even be the next thing on your agenda. For example, you might be eating lunch and realize that your 1 o’clock appointment is in five minutes.

I’ve been writing The Good Leaven Letter weekly for several years now. Each week, I follow inspiration and don’t have particular core themes in mind. Because of this, I’ve been increasingly curious to learn whether or not there are general trends.

It might seem unusual, but I am in the midst of a book titled The Empowered Wife. Actually, I’m reading it together with my wife after more than one coach friend told me that it transformed their marriage.