Deep listening involves both listening to ourselves - by peering underneath our judgments and conclusions implicit in our “stories” about others with curiosity and empathy - and demonstrating the same towards others. In a feedback context, the fruits of this labor are more likely to create the safety and openness required for true reflection, honest dialogue and genuine connection.

Don’t settle for your first response! Keep searching until your contribution inspiration overwhelms your fears. Therein you will find the power to act.

The first step in developing discipline as a consequence of emotional clarity is finding the fears that underlie the project, goal or to-do you’re not taking action on. And the fears that block us most often tend to be self-worth fears.

And as we go through our day, it’s important to ask ourselves: what are my true motivations in focusing on this at this moment? Am I avoiding something else that might be less sexy, less easy, less fun… but important in long run?

Since most of us are faced with an overwhelming amount of to-do’s every day, what is the most effective way to prioritize what ends up in our calendars?

Too often we become invested in the appearance of “having it all together” despite the uncomfortable truth that no one actually does

A central theme to our work involves exploring — and then overcoming — how our Egosystem’s™ obsession with our self-worth traps us in a Performance Anxiety Paradigm

If you behave counter-productively, and can’t stop it, then you must be getting something very potent from that behavior. In order to make a change, you need to uncover what that is for you.

We can notice our mouth go dry, our breathing speed up, our heart rate increase — any number of symptoms that tell us our brain perceives we are in threatening territory. We call that biological signal a “pinch.”

Each time you feel that impulse to react unproductively, ask “how is my ego feeling threatened? How am I afraid to be perceived?

It’s critical that we get in touch emotionally with the costs of our problematic behaviors, and stop distancing ourselves from them and justifying our actions

Noticing our reaction to a threat, instead of believing what our minds are saying in the moment, is one pathway to breaking the hold the more primitive part of our brains have on our emotional reactions