Leadership
Touchstones and Wayfinding
There’s a scene in the movie “Terms of Endearment” when Patsy says to her best friend who is dying of cancer, “You’re my touchstone, Emma.” It’s an interesting moment because to the outward world, Patsy is the one who looks like she has it all and has it all together. Emma on the other hand…
Read MoreRuts, Routines, and August
Several years ago I wrote a paean to fall on campus. I waxed poetic about the energy of the fall semester and the start of our new year. I wrote about empty campuses suddenly filled with students, parking lots that had been deserted now filled with cars, and sidewalks bustling with students – some new and…
Read MoreChange and Loss
I don’t know who said it, but one of my all time favorite quotes about change is: “The only person who really likes change is a baby with a wet diaper.” After all, even someone who embraces change has something they want left alone. One of the most important lessons I ever learned about change…
Read MoreSelf-Care is a Leadership Skill
The topic of self-care has gotten a lot of press over the last several months. Lately, the articles have been more focused on the lack of time for self-care in our challenging new realities. Pre-pandemic there were articles pushing back on the self-care narrative of spa days and beautiful images of sitting with one’s mug of…
Read MorePlans and Planning
Today I want to tell you about a presentation I heard several years ago. The speaker was Dr. Jeremi Suri. He holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor in the University’s Department of History and the Lyndon B. Johnson School…
Read MoreHard Questions, Difficult Answers
A friend of mine who came to the University of Texas at Austin from a small Texas town told me that her most common stress dream was being lost on the UT campus. Which is a perfectly reasonable stress dream. My most common stress dream is my teeth falling out, which apparently is not that…
Read More“Yearning to breathe free”
My plan for March and April was to get started on a book based on the Leadership Yoga workshop I’ve taught for many years. And then, we got to mid-March and all sorts of plans changed. I believe, hope, the ideas in the Leadership Workshop are worthwhile and particularly helpful in stressful times. However, writing…
Read MoreWhen there are no words
Over the last few days, I’ve struggled, as many have, with the effort to find words to say. Nothing I’ve come up with has seemed helpful, meaningful, or even close to expressing all that I feel right now. And so instead today’s newsletter is my effort to amplify the work of many of my friends and…
Read MoreLeadership Yoga
On March 23rd, ten weeks ago, we began this journey through the ideas of Leadership Yoga. I started this series with the idea of trying to support each reader through the challenges we were only beginning to experience. I had the idea of writing a book on this, but that would take too long, so…
Read MoreNiyamas – Internal Disciplines
Today, we’ll focus on the five Niyamas. B.K.S. Iyengar describes them as the “rules of conduct” that apply to individual behavior while the Idiot’s Complete Guide to Yoga puts it more simply – “what to do, as opposed to what not to do.” Here are the five Niyamas and my thoughts on their application to…
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