Due to a forecasting change imposed by her overwhelmed and fearful boss, Mira’s annual sales target for next year is twice as big as she thought it would be. Four months into her new job at a government agency, Amanda’s entire working life (and pretty much the rest of her life too) has been consumed with managing issues related to the COVID pandemic. Commercial Real Estate agent Mike has seen his entire business evaporate before his eyes in the past seven months, and now he m

After five years of working together, Sheldon’s boss has moved on to greener pastures. His new boss hasn’t even been selected yet, but he’s seriously freaked. “What if I don’t like them?” he complains to anyone who will listen. “What if they don’t like me? What if they’re some kind of control freak who wants to tell me how to do my job? What if they have totally different expectations than my old boss had? What if they want to bring in their own team and we all get fired?” Fe

I don’t know about you, but I love the “first idea”. I think a lot of us do. We have a problem. We arrive at a solution. It’s a good one (or at least we think it is). We're done. Maybe the first idea came to us right away. Or maybe it arrived only after much banging of heads on walls. It doesn’t matter. It’s time to run with it. Everything is locked down; the road ahead is clear and there’s no more uncertainty. It feels great. Yay! And then the idea fails. The road ahead is n

From a political, economic and health (both physical and mental) perspective, 2020 has been the most challenging year most of us can remember. We’ve been faced with a crushing mix of uncertainty, loss and isolation that has left many of us with a creeping sense of dread. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been able to relax since late 2015. So, when will it be 2015 again? It won’t. Even if a vaccine arrives soon, the pandemic is likely to last another 12 to 18 months. And

Carson didn’t want to hire Emily. She was under qualified and didn’t seem to have a real passion for the work his department did. But, as a new manager, he succumbed to pressure from an overworked HR representative, and brought her on board. Over the next few weeks, Emily required more of Carson’s time and energy than anyone else on his team. But, he kept her. Why? Because after each difficult coaching conversation, Emily displayed waves of enthusiasm. She seemed to be learni