Toolbox for Thriving With Humans
An Expanding Collection of My Top Energizers, Exercises & Sources for Meaningful Collaboration & Personal Growth
Search for Something Specific
Filter By Resource Type
Select Type
Filter By Resource Subject
Amy Edmondson on Team-Based Psychological Safety
You don’t have to change the whole culture to make a difference. Psychological safety is built team by team — and local leadership matters more than you think.
Satya Nadella on Empathy & Growth Mindset
A grounded, insider view of how real culture change happens at scale — through purpose, empathy, and leaders willing to confront their own fixed mindset.
Ed Catmull on Pixar’s Brain Trust
This video shows how removing ego and power from the room creates the conditions where real creativity — and real progress — can emerge.
Mark Bertolini on Authenticity
This video shows why leadership isn’t earned through titles or polish, but through presence, authenticity, and the courage to lead without armor.
Loving Kindness
Loving-Kindness isn’t about being nice or soft. This practice trains compassion as a stabilizing force — reducing internal friction so clearer thinking and better collaboration can emerge.
Friend vs. Self
A short reflection exercise that reveals the gap between how we treat others in difficulty and how we treat ourselves. It helps participants develop a more effective inner coach without lowering standards.
Love Questions
Love Questions uses carefully sequenced questions to help people connect beyond roles and titles. It builds trust, empathy, and psychological safety by pairing self-disclosure with deep, uninterrupted listening.
Your Living Funeral
Your Living Funeral is a reflective exercise that invites leaders to step back and consider the legacy they want to leave behind. By imagining how they would like to be remembered, it helps clarify what truly matters—and how to live and lead accordingly.
Values Exploration
Values Exploration is a reflective exercise that helps leaders clarify and prioritize what truly matters to them. It supports calmer decision-making, reduces defensiveness under pressure, and anchors leadership behavior in personal integrity.
Visualization as a Leadership Tool
Visualization helps leaders rehearse how they want to show up before high-stakes moments unfold. It strengthens presence, emotional regulation, and intentional action when pressure would otherwise take over.
Happiness & Self-Management
High achievement without inner grounding often leads to quiet emptiness. This episode reframes happiness as a discipline of character, meaning, and emotional self-management — not a byproduct of success.
Songs & Pics of the Real You
A reflective learning exercise using music, images, and journaling to reconnect people with their authentic self. Ideal for leaders and teams navigating change, identity shifts, or disconnection from meaning.
Journaling as a Leadership Tool
A simple but powerful way to externalize mental noise, reduce reactivity, and regain clarity before decisions or conversations. Journaling turns unexamined thoughts into conscious choice.
Neuroscience Of Spirituality
A science-based exploration of spirituality as a measurable human capacity — not a belief system. Lisa Miller explains how meaning, awe, and connection strengthen resilience, mental health, and how we navigate suffering.
How Vulnerability Can Make Life Safer
This episode reveals how emotional openness and encouraging vulnerability in teams led to fewer accidents, better communication, and stronger performance on what was then Shell’s largest offshore oil rig.
Royal Shuffle
Royal Shuffle is a short, card-based social game where participants interact based on an unseen status assigned to them. It makes non-verbal communication, hierarchy, and social dynamics instantly visible.
Face-Off Portraits
Face-Off Portraits asks people to draw each other seriously—and fail publicly. The result is laughter, lowered defenses, and a fast reset of creative courage.