Toolbox for Thriving With Humans
An Expanding Collection of My Top Energizers, Exercises & Sources for Meaningful Collaboration & Personal Growth
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Hero’s Journey
The Hero’s Journey is a reflective storytelling exercise that helps people make sense of challenge, change, and growth. By mapping real experiences onto a simple narrative structure, participants uncover meaning, clarify purpose, and see how struggle often precedes insight.
Neuroscience of Leadership
A concise reminder that leadership suffers when analysis crowds out human awareness — and why great leaders learn to switch modes, not stay stuck in one.
Meditation’s Impact on the Brain
Compelling neuroscience showing that attention and emotional regulation are not fixed traits but trainable skills, with measurable brain changes appearing after just weeks of consistent practice.
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.
Formula 1 Cross-Pollination
A gripping case study in cross-industry learning: how Formula 1 pit-stop discipline helped a pediatric cardiac team cut handover errors and make high-stakes work dramatically safer.
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.
Focus On The Breath
A simple guided mindfulness practice that trains attention by returning, again and again, to the sensation of the breath. It helps participants stabilize focus, regulate the nervous system, and reset presence.
Deep Listening
Deep Listening is a structured partner exercise that separates speaking from listening to train attention, presence, and empathy. It builds trust and psychological safety by letting people experience what it feels like to be truly heard.
Healthy Skepticism vs. Cynicism
Cynicism often disguises itself as realism, but it quietly erodes trust, creativity, and collaboration. This episode shows how growth-oriented mindsets and empathy are trainable skills that shape healthier teams and more resilient leaders.
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.