Toolbox for Thriving With Humans
An Expanding Collection of My Top Energizers, Exercises & Sources for Meaningful Collaboration & Personal Growth
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Silent Eye Gazing
This is a paired presence exercise that strips interaction down to its essentials. By removing words and roles, participants practice staying present with another person — without performing, fixing, or withdrawing.
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.
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.
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.
Coke Bottle Ideation
Creativity often stalls not because of a lack of ideas, but because of self-censorship. This fast-paced exercise breaks functional fixedness and helps groups practice speaking before ideas feel finished.
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.
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.
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.
Brain Writing
Brain Writing creates psychological safety by removing performance pressure from ideation. Ideas compound through written “yes, and” contributions instead of competition or persuasion.
Candle Transport Challenge
The Candle Transport Challenge is a hands-on, time-bound team exercise built around a deceptively simple physical challenge. Teams design, test, and adapt a solution in real time using limited materials and live feedback from reality.
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.
Stretch Me
Stretch Me invites participants to wake up their bodies — and the room — through shared, slightly ridiculous movement. It builds energy, connection, and lighthearted trust.
Human Chair
Human Chair challenges a group to do something that feels slightly impossible — together. By leaning on one another, teams experience trust, coordination, and collective success in a very literal way.
Massage Me
Massage Me is a playful, consent-aware energizer that uses humor and light physical interaction to soften tension and revive group energy. It helps people relax, laugh together, and reconnect without taking itself too seriously.
Ninja · Hunter · Bear
Ninja · Hunter · Bear is a loud, physical twist on Rock–Paper–Scissors designed to unlock play and collective energy. It replaces self-consciousness with laughter, momentum, and instant group bonding.
Mexican Wave
Mexican Wave creates an explosive burst of energy by getting a large group to move and shout in perfect synchrony. It’s loud, physical, and almost impossible to do without committing fully.