If you have a calling to make the world a better place, chances are you've spent too much time working in coalitions that do a better job of torturing their members than getting any real work done in the world. 

Thankfully, there is a better way: it's called Partnership Brokering.  It's been used for over twenty-five years to advance sustainable economic development projects all over the world, and it's a great way to do collaboration differently.

One of the biggest reasons coalitions fail is that they focus only on the collective interest that brings everyone together.  A key insight from the partnership brokering field is that to collaborate effectively in the face of complexity you have to pay even more attention to naming and taming the key INDIVIDUAL interests that each party brings with them.   When those individual interests are left unspoken, they lead to all kinds of dysfunction, suspicion and lost opportunities. 

The core principles for a...

Did you know that 67% of American men would rather administer a mild electric shock to themselves than to sit quietly with their own thoughts for more than 6 minutes? 

 That’s pretty crazy, but it’s true.  This was the finding from a series of experiments done at UVA and published in Science Magazine July 2014.  And by the way, it's not just the guys.  25% of women also took the shocking way out of listening to themselves.  

What's going on here--why are so many of us so uncomfortable with listening deeply to ourselves, let alone others?  And what might happen if you stepped up your game, listening more deeply to yourself, to those you are closest too, and perhaps even to those with whom you have profound differences?

This post explores the transformative power of deep listening.  The kind of listening that: 

• Is rooted in genuine curiosity
• Seeks understanding
• Steps outside your own psychology
• Opens you up to being moved
...

Establishing a regular practice of  meditation is a great way to clear your mind and set yourself up for more joy and impact across all the areas of your life.  If you're someone who doesn't meditate you might be  getting pretty sick of hearing this from everyone who does! 

Maybe you've tried meditation and found that rather than bringing you peace every time you try to quiet the voice in your head it just starts chattering even louder.  This was definitely my experience when I first tried it.  Because of this I went for years believing that meditation might be great for some people, but it just wasn't for me. 

The good news is there are all kinds of ways into the world of meditation and mindfulness.  The main thing is just to get started and try some things out until you find something that works for you.  

This video offers an introductory overview to a variety of meditation and mindfulness techniques.  Whether you're...

Having the discipline and commitment to “get real” is particularly important for all of us with aspirations to “change the world.”  As change agents, our idealistic vision of how the world could be is frequently what excites us and pushes us forward.  Unfortunately, this sometimes leads us to shy away from dealing with the complex, imperfect, and messy world as it actually is.  

Without a deep understanding of what’s real—of how the complex systems we seek to improve actually function, particularly around dynamics of power, community, race and identity—we cannot be sure that our solutions are the right ones, or if they  are truly moving things in a positive direction.   This is why those who appoint themselves to the role of “change agent” must be cautious  of their own vision, especially if they do not participate closely in the system they seek to change.  In the...

How do you take a new habit from aspiration to automatic?   For many of us, this is one of the biggest questions we have as we seek to build up a set of positive daily practices that will carry us forward in our journey towards more joy and more impact across all the areas of our lives.  And most of us know that relying on sheer willpower is not a winning formula!

This post walks through a key framework from James Clear's research into the science of habit formation--the "four laws of behavior change" that he lays out in his outstanding book Atomic Habits.  

Clear explains that any habit, positive or negative has four components

1. Cue

2. Craving

3. Response

4. Reward

And he posits that the best way to make a positive behavior stick is to engineer each of these four components in a particular way.

1. Cue: Make it obvious
2. Craving: Make it attractive
3. Response: Make it easy
4. Reward: Make it satisfying

The reverse is true for habits that...

All of us have situations in which we would like to increase our ability to positively influence and inspire others.  This post reviews practical highlights from some recent research by behavioral science researcher Jonah Berger, as well as Bain and Company that you can apply to step up your skills to be persuasive and inspiring. 

And as you seek to build your skills for engaging positively with others, it is so important to remember being truly present with others also means opening yourself up to being influenced by them.   Sometimes the most important thing you can do as a force for good, whether out in the world or with your own friends and family is to step back from your certainty that you just need to get everyone else on board with your plan and genuinely tune into how you can allow others to influence your own perspective. 

Jonah Berger's 5 Keys to Persuasion

With this in mind, here's a summary of Jonah Berger's 5 ways to  remove barriers...

The first step on the Joyful Impact journey is about getting visionary. 

Many of us doing the work of social change feel as if we are committed to pursuing a vision for a better world.  But even it you feel like you already have a vision--it's worth asking yourself is my vision truly as clear and compelling as it could be? 

When it comes to getting visionary in pursuit of joyful impact, you need to start with clarity--not just about the difference you want to make in the world, but also about how you want to show up as your highest and best self across all the key areas of your life.   Here's why: we achieve joy and fulfillment in life by living in alignment with our highest selves. And so having clarity about who we are in our highest selves makes it much easier to become more fully conscious of what it takes to live in alignment. 

This post, and the worksheet that goes with it, guides you through the process of producing a 2-part personal...

A key element of achieving joyful impact is to work effectively with other people on ideas that are bigger than any one of us.  This means treating each other in a fundamentally better way, using consideration and collaboration rather than forms of contempt or objectification, such as coercion, manipulation or even violence.  Getting in the "green zone" of effective collaboration with others requires us to draw on the the tools of deep listening, collaborative problem solving, partnership brokering and transformative personal influence.

This post shares a framework for understanding the dynamics of interpersonal relationships, and identifies a set of questions to ask yourself that will help you land in the "green zone" for maximizing your collaboration and positive influence with others, even in challenging circumstances:

• Before trying to enlist others in my plan, have I asked if the greatest impact would come from committing to follow someone else’s vision instead?...

A mastermind is a group of peers that meets regularly, typically once a month for 2-4 hours.   They provide a sounding board where you can share the best 5% and the worst 5% of your life and your challenges in a totally confidential setting.  This is one of the rarest, and most powerful personal growth accelerants there is.    In YPO and EO (the Entrepreneurs Organization), monthly mastermind groups are called "forums" and they are the centerpiece of that experience, covering all aspects of personal and professional life.

Mastermind groups expose you to all kinds of learning opportunities when it comes to assembling the knowledge, skills and mindsets that you need to accelerate your journey to joyful impact.   Your peers in a mastermind group are ready and willing to offer something far more valuable than their advice—they are giving you the benefit of their real life experience dealing with similar challenges...