Christopher J. Colombo MD, CEC, CMC, CPP Take control of the “Shoulds”: Aligning Expectations with Reality In our introductory installment of “The seven dirty words” we discussed a general approach to building mindfulness and becoming aware of using the words. Our mindfulness exercise focused on assessing your personal energy level and emotional state preceding the...
Category Archives: Long Form
The 7 Dirty Words Holding you Back: Introduction
Christopher J. Colombo MD, CEC, CMC, CPP Our words: Should, Only, Just, Must, Always, Never, Except…be on guard for the dirty words: times when we are low on energy and looking for a quick and low effort expression of thought, these little rascals may creep in. George Carlin wrote and delivered a historic comedy bit about...
Email tips
Paul M. Michaud MD, CPE How many times a day to you check your email? How many hours a week, month, year do you spend on email? If you are anything like me the answer is too much. How productive was that time? Likely not as productive as you tell yourself. I get it. Your organization relies...
The Toxic Leader
Christopher J. Colombo MD, CEC, CMC, CPP We’ve all heard the “Toxic Leader” term thrown around like a manhole cover. In fact, I made sure the title of this post was set off by the definite article, just to make The Toxic Leader seem even more like the antagonist in a monster movie. This term...
If Everything Is Important, Nothing Is Important
Christopher J. Colombo MD, CEC, CMC, CPP Some timely holiday season coaching: BLUF: For some of us, a component of holiday stress comes from trying to squeeze everything in the Important/Urgent quadrant. Some practical tips1) Be brutally honest building your 2×2 Important/Urgent matrix.2) Ask the question: what happens if I delay doing this task (or just dump it entirely)?3) Is...
A Model and Metaphor for Change and Growth
Christopher J. Colombo MD, CEC, CMC, CPP My family and I attended a fantastic concert recently, and had some humorous goofs with our Navigation app. On the way there, the app brought us physically next to the parking garage, but not to an actual entrance! I often marvel at the precision of GPS and then...
EVERYTHING IS AWESOME: Toxic Positivity
Christopher J. Colombo MD, CEC, CMC, CPP Positive Psychology…seriously, you? I just finished my training program and certification exams as a Positive Psychology Coach. Folks that know me may find it ironic that I pursued training in positive pscyhology. I’m generally regarded as the cynic or curmudgeon in most of my professional and social groups....
The Man in the Arena Presses On : Calvin Coolidge, Teddy Roosevelt and My Son
Christopher J. Colombo MD, CEC, CMC, CPP To inspire fellow classmates, create content, ask for/respect feedback, maintain autonomy and teach his old man something… It is why my son is my best client. My son graduated this year with his High School diploma and an Associate’s Degree after being dual enrolled the latter half of...
Recognition and Performance: Another 2×2 table
Christopher J. Colombo MD, CEC, CMC, CPP I had an interesting chat with my son that ended up turning into a decent coaching session. Conventional wisdom is that you aren’t supposed to coach your family, but it turns out that’s really difficult. Before I was a certified executive coach, I coached hockey, cross country and...
Training and Practice are Different: A Rant.
Christopher J. Colombo MD, CEC, CMC, CPP First part of the Rant: Stop using Training and Practice interchangeably. Just stop. Don’t do it. Strap in… this is one of those essays when delivered verbally results in my teenage daughter chortling and muttering “old man shouts at clouds”. In the corporate world, in the military, in...