3 Business Lessons from a Weekend at Disney World

photo of person holding balloons

I recently spent a weekend at Walt Disney World. It sucked, and I loved it. It rained a gazillion inches for 48 straight hours. My shoes and socks got soaked twice. I walked 5 miles with squishy, cold, wet feet. My iPhone got water in the charger port, so I couldn’t charge my phone. It sucked. And I loved it.  It’ll be crowded and hot with long lines and tired feet, but I’m already excited about the next trip. All because of 3 basic business lessons we can all learn from Disney. 1. Moments are powerful. Standing in the rain

Open the Door to Growth, Grit and Yourself

A few weeks back, we introduced our series related to our theme for the year, open the door. As usual, when I have a blog post to write, the universe gives me lots of opportunity to practice. What’s on the menu for this week? Opening the door to growth, grit and yourself. Currently, my level of frustration due to lack of “rest” is on an 11 out of a 10 point scale. I feel like I have been around the world and back, and my soul needs a good ole sabbath. My workout this morning took every ounce of effort

 Open the Door to New Perspectives

The President of ATD Birmingham (and my friend) recently shared insights on The Leadership Pipeline with a room full of talent development professionals. I’m sure he said many, many great things, but the one thing I remember (and have talked about nonstop since then) was the idea that the first rung on the ladder of leadership is the hardest to climb.  The first time you shift from being an individual contributor to being a manager is like putting on a pair of glasses that no longer work. We know an upward move in our careers means upgraded responsibilities, but we

Effective Delegation: Closed Doors Lead to Open Ones

As we begin our series on the theme for the year, “Open the Door”, we realized it was important to also consider that in order to open doors, you also need to know how to close them.  The first step in effective delegation is to identify where closing a door for one person or organization is opening one for another.  As we sat around a table brainstorming our 2024 theme at our annual company retreat, we realized we were all in somewhat of a state of transition and so were many of our clients.   We often work with people, organizations,

Why Appreciation in the Workplace Matters

Remember Mary Ila’s take on “How to Be Authentic with Your Appreciation at Work”? We reference Chapman & White all the time in training and coaching with our clients. To celebrate Valentine’s Day with full hearts in the workplace, we’re bringing you an early look at the new updated version of The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace.  We subscribe to the newsletter from Appreciation at WorkTM and got one of the first announcements of the new, post-COVID research on professional appreciation. Right away, I asked the team if we could do a blog about it. New research!? Yes!