Mentor Coaching and the Neuroscience of Success

The neuroscience of success illuminates how performance revolves around three elements of intrinsic motivation: Autonomy: the desire to direct our own lives Are your managers/leaders facilitating autonomy for their people? Are they coaching self-functioning for their...

We’re Always Teaching Others

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. —Maya Angelou At a Retreat to train an organization to develop its own internal mentoring program, I did a demonstration Mentor Coaching with one of the Mentors. I asked her initially what she wanted to...

No Interest in Buying a House?

I was recently contacted by a personal finance columnist for Reuters who was doing a piece on the motivations and emotions of folks who have no interest in buying a home. That sounded like an interesting topic and premise, so I immediately took it to my research team:...

The Zeigarnik Effect

I recently read a story about the psychoanalyst, Dr. Kurt Lewin, a well-known and published clinician. This immediately got my attention, because he is my psychoanalytic grandfather. In psychoanalytic training, a subspecialty of psychiatry and psychology, each...

The Unlived Life

And yet the ways we miss in our lives are life. —Randall Jarrell At a recent retreat for executives and professionals transitioning from retirement into a next contribution or career, I asked them to write down the first response that came to mind for a question. The...

Mantras: Toward the Neuroscience of Self-Regulation Revisited

Cognito ergo non ferio. (I think, therefore I fail.) You can’t think and hit at the same time. —Yogi Berra When Southern Utah’s University’s new basketball coach Robert Reid arrived, his team ranked 217th in free-throw percentage, lowest in their division...