Why do leaders and rising leaders, especially women leaders, need to stop apologizing? It waters down the real message. You give away your power. It's often not circumstances in which you're actually sorry or would even do something differently next time. It's often just a demure habit.

If your life is made up of roughly 4,000 weeks, you don't have time, but rather, your life is this time. If your life is time, then you are time.

If you’re in a summer motivational lull, here are some things my sabbatical taught me!

Projecting is a phenomenon where we take our own thoughts, and, just like a projector machine, superimpose them onto another surface. With psychological projection, that surface is primarily another human or institution.

The Cycle of Self Trust is an important driver of whether your relationship with yourself is becoming stronger, staying the same, or diminishing.

Why context is king, part two.

Small town USA is defined by their humanity and other lessons I learned growing up in rural New York.

Up in Northern New York State, my dad is just finishing up another round of artisanal sugaring (producing maple syrup from the sap that runs in the spring). It's a hobby that bridges the depth of winter and sailing season — a hobby from which my brothers and sister and I reap serious maple syrup dividends.

Out of all my siblings, I live the closest to our father, so I see him the most frequently. The way I contribute, albeit meagerly, to his sugaring efforts is to save glass jars for him. Old syrup mason jars, peanut butter and pickle jars, and those jumbo jars the kalamata olives from Costco come in.

I save the jars, but I draw the line at removing the labels.

I recently offered to help a community group I'm a part of to prepare for an upcoming meeting that promised to be potentially divisive. Having facilitated groups in dialogue and decision making for years, I knew how to approach this in a way that would address both the human need for the inclusion side of things, as well as the tactical, how-do-we-move-forward side of things.

I received a "thanks but no thanks" response to my offer. I didn't trust that the reasons given for not wanting my support were the real reasons, even if the real reasons remained unconscious to the decision makers.

Besides a few bobs, I've had long hair most of my life. I have spent years trying myriad ways to keep my hair out of my face, It might be a combination of having a relatively small forehead and a habit of slightly tucking my chin down that caused my hair to fall in my face very easily. Even just seeing it in my peripheral vision bugged me!