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As we approach the end of 2021, I reflected upon my working years, what engages, excites, motivates and ultimately gets me up each day (with a smile). Coupled with changing jobs as a result of COVID, seizing upon Inopportune Opportunities, and ensuring the latest challenge would support my passion for Experience, I embarked on a voyage down workplace-happiness-and-engagement-memory-lane. First, let’s acknowledge that much of the world is struggling to make just enough money to get by, covering the basics like food and lodging. This majority are hardly in a position to choose their workplace based on positive company culture, fulfillment …

What gets us up in the morning, lights that inner fire to not just work, but pursue a craft we relish in performing? While shaping my September and October 2021 posts, Cultivating Passion with Steve Boyett and Creativity, Passion & Perseverance with WiL, I began pondering my passions and values. I’ve been through numerous effective values surfacing exercises over the years, have a good idea of what they are, but realized I wasn’t entirely sure what my central, driving passion is. Isolating it proved to be challenging.  Travel has dominated much of my professional journey, but I’ve also been paid …

What motivates people, how they find their passion, cultivate creativity and persevere is fascinating. Some individuals seem to magically have it all figured out. Those in the public eye can particularly appear to practice their passions effortlessly. But more often than not, the reality is they encounter the same struggles and roadblocks as everyone else. They have to put in the hard work to remain productive, prolific and happy. Stoking creativity and passion requires constant maintenance, deliberate and sustained effort. To learn more, I chatted with Canadian singer-songwriter WiL, a name he’s gone by professionally for 30-years. He’s earned a …

Passion: pas·sion / paSHən  (n): a strong and barely controllable emotion There’s one item in life we all have the same access to and no ability to acquire or create more of: time. Our clocks are all counting down at the same pace to that fateful day when the lights fade and our ride will be complete. Ensuring we work towards architecting as many fulfilling days as possible should be paramount during this relatively short journey. Discovering, cultivating and living our passion is central to a complete life experience. But where does one’s passion come from and how do we …

– I’m an extremely fortunate person, having been born in Canada, bestowed with loving parents, opportunities, an extremely supportive wife with a solid job, sans children and a great deal of freedom. My path has been much smoother than most.  – There are now three time periods: Pre-COVID Era (PE); COVID Era (CE); Post-COVID Era (PC) Bang January 26, 2020. I boarded a flight in Singapore after celebrating Chinese New Year with my wife’s family and my parents who were visiting from Canada. What a time to get everyone together. But there was a new flu or virus revealing itself. …

While preparing for a COVID-induced career shift, I reflected on my professional journey to date, the interesting turns it’s taken, and where I hope the road is heading next. My career has been mostly spent in various areas of tourism, some time leading a multinational business association, and a stint in executive education. But how, where, and when did I acquire the skills to successfully take on these roles? After all, I studied Radio Broadcasting, traveled the world for a year, then completed a Communications degree with a major in Journalism (TV), and attended an Executive Leadership program at the …

As part of my 2020 personal upskilling and reskilling plan, I embarked upon training to become a certified coach. Over the years, colleagues and friends often approached for advice or an interested ear, and I thought learning formal coaching skills would help up my overall people development game. But making the decision to learn was the easy part. It turned out finding a suitable trainer was a challenge. A recommendation from a valued friend led me to discover Dr. Chérie Carter-Scott, her husband Michael Pomije, and their MMS Institute team. I joined a 17-week online program composed mostly of professionals …

A downturn like the COVID-indused one businesses are grappling with presents not only a survival challenge, but also provides an opportunity to rethink traditional people systems. Businesses that are serious about long-term success should take this opportunity to implement and augment their People tools and processes to ensure rebound is as effective and speedy as possible.  There’s rarely an ideal time to invest in the People Department, short of having an excess of funds to reinvest. And when sales decline, People is one of the earliest and heaviest hit areas. You can seemingly divest in your People systems for a …