Courage to Rock the Boat

Courage to Rock the Boat Changing the world requires doing inconvenient, sometimes downright terrifying things — speaking up when it’s wildly uncomfortable, taking on projects you never went to school for, exposing yourself to distressing situations and overwhelming odds, and being willing to be seen (and sometimes hated) to inspire others. This workshop will show […]

When The World Is Literally On Fire

A small practice for meeting heartbreak without drowning in it This week in Toronto (and many other places in Canada and the U.S.), the heatwave and blocked-out sun have created a deeply eerie end-of-days vibe. Right now, 850 wildfires are burning across Canada, with many of them raging in Northwestern Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. More […]

Lost your spark under a pile of exhaustion & existential dread?

I’ve been noticing over the last couple of months that a lot of changemakers are hitting a wall. They’re working on the causes or projects that are so important to them, but the momentum? It’s like their get-up-and-go got up, went, and left a Dear John note. Meanwhile, the spark they once had is sputtering […]

Black-and-White Thinking is Breaking the World

My stomach had been sinking watching social media once again morph into a digital Thunderdome these past few weeks.​But then I started to notice something kind of heartening…​​The odd brave soul showing up to the discussion actually wanting to discuss.​Someone who clearly knew their stuff posting:​“This is what I think, but if there’s something I’m […]

What to Do with the Anger?

Anger is a natural and understandable emotion to have when you’re a changemaker… You’re constantly going up against the Goliaths of the world, facing apathy from the masses, and navigating a news cycle so bonkers it’s enough to have you yelling out the window, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this […]

A Daily Routine to Empower Changemakers

We’re most effective in our mission and in our lives when we’re grounded, nurtured, and inspired. The problem is that our work trying to change the world can often leave us feeling scattered, drained, and hopeless. That’s why it’s so vital for changemakers to have a daily self-support routine to replenish and light us up. […]

Refuge in Challenging Times: The 3 Levels of Trust

Being an effective and enduring changemaker in this world requires regularly taking risks for what you believe in, while often having to surrender around the outcomes. It’s hard to take these leaps of faith, though, if you don’t trust there’s anything to catch you. In this workshop, I take you through what I call the “3 levels […]

Making What Nourishes You a Habit

A lesson in patience and presence… I was on a run the other day when I saw a little 4 year-old girl walking down the sidewalk glacially slow as she sniffed every spring flower in every yard on her path. Her mom and bigger sister were quite a bit further ahead on the sidewalk waiting […]

Healing Compassion Fatigue

It’s the Catch-22 for changemakers… You get involved in your cause because you have such a caring heart, and then that heart gets PUMMELLED by all the things you see and experience by getting involved. Compassion fatigue is the depletion of empathy and caring capacity due to unrelenting exposure to and engagement in the suffering […]

Healthy and Effective Social Media Habits

Changemakers have a love/hate relationship with social media… It can be frustrating, demoralizing, and a huge time suck, YET it can be a very powerful tool in collaborating with and influencing others in your mission. In this installment of The Changemaker Sessions, we put habits in place to prevent getting hijacked by social media and, […]

And You Thought It Was Just About Time Management

As a changemaker, we need to be regularly exploring, reconfirming, and weaving our true priorities into our daily schedules… I was listening to high-performance expert Brendon Burchard the other day talking about time management. This is a topic I’ve immersed myself in for the last few years and really nerd-out on, so there isn’t much […]

Tools for Anxiety

Changemakers are regularly tuning into the pain, injustices, and urgency of the state of the world, so it’s not surprising that anxiety is a common affliction for those trying to make a difference. Many folks don’t realize how damaging anxiety can be to them and their mission… It can gravely impair your level of awareness, […]

Focusing & Activating Your Year’s Goals

This year ahead desperately needs changemakers. So, in the year’s first installment of The Changemaker Sessions, we’re going to get you focused and activated! Feeling lost about where best to put your energies? Not sure what projects are right for you? Feeling overwhelmed by the need to get it all done? In this spirited and […]

Cultivating Appreciation to Stay Resilient

As changemakers, we’re regularly tuning into the problems, injustices, and pain of the world to try to counteract them. If we’re not careful, though, this tuning in can also leave us feeling angry, hopeless, and alienated… not exactly the state monumental change flows out of. That’s why the practice of appreciation is such a vital […]

Bridge-Building in Times of Conflict

We’re in a time when the temptation to pick a side and villainize the other runs high. As these dangerous levels of polarization, black-and-white thinking, and confirmation bias escalate, the possibility of a healthy society and planet grows dimmer. That’s why the world needs skilled bridge-builders more than ever. In this workshop, we explore how […]

Activating Your Unique Form of Power

It takes a lot of personal power to help change the world, and the flavour of that power will be very different for each changemaker at different points in their journey. In this workshop, we take a situation or area of your life or mission that you wish you could feel more empowered in and […]

Finding the Courage to Put Yourself Out There

You have important things you want to do in the world, and those may require you to do things like speaking up when it’s not comfortable, figuring out how to do things you’ve never done before, being willing to be seen and inspire others, and rocking the boat… sometimes loudly and very publicly. These are […]

Truth and Reconciliation with my Uber driver

“Can you imagine what it would have been like, when you were 5 years old, to be torn away from your parents and taken to a far-off place where they cut off all your hair, changed your name, forbid you to speak the only language you knew, and treated you like you were a ‘savage’?” […]

A Practice I Do Every Morning

The MIND DUMP as a daily practice clears space in the head & body and eases anxiety… I’ve talk a lot about how vital it is for my work as a coach and activist to start my day with practices that cultivate my awareness, loving-kindness, and power. The contents of my morning session have morphed […]

When Those Close to You Don’t “Get It”

As activists, leaders, and social entrepreneurs in social justice arenas, we’re often not understood by much of the world and have to deal with a lot of opposition from those in the status quo. That’s what makes it extra tough when those who are closest to us also don’t share our worldview, don’t support our work, or […]