Mindful Agility

Learning from failure ought to be easy. Good experiments should fail, about half the time, especially if they aren't costly. And agile experiments are designed to be low cost. But failure, it turns out, freaks us out, especially when we are new to a field. That might explain why agile transformations fail at a very high rate, even though the benefits of agile are well studied. Folks in an agile transformation are new to agile, and little failures at the beginning can lead them to run away.In this episode, Dan Dickson and Dan Greening talk about a recently published paper, "You Think Failure is Hard? So is Learning from It." We discuss the insights in the paper, and how those insights translate into agile practice.Here's the problemPeople avoid bad newsPeople are ashamed of failurePeople don't share what they learned from failure (so others have to repeat their experiments)And so, not only do we not learn from our own failures, our friends don't discuss their failures with us. So we don't learn from our own failures or our friends' failures. Bummer.We talk about the implications for agile: it's a problem we have to address head on. We provide some ways to make learning from failure much easier. ReferencesDan Greening, Root Cause Mapping Party [on “Five Whys”], 2015, https://senexrex.com/cause-mapping/Mindful Agility team, Business on Fire Part I: Steve Jobs protege Ron Johnson burns JC Penney cash fast as CEO, 1:11 (2022), https://sr.link/ma1-1Eskreis-Winkler, L., & Fishbach, A. (2022). You Think Failure Is Hard? So Is Learning From It. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17(6), 1511–1524. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211059817CreditsThanks to Dan Dickson, our guest and collaboratorImage of athlete tripping on a dog, by DALL-EStinger sound Swing beat 120 xylophone side-chained by Casonika licensed under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) to Mindful Agility.Staff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

Our clumsiness in life creates most of our suffering. We haven't practiced the skills we need to be happy. We don’t see what’s going on around us. We don’t see the causes early enough to prevent a train-wreck in work or life. And when we don’t know how to distinguish truth from delusion, well that leads to a world of hurt. But if we don't have a purpose, should we or anyone else care that we mess up?Mindfulness skills help us reduce the dumb stuff we do to ourselves. When we get more comfortable and skillful just living in our existing situation, then we can contemplate why we are here and how to actively live. Knowing where we're going, means agile skills can get us there, finding creative solutions to the tough stuff.So, here's one way to think of our journey to higher purpose and fulfillment:Mindfulness skillsPurposeAgile skillsA couple of months ago, Dan Greening was interviewed for another podcast, called 10,000 Heroes, by his pal Ankur Shah Delight. If you’ve wondered what the hell those Mindful Agility people were trying to do, Ankur asked the right questions. Here’s that 10,000 Heroes episode, in its entirety. If you like the idea of exploring purpose, 10,000 Heroes is a nice thing to check out. CreditsAnkur Shah Delight was our guest host for this episode. He is host of the 10,000 Heroes podcast. The original of this episode is #00039 The curious offspring of Agile and Mindfulness with Dan Greening. If you're curious, check out the follow up episode Nate signs up for Yet Another Challenge – this time applying Dan Greening’s Mindful Agility to his professional life.Tom Looy, Ron Lussier, Amelia Hambrecht, Divya Maez were our beta reviewers, for whom we are super grateful. Early beta review is an agile staple: we make changes to our episode based on feedback. If you ever want to give it a try, reach out to us. If you are reading this, you are in our target audience. Stinger sound Swing beat 120 xylophone side-chained by Casonika licensed under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) to Mindful AgilityImage of anime bear with a purpose list by DALL-EStaff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

The faster and better we take action against impediments, the more successful we'll be, according to renowned military strategist John Boyd, developer of the OODA Loop.The OODA loop is observe, orient, decide and act. It’s how we take action in new situations and succeed. In this episode of the Mindful Agility podcast, Tom Looy explores how John Boyd used the OODA Loop to help fighter jet pilots, and ultimately whole military campaigns, succeed against enemies. You can use it in your own life, even to overcome your own “opponents,” the dysfunctions that hold you back.The most important things in the OODA loop are first to observe what you can and reorient your mental model to fit the data that you have. Sometimes that means you have to destroy your old mental model of how the world works, because it's not working anymore, and substitute something new that does work.There's feedback involved in this loop. When we observe something anomalous, we might need more information to understand what is happening. So that's feedback that brings us right back to the beginning of the ooda loop.Then when we stick data into our model, we may discover that the model generates something weird or it doesn't match what we expect. So we need to get more data. We need to adjust things in our model. We may go right back again to observe more stuff before we can even make a decision. So that's why there's feedback directly from observing back to the beginning of the OODA loop or from orienting back to the beginning of the OODA loop.What John Boyd discovered was that the faster we can operate through this loop, the more success we'll have in many areas, not just in military combat.Faster looping wins because if we're looping faster than our opponent, our opponent doesn't have time to reorient their own mental models. And so we just confuse them. And win.ReferencesFor a book on John Boyd and the OODA Loop, seeOsinga, F. P. B. (2006). Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd (1st edition). Routledge.For an article examines the implications of the OODA loop on the Ukraine-Russia war, seeFlaherty, C. (2022, March 23). The OODA Loop, Information Warfare, the Ukrainian Defense and the Collapse of the Russian Army. OODA Loop. https://www.oodaloop.com/archive/2022/03/23/the-ooda-loop-information-warfare-the-ukrainian-defense-and-the-collapse-of-the-russian-army/For an article showing how leading indicators are essential for all agile methodologies, including OODA, seehttps://senexrex.com/pattern-measure-progress/Staff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

When we fail, we can easily fall into anxiety, guilt, or depression. But failure can lead us toward success. A simple Google search reveals many famous people discuss their failures and subsequent successes. We can succeed through failure, too!In this episode of the Mindful Agility podcast, Mirela Petalli, Matthew Zimmerman, Dan Dickson and Dan Greening discuss an episode of Matt's life. He moved to Ireland, thinking it would solve all his problems, and discovered: Nope. But through that humiliating experience, Matt unexpectedly discovered folks he could count on, and years later, he realized his experiment gave him new powers.ReferencesEskreis-Winkler, L., & Fishbach, A. (2022). You Think Failure Is Hard? So Is Learning From It. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17(6), 1511–1524. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211059817CreditsImage of humiliated traveler by DALL-E.Stinger sound Swing beat 120 xylophone side-chained by Casonika licensed under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) to Mindful Agility.Staff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

People around us need help. Our inclination is to rush in, fix the problem, and rush out. After all we have stuff we need to do, ourselves. But we can get stuck. And stay stuck. For months.Dan Dickson wanted his friend’s pet project, a wine store in Manhattan, to succeed. Dan had the skills to add online transactions to their web site. But, he didn’t want to get stuck doing all the work forever.Dan Dickson built the new site, and created the wine database structure. Because he didn’t want to create a dependency, he left the work to the store staff. They added a few new entries were made to the database, but they were incorrect.Through a couple of tries, and many months, it never went live.He set everything up not to get stuck. And there he was: stuck.He commiserated with Mirela Petalli MSN-ed RN, Dan R Greening, and Matt Zimmerman on the Mindful Agility team.Hidden challenges were the problem. Dan Dickson couldn't find a path forward, until he looked at the bigger picture from a mindful, agile lens. And then, things started improving.Call to ActionThe CAVU company sponsored Scrum training for Mirela Petalli and Dan Dickson a couple of months ago. CAVU is a benefit company that teaches Scrum to both commercial and underrepresented communities. Christopher Sims and Dan Greening were co-trainers. Mirela and Dan Dickson are now Registered Scrum Masters and Registered Product Owners.We have recently held live online meditations and classes. If you’d like to get notified about those, do one of three things: join the Facebook group called “Mindful Agility Community,” or like the LinkedIn showcase called “Mindful Agility.” We have an email list at mindfulagility.com, as well.You can help us out by giving us a written review on Apple Podcasts, or by sharing our episodes with friends.CreditsMany thanks to Dan Dickson for joining us in this episode.Cover photo by DepositPhotosStaff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

In this episode Christina Smith, a certified scrum master, shares how she started using scrum and mindfulness not only in her work, but also her parenting.Like most parents, Christina wants her children to lead happy and fulfilling lives, both now and when they are adults. She also needs them to take out the trash now and then too. Stressed with trying to be a perfect parent, Christina decided to experiment and apply the same techniques she uses as an agile scrum master at work to her parenting, and the results were surprising.LinksKanban for Home: An easy way to start using Kanban at home by Parent LightlyWhat is Scrum? The Scrum Alliance Quick Guide to ScrumContact Christina Smith via LinkedInCavu: Professional Scrum TrainingTrello.com: A popular and free online Kanban toolRaising Your Spirited Child: The book mentioned by ChristinaCreditsStinger sound Swing beat 120 xylophone side-chained by Casonika licensed under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0.Staff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

In this third and final episode on fabled merchandiser, Ron Johnson, we discuss the startup Enjoy.com, which turned $500M of invested capital and goodwill into nothing. This was Johnson's second attempt as a CEO. What did he learn from that failure? How did it shape his new company? Your co-hosts, Dan Dickson and Dan Greening, bring perspectives of traditional and agile management, finance and technology, retail and service. We think our analysis demonstrates how you can make better choices in your own projects, big and small, for much greater levels of success.We examine this company from the lens of Mindful Agility:How well did Enjoy understand its ecosystem, did it examine conditions without bias?As Enjoy matured, did it lean into potential risks, to explore and learn more?Did Enjoy mitigate risk and preserve options?Did Enjoy direct its evolution with low-cost, high-return experiments?And finally, we armchair quarterback what we might have done as execs at Enjoy.com. References(Nakrosis 2022) Stephen Nakrosis, Enjoy Technology to be delisted from Nasdaq, shares tumble, Market Watch, July 7, 2022, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/enjoy-technology-to-be-delisted-from-nasdaq-shares-fall-15-271657234123(Huddleston 2015) Tom Huddleston Jr., Two years later, ex-J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson resurfaces with e-commerce website Enjoy, Fortune, May 6, 2015, https://fortune.com/2015/05/06/ron-johnson-enjoy-jcpenny/(Stegeman 2022) Levi Stegeman**,** “this company is horrible my phone was…,” Trustpilot reviews, Enjoy.com, https://www.trustpilot.com/review/enjoy.com?page=2, Jun 17, 2022(seeabove 2021) seeabove, Enjoy Delivery Service is a SCAM, ATT Community Forums, Aug 12, 2021, https://forums.att.com/conversations/wireless-account/enjoy-delivery-service-is-a-scam/6115bcdbebe45663333f880e(Unglesbee 2022) Ben Unglesbee, Ron Johnson’s Enjoy Technology wants to create a new form of retail. But first it must survive, Retail Dive, June 17, 2022, https://www.retaildive.com/news/ron-johnsons-enjoy-technology-potential-bankruptcy/625705/(Chafkin 2015) Max Chafkin, How Failed JC Penney CEO Ron Johnson Is Redeeming Himself With Enjoy, Fast Company, Oct 26, 2015, https://www.fastcompany.com/3051611/he-made-target-and-apple-stores-cool-after-his-jcp-flop-the-redemption-of-r(Hill 2022) Jeremy Hill and Bailey Lipschultz, SPAC Led by Former Apple Executive Goes Bankrupt Less Than a Year After Going Public, BStaff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

This is the second episode of a three-part series on fabled merchandiser, Ron Johnson, and how he failed to restore JC Penney to its former leadership in retailing. In this episode we're going to be talking very explicitly about business mindfulness and how it applies.If you want to understand "business mindfulness," this is the episode for you. If you'd like some background on scaling mindfulness, you'll like Episode 2 on self-similarity (our first full episode). If you'd like to hear our detailed failure analysis of Ron Johnson and JCPenney, that's in Episode 11, the one just before this.Mindful businesses share a set of six characteristics, which we introduce at the beginning. Then we talk about different examples of each characteristic, from some mindful businesses we know about, such as Toyota and Trader Joe's, and with counterexamples from JCPenney.ReferencesSutcliffe, K. M., & Vogus, T. (2014). Organizing for Mindfulness. The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Mindfulness, I, 407–423. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118294895Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfled, D. (1999). Organizing for high reliability: Processes of collective mindfulness. Research in Organizational Behaviour, 21, 81–123.Greening, D.R., Mindful Business characteristics, twitter thread, https://twitter.com/greening/status/1554164846022823936Langfitt, F. (Director). (2010, March 26). 403: NUMMI (No. 403). In This American Life. National Public Radio. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/403/nummi-2010Credits"DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 23JAN13 - Janice Marturano, Founder and Executive Director, Institute for Mindful Leadership, USA, speaks during the WorkStudio 'Experiencing Mindful Leadership' at the Annual Meeting 2013 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 23, 2013," Photo by World Economic Forum, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0), https://www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum/8408308078Women watching sticky notes, image source Copyright-Only Dedication (based on United States law)or Public Domain Certification, https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1431647Staff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

As an executive working for other CEOs, Ron Johnson succeeded wildly in redesigning Target stores and building Apple Stores from scratch. But then, as a CEO, Ron Johnson crashed and burned two later companies.Join Dan Dickson, a seasoned retail executive and Harvard Business School grad, and Dan Greening, co-host of Mindful Agility, as we talk about Ron Johnson's first failure, JC Penney.Major shifts in management practice arise in response to crises. Lean Manufacturing helped Toyota and Japan survive, after the Japanese industrial base had been destroyed in World War II. Lean Manufacturing now dominates the auto industry, and failure to adopt its principles bankrupted General Motors and others.Agile management practices arose in response to growingly spectacular software project failures. It is now dominates software teams and is expanding to other creative teams and whole businesses. "Business agility" is emerging as a trend in business management.This is the first of three episodes where we analyze business failures to discover whether agile and mindfulness philosophies could have averted disaster.Three take awaysFailure analysis helps us succeed, sometimes beyond competitorsBusiness success is correlated to business agility and mindfulnessRon Johnson's failures at JC Penney could have been anticipatedReferencesMax Chafkin, "How Failed JC Penney CEO Ron Johnson Is Redeeming Himself With Enjoy," Fast Company (October 26, 2015).Noel Tichy, "J.C. Penney and the terrible costs of hiring an outsider CEO," Fortune (November 13, 2014).Phil Wahba, "Ron Johnson says J.C. Penney should have stuck to his plan ," Fortune (May 16, 2016).Jennifer Reingold, "How to Fail in Business While Really, Really Trying," Fortune (March 20, 2014).Taiichi Ohno, Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production, 1988.CreditsStinger sound Swing beat 120 xylophone side-chained by Casonika licensed under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).Photo of Ron Johnson by Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch, licensed under Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)Staff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

If we want lasting change, emotions may be our strongest opponent. When forced to change, people feel fear, rage, anxiety, and other emotions.Emotions are designed to satisfy basic needs: defend, fight, flight, reproduce. But when they overwhelm us, they shut down logic. They’re great when we’re suddenly confronted by a lion in the African savanna, we don’t have to take time to think. We just feel fear and run. But when building a strong family, or tackling some other tough, long-term challenge, emotions can confuse and distract us. We often don’t even notice that we’re feeling fear, rage, lust, or love… we just feel and act, no thinking required.By training ourselves to notice and label emotions, we allow them to continue to exist. But can put them on the same playing field as other factors relevant to our goals.We have to start with ourselves. If we label the emotions of family members or teammates, we rob them of agency. But if we label our own emotions, we signal psychological safety, inviting others to do the same.GuestsEric Gibson, Principal Coach for Agile Valley. a business consulting firm in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Jay Beale is CEO of InGuardians, Inc. a computer security services company in Seattle. Matt Zimmerman is Director of Online Products for Springer Publishing in New York.  LinksMindful Agility Community (Facebook group)Mindful Agility web siteCreditsEpisode image by Nenad Stojkovic, licensed under Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0).Stinger sound Swing beat 120 xylophone side-chained by Casonika licensed under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0.Staff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

Nurse Heather's four year old son, Jack, likes to put his fingers in his mouth. But this can lead to dental problems in the future. She heard the episode about Matt learning to keep track of his keys, by noticing that he was setting them down and saying "I'm putting my keys on the counter." Heather wondered whether it could help her son.We also discover that Heather has bigger plans, involving her husband, and this was just a practice run.These last two episodes explore "noticing and labeling." There's been a lot of recent psychological research on these techniques.LinksSubscribe to newsletter at https://mindfulagility.comFollow our social media: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedInJoin our Facebook community: Mindful Agility CommunityCreditsThe sting separator sound used in this episode is a derivative of Swing beat 120 xylophone side-chained by Casonika used under license CC BY by Daniel Greening.Staff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

We all have hapless friends who would lose their head if it wasn't attached. Maybe we are that friend! Matt recently moved in with his girlfriend, Mirela Petalli (our co-host), and Matt realized losing his keys kept making them late. Can mindful agility help?Matt and Mirela worked together. Matt is familiar with Scrum, an agile technique; Mirela is familiar with mindfulness. Together they take us on an exploration of how mindfulness alone can help us get more done. When we bring in agile, we raise the bar further. Does mindful agility help Matt keep track of his keys?This is the first episode where we get more specific with agile—weekly sprints, measuring outcomes, retrospectives—all in the context of home life.Do these practices bring knock-on effects? Let's see what happens with Matt's long-stalled exercise ambitions.LinksSubscribe to newsletter at https://mindfulagility.comFollow our social media: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedInJoin our Facebook community: Mindful Agility CommunityCreditsThe sting separator sound used in this episode is a derivative of Swing beat 120 xylophone side-chained by Casonika used under license CC BY by Daniel Greening.Staff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

Our stories provide a shorthand self, which gives us focus while the stories make sense, but they put our happiness at risk. If we imagine them to be complete and permanent we are doomed to suffer. When we release our attachment to our stories, we create freedom. Only through our actions will we transform ourselves and our world. The stories are only decorative.We talk with Noah Rasheta about the stories around him, as he lives a life with fewer attachments. We find out how we can avoid those attachments by doing things, but not being things.Noah Rasheta is the host of the Secular Buddhism podcast and author of three books on Buddhism.LinksMindful Agility Web Site, for links to the Mindful Agility podcast, resources, and blogSecular Buddhism Web Site, for links to the Secular Buddhism podcast, books, and resourcesStephen Batchelor Web Site, for books and coursesRick Hansen, Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom, New Harbinger Publications, 2009.CreditsPhoto of PT Barnum and Tom Thumb, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, circa 1840.The sting separator sound used in this episode is a derivative of Swing beat 120 xylophone side-chained by Casonika used under license CC BY by Daniel Greening.Staff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

When we choose ambitious goals, we're going to create stories about them. But nothing lasts forever: our jobs, our achievements, our friends, our relationships... or our stories. If we attach our identities to ephemeral stories (and aren't all our stories ephemeral?), we will suffer.Noah Rasheta, the host of the Secular Buddhism podcast and author of three books on Buddhism, abandons the story he told himself and others, that he was a successful entrepreneur. He takes us on a journey of self-discovery, finding comfort with unknown challenges, changing stories, and new pivots that may be needed. From entrepreneur to school bus driver to ... well, you decide if he's an entrepreneur or just having fun.LinksMindful Agility Web Site, for links to the Mindful Agility podcast, resources, and blogSecular Buddhism Web Site, for links to the Secular Buddhism podcast and resourcesSteve Blank, "Why the Lean Startup Changes Everything," Harvard Business Review (May 2013).Eric Ries, The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, Currency (2011).Staff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

The Russian war on Ukraine is in full force. The Mindful Agility co-hosts have ties to Eastern Europe. We are contending with our own reactivity, as we interact with others less familiar with the region.Our friend, Rob Coles, discusses how he employed an agile strategy to direct funds to individuals on the ground in Ukraine. He ran several iterations, adapting with each new discovery to send money more effectively. To understand the challenges ahead, we can employ compassion. There are combatants, refugees, residents of war zones, anxious news consumers, and people dealing with economic upheaval. There will be more suffering coming, with refugee resettlement, people with PTSD, social and economic instability. No matter who wins, if we can even name a winner, there will be many broken pieces that will take years or generations to repair.We can use tough challenges, like war, to explore mindfulness and agile. Mindfulness helps us discover truths hidden in plain sight. Agile helps us discover truths hidden under rocks. And through iteration, we can produce better results, through these tough times.We end our episode with a loving-kindness meditation, for all beings affected by this war.ReferencesCharity Navigator is a site that vets charities, and provides guidance for donating to Ukraine.Airbnb has its own Ukraine donation program, where you can provide housing for fleeing Ukrainians and others. Airbnb does not make any income from this program, providing all funds directly to home owners. Rob Coles did not use this program, but did take advantage of Airbnb's policy not to apply fees to reservations in Ukraine.Staff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

Today we're discussing goals, interdependence and compassion.  Nurse Heather faced a challenge that the rest of us encounter. She had a goal that seemed incompatible with her family and environment.  Our goals and our social environment often conflict. In our personal lives, if we want to stop smoking, focus more on studying, or lose weight, our family and friends can present big challenges. In our work lives, too, if we want to meet with teammates daily, get feedback weekly, or honestly experiment- i.e., when failure is possible- our colleagues, customers and bosses can present big challenges. Compassion, the ability to adopt the perspective of others, is an important mindfulness skill. Highly compassionate people are often great negotiators and compassion can help us persist through many challenges. As you listen to Nurse Heather tell her story, try to think from a compassion perspective. How is Nurse Heather feeling? What about her friend, her husband, her children? Staff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

Improvement is hard enough, whether we're trying to fix a Fortune 100 company or quit smoking. Our reactivity can create unrealistic expectations and then encourage others to dictate our futures. Reactivity tells us to give up when our first attempts fall short. It tells us to feel guilty, which can sideline us further. Mindfulness meditation teaches us to harness those few seconds between our emotions and actions. It can push the pause button on our amygdalas and increase our likelihood of success, in everything we do. Join us as we explore the intersection of mindfulness and agility in overcoming challenges and achieving our goals.ReferencesGreening, DR, Align to a Driving Purpose, https://senexrex.com/driving-purpose/Tang YY, Posner MI, Rothbart MK (2014) Meditation improves self-regulation over the life span: Meditation improves self-control over the life span. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1307(1):104–111.Valk SL,et al (2017) Structural plasticity of the social brain: Differential change after socio-affective and cognitive mental training. Science Advances. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1700489Support usLike, Share, Subscribe, Follow.  Email to pals, post to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. All these things help promote our mission, to help more people live fulfilled lives. When friends around you live more fulfilled lives, it makes your life better, too!Like our Facebook page, "Mindful Agility podcast," to see notifications of new episodes.Join our private Facebook group, "Mindful Agility Community," to discuss the topics of mindfulness and/or agility. In the short term, we're hosting free weekly Zoom get togethers with members.Donate to the cause (and get some cool benefits): https://patreon.com/mindfulagilityCreditsThe sting separator sound used in this episode is a derivative of Swing beat 120 xylophone side-chained by Casonika, used under license CC BY.Staff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

Many systems exhibit self-similarity. If you zoom in or out, you keep seeing similar patterns. Recognizing self-similarity can help us become more agile at different scales of our lives and work. We can discover new insights, even when our limited language and perspective gets in the way.Meditation is a big part of mindfulness. This episode experiment includes a guided meditation on the topic.CreditsThe sting separator sound used in this episode is a derivative of Swing beat 120 xylophone side-chained by Casonika used under license CC BY by Daniel Greening.Staff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel

Welcome to the Mindful Agility podcast. Mindfulness and agile can help you lead a more fulfilled life, at work and at home. Mindfulness practices help us gain insight and clarity, while agile practices help us forge new paths. We explore both. Support usRate the podcast and its episodes. Share the podcast with friends. Follow and comment in our Facebook page, "Mindful Agility podcast".HostsMirela Petalli is a trained mindfulness instructor and a neuro critical care nursing instructor. Mirela and Dan have studied mindfulness together for a few years. Dan Greening is an enterprise agile coach. He led the agile coaching teams at Skype and Citrix to help improve their ability to innovate. He’s started a few companies. Between startup 1 and 2, he miraculously finished a long-postponed computer science PhD. And after startup 3, he cleaned the garage, another miracle.Human ReferencesMindful Staff (2020) The Science of Mindfulness. Mindful. https://www.mindful.org/the-science-of-mindfulness/Academic ReferencesBaas M, Nevicka B, Ten Velden FS (2014) Specific Mindfulness Skills Differentially Predict Creative Performance. Pers Soc Psychol Bull 40(9):1092–1106.Crane C, Winder R, Hargus E, Amarasinghe M, Barnhofer T (2012) Effects of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy on Specificity of Life Goals. Cogn Ther Res 36(3):182–189.Rosenstreich E, Levi U (2019) Mindfulness and Memory: a Review of Findings and a Potential Model. Journal of Cognitive Enhancement 3.Staff Daniel Greening, host, agile coach, and computer scientist Mirela Petalli, co-host, meditation guide, and neurocritical nursing instructor Dan Dickson, business coach, executive and management consultant Links Mindful Agility web site Mindful Agility Community Facebook group Mindful Agility Youtube channel