Vertical Development is Like Improving Our Eating Skills

Vertical development is about upgrading our internal operating system such that we elevate how we make meaning of our world in more cognitively and emotionally sophisticated ways.
Going From Mind 2.0 to Mind 3.0

Over the next several weeks, I want to share examples of people I have worked or interacted with that are at different stages of their personal vertical development journeys.
The purpose of doing this is to help you:
Better see what vertical development looks and feels like
See the value of focusing on your vertical development
Be inspired, as I have been, by the courage of others who are letting go of who they have been and embracing an elevated version of themselves
What Context Struggles to Create Space for Learning? The Workplace

I want to share with you an excerpt from Decoding Greatness by Ron Friedman that I found incredibly powerful. He writes: Growth requires strain. A moderate degree of difficulty is essential to both mental and physical development. Teachers know it. Bodybuilders know it. Athletes know it. Yet what’s the one place where stretching our limits […]
How to Enhance Our Psychological Flexibility

I have a six-year-old son who is in speech therapy. I listened in to one of his sessions this week, where he worked on his “th” sound. He tends to do an “s” sound when the “th” sound is needed. So, instead of “tooth,” often it comes out as “toose.” The whole point of speech […]
What Causes People to Possess Negative Mindsets?

Last week, I wrote an article about the neuroscience of mindsets, which suggested that our mindsets are long-range neural connections that serve as our brain’s circuit board, connecting our three primary brain regions: basal ganglia (reptilian brain), limbic system (mammalian brain), and neocortex (human brain). See the neon green lines. Ideal Situation In an ideal […]
From Book: Importance of an Open Mindset

My book launch is a week away (5/5). To highlight the launch, I want to share portion of my book related to the importance of having an open mindset by sharing a powerful example of closed-mindedness. From Chapter 10: In the 1840s, hospitals in Vienna faced a mysterious, terrifying epidemic of childbed (puerperal) fever, which […]
Research-Backed Benefits of Possessing an Open Mindset

If you feel like a mindset novice, before reading this article, you might find value in reading this article: What are Mindsets & Why are They Foundational to Our Success? It lays the groundwork for why I am focusing on and summarizing the benefits of an open mindset. Closed and Open Mindsets We possess an […]
The Key to More Psychological Safety

Leadership experts and practioners from Patrick Lincioni (author of The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business) to Ed Catmull (President of Pixar and Disney Animation, and author of Creativity, Inc.) all seem to agree: a signal of organizational health and necessary condition of team and organizational effectiveness is employees’ ability to speak […]
The Cognitive Science Behind Mindsets

What causes one person to see challenges as things to avoid, but another person to see those same challenges as opportunities to learn and grow? What causes one person to see others as objects, but another person to see those same people as people? Our mindsets! But why? To answer this question, we need to […]
Do You Think That Your Thinking is the Best Way to Think?

I am learning more and more that what is standing between where we are and the success we want to achieve is OURSELVES; and in particular, our thinking.