A Smiling World

Tina Turner to the rescue: getting old in a challenging class My colleague and I can’t do our work without having a laugh on a very regular basis. Sometimes I’m afraid of having it too regular (or too loud, haha). But, we need it. With our pilot class filled with…

You might learn more than you bargained for when you pick up an instrument. — Can you play the violin? If so, you’ll appreciate these lessons. Even if you don’t, I hope you’ll be curious enough to keep reading. The truth is, we can learn life lessons from many things and apply what we learn to other areas of life. …

Nurturing Empathy for Stronger Remote Teams. — In my 25 years in various leadership positions, I observed that most leaders are skilled in their domain and lack empathy. There is a need for empathetic leadership in today’s remote work environment. In fact, it is more challenging and crucial than before. I will dive into the importance of…

Tips to help you live a less-stressed life. — Do you sometimes need motivation and inspiration? We all do from time to time. Occasionally, simple sayings and lessons learned may be all we need to get that spring back in our step. Difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations. This reminds me of the saying “When one door closes, another…

My wild fantasy. — Talking about Everest is fun for me, and thinking of it gives me pleasure. It intrigues me, and for that reason, I have watched documentaries and movies about it. I would really like to summit Everest. I think everyone deserves to live that hell of a blissful scene — the…

Peeling back the layers of the ego. — I’ll never forget this one time when my daughter was around three years old. It was soon after a family birthday party which meant we had been eating leftover cake for days. She had just recently perfected the art of using the toilet on her own but was still a…

Strategies for Delivering Effective and Empowering Criticism — Giving negative feedback is always tricky and can be awkward. The hardest part of it is dealing with someone’s ego. You want to provide constructive criticism without hurting their feelings. …

My mind gives me surprises — I was getting bored laying on a couch, stressing about doing nothing productive and about all the piled-up academic work I have to finish. An idea like a flash hit me — you guessed it right. “Boredom makes you creative”. It’s more like a question than a statement. …

A story about otherness I’ll try to explore my view of the concept of otherness by answering Subhi Najar’s four (intriguingly) philosophical questions. 1. What does happiness mean to you? Please define it in a word, line, picture, or story. Happiness is being the other. A word, a touch, a…