I pulled a colorful leaf off of one my neighborhood trees and have it by my computer to remind me of the changing season. As if the fall colors aren’t enough, the early arriving school buses welcoming yawning students is a fail proof assurance that summer is over and we’re off to a new school year.

Like January 1, I like to use this back to school month to reflect on my accomplishments and consider what I want to push through to the end of the year. I’m working on a new book with my colleague Michael Couch on Leadership Development. I’m also preparing for several speeches and conferences where I’ll be talking on resilience and other topics.

Of course, I’m always on the lookout for fresh information and that will happen when I attend my fifth “Thought Leadership Conference” in Palm Beach where a small group of global consultants, along with my coach, Alan Weiss will meet with Dan Gilbert from Harvard who will be discussing his work on happiness while helping the rest of us consider how we can be stronger thought leaders.

At one of the previous conferences, the author Dan Pink shared with us how he puts post it notes up in his office when working on his next book. One day his daughter came up to his room while he was looking at his wall and asked “Daddy, what are you doing?” He told her he was working by thinking about how he could integrate all his information into a cogent understanding. His daughter stridently responded, “Working! You’re just sitting at your desk staring at the wall.” “Honey” he told her, “thinking is what my work is all about and if we all took more time to do it, we would actually get more done.”

Taking time for ourselves sometimes seems like a lost art in our hectic world. Give yourself that gift this week to slow down and consider how things are going and what you can do to make them amazing.

© Richard Citrin, All rights reserved, 2017

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