I believe in personal growth and in optimism as a working approach rather than a personality trait. Not the naive kind. The kind that assumes thoughtful effort and creativity can usually make a situation better, and then goes and tests that assumption.
Joe Hudson
Joe's work with founders and executives is about becoming a better person as the route to becoming a better leader, rather than treating those as two separate projects. He is direct about how much of leadership is emotional skill, and how badly most workplaces handle that. If you only look at one person on this page, make it this one.
Alan Watts
Watts is the person most responsible for bringing Zen Buddhist ideas to a Western audience in the 1950s. The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are landed on me hard and has not really left.
Brené Brown
A researcher and an unusually good speaker on vulnerability and courage, particularly in how people communicate at work. Her TED talk is the usual entry point and it holds up.
John Wineland
John's work is about relationships and about the habits we fall into when we communicate with the people closest to us. Useful, specific, and occasionally uncomfortable in the way that useful things are.
Why this page is on a personal website
I have put real work into my own mental wellbeing over the years, with help, and I am not especially private about it. Most of the clearest thinking I have done came after somebody handed me a better way to look at something. This page is me passing that along.