Lady Gaga eats breakfast and has “mindful thoughts.” Jane Austen woke up and played the piano. Beyonce prays. Me? I walk to Starbucks for my grande, extra-hot soy latte. I travel so much these days giving talks and doing research for my next book on rituals at work that I don’t always…

Ok, so the jury’s still out on the open office. And our tech definitely makes it hard to have time off, but the 2010s have utterly shifted the look, feel and mission of corporate life—for the better! I’d go so far as to call 2010s the #humandecade!…

I know Thanksgiving is a couple days away, so you’re probably already obsessing about your menu, your travel plans, your hostess gifts or your nap. Or maybe you’re worrying about everyone getting along. As if political divisions aren’t enough, there’s this old-as-the-hills generational divide that’s taking on new life lately….

On a Sunday afternoon in September, 18 women and one man—mostly strangers—gathered in California to do something pretty crazy. We were technically on a “retreat,” but not the R & R/mani-pedi/soft-music-and-thick-towels type of retreat you might imagine. In fact, quite the opposite….

Monday, August 26th.  Thursday, September 5th. Maybe these dates don’t mean much to you. But to our family they signal some of our favorite things—this year the US Open started on August 26th, and September 5th was the kickoff of football season. We’re big fans of rituals of every stripe, but sports rituals have a special place in our hearts….

I remember getting ready for the first day of school like it was yesterday: Going shopping for my first pair of Jordache jeans. I thought long and hard about what I was going to wear on that first day, then I laid it out on my bed the night before while I packed my pencil case and lunch box….

How can your workplace be more human? Author Erica Keswin dropped by LIFT Labs PHL to offer some answers. She’s the author of Wall Street Journal best-seller Bring Your Human to Work, and frequently consults with organizations and individuals to help them improve performance through relationship building.

Erica Keswin’s “Aha!” moment happened a decade ago on a Bermuda beach. She signed into work with her Blackberry, in a lounge chair and said out loud “This is the life!”. The ability to leverage technology – and in some cases leave it behind- in order to bring more personal meaning and human purpose to work is essential.

Do you ever wonder how to create a human workplace in an increasingly freelance, remote, contingent, and gigged-out world? You’re not the only one. And no, “human workplace” isn’t an oxymoron.

When most managers think of professional learning and development, they think of opportunities for their direct reports to improve skills that will help them in their current jobs. After all, the company’s paying the bills, so it makes sense that managers will want to see results when the class is over or the conference attendee returns to his or her desk.

During a keynote at a recent conference, I asked the audience to raise their hands if they worked for a company that has a mission and set of values. All of the hands went up. Then I asked them to keep their hands raised if those values actually meant something. Only about a third of the hands stayed up.

Ever gotten a Slack message from someone sitting 10 feet away and wondered why he couldn’t have just walked over? Or been in a meeting and caught colleagues surreptitiously tapping away at their phones under the table? Or, worse, found yourself getting distracted when your phone buzzes during a meeting, then being completely unprepared when your boss asks you a question?

Let’s face it. Left to our own devices (excuse the pun) we’re not connecting — especially at work. The key to finding happiness at work is to honor relationships — with our colleagues, our customers, ourselves and the world.

Big business drives so much more than our economy: it shapes our culture and society. And more and more CEOs are acting like the important thought leaders they should be, taking responsibility above and beyond pleasing their investors and boards.

A millennial, a GenXer, and a baby boomer all walked into a bar. The millennial was talking about how he wanted to find a job where he could have “real impact.” The Boomer rolled his eyes, and actually said, “I hate managing millennials.”