maripat | Varga & Associates

Lead from the middle in 2022 – Larry David’s comical, yet sage observation.

Dec 30, 2021 | Communication, Effective meetings, facilitation, Interpersonal Skills, Listening, Moderating a panel

Rewarding dinner table conversations have a lot in common with effective facilitation skills....

How to Focus: Lessons from a Banana Cream Pie Debacle

Nov 30, 2021 | Coaching, Communication, Focus, Listening

I must acknowledge immediately that I do not count cooking or baking as personal strengths or talents. As a result, when the holidays roll around, I get a tad nervous about what dish I will be asked to make for potluck gatherings. This year’s assignment was to make a banana cream pie. I jumped in excitedly, because I love banana cream pie, but missing some of the key recipe details turned the pie into a soupy mess. Here’s what I learned about how to stay focused and attentive to the details. Critical for pie -making and any other pursuit you may have…

Listening re-visited: The closer you are, the less you listen

Nov 15, 2021 | Communication, Interpersonal Skills, Listening

Recently my sister shared with me a stack of letters sealed in a plastic zip-locked bag she had found amongst my mom’s possessions. They were love letters from my father written around 1952 in the year before they were married. The letters reveal sides of my father I did not know. Kate Murphy’s new book, You’re not Listening: What you’re missing and why it matters illuminated how “closeness communication bias” may have prevented me from learning more about this side of my dad while he was still with us.