Joy Phenix's Blog

“The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.” – Annie Dillard For nine months, roughly corresponding to the school year, I mentor a group a women who [...]

I recently had lunch with a former colleague who is getting beat up at work. Through a series of twists and turns, she has ended up reporting to someone who fits the “Micro-manager” definition to a tee.  You know those types of people, right?  Perhaps they pride themselves on their perfectionism or on making OTHERS [...]

Have you ever heard this saying? “A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.” This ancient Proverb is one that I find more than a little challenging. I don’t know about you, but I’m not good at overlooking offenses.  I’ve never been a terribly patient person, and I [...]

It seems like my husband is always buying umbrellas. On the surface, the habit feels random. Recently we were buying weekly groceries and he walked up to the checkout, plopped two golf umbrellas down on the belt, and said, “add these,” just like it was a gallon of milk. Umbrellas. Still, I know my husband [...]

What are you really good at?  Or, more precisely, what is that “sweet spot” where you find energy and thrive?  When you are working in your strength, it feels like you’re King of the Hill.  When does that happen consistently for you? Do you know? A number of years ago I lived through a reorganization [...]

You don’t have to know much about soccer to enjoy attending a kid’s game.  Saturday mornings in the fall seems to bring out the best in us all, with groups of kids chasing around a black and white ball with reckless abandon.  The younger they are, the greater the entertainment in the soccer pack. I [...]

One of my all-time favorite poems was written by a nun.  Kind of.  OK.  She’s not really a nun. However, since I was a kid watching The Sound of Music every Thanksgiving, I can’t help but think about the actress who plays the particularly stern nun from the film.  Her name is Portia Nelson (on [...]

During a recent trip, I was looking for a restaurant near my hotel.  I logged onto Google Maps and plugged in my address to find a place nearby.  There was a big mall around the corner and so there were a ton of those little red markers indicating restaurants nearby.  As I scrolled past one [...]

“In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.”   – John Ruskin Early in my career I had a boss who pulled me aside after a convention to tell me that a particular dress that I had worn during the convention was a little “too short” and had generated comments from other women [...]

What routine part of life do I dread more than a colonoscopy?  The annual performance review. The clearest way I’ve found to simplify the process and give someone constructive feedback is to look at reviews through the lens of a pie chart.  Every action that falls outside of the performance expectation falls somewhere on this [...]