It’s International Women’s Day and it’s time to celebrate our achievements, our collaborations and potential. I am sharing a group of inspiring quotes* I discovered while researching this day. These women have shown us how to use our voice to inspire and lead others
This story describes a childhood experience about defining someone by their color.
In a heartwarming display of empathy, Elmo, the iconic red character from Sesame Street, recently took to social media to
Dr. Martin Luther King described the relationship between education and leadership when he was a student at Morehouse College.
As we gear up for the holidays, let’s pause and celebrate the real treasures in our lives—those heartwarming moments of
Simple visual prompts can help you better navigate your interactions with colleagues and family members this Holiday Season.
In this interview, Narativ Inc. founder Murray Nossel discusses legacy stories, the power of stories about failure, and how to relate to your listeners in such a way that they connect with you and your subject matter
A gold mine of knowledge and information to apply to your messages.
Here’s my question for the day – “What If We Rethink How We Experience Rejection?” I attended a writer’s conference
Do you often assume they won’t have the time for you? Are your assumptions getting in your way of developing
From DEI to prioritizing External HR, here are the 11 answers to the question, “What is the top trend for HR in 2023?”
A simple mug of Hot cocoa provided me with a lesson about the power of human connection. My husband and
What if we learned the art of #Quiet Listening? We think we know how to listen. But what we are
This month on our Storytalks by Narativ Podcast, we’re spotlighting Earl Breon, a former active duty United States Marine with over 25 years of experience in coaching and leadership development. He is the CEO and Founder of The Leadership Phalanx where he combines his civilian and military experiences with his love of history to bring his clients what he calls, “The 11 Shields of The Leadership Phalanx”.
This article outlines five simple and free steps we can take to improve our engagement at work.
The author shares a humorous tennis story and life lessons from her Queens, New York childhood.
I am a morning person and am unbearably happy when I get out of bed before the sun rises. I
When we start to get “verklempt” (very emotional in Queens dialect and Yiddish), my guidance to us is simple: engage in “The power of doing just one thing to reenergize and connect.” The exercise is as simple as it sounds: Pause, regroup, find a positive action, and reach out.
A four time Olympian models leadership and living with integrity
A lesson about showing up, being yourself and the joy of unplanned moments of connection with Golda Solomon and Christopher Dean Sullivan the bassist. So much learning it in rooms full of people who are raising their creative voices for the good of others.
My avatar taught me an important lesson. Sometimes we can’t control how we “show up” !
In a nutshell, Appreciative inquiry is the process of hearing and acknowledging another person and the facts and emotions they expressed. However theory is great but here’s a musical prompt to help us appreciate the this theory. Listen as The Louisville Leopard Percussionists model this practice into action as they play Jon Baptiste’s “I need You” at their recent concert.
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to get a fresh perspective. I know this far too well because I’m short. I’ve experienced a lifetime of shortness, and as a result, I’ve spent considerable amounts of time trying to see what others could view so easily. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy teaching the art of story sharing because it allows the participants to gain a fresh perspective about themselves and others.
Quarrelsome Lane in Queens, New York serves as a great reminder about what can happen when we get stuck in a bad communication dynamic. Sometimes we don’t remember why we ended up at this communication impasse and why our behavior choices have us revisiting the same well-trodden route and results.
This humorous post highlights that the art and science of public sharing and communicating in our digital and very audible world.
How do you create dialogue in a polarized environment? Seems like it’s impossible to have a conversation that at some point will not devolve into a series of opinions that culminate in someone (or more people) leaving in a huff. What are your strategies for listening in such a world?
Consider Socratic Dialogue and follow Sira Abenoza’s work with the Institute for Socratic Dialogue and as a professor at Esade law and business schools in Spain.
A cellist and his ensemble model excellent teamwork and communication skills when a concert mishap occurs.
This article is about how using the AccuMatchBI assessment can help you identify the unconscious behaviors that are challenging you.
Our latest STORYTALKS by Narativ is up with Sira Abenoza the founder of the Socratic Dialogue Institute. She talks with Jerome Deroy and Julienne B.
When we encounter communication challenges, sometimes we just have to woman or man up and ask a trained professional for help.
Websites, apps, and technology enable us to function as self-sufficient beings. Being an independent professional forces you to be your own IT support. This role requires us to read many vender-generated pdfs, endure bot-driven chats, and scroll through countless Q & A’s, all in Quixote-like searches for a solution. One that you often do not find.
Ada Lovelace was a calculating woman. She was an English mathematician and the world’s first computer programmer. Lovelace was born into privilege as the daughter of a famously unstable romantic poet, Lord Byron (who left her family when Ada was just 2 months old) and Lady Wentworth.
Escape rooms can teach us about conducting effective meetings as we begin to conduct more in person meetings.
In this post humorist Julienne B. Ryan explains what she learned about the art of conversation from a David Marchese’s interview with Christopher Walken
Have you had your Hollywood moment? You know, the moment when you pitch your start up in front of an
It’s a mouthful but a really timely question given everything that’s happening today. We went back to our STORY TALKS
Take a moment to acknowledge your week’s efforts with a Friday ritual. When I was growing up in Queens, New
I didn’t keep any resolutions because I didn’t make any and have never liked the practice. While I’ve been trying
Here is 2022!
Intentions call you into a certain way of being and can help you break old habits, especially when it comes to listening and to the story you tell about yourself and others.
Good Communications Santa Claus dropped in to bring a bag full of helpful communication tips and coaching tools for next year!
Now more than ever, retaining an engaged and motivated staff is critical to a business’s success. So, effective communication is
Happy Thanksgiving! Here’s my “Learned-It-In Queens Communications” style holiday wish for everyone (including me!)
I hope that you have the opportunity to gather with friends and family this weekend and share special moment around the dinner table.
1. Breaking bread together provides us with an opportunity tobreak down barriers and nourishes. Consider it the yeast of communication.
Conversations can not only help strengthen a relationship, but they can also be good for your health.
Companies are reporting incidents of paranormal activity in the workplace. Candidates and new hires are “ghosting” companies. Employees are accepting positions and not showing up for work or quitting their jobs after they start
Are you going fully remote? Fully in person? Hybrid? Staggered? So many of these terms were only a small part of corporate life, now it’s all we think about. What can we learn about how to re-engage and welcome people back from other institutions, outside of business?
I observed two different groups of runners with different goals: both collaborating and testing themselves one step at a time. Each group taught me valuable coaching lessons about setting and achieving goals
In this digital and remote work age, how do you balance humanity and technology? What are the communication gaps that are occurring in your work place as a result of an increasingly “connected” world?
This is our latest episode of STORYTALKS – a podcast by Narativ. During this episode Jerome Deroy and Julienne B. Ryan discuss the connection between leadership, vulnerability and storytelling.
When we lose our temper, we fall into our emotional brain, and our thinking brain shuts down. When our thinking brain shuts down, we say and do incredibly dumb things. We trigger the primitive part of the brain aka the Amygdala. This stimulation triggers a fight or flight response in ourselves, the recipient of our anger, and anyone who might be within earshot. Rational thinking and responses go out the window.
In our brand new podcast series – Narativ’s Storytalks – Jerome Deroy and Julienne Ryan discuss their observations and learnings around being proactive in collecting and sharing your company’s secret sauce so that critical knowledge is not lost as you experience high turnover.
Last weekend, I had the opportunity to be part of the South East Queens Annual Writers Conference at Cambria Heights
I learned important lessons about life at a kitchen table in Jackson Heights, Queens when my friend’s Cuban mother invited me to lunch in high school.
My first “real” job at Nathan’s Famous in Rego Park, Queens, New York taught me great life lessons that I still use today.
“Would you like people to look forward to having a conversation with you? Here are some key things we can learn about the art of engagement from an ice cream truck driver!”
You’re more than an emoji. Practice being more present in your communications. Having positive face to face interaction can leave
In my book The Learned It in Queens Communications Playbook – Winning Against Digital Distraction, I write that developing strong listening skills helps build trust and strong teams. Well, I saw that skill set in action this weekend. I attended dragon boat races at the Dragon Boat Festival in Flushing Meadow Park in Queens, New York.
Lay the foundation for a solid connection. If you are interested in connecting with another person authentically, use one of
Put your anecdotes to work! Yesterday, I had the pleasure of participating in an energizing virtual workshop led by Shawn
Libraries have helped me stretch as I learned and reached out for knowledge. They played an important part in my
Does where we work matter? I am curious to hear what people think as we plan our Post-COVID 9 workplace
Many years ago, I had a very unpleasant interview experience. My interviewer (AKA, the big key decision maker) hurried me
Rediscovering “Being In-Person” by relearning our human connections is now in process.
If you’ve been working from home, going back to the office has probably been on your mind. And if you’ve
We know that everyone sees things differently, and no one views the world the same way. Many people have a
https://jryanpartners.com/about/A conversation with Jerome Deroy, CEO Narativ and Julienne B. Ryan The revolving door in our workplaces looked more like
It is possible to smile your way through a change management process. Sometimes all it takes is some patience, creativity,
Online technology can help us target online abuse, harassment and extremism
May is Asian Pacific Heritage Month which makes it the ideal time to share that Queens, New York has the
65,000 people came together virtually to sing for the Wellerman Project. This is a wonderful, uplifting example of community engagement
On the LifeBlood ENGAGE podcast with George Grombacher, we talked about the challenge of making tech a net positive in your life vs a negative, how to show up, listen and be present for others, and the role storytelling can play in improving our communication.
I have often said that managing change can be a lot like traveling across Queens, New York In the following ways
“Be the goldfish!” This is just one of the thought, provoking comments that Joanna Martinez, author of “A Guide to
Question: What do you call a bagel that can fly? Answer: A plain bagel* Would you like to spark some
What’s My Learned It In Queens Lessons? 1. First, find a smart, creative person who engages in deep listening when you need to solve a problem
2. Listen to their suggestions and give their ideas a chance to percolate. In other words, trust that they know what they are doing.
3. Don’t pick up the phone or fire off an email saying “Whatareyakiddingme?”when you think you’ve been “misheard.”
4. Instead, give yourself and your resource the gift of the pause.
5. Chances are you’ve gotten some great advice, but your brain needs time to process the information.
6. Then say the words that any creative consultant loves to hear “ Thank you” and “You were right and so on point.”
April is National Humor Month. Find moments to connect with others and smile. There’s no better person to teach us
George Bernard Shaw said it best. Too often, we think we have communicated perfectly until we find out it was
Take a moment to “Make a Pause” and create a space that will help you reboot and gain a fresh
“Spring Fever” isn’t just an expression, it’s a real condition. I had a great conversation with my colleague Jeff on
St. Patrick’s Day and the Power of “Mixing Things Up!”
Mother Natures can teach us a lot about inspirational leadership
Come join me in celebrating Intenational Women’s Day!
Laughter is a stress reliever when you’re working from home
“When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick: every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick at a lion once.”
In honor of Black History Month, I decided to follow my book’s guidance about ” be curious and take time
The dance craze “Jeruselema” teaches us a great lesson about human connection.
Most of us get frustrated and sometimes angry when we don’t hear back from someone. When we finally do get a response, many times we don’t like or understand it!
Last week, I read HBR’s article “Good Leadership Is About Asking Good Questions” and thought “Look at that, John Hagel
He who laughs, lasts!” — Mary Pettibone Poole
Do you know what’s good for your heart? Laughter.
Last year we all became Zoom aficionados as COVID-19 life propelled us to seek virtual options to connect with each other. We figured out how to adjust lighting, volume, camera placement, and stage backgrounds. We even discovered that Zoom had created a “touch up appearance” option which, depending on the setting could enable us to smooth out a few edges or give the appearance that we were wrapped in a gauzy mist.
The African American Oysterman of Little Neck Bay
I started to realize that Queens had not only given me my unique speaking voice, but it had also influenced
my interpersonal style.
We’ve all had to adjust how we work and live and communicate in our respective COVID19 worlds. With the click
Raphael Harry is on a mission to celebrate and share African immigrant stories. He believes that listening to other’s backstories
Charles Dickens, a literary giant of the 19th century, achieved a level of popularity that transcended traditional barriers, even reaching
If you were given 4 minutes to sum up everything that drives you as a leader, what would you talk
“The Elf” on the Shelf is a very good leader.” Julienne Ryan Who knew? Here’s what we can learn from
