Workplace Hero

Announcing the Change Academy podcast

May 27 • 12 min

After a nearly two year hiatus, I am back with an exciting announcement! I have a new podcast called Change Academy and in this short episode of Workplace Hero, I explain what the new show is all about and play you a snippet from Episode #1 of Change…

How To Self Promote, without being human spam w/ Justin Jackson

Jun 16, 2018 • 19 min

I’m going to come right out and say it. The reason I chose the topic of Self Promotion for this episode is that I have something to sell you. The product is called Weighless and Weighless is a fat loss program. So, as you can probably guess, with the…

Work Expands (or contracts) to the Time Allowed

Feb 16, 2018 • 13 min

Parkinson’s Law is a book by C. Northcote Parkinson. And this book is best known for its opening line: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Now, do you recognise it? I bet you do. Honestly, I didn’t know it had a name until I…

Goal Setting and the End of Season 1

Sep 8, 2017 • 19 min

Top athletes, kick-ass business people and high achievers in nearly every field all set goals because setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation - plus it helps you to organize your time and your resources. This certainly was true…

Are You Addicted to Workohol?

Sep 1, 2017 • 20 min

Society tells us that working harder and working more hours is good, but if you have listened to this podcast for a while you know that it is actually damaging you, hard on your fellow employees and even detrimental your company’s success. So, let me ask…

Work Zones w/ Vanessa and Adam Lambert

Aug 25, 2017 • 12 min

Today’s topic is a fun one. Mostly because for the first time in quite a while we have a guest hero! Guest heroes, actually. Vanessa and Adam Lambert from Bee The Wellness. I am talking to them about spaces around your home, your office or wherever you…

What Happens at Work Stays at Work

Aug 18, 2017 • 13 min

Close your eyes for a second and dig deep into your psyche. I want you to be truly honest with yourself. Can you do that for me? Ok. Do you truly believe that one day you will actually go home from work with a completely clear desk? No projects left…

The Frustration of Chronic Lateness

Aug 11, 2017 • 15 min

For a good percentage of us work-a-day-grumblers, three little words habitually accompany our entrance to work, a meeting, a luncheon or even getting home from work: “Sorry, I’m late.” Does this sound like you?

Re: Fwd: Write Good Email

Aug 4, 2017 • 20 min

Experts agree that your email behaviour has the potential to sabotage your reputation both personally and professionally. Inc.com wrote a story with some of the industry’s most seasoned email experts which had them weigh in on how to perfect your email…

Working on Vacation: The Worcation

Jul 28, 2017 • 7 min

The fact that I am talking into this mic while I am out of office, brings up something that deserves a proper episode one day but today I am going to cover it as quickly as possible (so I can get back to the rollicking game of “boot the ball as hard as…

Keep Calm and Quit Your Job

Jul 21, 2017 • 18 min

It’s odd. In school, we spend a lot of time and give tons of attention to putting together a resume, building a CV, and generally how we should go about getting a job – but we give pretty much no air time to how to leave a job, quit a position or walk…

A Pain in the Neck - Literally!

Jul 14, 2017 • 15 min

Neck pain can be caused by well really any activity that strains your neck. You might feel pain at the base of your skull and down into your shoulders, or you might feel a knot in your neck. You may also develop a headache. Serious neck pain can limit…

Why We Get Sleepy in the Afternoon

Jul 7, 2017 • 20 min

If you tend to suffer a sleepiness attack in the mid-afternoon, well it’s not all that odd. Many people experience a noticeable dip in their alertness, attention, creativity, energy level, and ability to concentrate in the afternoon.

When and How to Ask for Feedback

Jun 30, 2017 • 12 min

Some of the recent questions and comments I received reminded me of a few jobs that I have had in the past where I honestly had no idea how I was doing. Or how anyone else was doing. I would show up, do what I thought my job entailed, collect my paycheque…

How to Prepare For and Return From a Vacation

Jun 23, 2017 • 14 min

I received an email the other day from listener Erin Moline who said “Topic idea: how to handle the backlog of email/missed conf calls/missed trainings and how to catch up without a cortisol surge?” For those of you who don’t know, Cortisol is the hormone…

How to Ask For and Get a Raise

Jun 16, 2017 • 13 min

To earn a bigger paycheck, you’ll need to do more than just a top-rate job. An effective strategy for obtaining a raise also requires documenting your accomplishments, understanding your boss’s expectations and researching your employer’s financial health.

Dealing with Illness at Work

Jun 9, 2017 • 12 min

If you have been listening to this podcast for a while, you may have noticed that my voice sounds a little different than usual. That is because… I am sick. Yep. I have a cold. In June! How lame is that? Luckily, I am nearly over it and I am also hopped…

How and When to Say No

Jun 2, 2017 • 14 min

I don’t know who actually said it first but I first heard it from Derek Sivers (the guy who started CD Baby and then later sold it for like a bazzilion dollars). He wrote in Aug 2009: There is no “yes.” It’s either “HELL YEAH!” or “no.”

Telecommuting - The Art of Working At Home

May 26, 2017 • 20 min

I have been working from home on and off (mostly on) since 2010 and I have made some mistakes along the way that I like to think I have learned from. I have also made some advances in my setup, my workspace, my gear and my work hours over those years.…

Ergonomics w/ Elle Russ

May 19, 2017 • 34 min

Human-factors engineering, also called ergonomics or human engineering is the science dealing with the application of information on physical and psychological characteristics to the design of devices and systems for human use.

Talking, Acting & Thinking Positively w/ Dr. Alessandra Wall

May 12, 2017 • 42 min

When negative events or mistakes happen, positive self-talk simply seeks to bring the positive out of the negative to help you do better, go further, or keep moving forward. The practice of positive self-talk is often the process that allows you to…

Out of Office - Work Life Balance

May 5, 2017 • 5 min

I am spending the week at my mom’s house, visiting her, my sister, my niece and nephew and giving myself some downtime before I present at Western Canada’s first ever Podcast Summit in Calgary Alberta. I am doing a presentation of how to edit your podcast…

Shift Work

Apr 28, 2017 • 22 min

According to NSF’s 2005 Sleep in America poll, 14% of North Americans take part in what is called shift work. Shift work is an employment practice designed to make use of, or provide service across, all 24 hours of the clock each day of the week (often…

Workout, Exercise or Movement Snack? w/ Ben Greenfield

Apr 21, 2017 • 29 min

I found a great list of “5 Horrible Exercise Excuses” over at wellnessmama.com and and a few more over at BreakingMuscle.com that I think sum up the top excuses that I have also heard over my years of being a Fitness Coach.

Unwanted Distractions

Apr 14, 2017 • 22 min

Let’s face it, everything demands our attention these days. It’s not just our family, friends and co-workers but also our phones, our email and our social media that all fight for our attention at any given moment. It can be downright overwhelming at…

Low Energy w/ Hailey Rowe

Apr 7, 2017 • 17 min

Let me set the stage for you - It’s Monday morning. Once again, in a wondrous turn of events, you wake up feeling great! You had an amazing weekend of deep sleep, good food, enjoyable exercise, and aside from the beer you had with dinner on Saturday night…

The Perils of the Commute - feat. Abi Carver

Mar 31, 2017 • 23 min

Today’s Heroic idea came from Workplace Hero, Erin Moline, who sent me an email saying “I’m in my car a lot and with traffic so heinous that I often have to focus a lot and it can be exhausting. I have my ergonomics correct in the car, but I noticed it…

Air and Light w/ Dr. Tamsin Lewis

Mar 24, 2017 • 20 min

I was listening to a Scientific American podcast a while ago and was excited to hear that a new study (released Aug 2016) had been done on how effective plants can be at cleaning the Volatile Organic Compounds from the air. As someone who has worked in…

To Do Lists

Mar 17, 2017 • 16 min

Between your job, your exercise program, your friends, your hobbies, and pretty much everything else you want to get done, achieving your goals and nailing your deadlines is often harder than it should be. Heck, for some people just creating an efficient…

To Sit or Not To Sit w/ Katy Bowman

Mar 10, 2017 • 13 min

Before we really dive in, here’s a teaser - some stats for you to be horrified at: Only 18% of adults get the total amount of physical activity recommended for good health. And 40% get no physical activity at all!

Workplace Snacking w/ Monica Reinagel

Mar 3, 2017 • 10 min

When you think about it, most of us spend at least 40 hours per week at our place of work (47.7 hours is the actual average even if we only get paid for 37.5 hours). We put time and effort into what our home looks like. We put research into the car we buy…

Start with the Hard Stuff

Feb 24, 2017 • 10 min

Today we’re going to talk about the particular ways to start your day. Over at Lifehacker.com I found and article where they say that the first hour of your morning sets the stage for the entire day to follow. Wow. Let’s sit on that for a second. Think…

Who’s the Real Hero?

Feb 17, 2017 • 9 min

The aim of this podcast is for me to arm you, my amazing workplace-casual army, with the weapons needed to combat the potential and perhaps inherent downsides of our chosen lifestyle. And let’s not beat around the bush here, it is a lifestyle and we did…