“Would you just make a decision already?”

I’ve said those words out loud plenty of times, but this time I was posing the question to myself, while staring at a 60-pound crate of apples. The decision at hand: Does this apple look good enough to keep?

I frequently encounter questions like this during volunteer shifts at my local food bank where there are a surprising number of decisions to make. Most of the time the answer is obvious, but getting stuck on one apple bottlenecks the entire process of sorting through 60 pounds of apples.

My fellow volunteers run into the similar situations every week. One week it’s apples the next its onions, but the decisions and the questions never stop. How do you want to organize this? Where do the crates of past go? How should we label the snack items? It’s one decision after the other and it’s the biggest roadblock to productivity.

The reason we get stuck is because we all want the best possible outcomes. We home in on being successful and doing i...

How do you lead a team?

How do you captivate an audience and mobilize your message? 

How do you build culture? 

How do you develop trust? 

These are all questions that were discussed in great detail during hiring season in the NFL. They're the important, big questions that you ask when hiring a head coach or GM. They're critical for finding the right fit and winning games. And not a single one of those questions can be answered with a stat or a win-loss record.

They can't even be answered by looking at a resume. Those questions get answered in interviews because they all come down to communication skills. 

If communication skills weren't the differentiating factor every team would have wanted to hire exact same coach and they wouldn't have needed an interview to make their decision. 

Your skillset is important. Your results are a factor. Your communication skills are the differentiator. 

Your resume serves a purpose, but it's not likely to close the deal. Make sure the people y...

Having a front row seat to the winningest coach in Seahawks history was something I never took for granted. I also never expected to learn so much about leadership and communication.

I’ve been the Seahawks radio sideline reporter for the last 15 seasons. I talked to Pete regularly for pregame interviews, during press conferences and when we bumped into each other at the facility. I can attest to the fact his energy never waned. What you saw on TV was exactly what we saw every day. After watching him throughout his tenure these are the five leadership lessons that stand out for me.

Leadership can be fun. If you were to ask Pete Carroll he would say football should be fun and he regularly told his players that if it wasn’t fun he was doing it wrong. It’s one of the reasons he blared music at practice and held free throw shooting competitions during team meetings. Pete proved to me that “fun-loving” could be and should be on the list of great leadership characteristics.  

It’s not enou...

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but there’s no such thing as sports talk “for women.” I’m a woman who’s worked in sports broadcasting for 20 years and I don’t know what that means.

The implication is that women need special help talking sports or that you need to talk to women differently that you would talk to other sports fans. That’s just not true. (And if it was, TV and radio broadcasts of games would sound much different.)

Sports fans are sports fans. That’s it. End of story. You don’t talk to fans differently because of their gender. Wait, maybe I should clarify, you shouldn’t talk to fans differently because of their gender.

When people distinguish male versus female fans it’s often a misguided attempt to categorize different types of fans. I think they’re trying to say that not every fan wants to talk about stats and draw the distinction that some fans would prefer to hear more about a player’s background and a team’s efforts in the community.

There are different types...

I originally posted this blog three years ago when it felt like “hot takes” were all the rage on TV. No one wanted to listen, and everyone wanted to yell.

Things haven’t changed all that much, but they should because listening is a leadership skill, as is controlling your emotions, showing empathy and knowing how to disagree like an adult.

I understand there’s a lot going on in the world. The stress and uncertainty can be overwhelming. Emotions are running high.

Great leaders don’t allow their emotions to make an already emotional situation more difficult.

Conflict happens in conversations. Disagreements happen and differing opinions exist. So does a better way of handling those situations.

I talk for a living. I actually talk sports for a living. But more importantly I talk to human beings for a living. After nearly two decades in sports, I’m well-practiced at asking questions, assessing the environment and engaging in conversations. I don’t always agree with what people say, dec...

I’m here if you need me.

You know you can reach out anytime.

Let me know how I can help.

We’ve all said things like this with the very best intentions and we’ve heard our friends, colleagues and business contacts say the same thing back to us.

And yet, when we actually could use a little help we’re hesitant to reach out partly because it’s a vulnerable ask especially if the help we need is pulling ourselves out of a funk or getting past strong emotions during a pandemic.

How do you even start the conversation when you’re already overwhelmed, sad or frustrated. You’d like to know you’re not alone without feeling rejected if you don’t get a response. You certainly don’t want to impose on someone and add to their stress levels.

Here are ways to initiate a conversation when you need help, support or just a quick pick-me-up.

5 Ways to Ask for Help When You Don’t Know How 

Revisit a previous experience/conversation. This could be, “Remember the time we went away for that girls’ wee...

“Are you talking to yourself again?”

I’ve lost track of the number of times my husband has asked that question during quarantine.

It’s something I do when problem-solving or trying to remember something. I usually ignore him because there’s no pretending I’m not carrying on a full-blown conversation with myself.

But there is something I won’t ignore anymore the use of certain phrases that should be canned from how we describe what’s happening right now – unprecedented and new normal.

My background as a TV producer leads to me believe emails have been sent from executive producers to writers and producers across the country telling them not to use those words or phrases. (That happens occasionally when words get overused and lose their meaning or aren’t providing an actual description of anything.)

Let’s be honest, by this point we recognize we have all experienced something unexpected that will reshape the way we do business moving forward. The more we talk about unprecedented tim...

The world needs a lot of things right now. 

The most important of which might be communication skills. Not the ability to talk, but the ability to truly communicate, engage in discourse, listen to people with different viewpoints and seek common ground. 

Communication skills have never been more important. 

It will take big, difficult, awkward, emotional and thoughtful conversations to spark change. If you're not ready to jump into those kinds of conversations - don't opt out altogether, start small. 

There are ways to practice the skills you need for big moments. I suggest trying sports conversations. The video explains why. 

This week the NFL will releasing the entire 2020 schedule with the expectation the full season will be played and will start on time. Of course, there are contingencies in place if the COVID-19 crisis forces changes, but for right now fans can start looking ahead, getting excited for rivalry weekends and anticipating the debut of a new class of rookies.

Without even taking the field, the 2020 NFL Draft class has been part of NFL history by being the first (and perhaps only) class to be selected during an entirely virtual draft.

As the sideline reporter for the Seattle Seahawks and the founder of Talk Sporty to Me, I look for business parallels in the sporting events and press conferences I cover.

Talk Sporty to Me isn’t about clichés and metaphors, it’s about making sports fandom useful in business, relationship building and communication.

With that in mind, here are five quick takeaways from my experience as part of the Seahawks draft coverage and broadcast team that apply to conv...

Stop comparing virtual interactions to real-life, in-person conversations. They’re not the same thing.

Video conferencing, virtual happy hours and online training might be the next best thing to meeting in person, but they are not the same thing. There’s a big difference and big problem with making that assertion. Insisting video conferencing is “just like” face-to-face interactions discredits the feelings of exhaustion and fatigue that accompany virtual interactions. 

If you go into the day thinking you’re going to have a conversation instead of preparing to be on camera, you’re setting yourself up for burn out, fatigue, exhaustion and frustration. 

Take it from someone who’s been on camera and on TV for the last 14 years. I’m a sports broadcaster based out of Seattle. My colleagues and I can tell you from personal experience being on camera every day can be emotionally and mentally draining.

Communicating in a virtual space to a remote audience requires a different amount of ...