Thought Spot
i’ll call her lucy
She was speeding around from table-to-table like a bee to flowers, all 4 feet of her, her gray hair in a buzz cut. I’ll call her Lucy. It was a warm summer afternoon in 2021 and the pandemic era shut down was slowly beginning to ease. We still wore masks and held...
Rise. Shine.
As this year inches out through our busy holiday season and we prepare to welcome a fresh crop of days, weeks, and months ahead, one cannot help but ponder the myriad of demands placed on our personal bandwidth each day and especially during the holidays. A recent...
the american dream: another look
What are some words that come to mind when you hear the terms: DIVERSITY IMMIGRANT WOMAN REFUGEE MINORITY I recently put this question to a varied set of people of differing demographics. From age to aptitude and gender to geography, these subjects...
the child within
"all those who wonder are not off-track" - toniya The Summer I turned 57 my girlfriends took me on an hour-long train ride for my birthday. Now I am not particularly drawn to trains or love them or anything, but that was about to change. The day of the excursion, I...
roar on!
In the early years of my consultancy I readily worked for very little or no money. I thought, as a newbie in the marketplace, this was a good way to get my name out into the business community. As straightforward as this logic appeared to me, within the first five...
Recent Blogs
i’ll call her lucy
She was speeding around from table-to-table like a bee to flowers, all 4 feet of her, her gray hair in a buzz cut. I’ll call her Lucy. It was a warm summer afternoon in 2021 and the pandemic era shut down was slowly beginning to ease. We still wore masks and held...
Rise. Shine.
As this year inches out through our busy holiday season and we prepare to welcome a fresh crop of days, weeks, and months ahead, one cannot help but ponder the myriad of demands placed on our personal bandwidth each day and especially during the holidays. A recent...
the american dream: another look
What are some words that come to mind when you hear the terms: DIVERSITY IMMIGRANT WOMAN REFUGEE MINORITY I recently put this question to a varied set of people of differing demographics. From age to aptitude and gender to geography, these subjects...
the child within
"all those who wonder are not off-track" - toniya The Summer I turned 57 my girlfriends took me on an hour-long train ride for my birthday. Now I am not particularly drawn to trains or love them or anything, but that was about to change. The day of the excursion, I...
roar on!
In the early years of my consultancy I readily worked for very little or no money. I thought, as a newbie in the marketplace, this was a good way to get my name out into the business community. As straightforward as this logic appeared to me, within the first five...
the thing about change | part 4: hello change!
And so it is here…. The 4th quarter of 2022. The 4th blog of 2022.The 4th in my video series on change. All of them the last of their kind for this year. Each represents the summation of their counterparts before them; affords us the benefit of hindsight; and...
the thing about change | part 3: are hallways so bad?
You might have heard the quote by Tracy McMillan: “Everything works out in the end. if it hasn't worked out yet, then it's not the end.” Great quote. Succinct. Poignant. Reassuring. There is another quote I like just as much if not more. I don’t know the origins of...
the thing about change | part 2: DNA matters
The acronym DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) has become fairly common in our everyday parlance and is often used to imply something innate within us. Anything from one’s familial habits, to one’s physical features or the propensity for certain mannerisms, diseases, even...
the thing about change | part 1: like? dislike?
On March 12, 2022, virtually all the media airwaves were reminding us of the 2-year anniversary of the world shutting down due to COVID. In every proclamation, there was another C-word that was being used even more than Covid and that word was CHANGE. The frequency...
School Is In Session. How Does Your Refrigerator Rate?
Fall 2021 is upon us and schools are back in session - many of them in person. That one sentence alone is a reassurance of sorts. It tells us that perhaps life is inching back to the pre-Covid normal and we all might well be on our way to exhaling a collective sigh of...
A New Beginning
How did an extrovert such as myself come to dread the end of an extended quarantine? It was May 2021 and my mailbox had begun to stock a steady influx of invitations. There were graduations, neighborhood block parties, Bar-B-Qs and picnics. We seemed to have finally...
Spring Bargains
My flat-screen TV shares a wall with two big windows, one on each side, that look out into my backyard. This wall had been little more than a great design concept until an early morning in March 2021 when it transformed into a laboratory of existential discovery. It...
Gratitude May Be Closer Than You Think
A woman who works in healthcare wanted to start off 2021in gratitude as she had done in previous years. This year however, she said she was having difficulty being grateful and listed the pandemic as the overarching reason. Specifically it was the number of sick, the...
LOVE those Traffic Lights
Ever driven somewhere and noticed that you seem to be hitting the red lights on every intersection along the way? How soon after you first notice it, do you start feeling the seedlings of frustration sprout within you? How long is it before your frustration is already...
Make it Count!
Set yourself a timer for 30 seconds. Now, chew on this thought for that time: “All our waking hours are a one-time deal”. When the timer goes off realize that those 30 seconds are gone forever. We do not get them back. Ever. A sobering thought isn’t it? With that...
Everything has its Price
Ever seen something and without looking at a price tag guessed what it would cost to obtain? It is a great road trip game – guess the price of the passing houses or the cars that pass. We do this in life all the time, often unconsciously. Think about it, you see a...
The Difference is in the Middle
Think of your favorite sandwich or maybe you are a bigger fan of America’s favorite dunkable cookie – the Oreo. The best part of those pleasurable packages is in the middle. One might say “the most valuable part”. The middle is also where we can exercise the most...
When it comes to Forgiveness, Don’t choose the Lite Option (Part 2 of 2)
Welcome to Winter 2017. In keeping with the hint in our last blog, we now offer a blueprint on how to forgive ourselves. Here is the simplest way we know…. Think about how you might feel in any one or all of the following scenarios: (1) Your pet puppy or kitten just...
When it comes to Forgiveness, Don’t choose the Lite Option (Part 1 of 2)
We have all heard of the power of forgiveness. But did you know there are octane ratings (aka the feeling of empowerment) to the power of forgiveness? For example: Forgiving an enemy has a higher-octane rating than forgiving a friend. Similarly, forgiving a thief...
Summer relief is spelled “S-H-A-R-E-D”
Want to know how to get through Summer without breaking the bank, easily filling in the extended daylight hours with activities and still have some time to devote to date night and/or me-time? The answer is to “Share The Summer”. Here is how….. Get 4 of your favorite...
The Power Of Speech
It has been over 2 years since I spoke at TEDx Dayton. Evidently, the message is timeless in that it still resonates. Recently someone emailed me after watching my TEDx Talk for the first time. He had some questions after watching my story and wanted to share his...
Relevant Past Experience
8:00 AM. Time to log in to the system and get to work. As soon as the system acknowledges me, both screens suddenly go blank. A tiny light shows up on the left hand corner of one screen, pulsing as if to say “I am here, you just cannot get through to me”. Before I...
Youth Coaching (Part 2 of 2)
Welcome back! It is the season of Oranges and yellows, pumpkins and ghouls, warm hearts and cool nights. A perfect time to pick up where we left off the topic of Youth Coaching in the Summer. So we have established a few things: That parenting is important as it is...
Youth Coaching? (Part 1 of 2)
People often ask me this question, perplexed at the concept. They understand the phrase and its obvious meaning, but the value of the concept is often imperceptible to them. To make something so evident, ‘more’ evident I tell a story of a movie I saw as a little girl....
Serendipity – Know. How. Now.
As our personal and professional lives move on, they require a parallel evolution of the principal participants - Ourselves. Sometimes the evolution is forced, other times it comes naturally. But by far, the most serendipitous is the evolution that happens...
Atlas Falls
A new country. A refugee. An architect. An engineer. A builder. A real estate businessman. A 50 year career. A trail blazer. He was all of those things and more, but to me he was simply ‘Papa’. And to me, my father was Atlas. Period. Fortunately when they were...
Conversation Lenses (Part 2 of 2)
Welcome back! So you are convinced that you want to employ your “conversation lenses” . Great! Read on …… ON YOUR MARK! Before engaging in a conversation – especially a challenging one – do a self-prep to ‘position your position’. If you need help with this, use the...
Conversation Lenses (Part 1 of 2)
The bright summer sun often warrants a critical accessory - sunglasses; shades; dark glasses…. Whatever their moniker, they are lenses that help us see, when welcome sunshine can become unpleasant and at times, even dangerous. That takes care of our eyes but...
In support of support
As the living world celebrates the season of birth and newness in the Spring, I am reminded of the recent loss of two very special young men. The commonality between them is that we lost them both to suicide. Precious lives of great promise abruptly cut short leaving...
3 questions with … Toniya Singh, who wowed TEDx crowd
Dayton Daily News - Talking to Toniya Singh, it’s easy to feel she has packed three or four lifetimes into the space of one. Daughter of a film star mother and engineer father in India. Honors student. Fluent in five languages. Immigrant. Professional coach... go to...
TEDxDayton 2014 – Sustained Evolution
Friday - October 17, 2014 – moment of truth for those of us about to take the stage at TEDxDayton. The behind-the-scenes activity was at full throttle with every member pulling their weight - so focused on their tasks it was a marvel to watch - like a well-oiled...
Ready When You Are
Each of us is a walking-talking advertisement of our public profiles and should be ever ready with a flood light to shine on our talents as and when the opportunity presents itself. Think of yourself as one of those cars you see entirely decorated with the message of...
Thank you notes made easy
Posted by, Toniya Singh I find scripted Thank You notes extremely tedious to write. I can only imagine how the receiver must feel reading it. Besides, there is only so much you can say that sounds “new” each time. Overlap is inevitable. To alleviate cookie cutter...