Classes & Workshops

Emotions are an important driver of actions and experiences. For this reason, managing emotions is essential for our wellbeing and professional performance. We focus on the distinction between thinking patterns that drag us down and patterns that lift us up. Our emotions are shaped by our beliefs and by our past experiences. We cover the concept of mental hygiene, techniques for managing emotions, and for reframing beliefs.

Conversations are essential for interacting with others, yet we often are not effective in managing conversations. True listening is essential for having two-way conversations, and we cover listening skills. The distinction between dialogue and debate is essential, and we discuss ways for having productive conversations. Engaging in difficult conversations and negotiation is particularly important, since many of us are not comfortable with this type of interactions.

In the busy-ness of modern life one can easily get wrapped up in chasing activities. In process we can easily forget taking care of ourselves. Ignoring self-care is not good for our wellbeing, and it may paradoxically decrease our productivity because of tiredness, irritability, and lack of concentration. We examine barriers to practicing self-care, that include real or perceived pressure from colleagues, and a belief that practicing self-care amounts to being selfish. We discuss indicators that tell us when doing more can be counterproductive.

Expressing freely is important for our wellbeing and for functioning well in an organization. This requires that we know what we want to express in our professional and personal lives, and that we find ways to fully and freely express.

Negotiation is an integral part of professional life. In professional and personal life numerous occasions arise where we need to negotiate, and it is important that we can stand up for our interests by effective negotiation. Yet many of us are not comfortable negotiating or don’t know how to negotiate. In this workshop we explore internal barriers we may face to enter a negotiation. We cover the basics of negotiation, which involve knowing what you want or need, and conversation methods that encourage the other party to move towards your needs while maintaining a positive dialogue. We discuss simple practices that help becoming more comfortable with negotiation.

Often, we get the chance to communicate our work through an oral presentation. Such a presentation offers a brief window in time to get our message across … or not. Yet many oral presentations are confusing, or they feel like the speaker is force-feeding the audience with information. Giving an engaging and compelling oral presentation is an art, this art can be learned by keeping a few principles in mind and by practicing these principles. In this interactive workshop we go over the principles of giving an effective oral presentation that an audience remembers.

Communication often is a challenge. Writing and public speaking are most compelling when done with ease and grace, but in practice there may be hurdles in the way. Some of these hurdles involve a lack of practical skills, but there may also be personal hurdles in communicating with ease and grace. Examples of such hurdles include the curse of perfection, a wish to not be vulnerable and be seen, a lack of clarity, or a sense of having to do it all alone. In this interactive workshop we discuss the barriers we encounter in effective written communication, and ways to overcome these barriers.

Kindness is a virtue that helps create a harmonious atmosphere. Yet kindness is a virtue that sometimes falls by the wayside. There is a variety of reasons for this, we may feel that kindness is unprofessional, we may feel vulnerable if we are kind and personable, or we may be overwhelmed by pressures that we are under. We will examine barriers to kindness, and will explore ways in which we can give shape to kindness in a professional environment by keeping our mind clean of toxic thoughts and by practices for kindness.

Bringing care to the higher education classroom is not difficult, but it does require a combination of a caring mindset with a toolbox of practices. We call this Teaching with Heart. I discuss the importance of bringing a caring mindset to the higher education classroom, impediments that may come in the way, and give an overview of Teaching with Heart practices. Some of these practices are easy to implement and take almost no time, others require habituation, and some practices require a sustained effort.  These practices are actionable and provide a toolbox for expressing care in the higher education classroom.

Bringing care to academic advising is not difficult, but it does require a combination of a caring mindset with a toolbox of practices. I discuss the importance of bringing a caring mindset to academic advising, impediments that may come in the way, and give an overview of Advising with Heart practices. These practices are actionable and provide a toolbox for bring care to academic advising.

Diversity and inclusion are thorny topics. Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his I have a dream speech 60 ago, and we still have much progress to make. Inclusion is particularly difficult because it calls us to let go of deeply engrained notions and practices, and therefore inclusion calls for personal change. While most of us are in favor for change, we often are reluctant to changing ourselves. Making such a personal change involves an examination of our beliefs, a reframing of these beliefs where inclusion calls us to do so, and to develop intentions to make inclusion a reality. In this conversational workshop we examine out attitude towards inclusion and formulate intentions and actions for creating an inclusive classroom environment.

Current events show that climate change is upon us. The mechanism of global warming was already explained by Arrhenius in 1896. An alternative to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by burning less fossil fuels is to capture CO₂ and then store it in the subsurface. This technology relies on our expertise in injecting fluids in the subsurface and to monitor the fluids and their fate in the subsurface. In the geophysics community this technology has been presented as “a well accepted leading mitigation strategy against climate change” (The Leading Edge, 20, 224, 2021). In order to understand to what extent this optimism is warranted one needs to consider the following factors: (1) the amount of CO₂ that needs to be captured and sequestered to have a significant impact on climate change, (2) the cost of CO₂ capture and sequestration compared with other technologies for avoiding CO₂ emissions, (3) the reason why CO₂ capture is expensive and energy-intensive, and (4) the extreme accuracy with which CO₂ in the subsurface needs to be monitored. As with many complicated problems, the devil is in the details, and we need to understand these details to assess the impact of carbon capture and storage that can be expected.

To follow up and for more information:

Email: roel@roelcoaching.com

Website: www.roelcoaching.com