Making SPACE
Tending Your NEST and Making SPACE for What Matters Most:
Wellness, Mindfulness and Meaning-Making in Leadership — a social-psychological intervention designed to mitigate physician burnout and promote wellness.
Cohort 9
January - September 2025
Cohort 8
January – September 2024
Cohort 7
January – September 2023
Cohort 6
January – September 2022
Cohort 5
January – September 2021
Cohort 4
January – September 2020
Cohort 3
January – September 2019
Cohort 2
January – September 2018
Cohort 1
January - September 2017
Sponsored by:
Euan Ashley, MB ChB, DPhil
Chair, Department of Medicine
Stanford University School of Medicine
Program Design and Lead Coach:
Rebecca Merrill at rebecca@merrillleadership.com
For questions about joining this program contact:
Helena McCombie at helena.mccombie@stanford.edu
N-E-S-T
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Nutrition
Exercise
Sleep
Time Management
S-P-A-C-E
~~~
Stillness
Presence
Appreciation
Compassion
Equanimity
| • | Start a Wellness Journal. |
| • | Choose one small, manageable behavioral change in each area of NEST: Nutrition, Exercise, Sleep, Time Management and make a commitment of change to an accountability partner over the next nine months. |
| • | How are you practicing presence with patients, family members and yourself? |
| • | Keep a gratitude journal for the next 30 days. Write down three moments of joy every day. Watch Shawn Achor’s TED Talk on Happiness. |
| • | Choose one self-compassion activity you are not currently doing and practice it for the next 30 days. |
| • | Write a memoir-story that illuminates what you learned in group and how the experience has positively changed your life, added meaning, purpose, belonging and focus to your leadership activities. |
| • | Describe a personal redemption story with a high point, low point and turning point as well as central themes of learning and meaning making. |
SUGGESTED READING, TED TALKS, AND YOUTUBE
| • | A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose – Eckhart Tolle |
| • | Authentic Leadership – Bill George |
| • | Before Happiness – Shawn Achor |
| • | Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters Most in the End – Atul Gawande, MD (TED Talk) |
| • | Better Than Before – Gretchen Rubin |
| • | Creative Confidence – David and Tim Kelly |
| • | Cutting for Stone – Abraham Verghese, MD |
| • | Decisive – Chip and Dan Heath |
| • | Designing Your Life – Bill Burnett and Dave Evans |
| • | Drive – Dan Pink |
| • | Emotional Agility – Susan David |
| • | Finding Your Own North Star – Martha Beck |
| • | Give and Take – Adam Grant |
| • | Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance – Angela Duckworth |
| • | Healthy at 100 – John Robbins |
| • | Healthy Aging – Cameron Diaz |
| • | If Life is a Game, These Are the Rules – Cherie Carter-Scott |
| • | Into the Magic Shop – James Doty, MD |
| • | Lean In – Sheryl Sandberg |
| • | Linchpin – Seth Godin |
| • | Loving What Is – Byron Katie |
| • | Me, Myself and Us – Brian Little |
| • | Mindset – Carol Dweck |
| • | My Own Country - Abraham Verghese |
| • | Optimal Healing – Andrew Weil |
| • | Option B – Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant |
| • | Originals – Adam Grant |
| • | Presence – Amy Cuddy |
| • | Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations and Society – Peter Senge |
| • | Quiet – Susan Cain |
| • | Rising Strong – Brene Brown |
| • | The Art of Possibility – Rosamund and Ben Zander |
| • | The Art of Stillness: Adventure in Going Nowhere – Pico Iyer |
| • | The Happiness Hypothesis – Jonathan Haidt |
| • | The Not So Big Life: Making Room for What Really Matters – Sarah Susanka |
| • | The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life that Matters – Emily Esfahani Smith |
| • | The Sleep Revolution – Arianna Huffington |
| • | The Speed of Trust – Stephen Covey, Jr. |
| • | There Is No Good Card for This – Kelsey Crowe and Emily McDowell |
| • | Thrive: The Third Metric to Redifining Success and Creating a Life of Well–Being, Wisdom and Wonder – Arianna Huffington |
| • | Triggers – Marshall Goldsmith |
| • | When Breath Becomes Air – Paul Kalanithi |
| • | Wherever You Go, There You Are – Jon Kabat–Zinn |
| • | Who’s Got Your Back – Keith Ferrazzi |
| • | Why We Get Fat – Gary Taub |
MINDFULNESS AND SELF-CARE PRACTICES
| 1. | Meditation (Calm.com) Challenge: See if you can listen daily for 9 months |
| 2. | Journaling Challenge: See if you can write daily for 9 months |
| 3. | Walking Challenge: See if you can walk daily for 9 months |
| 4. | Baths Challenge: See if you can bathe nightly with candles and music for 9 months |
| 5. | Massage Challenge: See if you can get a weekly massage |
| 6. | Yoga Challenge: See if you can go to a Yoga practice twice per week |
| 7. | Learning Challenge: Find a partner to share learning with each month and do one of the previous activities together |
| 8. | Innovation Challenge: Come up with your own mindfulness practice |