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Making SPACE

Wellness, Mindfulness and Meaning-Making in Leadership - a social-psychological intervention designed to mitigate physician burnout and promote wellness.

N.E.S.T.

  • Nutrition
  • Exercise
  • Sleep
  • Time Management

S.P.A.C.E.

  • Stillness
  • Presence
  • Appreciation
  • Compassion
  • Equanimity
Nest

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

Homework & Goals

  • 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.

Monthly Topics

  • Foundations and Expectations
  • Tending your NEST
  • Stillness
  • Presence
  • Appreciation
  • Compassion
  • Equanimity
  • Meaning and What Matters Most to You
  • Final Learning Narratives

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

Personality Inventories for Self-Awareness

Mindfulness & 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

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