Hello Reader,

I keep hearing it all the time. September is like New Year. It really is, especially in the training and leadership coaching world.

I've been invited to speak at a handful of upcoming events and train teams across a wide range of industries this fall. They all have one thing in common: they value respect and consideration in the workplace, and they want their people showing up in a way that builds trust across teams, partners, clients, customers, the public, all of it.

That's led me down the path of designing a program around workplace civility, which I'm delivering to a municipal government client in a couple of weeks.

Here's what I'll be emphasizing: uncivil behaviour at work usually doesn't come from "bad people." It oftentimes comes from your best people. Your most experienced managers. Your longest-tenured, most technically skilled staff. The directors absorbing pressure from every direction.

Why might that be? Incivility is defined by researchers as behaviour with ambiguous intent to harm. Unlike bullying or harassment, it's rarely deliberate. It's the interruption in a rushed meeting. The email that lands sharper than intended. The distracted "mm-hmm" when someone's trying to tell you something that matters to them. In the moment, it doesn't feel like an attack, not to the person doing it, and often not even to the person on the receiving end. That ambiguity is exactly what makes it so easy to dismiss, and so hard to address.

And here's the part I've noticed in my trainings on this subject: we're quick to notice when it happens to us. We remember the person who cut us off, or the manager who never said thank you. But we rarely stop to ask whether we've done the same thing to someone else. Most of us are walking around confident we're civil people, while someone on our own team could name a moment we weren't.
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That's what my Leadership Through Civility training is built around. Not pointing fingers, but building the self-awareness to spot our own blind spots before they become someone else's story about us.

A Free Civility Self-Assessment Just For You!

I've also built a Personal Civility Self-Assessment to help you get clear on your own blind spots. If you want to see how strong your civility practices are, reply to this email and I'll send it your way, free.

Our Newest Boosted Podcast: A Lawyer's Status, A Warehouse Lesson

And our latest podcast episode just dropped: A Lawyer's Status, A Warehouse Lesson: Rethinking "Where Are You From?"I sit down with Kayode Akomolafe, a former lawyer in Nigeria who resisted moving to Canada for six and a half years, only to arrive and find himself sorting freight in a warehouse for $1,800 a month after twenty years running his own law practice. We talk about the night he almost quit, the faith that carried him through, and his own framework for one of the questions this series keeps coming back to. It's one of the most honest conversations we've had on the show. Subscribe and watch.

WEBINAR: Network Like a Top Marketer, with the CMA

We're partnering with the Canadian Marketing Association to bring you Network Like a Top Marketer. I built my career on strong connections and community, and in this workshop, I'm passing on what I learned, including the WAVE framework for starting and sustaining conversations that actually lead somewhere.

Members: Free | Non-members: $25 | 0.5 CPD credit

WORKSHOP: Co-Design Your Network, Global Entrepreneurship Week

I'll be leading a workshop at Do It In Durham Entrepreneurship Week. This one's different. Most networking workshops teach people what to do; this one has participants actually build their strategy in the room. Through a guided co-design process, everyone leaves with a personalized, actionable networking plan: auditing your existing network, crafting an elevator pitch, prepping for events, writing outreach that gets replies, and building a system to maintain relationships over time.

SPEAKING: Business Summit: Future Ready Enterprise

I'll also be speaking at Business Summit 2026: Future Ready Enterprise, making the case for why human connection and workplace civility matters more than ever, even at an event built around technology. Join me there!

Crossing Borders: Now Mentoring at Ave Maria University in Florida

I'm proud to share I'm now an official Mentor at Ave Maria University in Florida providing mentorship regularly over the next two years. I'm particularly excited about their innovative The Institute, a highly selective program that brings together top-decile students from across the country and pairs them with mentors to turn high-potential Scholars into high performers, blending intellectual, personal, and professional development. Once a month, I get to sit down with a student and be part of that.

Here's to a busy, meaningful September.
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Warm regards,

Trina Boos
Founder & CEO
Boost Academy of Excellence
​boostacademyofexcellence.com​