It ain’t about you

“It ain’t about you!!” is an often exaggerated tagline from Dr. Phil, but when you really think about it…it’s good advice.  The world is a better place when we consider others before ourselves.  My personal perspective got an adjustment last night, and it came in the form of a speech by a young man named…

Know risk, know reward

I just got the sobering Social Security Statement that shows my lifetime history of work and how much I made each year; kind of like “This is Your Life” through a financial lens.  A couple of very interesting data points jumped out at me… First, I made only $413 in the first year of my…

The $5000 chicken nugget

My teenage son was NOT hungry.  That should have been our first warning sign.  He complained about an upset stomach and the usual remedies did not help.  Within an hour he was doubled over in pain and we could not figure out why.  My wife Carol asked him again, “Are you SURE you didn’t eat something strange…

The heartbeat of a meeting

Have you ever attended a formal meeting or special event and wondered “why all the rules?”  There are so many traditions, customs and parliamentary procedures… there’s no way to keep track or live up to all of them.  And you may think “why bother?”  Why not just wing it? I’m sure you’ve had to sit…

The key to influence

We had an interesting presentation about influence at work recently.  One of our executives led us through an exercise where each of us had to sell a “magic” pen to the person sitting next to us.  It was a compressed timeframe and the pressure was on.  Afterwards, she asked which person talked the most in…