The new academic year is upon us. When school starts I always think of my friend Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, who devoted his life to getting adults to keep reading. Being a perpetual student of life myself, I promised to carry his torch after he was gone from this earth.  Soon after Charlie went to Heaven, my mentor Jim Rohn died, the [...]

Voice: “Knock Knock”.
Leader: “Who’s there?”
Voice: “Anxiety.”
Leader: “Oh, hi again.  Who sent you?”
Anxiety: “You called me”
Leader: “I did?”
Anxiety: “Yes”
Leader: “Oh, sorry.  I didn’t mean to.  I must have dialed the wrong number.  You are welcome to come in but only for a second.  You can’t stay.  I have priorities that are important to me”.
Anxiety: “You mean [...]

I was in Phoenix last week at the Summer Conference for TTI Performance Systems.  Always in pursuit of how we can help our clients manage their businesses and their talent better, a select group of 50 of us put our head down and went to work: branstorming, collaborating, sharing knowledge, and listening to experts in [...]

Customer Experience When Messages are Mixed 
 
I always wonder: Does senior leadership know what their customer is experiencing, or are they out of touch?  Do they get to hear the truth from consumers of their product or service, or do unhappy customers just say nothing and never return?
 
My husband and I recently took all three (young [...]

The most powerful learning experience in my past was during intensive outpatient recovery for my alcoholism.  At the age of 43, I was in the late, chronic stages of alcoholism, slipping quickly into a time when my only option would have been institutionalization.  There are many excuses I can make for why I ended up [...]

Busy and successful people find themselves getting ”hit up” for all sorts of fundraisers, and to be on boards of directors on a regular basis.  If you are reading this post, you are probably thinking to yourself ”No kidding, it happened to me three times last week.”
Here are some principles I’ve learned since I began spending 1/2 my time volunteering [...]

I’ve been re-reading Ben Franklin’s Autobiography for the “umpteenth” time.  In his long journey of self-improvement, he came up with his own 13 “virtues”, which I will list below.  This would be a great set of values for any company or employee! It comes from a man who was not of any religion, but established his own moral [...]

A Primer on Loss and Grief for Leaders
If you are running a company of any size, you hear about some relative or friend of your workforce dying almost every day. In even the smallest company, there is loss all around your employees. Loss you don’t see, and I am about to make you aware of. [...]

  This morning at our weekly MAC Toastmasters Meeting I was asked to give a short recap of my Saturday breakout session “Pumping Mental Iron”. One of the things I didn’t get to do on Saturday, since my time was shortened (read my last blog post) from 50 minutes to about 35-40 minutes, was to do [...]

The best book on branding I’ve read is “What is Branding?” by Matthew Healey. I recommend it be your reference book on branding.  Every graphic designer, product designer, artist, and business person should have a copy of this book and look through it regularly.
Branding is more than a logo, more than design, more than….listen to [...]