A Matter of Degrees

She shivered. As my better half and I left a quaint little bistro in the early evening the temperature had changed since we entered. From a balmy 70 initially, (21 to my friends on the other side of the pond) it was now a nippy 62 (17) since the sun set. Not that much of …

Math 101

Can you add and subtract? In the war for talent there are so many top ten lists and theories about engagement it's hard to keep it all straight. Yet, let's start with a simple question: can you add and subtract? Over the years I've worked with hundreds of managers from newly-sanctioned team managers to C-suite …

Hope

Watch the children. Right outside my door is a running path that goes around a small pond, skirts the edge of two hospitals and eventually meanders past a pretty good-sized playground at the edge of a large market. The playground is usually full, other than school days and times. I use this path daily, sometimes …

Greatness

Are you grateful? Yesterday I had a full day - between playing golf and then marshaling I was on the course for 14 hours and the peak temp was 99 (37 C for my global friends.) It was a long day. I knew I had to stop at the grocery store on the way home, …

Productive

Cough, ahem. Yours truly has been fighting a series of flu-like problems for a month now. Actually, that's not accurate: my respiratory has been fighting me and I've been covering up in a weak imitation of Ali's Rope-a-Dope. Except, I'm losing. When enough was enough I went to see a doctor who said , "you're …

User Error

Be mindful. Not long ago I received a pre-loaded debit card as a thank you. In days past we received checks and had to go to the bank (at least until technology improved so we could take pictures of the checks as we deposited them). All in all, cards are better. After a couple of …

Tea Leaves

Can you read tea leaves? The art of tea leaf reading dates back to the 17th Century. Tasseography - divining the future from the past (via leaves) - still has followers today even if you don't practice it. Or believe it. Before you dismiss the notion of predicting the future via tea leaves, think about …

The Art of Success

Are you happy or or are you successful? Can you be both? Yes. We are inundated with advice on success in business and commerce. The three steps to this, the five keys to that. If we would simply take a timeout and consume all this advice from bestsellers to morning tv to best blogs apparently …

Feedback as Gift

I have a present for you. No really, its a gift. And, if you follow a few simple guidelines, you can re-gift this over and over and take the art of re-gifting to a new level. Not long ago one of my financial institutions disappointed me. Now to be clear it wasn't the entire "institution" …

Atrophy

Use it or lose it. Three times in my life I've been restricted to crutches. As a function of having a more than active lifestyle and just by living so long I've hurt myself more than once. Years ago I sprained both ankles in separate incidents just a couple years apart. If you've never sprained …