If you measured your life out on a yardstick, how much is left? I’ve done it and it’s quite sobering. Today is New Year’s Day. The first day of 2018. The first day of what remains of your life. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.” Fear is the one thing …
Day After Christmas
Merry Christmas! My sincere hope is that not one of you is actually reading this on Christmas day but maybe a few will see it on the day after Christmas or in the days that follow. Which brings me to the most perfect message and song for today… Day After Christmas by Matthew West. And I’ll keep my message short …
Christmas Keepers
“They’d be a whole lot better if I had the money to buy what everyone really wanted this year.” That was the response to my question, “Are you enjoying the holidays?” posed to a colleague last week. What does everyone really want? If you’re a kid, of course, you want toys. And, you want to feel special, loved, and cherished, …
There’s No Such Thing as a Bad One
I’m a bad leader. I’m a bad speaker. I’m a bad communicator. I’m bad at resolving conflict. I have a bad memory. I hear these kinds of statements all the time in my line of work. They’ve got it all wrong. There’s no such thing as a bad leader or a bad speaker or a bad communicator… only an untrained …
Music Monday: The Song Within the Silence
Sometimes, when I take a walk with my dog, Sierra, I can tell that she stops to listen to sounds when I hear only silence. Occasionally, at a crowded, noisy event in the midst of competing stories, laughter, voices, serving dishes, and music, I can hear my own internal voice saying something kind, admonishing, or even sarcastic (and I’m often …
Don’t Believe Everything You Think
At the height of my busy Fall speaking season, I’m lost in my thoughts as I make my way along my 90-minute freeway commute to the airport. My mind has wandered to my long to-do list which has swollen to ridiculous proportions with a busy travel schedule. Creeping in are thoughts of potentially forgetting promises, missing deadlines, and dropping the …
The Perspective of Gratitude
Famous writer, William Arthur Ward, once wrote… “Gratitude can transform common days into Thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” In other words, gratitude is really just a shift in our perspective. If you are an Outlander fan, then you know that in book four (which I’m just about to finish) our intrepid couple, Jamie …
Phischon for the Extraordinary
Too often today, we have either a substandard experience with those we do business with or, at best, an ordinary and unremarkable one. It’s rare to experience an excellent interaction and those that could be rated extraordinary are few and far between. That’s the bad news. The good news? It’s pretty easy to stand out in this crowded environment of …
Music Monday: Belay On!
One of my all-time favorite Calibration Team Retreats we’ve ever facilitated at LionSpeak was with a small group of women in Seattle, Washington. We went to local climbing gym, had our meeting, got a truckload accomplished and topped it off with some teambuilding exercises on the climbing wall. But before we could do any of the activities we had planned, we …
Become the Leader Others Want to Follow
Leadership is the number one skill professionals need to master to create the career and life they want. Leadership trumps every other skill you need. Everyone can become a great leader. And, it’s not as hard as you’ve been led to believe. At one of our recent “Leaders of the Pride” workshops, a new dentist said, “My father was a …
