The holiday season is hectic, so we will keep this post even shorter than usual. Here is our favorite poem that keeps things in perspective for us. We hope it does the same for you . . . Yesterday is History,Tomorrow is a Mystery,Today is a Gift,That’s why they call it the Present. May you…
What is a gift? My family has a long tradition of thoughtful gift giving dating back to my Grandma Minnie. With legs too thin to hold up panty hose (she had to put rubber bands at the top to hold them up), Grandma Minnie would go out and personally Christmas shop for her eight children…
The holiday season rush, year-end crunch, New Year's expectations—they all place heavy demands on our minds and bodies. This acronym can help proactively manage your stress during the holidays or any other time: H.A.L.T. Avoid getting too: Hungry. This might sound goofy around the holidays, when you make good use of the extra hole in your belt, but being too…
Researchers who study high achievers now consider passion to be the "missing link." It is the intangible component that explains why some people and teams are better able to stick to their plans and achieve greater levels of success—success like Pierre Omidyar has achieved. After earning his degree in computer science, Pierre Omidyar joined a…
How do I motivate my team, my kids, my spouse, my anyone? It’s an age-old question with a myriad of different answers ... too many to even summarize here. So, in our information-overloaded world, let me boil it down to this. If you want to motivate, then appreciate. We do more for those who appreciate us. The…
Life is a great teacher even when I am not a great student. Although I don’t drink much, I am striving to be like a fine wine – to get better with age. Like you, life has taught me much. So I have highlighted 14 of my life lessons here: My best education started after…
With a clear vision of what we can become, no challenge is too great. Without it, we rarely move beyond our current boundaries. I learned the power of vision from my seven-year-old daughter a few years ago. She loved to play catch with Dad. The object we threw -- a tennis ball, football, one of…
As I anticipate cooking on my outdoor grill for a traditional Labor Day barbeque, I also ponder why Labor Day is, well, Labor Day. I love living during a time when any answer is just a Google and a click away. Labor Day has been celebrated on the first Monday in September in the United…
As I reflected on the life of our family dog, Sparky, I was struck by his gold standard of reliability. Before Sparky went to doggy heaven, he greeted me at home every time I walked in the door for 14 years. To put that into perspective, that’s 20,000+ times without fail! The same greeting, the same…
We all have values that are important to us, but they don’t mean much unless we convert them to action. It’s easy to talk about values, but much harder to consistently live them out. As Aesop said in his Fables, “When all is said and done, more is said than done.” Two keys to personal reliability…
