An Unexpected Gift
This is probably one of the most amazing stories I’ve heard in quite some time…Words don’t do justice to it, so if you read the article and like it I’d suggest you also watch the video. What an incredible story of an unexpected gift. Although Phoenix cab driver Tom Chappell insists he always knows where [...]
Keep on Keepin’ On–From Jerry.
I’m in a blogging rut. Big time. It’s been like two postings in about three weeks. Writing this is an important part of my life, for reasons I don’t fully understand. Successful writing requires consistency. And, right now, my consistency sucks (learned that word reading a Harvard Biz School publication). It’s not that I don’t [...]
Love
Last week has been incredibly busy, as you can tell from a blogging absence of EIGHT days (cringe!) with a lot of work activity along with business travel, some volunteering with the Olympia Hands On Children’s Museum, and then finally a bit of a personal vacation that started this week (but I’m headed to Portland [...]
Exercising your inner ‘Rocky’
Here you go, another way to get to your wellness. Go for it, and start exercising your inner Rocky! “If someone says you can lose 20 pounds in the course of a year by punching a bag, then I’m signing up,” says Stephen Stoute, the 39-year-old chief executive of Carol’s Daughter beauty and skin-care line. [...]
Hannah Montana AND Tony Hawk
In the last few weeks I’ve been touched by a few people who have sought as a personal endeavor to give people unexpected gifts and “make a moment.” You might recall a few weeks ago I posted a story about skateboarding, and little Zoe’s cool new Hannah Montana skateboard for her birthday…and how I never [...]
A Moment of Reflection
Today I spent the day thinking about… Me. Not entirely, but the fact of the matter is I spent a bit of time thinking about my life, what I wanted to achieve, where I wanted to go, the impact I felt like I could have, and other such matters. Which, I thought was pretty important [...]
My Man, Mitch (Mitch Daniels)
Some of you may know that I had the privilege of spending some of my early work years at some really solid companies–Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson. I have nothing but admiration for these excellent organizations, and appreciation for all the great relationships formed as well as exceptional training, learning, and development. There are [...]
A Forever Wedding Memory
In College I had a football coach that used to say “you’ll be the same person ten years from now that you are today, except for the people that you meet and the books that you read.” I think there’s a lot of truth to that; from some of the people I’ve met over the [...]
The Hannah Montana Skateboard
When I was growing up, in middle school, I wanted a skateboard. Not just a kinda-wanna, I mean I REALLY wanted one. Badly. All my buddies had them, the cool kids were always out in sidewalks of Jones Middle School doing tricks, finding a half pipe somewhere to ride on. I remember reading boarding magazine [...]
A Long Story Short
There are many great things that I loved about undergrad and grad school; I loved the education and friendships, the challenges and opportunities, the personal development and the learnings, and particularly graduation with an exciting departure to go to Kolkata for a month followed by a new job at Johnson and Johnson. Yet I also [...]
Authenticity…From a Kid
Thursday night I was at dinner with my family; it was a gorgeous evening crisp and clean air quickly cooling by the nightfall from a warm and sunny day. Just one of those great casual evenings consisting of hangout-with-the-family time. Royce, my seven-year old daughter, was really being quite loving with me. She kept [...]
The Physicist in Sonoma
Recently I took a trip to Sonoma, California, one of my favorite places to visit–and even more so when my wife is with me. So in touring lots of wineries there’s a lot more than “does the wine taste good?” It includes the atmosphere, the staff, the process they use, their focus, and a lot [...]
The Nike Experiment
I love hearing various stories about what works for people’s “wellness” initiative, or what they do to get–and stay–motivated to improve themselves physically. And I’d love to hear or read some other comments from readers, so post your comments away! Fundamentally, I do think Nike has it right as, with many things in life, [...]
Happy Father’s Day
Though late in the day, I’m still going to get my Father’s Day post in before “COB”, even beating midnight Eastern time. My Dad is a phenomenal individual and I really appreciate him (as well my Mom, but today is the Dad’s day) more than words can adequately express. Which might be a good thing, [...]
A Random Update
This has been the longest I’ve gone for quite a while without a blog update. I’ve missed writing, and am also a bit embarrassed for the time that’s passed. So as I was thinking of blogging topics I thought better might be a quick highlights from the past week. So this particular entry isn’t focused [...]
Goal Accomplishment
Going into the Univera Cruise a few weeks ago I was still working towards my physical goal for the year (and, technically, my target date is still end of June) but I’d moved into the mode of “well, I’ll try my best.” It was accompanied with a bit of a plan, like working out a [...]
R Angel
Today’s a really great day, and not just because of our birth mothers (though I’m particularly appreciative of my mom and my wife) but also because of all the other great literal or metaphorical mothers out across the world–there are some of you who have done as much as any other mother, but for kids [...]
Lesson from 54A
Thanks for tuning in this past week for excerpts based on my recent Servant Leadership article “Lessons Learned from Mother Teresa.” Funny as the way life goes, I had many great blogging ideas this week (seems to always be the case in the rare event that I’ve got a weeks worth of entries already considered). [...]
“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.” -Mother Teresa
The following post is part of my weeklong series “Lessons Learned from Mother Teresa” (read that post first). This excerpt is part three, the final component, of the Direct Selling News article from March. I’ll post the full article and link this weekend. “Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.” [...]
“One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.” -Mother Teresa
“One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.” -Mother Teresa There’s a lifestyle component to our industry that sometimes we feel that we need in order to sell “the opportunity.” There’s nothing wrong with lifestyle; nice homes, comfortable cars, and exotic trips are all part of our industry at various times. There’s [...]
“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” -Mother Teresa
The following post is part of my weeklong series “Lessons Learned from Mother Teresa” (read that post first). This excerpt is part two of the Direct Selling News article from March. “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” -Mother Teresa When you arrive in Kolkata, despair, more [...]
Lessons Learned from Mother Teresa
In January I took two weeks off to go to Kolkata, India to do some volunteer work and personal study at Mother Teresa’s organization called the “Sisters of Charity.” About the time I was leaving, I was asked to write an article on Servant Leadership for the Direct Selling News publication. So the decision of [...]
Getting Started
This weekend it was time to start the mower. And a myriad of other projects—most of which were accomplished, as it was a hyper-productive Saturday. But the mower was the hot priority. Partly because the lawn needs cutting, but mostly because there’s a bigger experience to be had with my kids. And the lawn mower [...]
Happy 4th Birthday Buddy
The reason I write in my blog is to connect with people. Not just from one segment of life, but from many. And as part of the thread of stories I try to share experiences and observations in leadership, volunteerism, wellness, as well as some stories that are simply personal experiences that fall in none [...]