What is Your Prime Directive?
What is your Prime Directive? What is your Driving Force? Your North Star? Your Rationale for Existence? Your Controlling Principles? Your Mission Statement, Your Purpose?…
As an Owner/Operator of Real Estate with a “Digital Open Door”, I get “Questions For Chair” which I’d like to share:
What is the first business related thing you think about when you wake up and/or go to bed? I had a paper route as a kid…
Do These Three Hard Things to be Happy
Say no. Given that our time on this earth is limited and there are only 24 hours in a day, every Yes is a No…
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
We all have a world view, a perspective that we use to explain to ourselves, to make sense of, the reality we experience, to fit…
As an Owner/Operator of Real Estate with a “Digital Open Door”, I get “Questions For Chair” which I’d like to share:
What would your advice be for someone new trying to get their start in purchasing real estate/properties to manage? Go read Real Estate Investing Gone Bad: 21…
10 Things the Most Successful People Are Always Doing
1) Planning their Lives, Working their Plan. Ordinary folks with a plan will go further than a genius without a plan. Most folks go the…
The Back and Forth of Leadership
How to balance empowerment and control? Business guru Tom Peters quotes Alfred Sloan, former GM CEO, saying that management is “steering back and forth between: a)…
The Best Bosses Aren’t Always Bossy
Being a good boss has a soft side and a hard side. On the hard side, bosses provide training, instruction, guidance, goals and targets, resources,…
What Do You Tolerate?
What will you put up with before you move on? What are your standards, your acceptable minimum? Generally speaking, what we are willing to settle…
The 5 Whys: Getting to Root Causes, Fast!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys The “5 Whys” spring from Toyota and are a simple problem-solving exercise designed to go beyond symptoms to unearth the root cause of problems.…
In Search of (Productive) Dissatisfaction
Ah! Why would anyone go in search of dissatisfaction? Well, complacency is the biggest enemy of champions. As Andrew Grove, the founder of Intel, famously…
Hugging the Messenger!
We’ve all heard the admonishment, “Don’t Shoot the Messenger!”. Well, I urge you to take it a step further: HUG the Messenger! Thank them profusely.…
Three Questions That Determine the Success of Your Pitch (That Your Boss May Not Realize They Are Asking Themselves)
Quite frankly, ideas are a dime a dozen; even good ideas. It’s in the EXECUTION that most ideas succeed or fail. And odds are that…
One Quick Way a Leader Can Destroy an Organization’s Integrity
Is your Higher Purpose to “Look Good” or “Be/Do Good”? While communication should always be respectful, civil and done with a kind heart and intentions,…
Thinking is a Skill…Many are Unskilled and Don’t Know It
Simply because they have thoughts (i.e. words form) in their heads, most folks believe they know how to think. But if you define thinking as…
Powerfully Productive? Possible; Not Probable
Every hour of a meeting with eight people present represents an eight hour workday, the investment of a full “Man-Day”. Was value created or dissipated?…
CTS: The Little Difference That Makes a BIG Difference
“There is very little difference between people but that little difference makes a big difference.” – W. Clement Stone One little difference that makes a…
Think Smart, Think Systems: Solve the Problem, Then Fix the System
If you wish to truly make a difference in the world, if you wish to advance, it is not enough to solve the problem right…
The Risk You Can’t Afford Not To Take
“There is the risk you cannot afford to take and then there is the risk you cannot afford not to take.” – Peter Drucker, 1909-2005…
Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got
Too often we focus on our lacks, our weaknesses, on barriers that are in our way and thus flirt with creating a victim identity. If…
Three Things That Stand Between You and Greatness
1. Unfocused Desire The #1 reason people do not become their best self/do not live their greatest life is a Lack of Desire or more…
Doing it Scared
Doing it scared means doing it before you are fully ready because we are rarely, if ever, fully ready. Doing it scared means pushing your…
Unfulfilled Expectations: Landmines or Clues?
We spend most of our lives in Plan B; life is full of surprises, good and bad. As the saying goes, life turns out best…
The False Dichotomy: Micromanagement v. Delegation
Could it be that micromanagement is an overused term? A misnomer for a multitude of other management/communication issues? True micromanagement is explicitly giving a certain…
Seven Ways to Sabotage Yourself
Sometimes looking at opposites brings things into greater clarity… Be Reactive: Give away your personal power; hold others responsible for your emotions and reactions. See…
Half Truths, Myths, and Magical Thinking
I ran across a statement the other day that gave me pause for I truly thought that, stand alone, it was a dangerous concept: “Hire…