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“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
The quote is by the poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019, Pulitzer Prize winner) and the elegant beauty of it always spoke volumes to me. I live…
April 23, 2024Who Told You it Would Be Easy?
And if someone ever did, why would you believe them? If it were easy, everyone would do it, so what’s the point? Where is the…
April 16, 2024Practice is a Skill
Or more fully stated: ‘effective practice is a learnable skillset’. It may sound like heresy, but not all practice is good practice or at least…
April 9, 2024Will is a Skill
For many of us and for much of our lives we have absorbed the concept that willpower, along with its close cousin, self-discipline, is an…
April 4, 2024Baker’s Dozen
Recently, I was asked: “What is the most valuable piece of advice you would give to anyone new at TCC who is looking to grow…
April 2, 2024Words That Give Away Your Power
Phrases like “You made me…” or “I have to…” or “I had no choice” give away your power. You always have choices; the choices may…
March 28, 2024Life is a Roll Call
Roll Call: The reading aloud of a list of names, and subsequent responses, to determine who is present or absent. Every day, the sun rises,…
March 26, 2024One-Time Phenomenon
You are a unique combination of DNA that has never happened before and will never happen again. Throw in that every person’s environment is also…
March 19, 2024Our Daily Duty
Every day life begins anew and with it an opportunity for new (more informed?) choices, new (wiser?) decisions, new (better?) paths. Will you go to…
March 12, 2024Elevate Your Identity
Your identity, your self-concept, is who you think you are, the story you tell yourself about yourself as well as the standards you hold yourself…
February 29, 2024Ask What You Can Do
During his inaugural speech on January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy famously said: “Ask not what your country can do for you- ask what you…
February 20, 2024Run Straight at the Pain and You will Develop Superpowers
I’m not talking about physical pain so much as I am about emotional/social pain i.e. the ‘pain’ of self-discipline, the ‘pain’ of social rejection, the…
February 15, 2024Build the Chain
We are so much the product of our habits. So how to form habits that take us where we want to go? And break the…
February 13, 2024Plan Your Future in Advance
Hey, the future is going to come and if you want a better future, you’d best start doing something about it today. The most basic…
February 6, 2024Could it be Me?
Sometimes we don’t make the progress we would like in life or maybe not as fast as we would like. As we look around for…
February 1, 2024You are the Creator
I am continually amazed at the extent to which our belief systems create our life. Whether we realize it or not, at some level, we…
January 30, 2024You Can Not Lead People if You Need People
But didn’t Barbara Streisand sing ‘People who need people are the luckiest people in the world’? Okay, the title is a deliberate overstatement, designed…
January 23, 2024The Intolerable Cost of Myopic Perfectionism
Myopic Perfectionism: An excessive focus on a single topic to the exclusion of other important topics; an obsessive interest or preoccupation with a particular subject…
January 16, 2024How to Bring Your Best Self To Work Every Day
We were winding up a Book Club meeting (Radical Candor by Kim Scott) when someone tossed out the question: “How do you bring your best…
January 9, 2024Keep the ‘Dirt Under Your Fingernails’
Folks, I’m close to 72 years old but I still pick up litter, I still visit communities (the equivalent of ‘walking the factory floor’ in…
January 4, 2024It’s Never a Good Idea to Count on Prosperity Lasting Forever… Good Times Are in Part Opportunities to Save up for Bad Times
Okay, here is a crazy idea for the New Year… live beneath your income. That year-end raise you hopefully got? Stick it in your 401K…
January 2, 2024Creating Change That Lasts Throughout the New Year
The life expectancy of most New Year’s Resolutions can be measured at best in days, some even mere hours. So how to create lasting change?…
December 28, 2023“I was left with the impression it was resolved” – Thoughts on the Importance of Full Disclosure and Closure
What are the key elements of leadership? What are the vital roles of a manager? How do you develop people to their fullest, most effective…
December 14, 2023Little is Large
Folks, there is no mystical key, no hidden secret, no big, concealed trick to success, happiness, or prosperity. Thomas Alva Edison’s famous saying applies in…
December 7, 2023It’s Hard to See Reality from Your Desk
My company owns and manages apartments. I’m well past retirement age, in my 70’s, my official title is Chair and my responsibilities, such as they…
November 30, 2023I Told My Team
Recently a situation requiring sensitivity and finesse, was not handled thus even though we had recently covered the topic with our middle managers. When it…
November 14, 2023