The young one had a map of sorts, mostly a list of turns drawn on birchbark – arrow left at the big oak, right after the log bridge, and so on. The path was long for one so young, winding through a deep hardwood forest, crossing a rushing stream on a fallen log, then climbing […]
It is almost Thanksgiving. At our house we all sit around the turkey, for those who partake, and four-cheese mac-n-cheese for those who don’t, and say one thing we are each genuinely grateful for. Saying just one thing often precludes career stuff, I mean it doesn’t really stand up to health, and the love of […]
Disaster! Off and on all day yesterday, I puzzled over what to write this week. Some weeks the words flow like a fast stream onto the screen. Then there are those other times, when Billie says, “You know, none of your subscribers will show up at the door if you miss a week.” R–E–T–I–R–E–D? Isn’t […]
Here, in the United States of America, we just had the quadrennial shouting match we call our presidential elections. We are a very divided country. We have been divided since our founding according to how much government we want and where the locus of power should reside, federal, state, or local. Now we are also […]
Alan Culler and I are comfortable calling ourselves “old sales guys.” Recently, we each watched a video where a consultant described how a company could connect with its customers using information that they already had, “personalizing” the customer experience. The young man wasn’t a great presenter, but there was nothing wrong with the content he […]
“A woodworker must “apply a thousand skills” to find the ideal use for each piece of wood, respecting the “soul of the tree” and shaping it to realize its true potential” George Nakashima, architect, artist, builder of beautiful wood furniture worked until his nineties. Now his children carry on his craft. In the fourteenth […]
“The creepy spiders need to be lower. Kids are short, They need to turn their head and be looking directly into those red eyes.” “You are normally such a sweet person. What happens to you at Halloween?” “Being scared is what Halloween is all about?” “I thought it was about the candy.” “Nah, it’s about […]
This picture was on a birthday card I received last week. It is a real photo of Rolland “Rollie” Free setting the motorcycle land speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats September 13, 1948 eleven months after I was born. Rollie Free raced Indian motorcycles before World War II. He set a record at 111 […]
I wrote a book on consulting. I am writing another book on leading change. This quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower is in both books. “In planning for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable” This quote is attributed to Eisenhower in Richard Nixon’s book Six Crises. It is also […]
This picture is a cartoon archetype. A guru, hermit, wiseman sits before the mouth of a cave high in the mountains. Before him sits a young seeker, a supplicant, whose backpack indicates he has climbed high into the mountains looking for answers to his burning question: “What is the meaning of life?” The punchlines almost […]
