I’m not typically one for sports analogies, but I think this one fits: the big games are almost always won or lost in the fourth quarter.  Great teams and great players are the ones who rise to the challenge and actually pick up the pace and improve their performance in the last few critical minutes of the game.  When everyone else is tired, hurting and complaining… champions put their head down and find the strength and motivation to win, even in the face of sometimes overwhelming circumstances. Read the rest of this entry »

I have been on vacation, fly fishing in Colorado for the last two weeks, and on a few days when the weather was particularly poor (like snowing on June 9th!!!!) I had a chance to catch up on some reading. I wanted to pass along three of the books I read that I found very, very valuable. Read the rest of this entry »

When times are tough, the number one thing that will help you survive is your staff. That’s right. There is no way that you can make it through the current economic turmoil alone; you need your employees (or team if you aren’t running the place) to be motivated and dedicated to helping the business succeed. How do you keep these important people on your side? To me, there are three keys: Honesty, Vision, and Culture. Read the rest of this entry »

When times were good and money was flowing fast it was easy to generate business without a high level of differentiation or an incredibly strong value proposition. But now that the economic times have gotten tougher and every business and personal consumer is carefully considering how to spend their dwindling resources, unless you can clearly show that your business adds real value to the customer… you’re going to have a really hard time finding any customers! Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I ran across a great article that I thought was very valuable. I sent a copy of it to several people in my network and the feedback has been so positive that I felt I should go ahead and post it to my blog so all of you can get access to this powerful idea… Read the rest of this entry »

I know that right now many people are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, and that is only natural given the incredible onslaught of difficult and depressing news we are bombarded with day in and day out. Although I am doing pretty good right now, there was a time years ago (actually my first few years of college) when I was struggling mightily to keep my life on track and moving in a positive direction. It was then that I decided that if I wanted my life to get better, I would have to get better. So I set out to learn everything I humanly could about how to build a happy, joyful and successful life. After reading hundreds of books and listening to hundreds of hours of motivational/self-help audio programs, I boiled down everything I had learned into my own personal “Strategies for Success” life-skills handbook. What I’d like to do in this blog is share two very simple workshops that I believe can have a strong positive impact on reducing the stress and anxiety in your life right now and giving you much, much more happiness and enjoyment. Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a colleague who works for one of our government’s largest departments (which will go unnamed) asking if I would be willing to share my thoughts on how to build a world-class leadership development program. I was deeply honored to be recognized as an authority in this area and welcomed the opportunity to share my opinions and ideas formed in nearly two decades of creating and delivering leadership and employee development programs. Here are my responses to the questions she posed… Read the rest of this entry »

In the several weeks since I posted my last blog I’ve traveled quite a bit; a trip to Philadelphia to teach at Wharton, down to Orlando to attend the Inc. Magazine “Grow Your Company” conference and several side trips to meet with clients.  Along the way I have picked up some interesting information that I hope you find valuable… Read the rest of this entry »