Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Purposeful Leadership & Living”
I had gone with a friend of mine to see his young son learn how to skateboard. The skateboard park scene was as you might imagine — mostly teens and some young adults exercising their own acts of defiance against the forces of gravity and friction. Pretty impressive displays. And then I noticed this one fellow who had all the …
horror vacui Nature abhors a vacuum. The physics around filling an atmospheric void gives us thunder, wind, keeps dentists and surgeons tidy, and has gratefully displaced brooms in favor of Dirt Devils and Dysons. Vacuum can work for you. Including at your next management team meeting. In human psychology, we have an arousal quotient or requirement, which fuels an appetite for …
By now, most everyone has cemented an opinion—informed or ill-informed, reasoned or shrill as it may be—about what happened on that United flight last week. Perhaps now, if the frothing has subsided a bit, it might be worth reflecting on what was really in play and at stake for anyone else in leadership. Whether your ire is centered on the …
I’m not a very good fly fisherman. Actually, I’m terrible. The only time I seem to ever hook into one of those finned rascals is when I am under the watchful eye of some grizzled, taciturn fishing guide, who spends most of the time untangling me from the bushes behind me. Nonetheless, I am a stubborn, undeterred soul. So much …
How does getting a degree in physics and aerospace engineering prepare you to own a neighborhood barbecue restaurant? It doesn’t. It’s way harder than that. Yet, if you want a great example of what it means to have your business mean more than its product, pull up a chair. Matt Cuff had a good gig as a design engineer with …
Got a minute? Try this. For one minute (maybe have someone else tell you when that minute is up, because you almost inevitably will cut it short!) think of one thing. One object, an experience,. a person — not a problem to solve. Go… What was so hard about that? If you’re like most, you had to fend off distractions …
Do you instill pride in people — or shame? The “right” answer, of course is the first choice, but how easy is it to slip into the latter? The contrast was on full display a few weeks ago when the Seattle Seahawks and the Arizona Cardinals stumbled to a attention-numbing 6-6 tie after regulation play and headed into …
What holds you back? It’s a deceptively common question, but it only gets provocative (and useful) when we decline to accept the first answer. Especially from ourselves. I remember the first time I really heard it myself. It was 20 years ago this month at a major business conference where I ventured into a conversation with a person sitting next …
It’s that feeling you get when a fire truck goes racing by – you wonder what happened but you’re just glad it isn’t you. Wells Fargo Bank saw its sterling brand go up in flames last week as the feds fingered their community banking division for creating two million bogus accounts using customer funds without their knowledge. Analogies escape us. …
It was just a few months ago that the global stock markets crumpled under the hammer of the Brexit vote. Exchanges around the world logged losses totally $2 trillion in just two days, with indexes down an average of 7-8% worldwide. A friend of mine was bemoaning the turmoil and asked me (misdirected in that I know almost nothing about …
