Category: Personal Growth

  • Your Career is Your Sport

    “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and…

  • People, Processes, and Technology

    “I believe in these guys and they believe in each other. The biggest thing for us is never quit.”  – Dave Martinez, Washington Nationals Manager All of our engagements are about three distinct areas of organizations; people, processes, and technology. Our clients hire us to work through all of those dimensions to achieve a business objective.   In that context, I want…

  • Ways to Improve Communication

    “I urge you to please notice when you’re happy … and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, if this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” – Kurt Vonnegut  Stop, Collaborate, and Listen.   We chose happiness, we chose a positive frame of mind, we chose to see the best in one another… we have a…

  • The Power of a Smile…

    Have you ever noticed that a smile from someone can just make your day? When I was a phone operator at Nordstrom (I’ve had almost every job at Nordstrom), we used to talk about having a smile in your voice when you answered the phone. Have you ever noticed how much more approachable a friendly voice is rather…

  • Be Like Mike

    “When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they’ve given up on you.”  ― Randy Pausch (The Last Lecture)  In loving memory of someone who made me try harder…  We continue to enjoy good fortune in the marketplace. As I wrote yesterday, happy clients and perfect quality work create a virtuous…

  • Career Coaching

    “Each person holds so much power within themselves that needs to be let out. Sometimes they just need a little nudge, a little direction, a little support, a little coaching, and the greatest things can happen.”   – Pete Carroll  Career Coaching  As you all know, yesterday was the close of the first round of selecting…

  • Climbing the Bumps

    What are you proud of?  All things being equal it’s been a year of challenges and triumphs. I’ve watched many of you grow over the last year, myself included. I read a book when I was a kid named “The bumps are what you climb on”. The premise being that challenging yourself and enduring challenging…

  • Alignment towards Excellence…

    “If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.”  – Colin Powell  Hi Everyone,   I want to thank everyone who submitted ideas for the T-Shirt contest. The winner has been selected and is now at the t-shirt print shop… super exciting!…

  • Accountability and Compassion

    “You can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them.”  – Shonda Rhimes  I’ve been thinking about these two concepts a lot lately. They are often in juxtaposition with respect to someone’s performance as a teammate or an employee. There are times when each of us falls short, misses the…

  • Help, I need somebody!

    “Help, I need somebody!”   There are lots of books about holding people accountable, oftentimes these books focus on the clarity of the responsibilities, measurement, or structuring conversations that cut through the excuses. Yes, these are all important things to focus on. What I don’t like about many of these books is that accountability is more…