The other morning my wife and I were admonishing our eight year old daughter for some misbehavior. My daughter’s coping mechanism is to shy away. She walked away from the breakfast table as she didn’t want to deal with the reprimand. We were telling her that she has to deal with the problem, to fix… Read More
Always Updating
As I tell my son and daughter, “I want to be learning to the end of my days” and “everyday we should be improving.” This is true for everything we do. I recent came across a blog post indicating that the most important pages on a website is the about pages. This person summarized “How… Read More
Managing Constraints
Keeping things flowing amidst a myriad of constraints is the essence of management. This is true for a mid-level manager in an aerospace company, a line supervisor, a restaurant chef or us as individuals. We are faced with requirements, constraints and expectations all the time. Finding a way to meet a goal or bring about… Read More
Is Your Ego Depleted?
I was first introduced to the idea of ego depletion in Roy Baumeister’s book Willpower, Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. Ego depletion is one of the primary factors affection our willpower. Our willpower and self-control draw on a limited pool of mental resources. Our mental resources are directly related to our available energy which is… Read More
Do You Look or Do You See?
To look at something means to gaze your eyes upon or acknowledge something’s presence. In order to see, not only does one look at the object but we also understand it and pay attention to it. The roots of the word look go back to before 90CE. The verb comes from the Middle English loke… Read More
Just a Little Buffer
Let’s say you value yourself and know what you value in life. Let’s also say you have an idea of how to create the vision you have for yourself. As life unfolds, if you don’t have any buffer or contingency plan, the present situation can be pretty stressful. What is buffer and what is contingency?… Read More
Enjoying the Unknown
“Settling into not knowing” “Enjoying the unexpectedness” “I’m really thankful that I’ve cultivated a life that has gotten me to a point where I can preserve this space to allow things to play out as they might.” These are the words of a friend of mine off on a journey in Europe in a recent… Read More
Happy Birthday
The following post is dedicated to my spouse, Jessica. Although it is personal in nature, I put it out into the world as an example of managing the business of a relationship which feeds the business of me. It’s also a barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world to express the magnitude of my… Read More
Power in Purpose
There’s power in purpose, especially a purpose we give to ourselves directly affecting our lives. A great example of this is the science fiction book, The Martian by Andy Weir. I haven’t finished the book yet and thus don’t know the ending. (no spoilers here) Mark Watney through unfortunate circumstances is left on Mars by… Read More
Opportunities in Our Pain
Whatever happens in our lives, there’s opportunity to learn. Often we get so caught up in what’s happening we lose sight of the big picture. We let the pain, trauma or drama define us instead of holding on to the definition we have for ourselves. We create more problems focusing on our problems. When we… Read More
Business of You 