A better future depends on our ability to limit ourselves and listen to feedback whether you are an eight year old or the president of the United States. Read More
Trust & Respect
My wife and I have been working with our five year old boy on trust and respect. Recently, we punished him for some negative behavior at school. As it was something the school had to call us about, we choose to take away his Legos until he can earn our trust back. I also let… Read More
Creating Bright Lines for Ourselves
Last time we talked about our daily problems and seeing them for what they are, a disconnect between what happens and our expectations of what happens. We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we believe or want them to be. We interpret our experience to fit the mold of our mental… Read More
Bullies are a Gift
“Junior high was actually sort of hard because I got dumped by this group of girls.” “They didn’t think I was cool or pretty enough, so they stopped talking to me.” A year into her career, Taylor Swift returned to perform int he place where earlier she’d been mocked (and bullied) -and saw the girls… Read More
Igniting Our Fire to Create
In the aerospace industry, reactive problem solving is the norm. Satellite programs start with a schedule behind where it is supposed to be. A launch window has already been acquired or the alignment of celestial bodies give only a two week period in order for a mission to proceed. We attempt to build in schedule… Read More
Embracing Our Wiggle Worm
Watching my four and eight year old attend a martial arts class, I remembered what I’ve seen at work from technicians to executive management. There are times we all lack focus and become less effective. We get distracted by personal things. We get lost in our vision to the point of forgetting to interact with our… Read More
Setting Expectations for Ourselves
My daughter is finding her ability to solve third grade math problems. A few weeks ago she was comparing herself to other people in her class. We told her it doesn’t matter what others are doing and if it is something important to her she will have to practice everyday. In the last two weeks… Read More
Feedback
Improvement requires feedback. Adjusting our course to achieve our objectives requires feedback. Efficient acquisition of our targets requires feedback. I recently submitted my manuscript for A Valued Life, Managing the Business of You to a content editor. It’s not easy to hear how someone doesn’t understand the premise of what the business of you… Read More
Resource Management
Who’s managing our resources if we are not? Is it our significant other? Is it our family? Is it our work? Is it our addictions? It’s an interesting question that implies control. More specifically, if we don’t exercise self-control, others will exercise control over us. When we let others manage us it sets up a… Read More
Caustic Opportunities
Joe’s comment to the last post got me thinking. There are opportunities that present themselves all the time to us. They range from little gains to big wins and from little distractions to those that burn up our available time with little to no gain. The key to our success is to recognize the down… Read More
