Prioritize your problems, identify all the best possible solutions to the most important issue and decide how to implement them
“Gross!” my kids yelled as I showed them the big lump of yellow wax that I had just picked out of the sink. To me, this lump of “gross” wax was a relief. A few days earlier, I had barely survived a flight from Rome to Dublin without screaming in pain. My ear was plugged and…
Do you come to work to just put in time or are you trying to achieve a goal? You need a clear vision, a simple approach, lots of communication and determination
Al Erricson was my basketball coach in 1982 – he’s learned a lot about coaching since then. If only Al knew then what he knows now, we might have won a game or two. What Al knows, and every business owner and manager should know, is that being successful is not all about skills. It…
We only have a limited number of years in our lives and breaking them down into time frames of intention could make all the difference
I was invited to speak at a conference last January where the hosts encouraged the attendees to “Name their year.” I’d never thought of doing this before and was interested in how people would go about picking the name of the year. As I sat around a table and listened to the conversation, I was…
The problem for most of us is we think we know it all or we believe if we try hard enough we can make ourselves learn it. But it’s not nearly that simple
Until Dave Holmes stepped onto the basketball court, I was unconsciously incompetent. I knew how to yell from the stands and I knew how to tell my kids how to play better. But this year when I took the step to coach my daughter’s school basketball team, I realized how incompetent I really was. I…
You can't be all things to all people, but you can be exceptional. Find the market, product and service that suit you and your customers
The line “You can’t be all things to all people” comes from this poem: You can't be all things to all people. You can't do all things at once. You can't do all things equally well. You can't do all things better than everyone else. Your humanity is showing just like everyone else's. So: You…
Wouldn’t it be better to encourage small business ownership than punish it?
Chris clobbered me on the side of the head and then swam over me. Coughing and sputtering I came up for air and yelled foul. The referee blew his whistle and Chris was sent off to the side of the pool. I laughed and played on. It was all part of the game of water…
It’s time to take the plunge: to take a good idea and turn it into a profitable venture, you need to take a risk
Christopher O’Byrne stood on the edge of the cliff, looked down, considered jumping and then stepped back. He repeated the process over and over. He would walk away and then back. His mind told him to jump but his body just wouldn’t do it. Christopher knew he couldn’t take the internal dialogue any more, or…
Reaching out to wayward customers can not only reinvigorate your sales, but allows you to do a lot of market research
Grant was on the ground yelling as I came around the corner at high speed on my mountain bike at dusk. He had flown off his bike instead of hitting a moose standing on the trail. I skidded to avoid him. I could still see two moose, a cow and her year-old calf, on the…
Almost absent in the debate about proposed Canadian changes are any voices defending the idea of tax fairness
Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s proposals for tightening tax breaks associated with private companies is generating several kinds of response on social media and in mainstream media. The most evident is an impressive deluge of evidence-free rhetoric claiming that the proposals are an attack on everything from the middle class to maternity leave for female…
When we take the time to engage with our customers and be sincere and interested, the dollars roll in
It was a Friday afternoon in Alberta. I’d met with some clients and had time for a walk. I decided to head to the strip mall near where I was staying. My first stop was the Peavey Mart hardware store, since I’d never visited one before and it looked interesting. I entered the store and…