Become the gratitude expert

Japanese steakhouse
Lunch. Today. Never gets old.

Gratitude is the greatest superpower.

dad

Please know i’ve spent 60+ years thinking about priorities. The past 20 years at world-class .think .differently level.

You do not have to agree with me.

In fact, i don’t expect you to.

You know what i expect from others who read this?

Nothing.

You know anyone who thinks this deep and broad?

If someone comes to mind, share their contact info and i’ll reach out.

It feels like the wilderness.

Lonely sometimes, but always worth my time.

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This website is about our SPIRIT. To enjoy today’s post about our WORK, click here.

Tough love is kind

text note to self
Reminder to consider this idea that popped up just before bicycling yesterday.
coffee mug and glass jar
The bead jar was emptied one bead a week for 18 years (936 weeks). One blue bead remains to allow bead size context. The coffee mug is a gift from Donna Flanagin. Donna has read the 5 daily, differently-themed blog posts since the beginning in 2009.

Tough love is kind.

If you don’t prepare yourself for your future, you are being unkind to yourself.

If you don’t prepare your child(ren) for their future you are being unkind to them.

Tough to think about, right?

That’s why it’s kind.

You alleviate preventable hardship down the road because you planned ahead and acted ahead.

You changed when you didn’t need to.

It’s called being proactive and loving.

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This website is about our SPIRIT. To enjoy today’s post about our WORK, click here.

If you want to stay on this site and read more posts from this Blog, click here.

Safer to lie or to tell the trut​h?

lying in public
They were in the news again because Go-Fund-Me just refunded every donor’s money. They are probably nice people in general. Temptation to lie is something every one of us has to wrestle with.

What if you were praised for telling the truth?

Generally, lying when you do something unpopular, unethical, or even accidently, the return on investment for lying seems like the (obvious) best and most valuable choice – life immediately becomes easier when we are “off-the-hook”.

The wrath and responsibility for owning up to something can be avoided or turned into a non-issue if we lie.

What’s in it for being honest?

Trust.

The most valuable of all relationship ingredients.

When our son was about two years old (in 2002), we promised him he’d never get in trouble for telling the truth.

Set your bar(s) high.

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This website is about our SPIRIT. To enjoy today’s post about our WORK, click here.

If you want to stay on this site and read more posts from this Blog, click here.

A reminder that patience isn’t just for the easy stuff

thank you note
This was such a big deal and my patience was put to the test.

 

thank you note
Turns out, it was just a button labeled “refresh” that needed to be pushed.

 

In 18 years as a full-time professional speaker and business advisor, i have never (not a single time) placed my presentation on a thumb-drive and given it to a client to run Disney/my content off of their laptop.

Never.

Ever.

Why?

Because for the first 15 years, it was a Disney Institute standard to protect Disney’s proprietary content and intellectual property.

And – and this is a big and – the reason my presentations didn’t work well on a client’s screen was never (another big word) a fault of my laptop.

i hate being seen as an inflexible and paranoid human being.

But that’s the very role i have to play when push comes to shove.

i was backed into a corner two days ago.

We tried:

  • Rebooting laptop.
  • Using my backup laptop.
  • Replacing their HDMI cable.

Nothing worked.

By the way, for the 45 minutes before AV arrived, everything worked fine. But then the three screens began flickering every few seconds. And to make it more interesting, their laptop’s presentation worked perfectly.

With literally no option but to use their laptop, i reluctantly agreed to waiver (and i hated it) from a non-negotiable standard.

As i loaded the presentation on the thumb drive, the flickering stopped.

Cortney (the junior AV tech) pressed a “refresh button” of some sort and everything worked perfectly.

The photos of Disney Characters and note cards at the top was my way of thanking (and apologizing for high standards) them for staying the course and figuring it out.

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This website is about our SPIRIT. To enjoy today’s post about our WORK, click here.

If you want to stay on this site and read more posts from this Blog, click here.