In 2016, I left the office work-setting to embark on a completely different career in a new field. I was no longer an employee with supervisors assessing my performance and productivity, but rather working from home as my own boss. It was great, but I didn’t foresee how much I relied on the rhythm of […]

When George Washington was a teenager, he both copied out by hand and tweaked 110 “rules of civility and decent behavior.” These rules had been compiled by Jesuits in late 16th century France and made the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Manners were up in the air in this new world when Washington put quill […]

A surprising number of people are not primarily motivated by money. In fact, some studies have found that there is only a weak connection between job satisfaction and salary level. And yet, the primary way that we attempt to motivate employees in the white-collar world is through extrinsic means: bonuses, stock awards, and benefits packages. […]

Think back to the last decision you made. What were your options? How did you choose what to do? Most importantly, was the outcome of this decision instrumental in building your life, productivity, or happiness? Unless I caught you at a particularly productive or essential moment, probably not. Most of the decisions we make are […]

Decision making is a big part of leadership. As a leader, one is expected to take decisions all the time. Some of these are of a routine nature, while others have the power to change the course of a business. A lot rides on a leader’s decisions. They can impact the livelihood of the staff, […]

Back in 2014, Barack Obama declared that he only focused on making the most-important decisions.  “I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make,” he explained. This is understandable. Sometimes we find ourselves beset by the decisions, big and small, that we think have […]

We are a society of list-makers. We gather groups of to-dos and to-don’ts, would-bes and should-bes, and we slap them down on legal pads and post-it notes, fancy journal pages, and stained napkins. Far too often those lists fail to translate to measurable success. It doesn’t have to be this way. When making lists, a little […]

The Coca-Cola Company’s own website admits that it was probably “a day that will live in marketing infamy.” On April 23, 1985, Coke Chairman and CEO Roberto Goizueta announced to 200 reporters that the company would be changing its formula. It would be still be called Coca-Cola, but this “New Coke” would taste better and […]

One of the bigger problems when it comes to rational discussion today is that we don’t quite know what we are comparing. Everybody has heard the cliché that “you cannot compare apples and oranges.” But guess what: We do compare apple and oranges all the time. This usually happens when we go grocery shopping. We […]

The road sign in my home state of Washington read: “Litter and it will hurt.” I didn’t think twice about it, but our guests from nearby Vancouver, British Columbia, mouthed the slogan out loud and could hardly believe their ears. They were traveling with us to a birthday party of a mutual friend. “Of all […]