Have you ever been to a restaurant with a sushi train? It’s a revolving conveyor belt that snakes through the restaurant loaded with little plates of sushi. Diners choose directly from the sushi-go-round the nibbles that appeal to them. Like at a dim sum restaurant, the plates are color-coded by price. At...
“Denise, there’s a call on line 1 for you. He wouldn’t give me his name and said ‘you’d know what he was calling about’.” “Can’t you see I have my Do Not Disturb light on?” I replied. “Tell whoever it is I’m busy and I’ll call him back later.” My assistant responded that the caller said he would hold until I was...
“Finally. At least now I don’t have to go on pretending anymore that it’s really what I wanted to be doing. Now I can finally do what I WANT to do.” That’s what my client Lon said after his business sold. I wasn’t surprised that, after the initial shock of the transition wore off, what he felt was relief....
In many of Charles M. Schulz' Peanuts comic strips, Linus' security blanket is prominently featured. Linus loves his blanket, carries it everywhere, often while sucking his thumb, and is not embarrassed by it. He cannot survive without it and really suffers when it is being washed. However, in...
"I'm burned out," Mitch told me. "Work shouldn't suck this much." "How much SHOULD it suck?" I asked him. I suggested he check out this humorous video about careers and burnout . It would be funnier if you didn't see yourself in it, right now. Children dream about their futures, they imagine things they can do to...
"I want to leave my mark on this world - something that really shows I was here!" Gary tells me. That's not uncommon. The desire to leave our mark, to show we were here - that we mattered - is nearly universal. So, I ask him, "What would be a meaningful marker to you?" For some people, it's having their name on a...
This week, conversations with clients have often veered into their views on the controversy surrounding NFL players "taking a knee" while the national anthem is being played. I'm less concerned whether they think the players should or shouldn't be doing it, or whether they think the President should or shouldn't be...
The callous use of a common phrase in someone else's blog on Tuesday shocked me. The writer used the common acronym "ROI". But he couched it as "Relief on Investment" in describing how to choose a charity to support victims of Tropical Storm Harvey, which has just devastated south Texas. My anger flared. How the...
"What do you do?" a man at the cocktail party asks me, glancing at my name tag. Those four simple words and the answer they elicit could be a doorway into a meaningful conversation. "About what?" I want to reply, but I know that isn't the question he thinks he is asking me. My thoughts were already falling back...
It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are. “I’m not sure what I should do here,” Marco told me. “I feel confused. How do I know which choice is the right one?” He was in the middle of a lucrative and complex transaction with his current firm. A new firm had offered him a position, pressing...
