• Your beliefs, attitude, thoughts, and perspective
• How much you appreciate what you already have
• Your honesty and integrity in the face of challenge
• How open you are to other peoples’ thinking
• The friends you keep and the things you read
• How kind you are to yourself and others
• What you eat, whether you exercise, and the amount you sleep
• How often you say please and thank you, and practice gratitude
• Whether you dwell on the past or embrace the future
• How you express your feelings and the effort you put forth to others

• If it’s not your battle, let it go.
• Defend those who are not able to defend themselves.
• Peacemakers don’t fan the flames of fire.
• If you want to drive a fool crazy, maintain your silence.
• Turn the other cheek, but don’t be a rug people walk all over.
• Arguing with an irrational person is like spitting into the wind.
• People will drag you down to their level if you let them.
• Look for seeds of truth when faced with constructive criticism.
• Letting things go is more a sign of strength than weakness.
• Be careful to criticize people without first considering their virtues.

• Employees stay when they are mentored and trusted, challenged and promoted, involved and appreciated, valued and empowered.
• We have more and better technology, but less and less time; more contacts and connections, but are less personal; more and more choices, but less and less clarity.
• The reason we have difficult conversations is because we don’t want to deal with confrontation when it first occurs. The problems only deepen as time passes.
• You don’t scale by doing more yourself. You scale by setting up systems, empowering your associates, sharing your vision, and executing your plan.
• In luxury, the product is nice, but it’s the experience that we remember. How can you create more memorable experiences?
• It’s not blind faith that matters. Trust is based on authenticity, empathy, and logic.
• The key to razor companies is not the razor. It’s the blades. How can you sell more blades in your business?

The culture of any business is built and maintained by owners and management. Leadership sets the tone. People want to work for businesses that show care and concern for employees and customers. A great culture is one in which employee morale is high and belief in the vision and brand of the company is unquestioned.

Both employees and customers rave about the business when its culture is strong. The opposite is true when people complain about how they are treated. Good human relations builds a strong culture in almost any business.

Owners and managers tend to obsess over customers, yet fail to consider what staff members think. Next to customers, your associates are the lifeblood of your business. When they are happy, your culture thrives. It’s not about money as much as it is the feeling your employees have in working for you. So take care of your associates like you do your customers and you’ll take care of your culture.

Many owners feel some form of loss of identity and purpose when they retire. Here’s a sampling of the comments I’ve heard over the years:

“I used to be somebody special in the community, but no more.”

“I wake up in the morning and don’t have a reason to get out of bed.”

“My employees say they aren’t happy with the new ownership.”

“They still pay me to consult, but they don’t ask me to do anything.”

These comments and others tell me that every owner must have a plan to occupy their time prior to going ‘cold turkey’ with retirement. You need a purpose, and a reason to use your considerable knowledge and lifetime of experience in business.

Retirement isn’t all about playing more golf and doing some additional travel. That will fill some time, but will it fill the empty hole of success that was a big part of the growth and development of your business? That’s the question every owner must answer before retiring.

The ideal situation is to find new purpose that will ultimately drive personal satisfaction. Your future in retirement should be challenging intellectually, but not overly difficult. It should be rewarding, but not obligatory.

If you are having trouble dealing with the prospect of retirement, drop me a line or give me a call. I’ll give you some thoughtful advice.

I think work is misunderstood. When we think of work, we immediately relate it to our job. But work means much more than just our job or what we do for a living.

Take a homemaker, for example, who raises children and provides life essentials to the “homefront” and to youth. Anyone who argues that this isn’t work doesn’t really understand the immensely productive role of a homemaker.

Even as seniors, many of us continue to find fulfillment in the work we do. We may provide a product or service that others find useful. In doing so, we find purpose and contentment in being productive, adding value to others and to industry and society as a whole. How rewarding is that!

So work is genuinely good, provided it doesn’t become an obsession that keeps you from family, friends, and faith. Unfortunately, this casts a negative shadow on work as a whole.

Many people work in order to live. Instead, I think we live in order to work, or at least to be productive. The idea of being productive can mean many different things. I feel productive when I do volunteer work, when I provide counsel to the less experienced, or even when I grow a vegetable garden to share with my neighbors.

Work sometimes gets a bad name. We seek work that is fulfilling, but well-done work of any kind provides value and should be seen as productive and rewarding not only to you, but to others we serve.

So the next time you think of work, think of it as productivity that provides value and fulfills our purpose. That’s the real meaning of work.

Tags: Advice, Business Development, Business Tips, Developing Leaders, Family, Friends, Fulfilling, Fulfillment, Knowledge, Leadership Excellence, Leadership Skills, Obsession, Personal Development, Productive, Purpose, Rewarding, Role, Success, The Mind of a Leader, Value, Work

A business owner I know was observing a new employee waiting on a customer in his store. The sale wasn’t made, nor was the owner upset at his salesperson. Instead, he asked a very simple question: Did you impress him? 

This innocent question has stayed with me for many years. In sales, or really any walk of life, it is important to consider the type of gestures and interactions that never fail to impress. Here are several that I find of great value:

• Saying please, thank you, or excuse me 

• Opening the door for adults and children

• Hand-writing old-fashioned personal notes

• Returning a kind gesture with one of your own

• Letting someone finish talking without interrupting

• Addressing someone as sir or ma’am to show respect 

• Controlling your use of a cell phone in front of others

• Waiting until someone you’ve dropped off enters the house safely

• Responding to calls, texts, emails, and RSVPs in a timely manner

• Giving up a seat to an elderly person or one who needs it more than you

While these actions may seem obvious, the reason we do them is not specifically to impress, but rather to show kindness. You can never be wrong for doing what is right, nor can you fail to impress.

Tags: Advice, Business, Business Development, Business Tips, Developing Leaders, Employee, Impress, Knowledge, Leadership Excellence, Leadership Skills, owner, Personal Development, Question, Sale, Store, Success, The Mind of a Leader, Value

When I was growing up, we were told to excel in the three Rs: Reading, (R)Writing, and aRithmetic. Math is important; it’s fundamental to intelligence, but it won’t help you in communication. What WILL help you?

1) The desire to READ and accumulate knowledge. It’s not what you read that makes you a good communicator. It’s the no-how you gain from reading that makes what you say more interesting.

2) The ability to SPEAK with influence. Whether it’s the passion you put into your words or your ability to articulate your message, speak with confidence and skill in an effort to truly be heard.

3) The skill of WRITING with clarity and purpose with an economy of words. Write what you want people to read and don’t mess it up with a lot of useless verbiage.

4) Most importantly, LISTEN with understanding so you can clearly discern what others are saying. Sometimes it’s just as important to hear what they are not saying; that is, read between the lines.

5) A fifth key in communication is BODY LANGUAGE. You can do everything right, but if your body language doesn’t support what you say or how you say it, all is for naught.

Communication is one of the great skills in business and in life. Learn to maximize your communication skills to ultimately become more successful.

Tags: Advice, Body Language, Business Development, Business Tips, Communicate, Developing Leaders, Knowledge, Leadership Excellence, Leadership Skills, Listen, Personal Development, Read, Speak, Success, The Mind of a Leader, Writing

You know the old adage: “If you love your work, you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”

The hard part is finding work – really a career – that satisfies the soul while also providing the income you desire.  If you can turn a hobby into an revenue stream, it may become your dream job.  Yet that’s not easy to do.

Unfortunately, many people don’t have the freedom or good fortune to turn their passion into a vocational pursuit.  More often, we start moving in a direction that seems enjoyable and after gaining a degree of mastery in it – through education, training, or experience – we develop a high level of competence and confidence in it. 

If you are fortunate enough to love your work, be careful not to judge those who don’t.  Just feel blessed that you have found your passion, even if it’s later in life. So here’s a new adage: “If you have fallen in love with your work, be grateful for it.  Use that work to benefit others and it will bless you even more.”

Tags: Advice, Business Development, Business Tips, Developing Leaders, Dream JOb, Education, Expereience, Grateful, High Level, Knowledge, Leadership Excellence, Leadership Skills, Personal Development, Success, The Mind of a Leader, Training, Work

One of the most frustrating things for people is when they can’t get a decision from a decision-maker.  Procrastination leads to bottlenecks in getting things done and a loss of confidence and respect in leaders.

There’s nothing wrong with conducting research and analyzing the pros and cons of an important decision.  The problem lies in failing to respond to repeated requests for answers by ignoring the very people who are tasked with getting things done.

When key people in a business or organization fail to take essential action because of indecision, laziness, stubbornness, mistaken priorities or to maintain control of a situation, it wastes time, energy and money.  Most people simply don’t realize how they torpedo the efforts of peers, subordinates, and co-workers by failing to respect their time and their professional requests.

If you are the victim of an indecisive owner or manager, or one who simply holds up progress for his own personal reasons, you need to engage more strongly in getting the decisions you need to do your job.  A simultaneous thoughtful, but firm, approach works best in getting your point across. 

If you are the one who is holding up progress, well, you now know what you must do to avoid being the bottleneck.

Tags: Action, Advice, Analyze, Bottleneck, Business Development, Business Tips, Decide, Decision Maker, Developing Leaders, Essential, Indecision, Knowledge, Lazy, Leadership Excellence, Leadership Skills, manager, Organize, owner, Personal Development, Priority, Procrastinate, Request, Success, Take Action, The Mind of a Leader