Take a moment and ask yourself these two questions: – How are we encouraging hope in those around us? – How are we helping to grow the leaders of tomorrow? I once wrote about the roles of companies needing to team-build differently, and I think some of the ideas mentioned in that post can help. But they’re not the complete answer – they just look at what companies can do. We also have to look at what we’re doing every single day,…

In life, we often place merit on someone by the job they have. We may not mean to, but it’s no real fault of ours if we do – it’s been ingrained from us almost since we could walk. Parents tell us to get an education, or we won’t get a good job. Teachers tell us to study harder, or we won’t get a good job. Potential girlfriends and boyfriends can decide whether or not we’re worthy of their attention,…

Want to know the only marketing tip you’ll ever need? People. Want. Things. That’s it. It can be anything – good luck charms; medicines; food; drink; news; shoe polish. Anything. With the exception of air, everything else costs. So there’s a need to be filled. How you fill that need is where the difference comes into play. Some folks will go for service; some folks will go for price; some folks will go for nationality; some folks will go for…

No, this isn’t an ego post. It’s not driven by, “Oh, I really need to impress that Scottish/Canadian/Brit (what the heck is he??) Danny Brown guy.” Screw that – ego is for chumps (hat tip Shannon Boudjema for the phrase). But you seriously don’t need to impress me. I’m not your life mate. I’m not your boss. I’m not your editor. I’m not your parents. I’m not your font of all wisdom. But then, you don’t need to impress these people either (more…

We all have them. Bad days that make us wonder why we do what we do, whether in our own business or for our employer. Or we wonder why we’re with our partners when we have an argument. Or we see the size of our email inbox and wish we could just skip the day and begin again tomorrow. But are we really having such a bad day? I took my dogs out for a walk this morning, and one…

In public, people say and do things to build a perception of them. Some of this is calculated; some, natural. After all, perception is everything. It gets you work; clients; a promotion; a date; a raise; and more. No-one wants to be perceived as anything but awesome, so they build the perception about them carefully. Others buy into it, and the perception crafting reaps its reward. The problem is, perception – by definition – is fragile. All it takes is…

Most people have probably heard the story of how Jesus fed 5,000 people with just five fish and two loaves of bread. It’s one of the most popular tales from the Bible and whether you’re religious or not, it’s likely you’ve heard it. What does it tell us? That success isn’t dictated by numbers. You can have the biggest company and satisfy the fewest people. You can have the smallest company and satisfy every single customer, every day. Numbers aren’t…

I took this picture on the way to a meeting the other day. As you can see, the lady driving the car has her little dog right up front with her in the driver’s seat. Because we were driving (and I know how some of our local drivers are – think New York cabbies!), I couldn’t help but think of some of the things that could go wrong: A car suddenly brakes in front of her. A child runs out…

We fall into comfort zones easily. We see something that works, or appears to be working, and we settle for that. It’s understandable. After all, experimentation isn’t always fun. It can be hard work. It can backfire – results are never guaranteed. Compare that to the safe and the tried, where we know something has been proven to be successful (relatively or otherwise), and you can see why comfort zones are easier to be part of. The thing is, though,…

People are hungry creatures by nature. Hungry to be liked; hungry to be loved; hungry to be respected; hungry to be successful. That’s good. Without hunger, we have no drive. Without drive, we have no goals. Without goals, we have no yardstick to base our success on. And so the circle comes back around. The problem is, people are more often than not getting speed hungry. They want the like, the love, the respect and the success yesterday. So they…