Good Examples
I was thinking this morning about Huck Finn and his friend Jim, the runaway slave. Mark Twain published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on this day in 1885. I first read it ialmost 100 years later when I was a junior in high school. And for two years after college, I was an English teacher who taught…
Read More
Back in the early fifties, when he was trying to build a park like no other, Walt Disney needed to raise some dough. Disneyland was going to cost him $17 million to build. That’s equal to around $165 million today. Walt and his company had done pretty well. But not THAT well so… …he launched…
Read More
I used to think Eddie Murphy was fearless. I mean think of him at his peak… He was a badass. A comedy legend. Full of bluster. The coolest cat in town. This guy: Fearful? No way! Then, I saw him on a 2019 episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and… Eddie said…
Read More
I was 9 years old when Henry Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record. I watched him hit number 715 on TV with my brother and my dad. We celebrated the feat. I didn’t have a clue what he’d gone through. Even some of his teammates now say they didn’t know… …He received tons…
Read More
When I was a younger business person, I never thought much about mindset. Meditation? Not for me. Visualization? No, thanks. Self-affirmation? Not a chance. I think it was Stuart Smalley’s fault. Remember him? He was a recurring character on Saturday Night Live in the 1990s. Al Franken played the part before he left SNL to…
Read More
Remember that movie with Mel Gibson playing a male chauvinist pig who magically acquires the superpower to “hear” women’s thoughts? I just heard a real-life version of that story. Both the real-life and Hollywood versions reveal a ton about marketing. The real-life story features a marketing guy named Ben Settle who, like Gibson’s character, has…
Read More
My business is growing so I’m hiring. Last night I posted a job opening for a software developer to assist with several projects. I described the projects, but only in vague terms. Applications flooded my inbox. Most applicants told me they had EVERYTHING it takes to tackle the projects. One applicant, Noah, said this: “Let’s discuss more…
Read More
For three years, I never opened my mouth when I smiled. That was from 1978 through 1980. Those were the Braces Years, the period when my mouth was full of metal hardware and my parents’ checking account was shrinking. It’s tough being a 13- to 16-year-old — especially when your pearly whites are covered with stainless…
Read More
Once upon a time, I tried to cook a batch of paella. It didn’t go well. The mussels were chewy. The chicken was dry. The rice was a sticky mess. So frustrating! I fancy myself a decent cook. But decent doesn’t cut it when you strive to master a complicated dish. Today, aspiring home chefs can…
Read More
It’s raining here in St. Louis, MO, USA… …which reminds me of the time my twin kiddos summoned a drought-ending thunderstorm with a rain dance. We were at my inlaw’s farm in central Missouri. It was bone dry for weeks. But (finally!), we adults could smell and feel the rain coming. As the wind picked…
Read More