It’s summertime, and a nice time to immerse in a good book. It turns out that any book outside of our realm of work, particularly fiction, is valuable to our mental flexibility and creativity. This past weekend I read Laurence Gonzales’ Deep Survival: Who Live, Who Dies, and Why. The book is studying the traits […]
It was odd. Unnerving. And a little disorienting too. After we took off from Hong Kong to the States, the mapping tool in the airplane that shows where we are in the world wasn’t tracking. The little airplane icon kept showing we were still on the runway in Hong Kong. Which was impossible since we […]
The dense fog wasn’t bothering me at all. Once we were twenty minutes into our ferry ride on the Laura B to the mainland from Monhegan Island, 14 miles off the coast of Maine, even my wife had started to relax. There wasn’t much to see out the window of our 65 foot ferry boat […]
In 1968 Dick Fosbury astonished the world at the Mexico City Olympic Games by clearing 7′ 4″ 1/4 inches in the high jump. His efforts before 80,000 people were an aberration – an anomaly in track and field events. Dick was a gangly 6’3″ athlete who hadn’t excelled at any event in track and field […]
“The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency.” – Jim Collins Earlier this week I met Amy Cuddy. If you’re not familiar, she has a signature expression in her talk: “fake it until you become it.” Moving the discussion beyond “fake it ’til you make it”, she means to convey that whenever we try something new, […]
In 1943, Richard James was a naval engineer trying to develop a meter designed to monitor horsepower on naval battleships. Richard was working with different types of tension springs when one of the springs fell to the ground. And after it fell to the ground, it kept moving as if stepping away. Astonished and delighted […]
“Annie, Fynn sees through your eyes.” “What?” says my seven year old daughter Annie. “When you are leading a horse, you need to actually lead. Fynn sees through your eyes. So, when you call him to follow, you need to look where you’re going and lead him down the path, at your speed, not his. […]
In the wake of hurricane Katrina, numerous people throughout the gulf coast area had lost homes, and were in need of basic food, shelter and care. With sporadic electricity available in the region, cash became critical to sustaining people’s lives. Serving customers from Texas to Florida, Hancock Bank was one of the primary banking providers […]
The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.
– Warren Buffett
What you say “yes” to, shows others what you value.
Woodshedding is an old jazz expression – it means to go deep in isolation to build your chops, get your groove on, master your instrument. As the legend goes, in 1937, when he was only 17 years old, young Charlie Parker – before he became the great “Bird” Parker – would go down to the […]