Made You Look

Needless to say

I've been on a simplify and focus kick lately.  It's due to annual feelings of overload brought on by the arrival of Spring.  Fortunately, the projects are endless; Unfortunately, time isn't.

I was discussing the balance of projects and time with  a prospect yesterday over coffee at Starbucks.  Our conversation about the prospect's desire to simplify and focus, too, was intense.  The prospect had already diagnosed the problems and had  solutions in mind. 

In the middle of a sentence, the Starbucks lights went off, the music stopped and buzzes ceased.  Since it was mid day and sunny, the lights were of no importance.  The power went on and off several times as our involved conversation continued.  Eventually after 15 minutes the store's power stayed on continuously. 

We wrapped up our meeting, slurped the dregs from our coffee cups and went in our separate directions.

The interesting observation about our meeting was that neither one of us mentioned that the power was off, or speculated as to the cause or projected when it might be on again.  Both of us were aware, but since it made no difference to us at the moment or in the future, we kept our focus on the conversation and the next step. 

Ignoring distractions is the day long battle for all of us who want to simplify and focus.  Power outages are infrequent and distractions worthy of mention.  If both of us could ignore the lights being out, how come we have such a hard time ignoring the e-mail chime and telephone ring?

Improving Balance

Kids enjoy great natural balance.  Have you watched a child stack flat stones on a stony beach?

The art of balance is simple for children.  They work with the materials close by and create their work without second thoughts of better ways.  If a rock doesn't fit in the stack, then it gets chucked.  There are plenty of other stones nearby to work with.

  What happens between childhood and adulthood with our internal balance guidance system?   

Physically, we are self conditioned to avoid risks of losing balance like: riding a bike, skiing, riding a horse or jumping rope.

Ironically, our reluctance to maintain our balance by reducing the risk of falling makes our physical balancing ability that much worse.  Use it or lose it.

Mentally, we are so intent on stacking and balancing all of our project "rocks" in a proper stack that we spend most of our productive time balancing and less and less time doing.

If your project stack is out of balance constantly, improve you balance by tossing out a few of those round project rocks that won't stack.

Stale, stale, stale Corporate Image

Filling up with gas this morning, I watched the Wonder Bread truck pull in to make a delivery to the convenience store. The Wonder Bread driver, a poster boy for freshness, was unshaven with a cigarette hanging out his mouth.

I suppose the bread was fresh, once.

Nothing like a PBT (peanut butter and tobacco) sammy for lunch...

Maple Syrup Mid-Season

There is no better reward for putting up with a cold winter season than to enjoy the sweetness of fresh maple syrup on pancakes. We bought a gallon of locally made syrup (drawn from the flatland maple trees of Niagara County NY)on Sunday.

Nature's finest spring tonic.

Skill Sets-By the Bucket

4 basic skill buckets that are seldom taught to students:

1. Test Taking
2. Listening
3. Memorization
4. Communication Skills

My old friend, who is much younger than I am, and considerably wiser, tells me that the basic skills listed above are far more important to master and apply to work and life than most other subjects, (trigonometry).

She credits the 4 skills to Prof. Chuck Dwyer of Wharton School of Business.

We need to make sure our children get a bucket full of each before they head on to college, work and life.