One of the greatest accomplishments in sports is when Roger Bannister, a British runner, broke the four-minute mile barrier in 1954. He accomplished something that was previously thought to be almost physically impossible to achieve. Here’s what’s interesting and not as well-known: After he accomplished that feat, many people started running sub four-minute miles. In […]
impossible, mindset, rogerbannister, track
I was at a client’s office for a meeting and a few people had arrived early and were telling a story that was causing a few of them to smile and laugh. When the next person walked into the room, she saw everyone smiling and she started smiling right away, before she knew what was […]
contagion of emotion, contagious, emotions
I had lunch with two colleagues at a restaurant and when the server came over, I asked what the soup of the day was. She said,” Vegetable.” I said,” How is it?” She immediately took half a step back, her head started going left and right, she made this face like she was smelling something […]
action, actions speak louder than words, conflict, honesty
Robert Kurson’s excellent book Shadow Divers is the true account of two weekend deep-sea scuba divers who discovered a sunken World War II German U-boat just 60 miles off the New Jersey coast in 1991. The book is about the challenges they faced going down to very dangerous depths. There was quite a bit of […]
Motivation, not giving up, perserverance, persevere, scuba divers
A friend of mine posted a recipe on Facebook that included the unexpected but glorious use of peanut butter. Along with the instructions, she noted that very few recipes are not improved by the use of peanut butter. For peanut butter lovers like me, it’s a universal truth, and it made me wonder how that […]
daily life, improvements, peanut butter
Mark Twain said,” There are two kinds of people in the world. One kind separates people into two kinds of people and the other kind doesn’t.” I’m the kind who separates people into two kinds of people, and in this case there are people who ask for help when they have a problem and there […]
ask, ask for help, problems
When I read Stephen Covey’s classic book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, his “Putting First Things First” habit made a permanent impression. In that chapter, he points out the folly of trying to manage time and says we should be managing ourselves instead. He advises that we look at the roles we have […]
organization, organization tips, schedule, to-do list
There’s a concept in psychology called “The Corrective Emotional Experience.” It refers to an experience you have later in life that “corrects” a bad experience from earlier in life that left you feeling emotionally upset. Typically, those bad experiences involved relationships with people close to us. If we’re still upset about that prior experience, a […]
corrective, erase, eraser, psychology, second chance
When sound engineers are designing and installing a sound system for a movie theatre, they balance all the different pieces of equipment so that a certain spot or area in the movie theatre will be the “sweet spot” – that’s the spot where the sound will be the best. That tends to be about two-thirds […]
balance, sound, sweet spot, theatre
