Last week I received the audience feedback from a conference workshop I led in November. One respondent commented anonymously: “So inspiring, clean. Made a promise to myself as a result of this session.” This is what I live for! I was leading my popular session “Plan to Thrive – how to shape, track, and follow…
Category Archives: Focus
The Jump-start Meeting
Recently I was seated next to Laura Van Galen, the dynamic head of Bleu Marketing, a full-service direct marketing firm based in San Francisco. She described to me a practice she uses with her senior team, the daily jump-start meeting. Here’s how the jump-start meeting works: every morning each manager has three minutes to describe…
Do Not Interrupt Me!
The national “do not call” list is well-known to many people. By registering your business or home number, telemarketers once were forbidden from calling your number – at dinner time or any time – for five years. Exceptions included those who were calling for legitimate charities, which sadly include the well-paid fundraisers who dial on…
Four no-excuses ways to exercise for better productivity
If I could not walk far and fast, I think I should just explode and perish. – Charles Dickens Balancing stress and recovery is essential to high performance, and I am in need of a tune up before I, in the words of Dickens, “explode and perish.” Yesterday I sat on a rock at Pescadero…
Six things fathers have taught me about the good life
In recognition of Fathers Day, I would like to share a few of the lessons that fathers have taught me about the good life. Quality: Forget perfection, strive for excellence. Craftsmanship: Never blame your tools. Mastery: Begin with baby steps, but don’t stop there. Diplomacy: The first lesson in the art of war is to…
Make up your mind
I received a letter recently from a client. It read in part: … I also made it to the bottom of my inbox, and I’m not letting things “ripen” there. Your encouragement to “decide to decide” has been helping to prevent things from piling up. … My client is succeeding because she is deciding. Professional…
Feeling lost?
For those days when none of your plans seem to be working out, here’s a bit of fun from Jessica Hagy’s blog Indexed. Hagy designs her daily posts using graphs and Venn diagrams sketched on index cards in order to “think a little more relationally without resorting to doing actual math.” This one is titled…
Your Inauguration Day
by Margaret Lukens, New Leaf + Company LLC It has been many years since the United States has shown such excitement over the arrival of a new president. Like the inaugurals of 1961 and 1981, this inauguration is made more thrilling because it comes amid military, economic, and social challenges as well as historic opportunities….
Goals: the most powerful question
By Margaret Lukens, New Leaf + Company LLC This week I was working with a recently-promoted executive at a non-profit organization to develop and articulate his goals. He had a broad list of possibilities in all areas of the organization from marketing to fund-raising to administration. Some were easy, some challenging. We began to talk…
Planning: try a change of place
by Margaret Lukens, New Leaf + Company LLC While you’re working on your plans for 2009, make use of the creative juice available by putting yourself in a new space. Here’s an exercise to accomplish it: On a fresh sheet of paper, make a list of everything you’d like to be, do and have during…