There is nothing more important than great writing in business. Without great writing you have no hope of capturing attention, explaining problems, or persuading others to act, no matter how good your idea, product, or service may be. While many consider good writing to be an art, there is much we can learn from neuroscience …
The competition for talent has gotten fierce, seemingly overnight. We’ve gone from record job losses and unemployment over the last year to nearly full employment, with simply not enough good people to go around. Now that it’s become an “employee’s market” it’s more important than ever to hire carefully. It may be harder these days, …
My first boss gave me some simple career advice that to this day I still consider to be some of the most valuable I’ve ever received. Here it is: Do what you say you’re going to do. His reasoning was this: because so few people actually do follow through on their commitments, you can stand …
Inspiring ourselves or others is all about creating the urge to do something. It’s that swelling of emotion inside that compels us to get up out of our seats and go do something. It’s that motivation to do our best work, set higher goals, and achieve them. To be a really great leader, you’ve got …
Mistakes happen. Poor service creeps into any experience. Expectations are not met. These are certainties we cannot avoid. But they are embarrassing, so we may try to minimize them. Worse, we may try to defend them or make excuses. (This is probably the fastest way to turn a simply annoyed customer into an angry one.) …
Poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “He is who is not everyday conquering some new fear has not learned the secret of life.” Emerson’s short quote probably feels like an understatement of the gravity of the situation we find ourselves in. This perfect storm of a health crisis, social turmoil, and economic adversity is …
The more you chase something, the more it moves away from you. We’ve all had this experience with love, money, business, and influence. We try too hard. We push too much. We press and become desperate. And neediness in any form is usually repellent. It’s a vicious cycle we see with negative thinking and a …
Even the most successful among us encounter professional setbacks. Jobs are lost. Clients are lost. Money is lost. But successful people are not people who never have setbacks. They are people that handle setbacks well. They know how to use setbacks as a springboard for better performance in the future. In order to handle setbacks …
Most of us dread asking for help in the best of times. And now that we are working through a pandemic, it feels like an extra imposition to ask anyone for anything. But the reality is that many of us need support like never before — such as a referral to a hiring manager, or …
Staying in “the comfort zone” can kill relationships, careers and businesses. Because a comfort zone is really just another way of describing stagnation, boredom and plateauing. Perhaps the most confounding part of this is that it’s often due to having enough. Enough customers. Enough money. Enough stuff. The pleasure in our lives slightly outweighs the …
