Greetings Leaders!

Are you a consultant or business owner struggling to find success? You work hard but your business just isn’t taking off. There are a few reasons why you might find yourself in this situation, and fear is one of them. Read on to find out the Five Causes for Lack of Success…

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Greetings Leaders!

As you go through life, have you ever wondered why some people appear to be successful and happy, and others go through the doldrums of life? Do you find yourself searching for happiness or success and always coming up just short of where you think you should be? Well, you’re not alone. This posting will help you gain perspective and insight into how you can be happy and successful.

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Greetings Leaders!

I recently received a call from an acquaintance from the Sacramento Professionals Network who wanted to know how they could be more relevant to their members who were unemployed. My first answer was to give them hope. I’m not sure how this could be conveyed, but if one does not have hope, then enthusiasm, determination and effort all decline. I posted this story on Facebook, and a friend of mine suggested that people stop holding out for jobs with the same salary that they were making before. His argument is that poverty (due to unemployment) was more likely to be caused by holding out for a job that pays what you want, instead of taking something that pays a little less when it comes along.

I think there is an important point here. Let’s do the math. Let’s say you were making $100,000 a year before you were laid off. If you were offered a job that paid $80,000 should you take it? In this economy, YES! $100,000 annually equates to $8333/month. For every month over 2 months of unemployment, you now are worse off than you would have been if you had taken the job.

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Greetings Leaders!

I was sitting in Peet’s Coffee yesterday when an elderly gentleman came up to me and just started talking. I didn’t know him at all, but he was polite, coherent and had a great smile. Within 15 minutes I knew his “story”. Born in Cuba, raised in Belgium and moved to the states in the 60s. He raised his family in the Bay Area and has vacationed all over the world. He told me a bit about Cuba and his family. I know his uncle and parents lost all their possessions when Castro came to power. He said he went back a few years ago to visit, and while he absolutely loved the pristine white sandy beaches… he hated the poverty.

After he left, another young woman sitting nearby came over and asked me if I knew the gentleman? I said, “I do now”, and she laughed. She told me her name was Karen and that she thought it was awesome that I took the time to chat with him. I didn’t think what I did was so spectacular, but then remembered how often all of us, me included, get caught up in being busy and not making time for others in our life, perhaps even a stranger.

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Greetings Leaders!

I’m sitting here enjoying the beautiful weather this morning while I nurse a good cup of coffee. As I look out the window I see a lot of people sitting in lounge chairs talking and sharing. Some are working. Some just hanging out. The season is changing. The heat of the summer is gone and fall is here. As I ponder about that, I’m reminded that change is inevitable. I’m in my 50s now…. and times are different than even a few years ago. The economy is worse off than it was just 3 years ago. My kids are older. Our financial situation has changed. The political landscape is challenging. The world is struggling to deal with terrorism. So… in the midst of all these changes, how do we keep our sanity and some semblance of hope?

Before you read the rest of the post. Watch the following video from Napoleon Dynamite:

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Greetings Leaders!

If you are having trouble getting people to listen to you, you are not alone. Or are you? If you find yourself constantly cast as an outsider of a group, there are two possibilities. The first is that the group you are trying to connect with is closed – indicating it is experience Groupthink or that there are underlying organizational culture issues. If this is the case, it’s time to leave. On the other hand, the group may just appear to be closed… to you. Why? Have yo ever considered it is because you aren’t building relationships?

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Greetings  Leaders!

I’m assuming that since you’re here, that you want to grow. I know some of you want to become better leaders, some better parents or spouses. Perhaps you want to grow financially, spiritually, or some other area of personal growth. Whatever it is, you must learn to make room for the growth before it can happen.

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Greetings Leaders!

This is obviously a very odd title for a leadership blog, as we should all strive to become better leaders. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that we should make that our goal. Why not? As I read other blogs or posts on leadership, everyone has a different opinion on what good leadership looks like. So let me ask you, if you are striving to become a good leader, what does that mean? How do you translate this into meaningful goals that are measurable and achievable.

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Greetings Leaders!

This was what I got in my fortune cookie today at lunch. Enjoy what you have today, and hope for what you want tomorrow. Well I’m not sure if Confucius would agree with all of this. We must certainly enjoy what we have today. However, I think hope is for the helpless. Hope relinquishes control over to something else. Fate, Serendipity, God, the Cosmos, the Force or the alignment of the planets and stars. Hope is what you do with a lottery ticket. Not your life. You better be “working” of what you want tomorrow, instead of hoping for a ship that may never come in, or worse yet, a ship that never set sail.

Enjoy what you have today…

WORK for what you want tomorrow.

All the best!
All the time!
JT

Greetings Leaders!

My wife and I were hanging out this morning at one of our favorite places in Roseville called The Fountains, an upscale outdoor mall not too far from where we live. We love sitting in the outdoor air, watching young families with their kids admire the main fountain which moves in synchronization to catchy music blaring over loudspeakers. Inevitably, the young children begin to bounce and jiggle and dance to the music. The older kids and the adults have smiles on their faces as they watch the often hilarious, joyous and free moves of the children. I think that we were created to dance, but over the years something happens. We begin to be conscious of ourselves and soon learn that it’s fun to watch, but not ok, to dance. When was the last time you danced?

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