Greetings Leaders!

Last night my daughter was in tears as she recounted something that happened to her yesterday. I was wondering what could be so terrible that she would cry so hard. I went down the list…. Did you hurt someone? Did someone hurt you? Did you get a ticket? Did you get into an accident? Did you take some drugs? Did you yell at someone? Did someone else yell at you? Did you have a fight with your boyfriend? Did you drink and drive? On and on I went. She kept saying… no. no. no. She even laughed a couple times. Turns out what she was so upset about wasn’t that big a deal when put in perspective.

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Greetings Leaders!

This past weekend I had an adventure! I helped my son move from Medford, Oregon to Reno, Nevada as he got a promotion at the Guitar Center. The weekend was hectic as we drove from Sacramento to Medford, packed, drove from Medford to Sacramento, spent the night, drove from Sacramento to Reno, unpacked, then caught a Greyhound back to Sacramento. We braved the snow over the mountains near Mt. Shasta, raced a winter storm to Reno and unloaded in the snow. It was fun.

While we were packing in Medford, we made the decision to leave some things behind.To move and make room for new things, we had to leave some other things behind. This sounded like a great metaphor and reminded me of mental baggage we carry around with us.

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Greetings Leaders!

The other day I blogged about success and said that success isn’t defined by money. That is certainly true. However, we all need to make money. Why? Money allows us to care for ourselves and our family. Without money, life can be very miserable indeed. While I wish the world operated more altruistically, the harsh reality is that there is no such thing as a free lunch. So, a leader needs to know how to make money. The question becomes, how do you as a leader accomplish this?

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Greetings Leaders!

This is the second post in a series on marriage (The first blog is here). Today I want to talk about commitment. If you want to stay married, you must be dead serious about not throwing in the towel, no matter how bad it gets (physical/emotional abuse aside). This must be a joint decision. You can’t keep a marriage intact if only one of you makes this commitment.

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Greetings Leaders!

Have you ever thought about what defines success? Or more importantly, the cost of getting there? It is very tempting to think that success is fame and fortune. That life’s purpose is about having a lot of money and being happy – regardless of how you get there. Examples of this lifestyle are paraded in front of us all the time. This past year we saw Jon and Kate‘s marriage dissolve into oblivion as both looked for happiness. South Carolina’s Governor Mark Sanford abandoned his post (left the state AND his family) in his quest to be with his “soul mate”. Another not so well known example was Maria Housden who appeared on the Dr. Phil show to defend here choice of being a non-custodial parent as she traveled and wrote her book.

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Greetings Leaders!

As the New Year approaches, many of you are rethinking your goals for 2010. As you go through this exercise you will find yourself either excited or frustrated. Which one are you?

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Greetings Leaders!

I hesitated on blogging about this as I know I’m not an expert on relationships. However, my wife and I just celebrated our 25th Anniversary so I thought I could give my thoughts on how we got here. People write books on this stuff so to get my points across I’m going to make this a short series where I touch on one point at a time.

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Greetings Leaders!

With the New Year just around the corner and people toying with their resolutions, I often wonder why some people achieve their dreams and others don’t. While there are no guarantees in life, why not position yourself in the best possible place to achieve what you want? Here is a list of 10 things you can do to position yourself for success.

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Greetings Leaders!

There is an interesting initiative making its way through the California legislative process. Merry Hyatt of Redding California is pushing to have an initiative, requiring Christmas carols to be sung in public schools, placed on the ballot next year (Read the article here).

I haven’t read the initiative, but I think it is an important for a number of reasons. In order not to polarize the issue I won’t discuss the initiative itself, but want to ask the question, is it wise to take religion out of schools while at the same time teaching that evolution means there is no god?

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Greetings Leaders,

Today the Stock Market tanked almost 3%, a day after the government reported GDP numbers that unofficially indicated that the US is out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. President Obama released new data today, showing how successful the stimulus package was this year, despite a soaring unemployment rate expected to increase to about 9.9% in next week’s unemployment report. In a recent Harris Poll, 78% of Americans think the government is on the wrong track. What gives? Read the rest of this entry »