The idea of leadership gets bogged down with lots of shiny trappings. There’s a tendency to focus on charisma, big ideas, communication skills, or how someone looks or dresses. And all of those things have an impact, but the reality is that great leadership is all about influence. The ability to change and direct behaviors […]

You probably have heard the saying, “You were born with two ears and one mouth for a reason”.  Presumably, the tone in how it’s been delivered has varied with the circumstances and your age 😉, but the meaning was always the same; You need to listen more and talk less!  The original quote is credited […]

It’s very difficult to convince someone else by ‘selling them’ on your great idea.  If you’ve ever been in that situation, you’ve probably noticed that the harder you try, the more resistant they are to your idea.  That’s because of a core psychological concept that we all have – it’s called the law of psychological […]

  photo by el clinto Tornados are scary…you may go years without being anywhere near one…but if you do happen to get caught in one I can only imagine how helpless you’d feel.  The devastation caused by the tornado in Joplin is hard to imagine…I’m sure you’ve seen many of the pictures. My thoughts and […]

The holy grail of business is coming up with a competitive advantage that can’t be reasonably matched by your competitors.  If you can pull it off, you essentially don’t have competitors.  When you think of creating competitive advantage, you typically think of innovation, maybe technology, barriers of entry of some sort, maybe even some sort […]

  photo by Jesse757 It can be really hard to get someone’s attention.  From a business perspective, there are people walking around you right now who have money and could theoretically spend it on your product or service.  If you could get their attention – you might be able to sell them something. The problem […]