Category: Leadership

Continuing the countdown of the ’10 Things I Learned’ during 2016. Here’s #5 on the list:

Softer Voice – In church one Sunday I leaned over to my 18-year-old daughter and quietly made a comment about the sermon. As we pulled out of the parking lot afterward, she told me: “Dad, you’re whispering isn’t really whispering. It’s just making your words more breathy and speaking slower. Everybody heard what you said.”

Sixth on the list of things I learned this year:

Information Please – My favorite customer service lesson this year? During our visit to the Charles M. Schulz Museum, I asked a docent how the cartoonist sent artwork to his publisher. She handed me a stamped postcard and said: “I don’t know, but if you’ll write that question down and self-address it, we have a gentleman who researches everything. He’ll mail you the answer.” Three weeks after we returned home, the card arrived in our mailbox explaining he would draw the strips weeks in advance, fold in the middle and mail to the syndicate, which would create photostats and send to the newspapers. That’s a Joe Cool souvenir!

 

Here is #7 among the most important lessons I learned this year:

Forever Young – Someone alive today might want to reflect on the Dalai Lama’s view. A U.K. scientist named Aubrey de Grey believes there is a person walking the earth who could avoid the illnesses of old age and live to be 1000. That potential deca-centenarian might want to take out a long-term care policy… really long-term.

What’s the eighth most important thing I learned in 2016?

Insightful Thought – One of my clients has an important reminder tacked to the bulletin board in his office. “The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered: ‘Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.'”

Here is the ninth most important thing I learned this year:

Lasting Words – The best quote I discovered in 2016 is from decades ago: “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” It’s attributed to a writer whose classic you probably read in school. The Little Prince is the fourth bestselling book ever. You might not know that 15 months after publication, French author and aviation pioneer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry perished in a plane crash while flying a reconnaissance mission during World War II.