Category Archives: Business

Jan 27 2012
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Business

CEO Responsibilities

It’s not to talk a lot…

Rather, it’s to take the Sales Division and have them see the Service Division.

It’s to take the Finance Department and have them see in two colors: Profit and Loss.

It’s to take H.R. and have them see, love, and lead a family.

It’s to take the Logistics Division and insure their watch batteries never die. Clock-minded.

It’s to take the Marketing Department and have them pass out mirrors to everyone in the organization.

It’s to take Product Development on camping trips where they can star-gaze and dream.

His/her job is all about vision.

Jan 26 2012
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Business, Imagination, Leadership, Let The Music Play

The Road to Life

The road to life is a disciplined life…Proverbs 10:17

Let’s dissect this.

1) There is a road that leads to life.

2) That road is called Disciplined Drive.

3) There are not multiple roads that lead to life.

4) The road is open to the public…not a tollway.

I’ve met many travelers that burn their tires down this road daily. These travelers are my heroes. They are:

  • Consistent.
  • Conditioned.
  • Exit this road daily with a completed to-do list.
  • Love focused.
  • Mesmerized by the journey and not the reward.
  • Prioritized (God, Family, Business).
  • Unlike the nomad, they are equipped with maps.
  • Can’t and impossible don’t exist in their vocabulary.
  • Destination bound.
  • Readers.
  • Deaf to their critics, but open-eared to their lifelines.

Daily we arrive at the stoplight intersection of Disorganized Street and Disciplined Road.

Straight leads to noise, but a right turn leads to music.

Go ahead. You can turn right on red.

 

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Jan 25 2012
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Business, Creativity, Imagination, Leadership, Let The Music Play, Music

Unlearning

In 4th grade I can recall hours and hours of class time devoted to something called the T.A.A.S. test. This was (or is) the standardized test given to different age levels throughout the Texas public school system to grade one’s “aptitudes” up to this point.

The big deal of the T.A.A.S. test (or what I was convinced was the big deal) was the writing part of the exam. We were convinced this was such a big deal and so stressful that the teachers would make us stress relievers to squeeze and teach us yoga-like, meditating breathing techniques to use during this writing part of the exam. I was 10 years old, mind you.

To this day I can remember the Golden Rules we learned for writing on this exam.

  • Fill the pages with as many words as you can.
  • Use big fancy words.
  • Adjectives, Adjectives, Adjectives = A+

And now I’m unlearning what was required to be meditated on…

Less can be more. Big words sound fake. The right words won’t need adjectives.

What would happen if more 10-year-old fingers touched pianos prior to holding the pen?

I think the music would start to unfold in both scenarios.

 

 

 

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Jan 24 2012
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Business

Verb Invention

Think of it this way…

We don’t overnight – we FedEx.

We don’t search the Internet – we Google.

We don’t sweep the floor – we Swiffer.

We don’t take pictures – we Instagram.

When your brand or service is the verb, it’s tough for brand #2 to have much market penetration. Case in point, we Google much more than we Yahoo.

In other words, T-Pain your music, the world will Tweet about it, and all you’ll do is win-win-win no matter what.

Jan 23 2012
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Business

Paintbrushes and Tongues

Dr. Wendell Johnson was an American psychologist, speech pathologist, and the author of a famous book entitled People in Quandaries. Considered one of the earliest and most influential speech pathologists in the field, Dr. Johnson reveals in his book that through his studies he did not find one individual on Native American reservations that suffered from stuttering.

Here’s an excerpt from his book: “Interestingly enough, the word “stutter“, or a substitute for the word, is not even in the Native American language. If there is not word for stutter, how are you going to stutter? Words paints pictures.”

There are words I need deleted from my vocabulary. At the same time, there are words that need much more game time than I’ve allotted them.

We will only create what we can dream, and a negative vocabulary will only pollute the sky upon which we gaze to dream.

The scriptures explain that A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit. Proverbs 15:4

Words, indeed, are spoken art. What pictures of possibility are you painting for those you lead?

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