Ever heard the phrase, "they're just going through the motions," said with a negative connotation? I have, and sometimes it's true. It may feel like someone is going through the motions, isn't engaged and isn't giving their full commitment to what they're doing....

Recently, we were up north at our summer cottage with one of my sons and my daughter. They each brought some friends, so we had about 12 friends up there that weekend. My son and his friends are in their second year out of high school. My daughter and her friends just...

Here we are after Labor Day, which means it’s football season! College football just kicked off this weekend (Go Blue!), and now we’re getting ready for the NFL season.    In the spirit of football season, I want to talk about communication. There are...

Good times or tough times; which ones do we remember most? I came across a Theodore Roosevelt quote, “Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.” This idea got me thinking about my recent visit with Service Express’...

Leaders, we can't be afraid to be wrong!   What does it look like when we're scared to make mistakes and be wrong? It starts with only sharing the positive news with our teams. That's a big mistake, which I learned early in my career when I did that. I didn't...

Complexity and jargon, while frustrating to listen to, they’re great truth-tellers! Why do I say that? I recently saw a Tweet by Sahil Bloom talking about complexity and jargon. He said, “If you can’t explain it to a 5-year-old, you don’t really understand it.”  ...

"Everybody's got to eat" is a fun phrase from a conversation I had with one of our key customers and partners. We were talking about partnerships and customer relationships, all in the realm of being fair to everybody.    Partnerships should be a...

As you may have noticed during my brief hiatus, I shared some of my most highly reviewed blogs throughout July. During this time, I traveled to Europe with my family, enjoyed summer in Michigan and spent time away to refresh.   Now it’s August, we’re back, and...

Leaders, there is so much going on in our lives right now, right? Whether at work or home, there is so much to do. One of the biggest mistakes we can all make as high-performing achievers is to try to do it all. You also don’t want your teams to feel like they need to...

"This too shall pass.”   These are wise words I heard Tom Hanks talk about on Instagram. He was sitting around a table with fellow actors, talking about the phrase. Actors aren't typically who I get life advice from, but I've been a Tom Hanks fan for a long...