Polish your attitude for gratitude
“Why is this Cuban farmer sporting such a beautiful manicure?” Polished nails and dirt seldom mix. Cuba is a country of paradoxes. This seemed yet another as I settled into my seat at the co-operative research garden Organoponico Vivero Alamar, nestled in a Havana...
Adopt a pace car to stay on track
Tis the season of joy, good will and fantasy. With its Christmas Book, Neiman Marcus is my perennial source for fun examples of conspicuous consumption. This year, I’m drooling over the 2013 McLaren 12C Spider. It’s more than another convertible. In fact, I’m pining...
Revolt against forced information diets!
“You can ‘Google’ it,” our main Cuban tour guide Erik often stated after sharing a factoid about his country. Erik and the other Cuban guides were real live search engines—or more appropriately, walking encyclopedias—about Cuban history, traditions and current...
Deal with, not heal, FOMO
I’ve got FOMO. FOMO—the fear of missing out—is both a socio-cultural phenomenon and a personality factor, according to Dr. Dan Herman, who first identified and named FOMO. The condition isn’t serious compared to other ailments, but it can be limiting. For example, my...
Forget about getting back to normal
You can’t return to normal—unless you’re from Normal, IL. Normally, I don’t write about “returning to normal.” But in the aftermath of devastating Superstorm Sandy, that phrase is on the tips of so many tongues. Government officials, company spokespeople and others...
Pass the pronoun test
Can you pass the pronoun test? What about your employees and other work colleagues? The pronoun test is not a trick grammar quiz. Instead, it’s a simple diagnostic tool for assessing the health of your organization. Former US Labor Secretary and now University of...
5 skills to steal from auctioneers
“Sold!” $100 donation from the woman with paddle 1904. The live charity auction I participated in last week made me appreciate skilled auctioneers and the value they bring. The actions of the auctioneer Lenny Broberg provided several teachable moments as he conducted...
FLIP how you introduce new initiatives
Double the fun and double the learning at no out-of-pocket cost. That sums up my recent experience with my free Coursera gamification class, my first online college class. For me, how the professor conducted the course was almost as illuminating as the content he...
Add fun to work puzzles
“Voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles”—the definition of a game by professor and author Bernard Suits in his book The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia. This definition took on a whole new meaning for me during my just-completed Coursera certificate...
