The following is an excerpt from my upcoming book, The Pinocchio Principle — Being Real:  Becoming the Leader You Were Born to Be, which will be released on 1/11/11 and will soon be available to pre-order.  I hope you enjoy it!  Our foundations are shaking.  Corporations are going under.  People are losing their jobs and…

How do I motivate and inspire my team in the midst of uncertainty that could lead to the whole department being eliminated?  I mean, I’m not even sure I’ll have a job myself! This is a question a client of mine recently asked.  A tough one.  I didn’t have an immediate answer for him.  He…

Last night Tom Petty was in town and I was lucky enough to get a last minute opportunity to watch him perform.  Chuck Berry – at age 83 – was the opening act.  He moved and grooved and belted out his tunes with just as much energy and passion that he did fifty years ago. …

If you’ve been following my blog for the last few weeks, you may have noticed that many of the posts have been about getting unstuck, overcoming procrastination and overwhelm, and moving forward.  That’s because these are challenges I’ve been working through lately.  And one of the best ways I know to find answers and solutions…

Do you ever have trouble getting something done?  Something big? (Or maybe something that feels big?) When faced with a rather large task or project, it is easy to get bogged down in the details and the heaviness that comes with them.  We can experience what feels like a never ending process of having to…

“An effort made for the happiness of others lifts us above ourselves.” ~ Lydia M. Child (1802-1880) Writer Do you ever feel so mired in frustration and challenge that you cannot see a way to move beyond it? When life gets you down, it’s easy to become overly focused on all the things that seem…

“Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.”  ~ Jonas Salk I have been marveling a lot lately over the power of the internet.  I feel so old when I explain to my kids that when I was in school, doing a research paper meant spending hours in a library pouring over books…

The other day I was working from my home office when I noticed a man in my back yard.   I figured perhaps he was a meter reader from the utility company and went over to the window to get a better look.  He was wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and a large straw hat whose wide…

“When nothing is sure, everything is possible.” ~ Margaret Drabble I came across the above quote some time ago and it has become one of my favorites.  In fact, I was just sharing it recently with a client who is in the midst of uncertainty.  And he is not alone.  So many of us are…

Feel like there’s got to be more to being a leader than running from meeting to meeting, repeatedly fixing the same problems, and beating your head against a wall trying to get people and things to change? “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” ~ Gandhi We’ve all been to…