You Don’t Get To Pick

I had the amazing opportunity to visit with a class of business students at Oklahoma Baptist University last Friday. I love talking with college students. They are intense, brave, curious, and not easy to impress. They will listen to what you have to say, but they will question you too and make up their own…

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Look to the Light

“I have good news, and I have bad news. Which do you want first?” How many times has someone said this to you? And which do you choose to hear first? We almost all have a default choice that we have rationalized in our mind. We think, “It’s not just one or the other; I’m…

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Intentional Unintentionality

Spencer Silver failed in 1968. He was trying to develop a new super-strong glue for his employer, 3M, but instead, he created the opposite: an adhesive that stuck to objects but could be easily lifted off. He tried to get the folks at 3M to see the potential for his new adhesive, but it took…

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Red Flag

Sunday, September 6, something happened at the Italian Grand Prix that has not happened in an F1 race in eight years. Under the sun at Monza, the podium (first three places) did not include Mercedes, Ferrari, or Red Bull drivers. Third place was a driver who had only been on the podium once before (in…

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Walking With Bears

I just spent a week in Glacier National Park, Montana. It is a rugged and beautiful land with towering mountain peaks thrusting from pine covered glacial valleys that follow crystal clear streams to pristine mountain lakes. The weather was perfect, getting pleasantly cold at night while the days were warm in the valleys and chilly…

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I Can See Clearly Now

I think I know how Johnny Cash felt when he wrote that song. I can see clearly now the rain is goneI can see all obstacles in my wayGone are the dark clouds that had me blindIt’s gonna be a bright sunshiny day As I write this musing, I am near Essex, Montana, on the…

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Shiny Things

“Life is about perspective and how you look at something… ultimately, you have to zoom out.”  – Whitney Wolfe Herd I have a friend who finds great enjoyment and some amount of solace in having something to look forward to. It doesn’t really matter what it is, as long as it is in the reasonably…

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Bear In Mind

There are approximately 750,000 black bears in North America. They have killed 67 people since 1900. This fact became fairly important to me Wednesday when I came face to face with a black bear on a trail in Grand Teton National Park. I was on my annual trip with the Whistlepigs, a CEO peer group…

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Believing Is Seeing

“At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou I was talking with a dear friend of mine recently. The conversation turned to whether someone is capable of objectively seeing someone or something. Take for instance falling in love. Dopamine…

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I Am Jack’s Wasted Life

“We buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like.” Tyler Durden in Fight Club I re-read the following story a few nights ago. I was unable to track down the origin of this parable, so I repeat it here without citation. A group of alumni, highly established…

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