My New Year’s Resolution for 2012 is to become a First Responder. This doesn’t mean I’m going to train to be a police officer, fire fighter, or EMT – the people equipped to be the first ones on the scene of an accident or other emergency. Instead it means I’m going to train myself to get in the habit of responding immediately when I get an invitation, request, or a question from someone in person, by mail, or by email. What it really means is [...]
I received a number of comments on last week’s column about my trip to Duluth for a Toastmasters presentation the previous weekend. Some people mentioned their own visits to – or memories of –Duluth, including someone who recommended that I visit the aquarium the next time I’m in Duluth, if I haven’t already done so. I haven’t, but will make a point of it the next time I go. Others commented – and eloquently so – on Lake Superior, in response to my mentioning the [...]
You don’t say Happy Birthday to others when it’s your birthday. You wish them a Happy Birthday when the birthday is theirs. And you don’t tell someone Happy Anniversary on the date of your own wedding anniversary, unless the person you’re saying it to happens to be your spouse. I bring this up with the hope of diffusing what I see as a dangerous and ugly holiday tradition. And we’ve had plenty of those over the years. The most recent one is the alarming Black [...]
I have always thought that everyone in America should be required to spend some time, at some point in their lives, in a third world country. I felt this way long before I ever spent time in a third world country, and I do even more so now. The trip could be for any reason. Mission trips are already common, but trips for business or education – whether to teach or to learn – would also be acceptable. As would vacations, especially if they were [...]
The column "Find Your Buried Treasure" appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on June 30, 2011. Our family’s 4th of July celebration will be pretty traditional. Our son will come over for a visit. In the morning, we’ll stake out our favorite spot for watching the parade, and later on we’ll enjoy the parade and the other festivities taking place in town. At night, we’ll watch some of the many area fireworks....
The column "Find Your Buried Treasure" appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on January 13, 2011. Sometimes it’s a lightbulb that goes off with a flash of brilliance, giving us an innovative and exciting new idea. For me, it was a candle. Specifically, it was a scented candle that I got as a Christmas gift. And it’s become part of a new daily practice for me, one that has already put more peace and pleasure into my morning, and more productivity and efficiency into the rest of my day...
The column "Find Your Buried Treasure" appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on December 30, 2010. “Have a great week,” I said to a friend recently. “I hope you succeed at failing.” She laughed. Of course, she knew exactly what I meant. My friend is also a Dream Coach client, and we had just finished the session about how failure can lead to success. We had talked about transforming limiting beliefs into empowering beliefs, about the lessons and insights we can gain from our mistakes and missteps, and about the ways in which the failures in our past give us valuable information and resources we can use to help us succeed now in anything we set out to do...
The column "Find Your Buried Treasure" appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on December 23, 2010. “Christmas bells, those Christmas bells, ringing through the land, bringing peace to all the world. And good will to man.” You may recognize those words as the chorus from “Snoopy’s Christmas,” a song about Charlie Brown’s pet beagle and his Christmas Eve battle against the Bloody Red Baron of Germany. The Red Baron was a World War 1 ace fighter pilot in real life, and also – occasionally – in the “Peanuts” comic strip. In the song, the Red Baron forces Snoopy’s plane down behind enemy lines. But then – inspired perhaps by the sound of Christmas bells from a nearby village – instead of shooting Snoopy, the Red Baron offers him a holiday toast and wishes him a Merry Christmas...
The column "Find Your Buried Treasure" appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on December 16, 2010. A friend and I went to a nearby restaurant last week for a breakfast meeting to discuss some plans and projects we want to get started on. She and I have very similar values and beliefs, but very different skills and talents. We complement each other well, and have already worked on several projects together. We had a lot to talk about and a lot of catching up to do, in both our personal and our professional lives. It was one of those conversations in which we had to keep making notes about other things that came up, so we could keep track of things we wanted or needed to talk about later...
The column "Find Your Buried Treasure" appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on December 2, 2010. The alarm on my clock-radio went off the other morning just as the news was getting over and Christmas music was starting up again. The first song was “The Little Drummer Boy,” which has always been one of my favorite Christmas carols. Since I didn’t have any meetings or appointments for which I needed to hop up and race off to start the day, I stayed in bed long enough to enjoy the song. And because I had no other distractions, I noticed things I never really paid attention to before...