In this strange COVID season, let’s take time for gratitude as we celebrate our country’s birthday. Gratitude not just for this vast land with its bounty and beauty, but also for the people we call fellow citizens, and for our guests who will become our fellow citizens. Gratitude not just for the large liberty safeguarded…
Tomorrow is the Fourth of July. In the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic, social and economic upheaval, and political dyspepsia, Americans will nevertheless celebrate the birth of their republic. As they should. One might be forgiven for thinking there is little left to celebrate, that Donald Trump and his Republican lackeys have so ravaged America…
If you’ve attended any of my talks or webinars, you’ll know my fondness for the ABCD Grid, particularly as it relates to professionals and their clients. I’ve also used the device in a series of articles on the Ecology of Referrals. (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ecology-referrals-norman-bowley/) Simply put, the A client is not only highly profitable to the professional,…
Named Normand by his French-Canadian mother, my Grandad was a man of deep principles. They were very conservative and they were non-negotiable. In the depths of the Great Depression, Grandad found himself without work and without resources. With three young boys at home to feed, he went down to the township office to see if…
For the last four to six months there has been no end of pontification about adapting our professions and businesses to the new COVID reality. Everybody’s thinks they’re an expert. But that feast won’t last forever. Soon enough, the pandemic and the economic valley will be behind us. What we need to start thinking about…
Most people hold a hammer entirely wrong– even a few professional carpenters do. For whatever reason, the majority of us grip the handle stiffly and about halfway down the handle. As a result, we lack power and accuracy and end up tentatively tapping the nail, usually off-centre and making a mess of everything.. The correct…
Lallygagging has many synonyms– dawdling, loafing, loitering, hanging around, for example. In redneck circles, there is a rich and colourful vocabulary referring to the same phenomenon, but this space is too polite to set any of those to print. The whole point of lallygagging is to use time for no productive purpose. Whether the idleness…
Business Insider, in an August 1, 2020 article on the newly-arrived murder hornets, wrote “The WSDA reported that it plans to use infrared cameras and additional traps to catch living hornets in order to track and destruct these insects’ colonies.” I don’t know how you react to that language, but I stopped dead in my…
(extracted from the upcoming book “The Alignment Doctrine”) Understanding the difference between client wants and client needs is critical to professional success and safety. Failing to grasp and monitor the difference often leads to grief, while a clear understanding offers real opportunities for professional and business growth. Client needs are those things the satisfaction of…
My first year of classroom teaching was terrible. The second was tolerable. Then I took six months off and worked construction to sort things out in my heart and mind. During the time I was shoveling gravel or driving an asphalt roller, my mind continually turned over what had gone right, and what had gone…