One of my favourite clients was a guy named Phil. He was one of those guys who led a simple, uncomplicated life, loved everybody, and everybody loved him. He sold accounting products in the auto industry, and everybody bought from Phil just because he was sweet and honest and always did what he said he…
Imagine an infantry battalion where the soldiers were each missing a leg. Sure, they’d do their best to compensate with technology, training, and attitude, but still, but still… It just doesn’t work, does it? The simple truth is that in general, soldiers need two legs. For certain professions, you need particular personal attributes. Pilots, for…
For the commercial lawyer, nothing is trickier than negotiating, closing, and following through on an “earn-out” sale of a business. In larger transactions each side will obtain one or more business valuations and then haggle a price based on these, but in more modest transactions, the business owner usually asks for as much money as…
Robert Darwin was a very successful physician, and his wife, Susannah Wedgwood of the pottery family, had money and influence. So for their little boy Charles, the fifth of six children, obviously intelligent and gifted, only the best education would do. Growing up, young Charles showed an early fascination with the natural world, collecting specimens…
If Donald Trump has a world map on his office wall, I’ll bet it is a traditional one based on the Mercator Projection. Perhaps with some sharpie modifications. Gerardus Mercator, a Flemish geographer, developed his famous mapping methodology in 1569 and it remains one of the most common mapping formats. You’ll recognize it instantly for…
Eastern Ontario has become something of a wasteland for the green ash tree. The once common hardwood used to be one of the dominant trees in our forests and along our city streets. Now little remains of ash plantations but stumps, the sad evidence of the depredations of the emerald ash borer, an invasive bug…
You do it. I do it. Everybody does it. You’re going through the emails on your phone and message after message just gets “left-swiped” into oblivion. They tell me that the expression “left-swipe” originated in the dating services venue. A potential date comes up, you take one look and say to yourself, “Not on your…
There’s a lot of loose talk about insurance and insurers, making insurance companies out to be fairweather friends at best. Having conducted lawsuits both for and against insurers, I got to see the innards of the business quite closely. Let me share a few insights. As a business proposition, insurance companies and lottery agencies are…
You know how it feels when some “artist” butchers your favorite song? Or when they “update” your familiar greasy spoon restaurant, the quaint one you love because it’s so kitschy? Or at the really, really, hoity-toity place where your once-a-year special date is ruined by rowdy patrons at the next table and lukewarm food slopped…
How does one write a Valentine’s card in a business and professional blog? Well, in my case, it’s easy. I had no idea, one sweltering summer day in a little rural town in Eastern Ontario, that I was about to become the luckiest man in the world. My dear young bride had no idea what…