Tag Archives: culture

The Magic Of A Smile

My day started out on a great note.  I was getting things done this morning and feeling a good sense of accomplishment.  But by the time 10:00pm rolled around and I was just pulling into my garage from a very long and frustrating day, I was feeling grumpy and stressed out.  As I came in […]

Love It While You Live It

So it is not very often that I would write about a quote from a sitcom as being a great life lesson, but this particular quote was so good that I haven’t been able to get it off my mind, so I figured I had better write about it today.  It was a quote from […]

The Importance of Paying Attention to our “Todays”

Living in the moment is not always easy to do. It seems that we all have a tendency to focus our thoughts on our past mistakes and feel discouraged about them, or we focus our thoughts on a future that we wait to someday have. It seems that we rarely focus on our todays, our […]

Ubuntu – I Am Because We Are

“One day, a western anthropologist went to Africa to study the social behavior of an indigenous tribe. He proposed a game to the children and they willingly agreed to be part of it. He put a basket filled with fruits underneath a tree and told the children that whoever would reach the basket first would […]

The “Gratitude Effect”

I woke up this morning to the most amazing surprise.  An email from a total stranger sharing a heartfelt, sincere, yet simple thank you for the positive impact my blog was having on his life.  I was blown away at the impact this man’s simple, kind words had on me.  I was genuinely choked up […]

Admitting You Were Wrong Doesn’t Make You Weak – It Makes You Awesome! (Forbes Article)

It takes tremendous fortitude to utter the words “I was wrong, and I am sorry”.  I love that word: fortitude. I could list the dictionary definition of fortitude, but let’s be honest, why go to that trouble when Bill Gates blessed us with Microsoft Word’s single click to see its synonyms, which are: strength, courage, […]

“Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.”

There is little that I enjoy more than spending quality time with a group of great friends.  Today I went to the BYU Founders Board Meeting (Brigham Young University board I serve on).  It was a great meeting and I truly joy serving with such amazing board members.  All are highly successful people who place integrity and […]

Be A Kid Again

Why is it that when we are young we just wish we could be a grown-up – then we become grown-ups and we can’t help but wish we could be a kid again.  I can’t recall where I got this list about being a kid again, but it brings back the memories of just how […]

“How To Have a Mental Breakdown in 11 Easy Steps”

Amidst having a pity party for myself for my ‘oh, so stressful’ week, I came across an article that was absolutely perfect for kicking me in the behind and knocking some humor back into my pity-party self: How To Have a Mental Breakdown in 11 Easy Steps     –By Jason Kotecki Have you ever wondered to […]

Passive-Aggressive Behavior Will Destroy a Company’s Culture (Forbes Article)

Passive-aggressive behavior in any company is one of the most destructive cancers to a culture that ends up killing both a great company, and the self-esteem of the individuals working there.    For any wondering what passive-aggressive behavior looks like, I will try and give some examples that paint a picture.  A passive-aggressive person is someone […]

Getting the Right People into the Right Seats on the Bus is Essential to a Company’s Success (Forbes Article)

Behind every company, whether it’s a multinational corporation or the smallest startup, is an intersection of talent. Each person is uniquely capable of performing their job: the company spokesperson is a gifted public speaker; the administrative assistant is a master multi-tasker; and the CEO is excellent at setting the vision and leading the team. Every […]

Becoming a Great Leader is a Lifelong Quest, but One Well Worth Pursuing (Forbes Article)

I have spent many years as the leader of several companies. I hope that during that time I have learned a bit about what it takes to become a great leader. Many of the lessons I am still learning, but I wanted to share a few of the things I have come to learn thus […]

“Not a One!” on Valentine’s Day

Tonight I went with a group of young women who decided to spread a little Valentines love by heart-attacking some of the neighbors front doors.  For those of you who don’t know what a heart-attack is, it is when you take a bunch of cute construction paper cut out hearts and stick them all over […]

Great Employees Are Not Replaceable (Forbes Article)

One of the greatest lessons I learned during my time as a CEO was that great employees are not replaceable. It isn’t the technology or the product that make a company great, it’s the people. And companies who see their good employees as “replaceable” are wrong. Good employees are not replaceable. Let me clarify what […]

Good Leaders are invaluable to a company. Bad Leaders will destroy it. (Forbes Article)

Good Leaders are invaluable to a company.  Bad Leaders will destroy it.   When good leadership is in place in a company it can be felt throughout the entire organization.  There is a corporate culture that isn’t forced, it has been developed.  Communication is daily and open. Everyone understands the vision and goals of the organization […]

“Sometimes the Best Thing You Can Do Is Just Breathe…”

 After working incredibly hard for the last few months to get REES Capital launched, our building construction and renovation completed, and setting up our new offices with furniture and decorations and all the hoopla in order to be ready for our big Grand Opening tomorrow, I definitely needed to hear that quote you just read.  […]

“Don’t Hate Me Because I am Beautiful.” (Forbes Article)

I remember well those words spoken in a Pantene shampoo commercial back in the 1980’s. The attractive woman with the fabulous hair looked right into the camera and made the plea “Don’t hate me because I am beautiful.” That phrase became front and center once again earlier this year when UK columnist Samantha Brick wrote […]

THE SNEETCHES

So the story goes that there were these Sneetches – some had stars on their bellies and some had plain bellies.  The Star Belly Sneetches were proud and they considered themselves better than the Plain Belly Sneetches.  The Star Belly Sneetches would walk by the plain belly Sneetches without saying a word to them.  Then […]