Tag Archives: leadership

Make It Happen

“Good things happen to those who wait. Greater things happen to those who get off their butt and do anything to make it happen.”   – Unknown Making it happen takes work!  And loads of it!  There is just no two ways about it.  If you truly want something in your life you can’t just sit […]

Coping In A Toxic Work Environment (Forbes Article)

Recently, I had the occasion to observe a group of employees who were working in a toxic work environment.  I witnessed the decline of self-esteem in each one of them as they endured month after month of poor leadership and dysfunction in their workplace.   I was truly amazed at the change to the countenance of […]

Taming the Desktop Monsters

For those of you who have ever seen my offices, you can attest that my office is often times a disaster, with stacks and stacks of papers and piles of post-its everywhere you look. Just looking at my desk in the mornings gets my stress level rising. There is no feeling of peace when your […]

Have Something To Look Forward To!

“People who say that life is not worthwhile are really saying that they themselves have no personal goals which are worthwhile. Get yourself a goal worth working for. Better still, get yourself a project. Always have something ahead of you to “look forward to“, to work for and hope for.” (Maxwell Malz).  I don’t know […]

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 […]

The Wisdom of Lessons Others Have Learned

As I was looking through some old files tonight I came across a document that contained life lessons that were shared from different people – the document doesn’t show the names of the people that shared these so I can’t list them for you, but the lessons shared were awesome lessons and very inspiring to […]

The Strength of Our Young People

Last Friday our charity, The IPOP Foundation (In Pursuit of Perfection) www.ipop.org held a business competition with the students of Alta High School.  Students were challenged to submit an idea for a new mobile app.  We had hundreds of students participate in the competition.  They had the option to submit an idea alone or in […]

I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER!

Ah yes, the famous words of Hannibal on the A-Team. There is little in life that is better than when a plan comes together, especially when the plan itself turns out to be far larger and expansive then any plan you had pictured in your own mind 🙂 Throughout the years of my life I […]

Love Advice From the True Experts!

Tonight I took a group of teenage girls on a service project to go to an assisted living center to visit with a group of adorable, lovely Grandmas.  We sat the group of our 16 and 17 year old girls in a circle with group of Grandmas, all of which were widows.  We asked the […]

Successful Business Communication: It Starts at the Beginning (Forbes Article)

A while back I was able to attend a seminar by Dr. John Lund on communication where he gave some amazing advice on how to better communicate with others. His input was simple and easy to follow, yet powerful. The best quote of the entire event was this: “Don`t communicate to be understood; rather, communicate […]

“You Are More Than What You Have Become”

Yesterday I wrote my Forbes article on moving past your mistakes in life and I used a quote from the movie the Lion King.  There is another quote from that movie that I can’t help but share today because I think it is so powerful. There is a part of the movie where we hear […]

People CAN Change Their Past – Put Mistakes Behind You. (Forbes Article)

People often think they can’t change their past, but I disagree. Perhaps we can’t change every mistake in our past, but we have to remember that the past is a moving target. Every day that goes by us becomes a part of our past history. Whatever we do today will become a part of our […]

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 […]

Passion Comes From Having a Purpose

Today I want to talk to you about passion. I am not talking about passion in the romantic sense; I am talking about passion in the “I am so excited to get up this morning and conquer the world today” kind of passion. There are very few things more powerful than a person who is […]

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, […]

Employees Who Stand Out Stay Standing – The Secret to Job Security (Forbes Article)

Employees who stand out in a company are the employees who stay standing through downturns, layoffs, and corporate restructurings. Standing out is the secret to gaining peace of mind that your job is secure. Whether you stay employed with the same company you are with today, or whether another company picks you up, your future […]

Five Incredibly Important Lessons to Live By (Forbes Article)

Five incredibly important lessons to live by in your career and in your business: First – Only do business dealings with people of character and integrity.  And no matter what, never ever let yourself break that rule.  It will never, ever, be worth it.  Not ever. Second – All the contract language in the world […]

A Truly Inspiring Example!

As many of you know, my husband and I are building a new home.  Our architect is a man named Lyle Beecher of the firm Beecher Walker.  Lyle is a phenomenal architect and he and I had worked together in the past when he designed the office space for my former company, so I knew […]

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 […]

“Is What I am Doing Right Now Leading Me To___?”

In the world of business we spend a significant amount of time coming up with company mission statements and company values.  We then set company goals that we believe will help us achieve our company purpose.   In companies it’s just expected that every company has gone through that exercise.  But when is the last time […]

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 […]

Weed Out the Bad to Make More Room for What’s Good!

In the book Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll writes: “If you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.” Obviously none of us set out to intentionally drink poisons.  Yet, it is amazing how innocently they seem to show up in our lives, first in […]

Make Time For Friendships, New and Old

I moved around a tremendous amount growing up.  My family lived in Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, California, and finally Utah. Living in so many places was rough as a kid, but as an adult I found that it came to help me tremendously when it came to finding connections with people which helped […]

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 […]

The Entrepreneur’s Addiction (Forbes Article)

Some days I get really frustrated at the fact that there are a million things I really want to get done, yet there are just not enough hours in the day to do them all!  And trying to pick and choose which things to put first can be one of the most challenging parts of […]

“We Do Ourselves the Most Good Doing Something For Others”

“Doing nothing for others is the undoing of one’s self. We must be purposely kind and generous, or we miss the best part of existence. The heart that goes out of itself gets large and full of joy. This is the great secret of the inner life. We do ourselves the most good doing something […]

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 […]

“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 […]

Speed Dating Plus American Idol Equals a Brilliant Hiring Technique (Forbes Article)

For years as a CEO, I absolutely hated the interviewing process for hiring. I felt that the entire hiring technique was inherently flawed. We would post a job description and candidates would respond with a resume that was tailored to fit the position we had described. When the candidate came in for their interview we […]