In 2017 I wrote the article College Don't Waste Your Money as a response to the huge problem of college debt in the United States. In the time of COVID-19, I question the value of college "experience" even further. In my article, I provided several alternatives to university education for those who would need to go into debt to finance their education. As you might expect I am hopeful based on the recent announcements by Google that they will disrupt higher education help reduce student debt in the United States.

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing suffering throughout most of the world.  Many of the events that are currently happening, as a result of this pandemic, are unprecedented.   Business owners have seen their life's work seemingly evaporate in an instant.   Others have been laid off.   This got me thinking about what to do when you are so overwhelmed that you don't know what to do.

In the book Give and Take Adam Grant explores the advantages of being a giver, taker or strategic matcher. I believe that his desire in writing the book is to convince more people to become givers or at least move closer towards becoming a giver. My favorite movie is Pay it Forward so you might expect that this book resonated with me. Grant ends the book by providing 10 actions for impact. In this article, I wanted to explore the action called starting a reciprocity ring.

Nine years ago John planned to take his kids to Disney World, but after being laid off he needed to sell his tickets.  When he tried to sell his tickets on Craigslist he was arrested and charged with six felony counts of obtaining money under false pretenses.  You must learn more about what John does now. He runs an accredited trade school to train electricians, orthodontics assistants, and plumbers. 

Over the past few months, several articles have been written such as the one in Business Insider and the one in Inc where they talk about how Microsoft has applied Carol Dweck's Growth Mindset principles to support organizational growth.   From that model, they developed the management framework Model, Coach, Care.   I am a fan of having a growth mindset and this management framework but I believe they have the order wrong in their model.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak at Reston Tech Talks. I spoke on the topic of the Value of Relationships. I shared my personal story, reviewed 4 great books, and provided 10 tips to build and grow business relationships. During the talk, I referred to what John Maxwell has called the learning lunch. In the question and answer session, an audience member told me she had never heard of John Maxwell and wanted to know more about the learning lunch.

In the first half of my life, I did not like receiving negative feedback.   I will admit that I was downright afraid of receiving negative feedback.  I did what I could to avoid receiving negative feedback which included such behaviors as trying too hard to be right, becoming defensive, and pretending I did not care about my performance in my areas of weakness.  This was a huge mistake and an area in which I am still growing.   I am confident others want to grow in their ability to love negative feedback, so I wrote this article to provide help.

I first heard about Grammarly from the CEO of my former company. For the first time, my company used the G Suite from Google. Excellent spelling and grammar do not come naturally to me. I had come to rely on the advanced features in the Office 365 Suite (Word and Outlook) to assist me with correcting my mistakes. After using G Suite (Gmail, Google Documents) for about a week, I was very concerned that my business communication would not be perceived as professional.

Resistance training is designed to use muscular contraction in order to build strength, anaerobic endurance, and increase the size of muscles and bone density.   Resistance training has positive affects on both our bodies and our brain.   I believe resistance training is required both for successful for athletes and business people.   The resistance training in business is not done in the gym, but is done in the battlefield of our mind.    You don't need to purchase any special equipment for this type of resistance training.  The resistance starts when you decide to take action on your life's calling.