I’m not saying anything especially ground-breaking when I say that the last several months have been catastrophic for just about everyone. There’s the pandemic, obviously. But that’s not the only catastrophe I’m referring to. There’s the murder of George Floyd in broad daylight on a busy street, which was not the first time a person…
Details
Thankfully the last month hasn’t been all catastrophe. Here are some things that should bring a smile to your face. The world is still weird – rejoice! Lucky Man Can Fish All He Wants A Michigan man recently won a $4,000,000 jackpot – 3 years after winning a different $4,000,000 jackpot. He used a lucky…
Details
(aka Colemans Rule!) So my house flooded last month, because why not. And not just my house, but several thousand of them where I live. You may have seen it on the news – a dam broke about 30 miles north of where I live and forced an immediate evacuation of about 10,000 families immediately…
Details
And here we go, yet another month of disruption – and yet another month where people found interesting and fun ways to deal with it. Hope you enjoy! If You’re Happy And You Know It… Howl as loudly as possible. That’s at least what one Facebook group with over 500,000 members has decided to do. …
Details
Just when I thought 2020 couldn’t throw anything else at me – well it did.
I’ve been thinking a lot about risk lately. In all fairness, as I near the end of my second month in quarantine I have been thinking a lot about all kinds of things – poetry, weasels, gymnastics, pancakes, mulch, and you get the idea. But as far as business goes, my brain keeps circling back…
Details
Another month, another wave of uncertainty. Thankfully, some amusing things managed to happen even while we were all figuring out how to telework and take care of our kids and not drive our loved ones insane. Hope you enjoy! Virtual Animal Rentals! A farm in North Carolina is allowing people to rent its animals for…
Details
Hey everybody! So, this month has been different, hasn’t it? I was supposed to be in seven cities and two different countries this April, and instead I’m doing….well, not that. Also, my daughter’s 1st birthday is in about two weeks, and we have all the decorations you’d need for three birthdays – but since nobody…
Details
Last month was, for most of us, a monumentally awful one. But that doesn’t mean everything was awful. Here are some things I’ve managed to scrounge up that will hopefully put a smile on your face. Enjoy! Why Video Calls Will Never Be Standard Since everyone on the planet is working from home now, businesses…
Details
Ah, crisis. It’s a fun word to say, but that’s the only fun thing about it. Crisis brings massive uncertainty, and we generally don’t deal well with that. Besides, crises often bring the potential for something significantly negative without offering the potential for something positive. We call it risk when things might end well but…
Details
Culled from news headlines this month, here are a pair of stories that should give you hope that you can absolutely be famous (whether or not you should be), and that you can easily lie to whoever you want to as long as the lighting is right. Enjoy! There Is A Record For Everything It’s…
Details
Recently I re-did one of my bathrooms. Our home was built in 1990 but somehow decorated in 1970, and after a couple years of staring at that disco-inspired atrocity I was compelled to make it right. So I ripped everything out, including the walls, and rebuilt it. Gone are the flaking brass finishing, the perfectly-maintained-yet-suuuuuper-tacky…
Details
In an effort to make people actually read traffic safety signs, the state of Georgia recently asked its citizens to come up with their own slogans, then published the winners last month. It should be no surprise to anyone that Georgians are hilarious, and some of their best efforts include the following: You are allowed…
Details
We recently filmed three new video series for Levity University on Business Communications, Behavior, and Dress Code. Fortunately for your viewing pleasure we messed up a lot. Enjoy!
Details
I don’t know you very well, but I’m confident that something soon will annoy you. Annoying things are everywhere – obnoxious family members, slow traffic, stupid rules, pointless meetings, and at least 4 billion other things that collectively make all of us occasionally wonder why we don’t just go find an island somewhere and live…
Details
In a slight departure for me, this one is meant to be sung to the tune of “12 Days of Christmas.” Hope you enjoy. On the first day after winter break my colleagues gave to me…. A two-hour call with IT. On the second day after winter break my colleagues gave to me…. Two performance…
Details
It’s the end of the year again, which means that once again everybody is going to at least think about making some major life changes. Eat right, exercise, stop smoking, read more, finally buy that walrus you’ve been talking about getting for five years – I don’t know what your particular resolutions are going to…
Details
Hello, everyone! Well, I’ve been putting this off for a year now, but it’s finally time. Over the past few months I’ve realized that I’m a dull and boring person, riddled with problems and flaws and rickets and probably some other things, which is why I’m preparing to do a complete overhaul as we head…
Details
As I’m sure you’ve heard before, creating a good culture is enormously difficult. At least it’s often presented that way. Companies are made up of dozens of moving parts, and those parts sometimes wake up in a crappy mood or get divorced or decide they want to work somewhere else. Structuring everything in a way…
Details
So hopefully you read my companion article about the four keys to creating a good, happy, vibrant, gosh-it’s-nice-to-work-here company culture. Because if you didn’t the title for this one probably doesn’t make a lot of sense. Who would want to create an awful culture? Nobody, really, except for sociopaths and evil supervillains. And yet awful…
Details
A couple weeks ago I delivering the opening keynote at an agricultural conference. For those of who don’t know, theirs is an industry currently facing significant challenges. A combination of unusually uncooperative weather and unprecedented policy decisions have simultaneously depressed crop supply and prices. Farming is a difficult business, and farmers today are having a…
Details