Uncrapify Your Pandemic!
Just when I thought 2020 couldn’t throw anything else at me – well it did.
The Benefit of Doing Something Drastic
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…
What To Work On When Business Is Slow
Every summer I completely understand why tropical countries tend to move at a slower pace than ones further from the equator. Of course the Vikings went on raiding expeditions – what else were they going to do during nine months of Nordic winters? I live in Michigan, where we only get six months of decent…
How to Motivate Others When They Don’t Want To Work
Congratulations! If you’ve read my other article, then you are now as motivated as ever, ready to make the world into your oyster – which is a terrible thing to want to make the world into, by the way, since oysters are gross, but that’s the phrase. Anyway, you are locked and loaded and ready…
How To Motivate Yourself When You Deeply, Deeply Don’t Want To Work
Allow me to begin by saying that I really don’t want to be writing this. It’s gorgeous outside today – and considering that I live in northern Michigan, which is gray for 13 months a year and a frigid snowy wasteland for the other 11 – I really should be taking advantage of every sunny…
The 3 Most Unorthodox (and Most Effective) Ways to Motivate Your Employees
Listen more. Be positive. Celebrate success. Give people bacon. You’ve heard all the standard ways to motivate your employees before, and you’re tired of reading the same advice. Luckily for you, I’m tired of writing it, too. Don’t get me wrong. I still want to help you become a better manager. I still want you…
How To Convince Lazy People To Work Harder
If you’re at all like me, then you’ll remember group projects from high school with a mixture of frustration and more frustration. Your history teacher assigned four of you to present a report about the Civil War, and you stayed up late three nights in a row sewing a perfect replica of a Union general’s…
How to Break Up With 2016!
Hello, and welcome to the end of 2016! It feels a bit like a break-up. I mean, I know I’m never going to see 2016 again, but am I making the right decision? Should I really be leaving 2016 for 2017? I mean, I hardly even know 2017. What if she’s not as good for…
How to Motivate Yourself When You Don’t Have a Boss
Hi, all. I want you to know that there are approximately 843 things I would rather be doing than writing this article. It’s nice outside, so there’s all that stuff – walking, running, bicycling, bird-watching, sunbathing, boating, staring at people who are boating, etc. It’s also nice inside, which means I could be reading or…
A Traveling Nightmare – When My Job Shows Its Ugly Teeth
Hello, all! I’m writing this to you from my “second office,” which is my fancy code word for “tiny baby plane seat.” The person next to me smells like nothing, which is a definite positive (I mean seriously, when was the last time you were on a plane and said, ‘Wow, my seatmate smells AMAZING!!!!’),…