When Howard Schultz became the marketing director for a then unknown coffee company called Starbucks, portable coffee was dominated by chains like Duncan Donuts. After a trip to Italy, Schultz reimagined Starbucks as an iteration of the European coffee bar experience complete with baristas in aprons, steaming espresso, cappuccino, and a destination where people could [...]
Last week, I was in New York for the National Retail Federation Conference – the largest gathering in the world of the top retailers, and one of the keynotes was helmed by the CEO of Target, Brian Cornell. Mr. Cornell is responsible for helping Target acquire 20 brands in the last two years including the [...]
You are laid off, your business fails, you get divorced, medical costs, basically any cataclysmic event and suddenly you have to create something from nothing. Could you do it? Could you get back on your feet in thirty days or less? As heart wrenching as life tragedy is, know that you are more powerful, resilient, [...]
So, your kids are getting a little older and you are thinking of going back to school or starting a new career. Perhaps you are tired of your boss and dreaming of starting a business. Maybe you have grown a business and are ready for your next adventure. Conversely, your employer might be downsizing or [...]
According to a Gallup Poll surveying 15,000 Americans, at least 43 reported working remotely from home at least part, or full-time. This number is up 3% since 2012 and continues to rise. Many people cite greater work-life balance when working from home and as a work-life balance expert, and someone who has worked exclusively from [...]
The 52-year old godfather of my kids stood in my kitchen and proclaimed, ‘I am embracing technology. We are going email free.’ He was in town to do a tech incubator and over dinner was espousing the virtues of both Slack and Asana; terms that would not have been uttered from his mouth a mere [...]
One of my Organize Your Life students fought back tears as she shared how her husband had built her a backdrop from reclaimed wood that she could use in her home office which happened to be in her bedroom. From all appearances, one would never know that she was sitting in a corner of a [...]
It began with looking at my in-box and seeing that a certain person, known for verbose emails, had sent yet another long-winded montage of thoughts. Not only was it challenging to see what the person actually wanted, between the eight sentence paragraph and the front-end diatribe, I had to read through it four times which [...]
It all began with a conversation with a friend of mine who works at a large CRM (client relationship management) firm. He had slapped the hands of several people who had used Hurricane Harvey as a time to take the opportunity to use their email marketing to capitalize on tragedy by tying sales pitches to [...]
