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Archive for May, 2012

Seeing the World Through Fresh Eyes

Years ago, Jim Murray, the late, great sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times, faced a severe case of writer’s block. With deadline approaching, he just couldn’t find anything to fill the next day’s column. Finally, he decided that he would just look out the window and write about whatever he saw. His home happened […]

Coaching Stages

No matter how long you’ve been coaching, you’re at a certain stage in your development. You’re either novice, intermediate or veteran. You’re variously fascinated with technique, or tactics, or motivation, or team-building, or practice planning, or something else. For the last several months, I’ve been drawn to the spiritual side of coaching. It began when […]

Miracle on a Raft

The next time you think the odds are against you, this video can lend some perspective. It shows little boys who lived in a village built on stilts in water. They wanted to learn about soccer, but had no place to play. So they built a raft to use as a field! They turned every […]

Doing Things Right

Too often, silly laziness winds up costing me time, effort and even money. Yesterday I was home looking for a pen. I checked the drawer, but saw only a pile of old crayons, markers and pencils. After moving one or two of them without finding anything, I wandered around the house in a futile search. […]

Great Excuses

A few summers ago, my daughter and I were headed for an open-air concert. We had tickets on the lawn, while much of the crowd — and the band — would be under shelter. That meant that the show would go on, despite the wind, rain, thunder and lightning. We could barely see as we […]

That First Step

For parents, few things rival the thrill of baby’s first step. The proud mom and dad eagerly await the event. They’re ready with the video cam. They call their friends to tell them the news. No wonder! Taking that first step is a huge moment for any baby. It separates the past from the future, […]

Unspoken Understandings

Over the weekend, my family went for dessert at Holsten’s, the ice cream parlor where they filmed the final episode of “The Sopranos.” It was my first trip there since the series ended, and, upon walking in, I asked the waitress, “Where was Tony?” There were no more words needed. She knew that I was […]

How Teams Communicate

Two teams work in the same office. You are allowed to spend as much time as you want observing them. Then you must choose: Which one will be more successful? That question more and more is drawing the attention of businesses. In this Harvard Business Review article, researcher Sandy Pentland concludes that patterns of communication […]

Focusing on 12 Things

Today I heard a woman say with some pride that she “can do 12 things at once.” She also said, with not as much pride, that her daughter can only do one thing at a time. Only? By being able to do “only” one thing at a time, her daughter owns the key to success. […]

Mariano Rivera and True Greatness

Sport columnist Joel Sherman makes the key point about Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera. Writing in The New York Post after Rivera tore his ACL in a freak pre-game accident, Sherman says the relief pitcher is more than just a baseball player. He is the embodiment of greatness, not in the cheap, hero-a-day way so common […]