Sweep the Drive My daughter is looking for a summer job. It is nasty tough out there. She has two solid leads and we have our fingers crossed. One of the coolest would here: Mount Washington Hotel All thru high school I worked and saved my money. Going into college I had saved $2000. … [Continue Reading]
Archives for June 2011
Stuff I’ve failed at: the early years
“If you reach for a star you might not get one, But you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.” Leo Burnett Stuff I’ve failed at: the early years Grammar School. I was a miserable kid. In every sense of the word. The fact that the nuns kept referring to all the bad… [Continue Reading]
Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat
Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat In 1999 I took a new job as a Group Publisher. They moved me to New Hampshire. The company had just acquired some new technology magazines located in Chicago. Upon sealing the deal they promptly fired a bunch of people and moved most of the operations to New Hampshire. … [Continue Reading]
The. Worst. Used. Car. Ever.
Spitfire Back in 1977 I was renting a little studio up in Rogers Park, a neighborhood on the far north side of Chicago. I was young, single, employed, carefree and making some bucks. I needed a toy. A sports car. That’s the ticket. I lived in the city. I didn’t own a car. Didn’t need… [Continue Reading]
Top Ten reasons your future is so bright it hurts my eyes to look at it
Today is Father’s Day and my not so little girl took me to lunch. I even had a hot fudge sundae. She paid. I tried to because she’s just back from wandering around Iceland for three weeks on her own dime and I know she’s broke. But she insisted. “It’s OK Dad,” she said “I put… [Continue Reading]
The Most Dangerous Words Your Customer Can Say
The Most Dangerous Words Your Customer Can Say At some point in many of my sales programs it was always fun to throw out the question, “What is the most dangerous thing your customer can say to you?” Over the years I’ve come up with quite a collection culled from the various audiences. Sometimes tragic,… [Continue Reading]
How not to drown in The Sea of Assholes
As my dearly departed sainted mother used to say, “God must love assholes. He made a lot of them.” Of course, unlike me, she was far too refined to use the word “assholes.” A number of years ago I had a two part epiphany. 1. Since I already knew the world had plenty of assholes,… [Continue Reading]
What we own and why we own it
Note: This 2011 post was updated in 2018… What we own and why we own it: 2018 In the simple path to wealth I created for my young daughter nine basics guidelines. Readers noticed that the plan called for only one investment: VTSAX — Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund. Here’s why: 1. VTSAX is an Index Fund at… [Continue Reading]
The Ten Sales Commandments
THE TEN SALES COMMANDMENTS I. Thou shalt believe in thy company and its products, that others may believe. This is #1 for a reason: It is absolutely critical. If you intend to be a top sales professional you’d better select something in which you truly believe. In your heart of hearts you want to… [Continue Reading]
My ever so formal and oh so dry CV
You don’t want to read this post. Really. This is the most boring post I intend to ever place on this blog. If you want to just skip over it, I understand. Unless you are considering asking me to sit on your corporate board. In that case this CV should show I can clean up pretty… [Continue Reading]