A few weeks ago, we wrote about Max, the wonder kid who at 8 yrs old was lecturing on bioluminescent dinoflagellates. Sadly, Max is an anomaly. The U.S. ranks 36th in literacy and even more alarming is that 54% of our population reads below a...
At the recent Golden Globe Awards, an actress who has been in show business for 50 years won Best Actress for her role in The Substance. Her acceptance speech was widely touted as the highlight of the evening. Demi Moore (*) began with a story about...
It’s time to focus on what will ensure a successful year. Jeff Haden wrote an article in INC.com about Steve Jobs of Apple. Jobs was fiercely competitive, entrepreneurial, and brilliant. Asking for help was almost impossible because it made him feel vulnerable. Yet when he...
We recently watched a television special about the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. We had the pleasure of visiting the cathedral years ago, so we were mesmerized watching each phase as this world-class monument was brought back to life. In the special, one of...
Waiting for a flight in the Burbank airport, we heard this curious term from an unexpected source. A boy in dinosaur pajama bottoms and tousled hair was holding forth with his mom. Deborah asked, “How old are you?” He proudly announced, “almost seven!” Max is...
Johnny Carson hosted The Tonight Show for 30 years, from 1962 - 1992. He won six Emmys, had 17 million viewers a night and the show grossed $40-50 million dollars annually. Younger readers might need to Google Carson, and will find his routines incredibly corny,...
Professionals often struggle with the distinction between crafting an elevator speech (self-introduction) and a longer presentation. Isn’t an elevator speech just a short presentation? No more than a short story is a novel, which author Amor Towles elegantly describes in his intro to The Best...
We are midway through a Mediterranean cruise. When we boarded, the first impressions of our shipmates were not positive. We saw many older, stooped frames and grumpy expressions-- hardly encouraging for engaging conversations. We learned that first impressions should be tested, not trusted. We now have...
Kyoto University researchers in Japan discovered something about chimps that we see in humans. Researchers supplied the chimps with touchscreen computers and put them in front of human audiences. Then they gave the chimps tasks.When assigned easy tasks, the chimps did poorly. They got bored...
Roughly half of the U.S. population has been gut-punched by bad news regarding the recent Presidential elections. Reactions range from rage to despair. While these are natural reactions and quite human, they don’t serve us. As Baby Boomers, we considered moving from the U.S. during...