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...
Malcolm Gladwell, wild-haired author of The Tipping Point, Outliers and other books translates social science research into practical applications. His ideas have had an enormous impact on our society. However, in his latest book Revenge of the Tipping Point, he admits that many of those...
We had a date with Walter White. Bryan Cranston was recently awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Santa Fe International Film Festival. After hearing his Emmy Award acceptance speech years ago for Breaking Bad, we assumed his interview would be exceptional.We weren’t disappointed. Cranston...
We’ve gritted our teeth for years as customer service reps of cellphone and streaming companies, internet service providers and other vendors routinely say, “I apologize for…” Frustration becomes anger when every other response is “I apologize….”Now companies have come up with a new way to...