I have extremely strong feelings regarding customer service responsiveness. Whether I am providing service or receiving it, whether in my personal life or my professional life, my standards are very high. Last fall, a client complained about one of my colleagues not responding to an email. When I spoke with…
In 2013, I sold a business I had run for many years. I learned more during that year than I did in almost any of my 35 years in the business world. Besides everything I learned about the process of selling a business, I learned a lot about myself. I…
About 30 years ago, my wife and I moved with our first-born into an apartment located five minutes from my office. At first, I loved the idea. A five-minute commute was essentially no commute at all. After years of much longer commutes, I was thrilled. A year later, we moved,…
One year. Incredible. This week marks one year since most of our lives were turned upside-down by the pandemic. For me, the days before COVID shut things down in New York have become one of those “remember where you were” times. On Tuesday, March 10, we had dinner with a…
My earliest, clear memory of the then-imminent pandemic was almost exactly a year ago, during an early-morning visit to a hotel gym. I was attending a business conference in Austin, Texas. As I peddled away on a stationary bike on February 27, I read the news on my phone. In…
I write frequently about exercise, an obvious, key component of “Be Healthy,” the sixth of my Six Simple Rules. I very much like the concept of healthspan – focusing on the longest possible healthy life, not just the longest possible lifespan. That said, a couple of articles about longevity caught…
During the summer of 2019, my cousin married a Parisian woman. The wedding was in Paris and I was fortunate enough to be able to attend. We arrived several days early to be able to spend some time exploring and experiencing Paris. It was a phenomenal week. On the first…
A few years ago, as we were about to try an Italian wine during a guided tour in Italy, the tour guide taught us how to clink glasses over drinks. Most of us, when we tap the other person's glass, look at the glass to make sure we are tapping…
Happy New Year! This has been a horrible year for all the reasons I don't need to list here. Nonetheless, as I have done for quite a few years, here are some of the experiences I enjoyed this past year: what I listened to, what I read, what I watched,…
This year has been one of the most challenging years of my life. Of course, everything is relative and there are many people who faced much worse challenges than I did. As I struggled through some situations, I jotted down a number of reminders to help me have the best…
With so much suffering this year, it can feel awkward to talk (or write) about silver linings from the pandemic. Nonetheless, it can be helpful to think about them as part of a practice of gratitude. Last week, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, the Morning Brew newsletter solicited from their…
Last year I wrote about my primary takeaways from listening to Arthur Brooks in conversation with Simon Sinek at an event I attended. The conversation, as I outlined in a prior post, was about the way we can heal our divided world by practicing an approach of loving your enemies…