Lies, Lies, And More Lies!

“A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” – George Bernard Shaw One of the biggest lies we’ve been told by government lately — and this comes from both Democrats and Republicans alike — is that the federal budget is in surplus. Almost everyone I know believes…

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Fitness For Overachievers

“I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.”” – Pietro Aretino Because we’re busy people, we like to say that staying fit is not about the way we look in a bathing suit. It’s about self-confidence and performance. We want to go nonstop, alert and energized 18 hours a day. Still,…

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Sudden Wealth Loss Syndrome

““Show me a good loser and I’ll show you an idiot.”” –  Leo Durocher Want to catch the next new trend in mental health? How about a business that caters to all the Internet investors who find their mania-based stock-market wealth suddenly disappearing? A Silicon Valley psychotherapist has done just that. Two years ago, Stephan…

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Zara: A Company For The 21st Century

A company profile in a recent issue of The New Yorker suggests what you have to do to be competitive in the 21st century. The company is Zara, a Spanish clothing retailer based in Galicia. It is the third largest business of its kind and the fastest growing, with profits increasing at better than 30%…

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Getting Your Personal Master Plan In Gear

““It is a bad plan that admits of no modification.”” – Publilius Syrus (the first century B.C.) In Message #155, we talked about the way Jack Welch used a Master Plan to communicate and achieve his vision for General Electric. In Message #191, I suggested that this was the best way for you to achieve…

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The Secret To Getting Everybody To Be More Productive

““Men can be stimulated by hope or driven by fear, but the hope and the fear must be vivid and immediate if they are to be effective without producing weariness.”” – Bertrand Russell In his book “Motivation,” Saul Gellerman makes an interesting point about the way groups of people perform. He says that in any…

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Deflecting Envy – How The Beatles Did It

“Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.”” – Gore Vidal As you become more successful, the people who know you will change in two ways. First, they will begin to think of you as smarter than they do now. Second, they will sometimes resent your good fortune. You will probably notice the first…

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Managing Employee Turnover

“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at something worth doing.”” – Theodore Roosevelt Most businesspeople recognize that high employee turnover is costly. But we sometimes fail to appreciate how insidious the costs are. Besides the actual costs of processing a changeover (accounting, personnel, insurance, workmen’s comp,…

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Make Your Next Encounter A Good One

“The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.”” – George Bernard Shaw Every time you have a conversation, exchange e-mail, attend a meeting, make a presentation, or attend a business seminar (see yesterday’s Message…

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So What? This Is America, Isn’t It?

““No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.”” – William BlakeLike all countries, America is a land of inequalities. And despite the billions of dollars our government has spent on leveling the field, economic differences persist. While politicians, bureaucrats, social activists, and other collective thinkers struggle futilely to regulate what can’t…

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