Did you know that the word “but” is an acronym for “before the ultimate truth”? Ok, it’s not really…but that’s what it signals: What’s to follow is truer. When you use the word “but,” it tends to create unnecessary friction in an exchange. In my last post, I suggested seven words that lead to greater
I remember years ago leaving a meeting with several high-level leaders and saying to one of them privately: You really did a good job getting everyone to understand and buy in to that complex topic. I was in a technical role at the time, and his response shocked me: The key in these meetings, he
I loved my first job out of college developing and integrating corporate technology systems. Many days were spent either alone or with teams enabling business processes and getting systems to “talk to each other.” We learned to think in conditional (if-then) statements and Boolean logic (it’s this AND that, OR that NOT that). In other
One of the highlights of my week is shopping at Costco. Stick with me. Despite its size and corporate structure, it maintains high employee retention. This makes the retail experience feel more like visiting a locally owned market where you see the same people working month after month for years. I’ve developed some long-term friendships
I’ve been consuming lots of podcast content over the past year. The show that’s captivated me the most is called What It’s Like to Be…with Dan Heath. It’s fun and thought-provoking, but what I find most fascinating is Dan Heath’s self-restraint. His understated, concise questions get his guests to say the most unguarded and interesting
Monks practice their faith with self-denial and dedicated simplicity. The original Christian monks lived in the Egyptian desert. One day, Abbot Macarius said to his fellow monks, “Brethren, flee.” Confused, one of the monks asked, “How can we fly further than this, seeing we are here in the desert?” Macarius placed his finger to his
At a conference recently, I had an opinion on the discussion topic that I wanted to share. But two alarms went off in my head. First was whether I should share my opinion at all. Maybe my colleagues wouldn’t care about what I had to say, or maybe they’d think I was too opinionated. The
Over the holidays, I observed many people on work calls during their “time off.” Family members and friends often watched and waited, or just went off on their own. One daughter mindlessly scrolled her phone while she waited for her dad to finish his call, pausing every five minutes to signal her impatience. A friend
Recently I’ve been paying more attention to my interior peace — or lack thereof. I’ve been more aware of agitation, restlessness, nervousness, worry, insecurity, discomfort, stress, and frustration. The English word I’ve been using as shorthand for all those feelings is anxiety, which comes from the Latin word for uneasiness and the Greek word ankho,
I’ve recently learned a lot about presenting your value from university admissions tours with my teenage twin boys. In these tours, one of my goals has been to “decode” the structure and flow as the tour guides pitch the school. What I’ve found is that the best tour guides — the ones who captivate a
Matt Norman is president of Norman & Associates, which offers Dale Carnegie Training in the North Central US. Dale Carnegie Training is a global organization ...READ MORE