Toronto, 6am, December 11 2008 14 days to Christmas. Even in the silence of my study, I hear Bing Crosby crooning his Christmas carols. I see the lights on my neighbour’s lawn. We’re deep into the Festive Season and it feels like it. Maybe I’m not as naively upbeat as I was in…
Read moreThis Christmas, Be Real and Be Ready.
In decisive moments, Take a risk before risk takes you.
Toronto, December 3 2008, 8.30am I’ve just spent the last two days with a group of 200 executives from the international division of one of Canada’s largest banks. As you can imagine, the focus of the entire session was the management of risk. In the last three months, the word “risk” has assumed…
Read moreIn insane times, be Insanely Great. Don’t be cowed by the crisis, be wowed by it.
Friday November 21 2008 – Air Canada Flight 847, somewhere between Munich and Toronto. 12pm EST I’m into the seventh hour of a nine hour flight from Munich to Toronto. I’ve just delivered a program to Deloitte, the global professional services firm, in Hamburg, Germany. My mission was to coach a group of managers and…
Read moreResist. Accept. Embrace. Act. Enable. Reinvent
Toronto, 4.55am, November 12 2008 I don’t sleep so well these days. Seven hours of high quality REM sleep are a distant memory. Now it’s 5-6 hours of fitful sleep, fragmented by night-time frights and bogeymen who feed on my post-meltdown angst. On the other hand, I’ve never been more awake. I’ve never felt more…
Read moreBe an Immigrant. Be Hungry. Be New
Toronto, Tuesday., November 4, 6.10am Last Saturday, I facilitated a full day program with 500 new, highly skilled immigrants to Toronto. They came from all over the world. For many of them, English is their second language. Many of them also come from countries with very different cultures to Canada. For all of them, just…
Read moreIn darker times, shine brighter. Right now.
Toronto, October 28, 8.10am Last night, I did my daily workout at the Toronto Athletic Club. It’s an upscale gym whose members are drawn primarily from the surrounding downtown professional service community. Besides the gloomy atmosphere created by the TV report on the global stock-market meltdown, I also noted that there were less people…
Read moreIt’s going to be a long hard winter so be a Pessimistic Optimist
New York City, Sunday, October 19 2008, 10.50pm Even the Motivator needs to be motivated. I just spent the weekend with 1000 people learning to reinvent myself, my business and my environment. Why? Because it’s going to be a long hard winter. The credit crisis is rippling out into the general economy. Trading conditions…
Read moreSeek shelter from the storm inside your inner circle. Be Vigilant
Saskatoon, October 13 2008 11.35pm Just when you thought it couldn’t get any wilder, it gets a whole lot weirder. From the insanity of Wall Street to the Fear on Main Street, the storm is shaking ALL of us to the core. Whether you’re a billionaire, a bureaucrat, or just Bob, you’re being forced…
Read moreKeep your eye on the prize and the prize will pull you towards it
Iselin, New Jersey, October 6, 11.55pm So much noise. So many distractions. So many temptations to focus on the wrong things. So many reasons to feel disturbed, dismayed and dislocated. The ante has been raised. We’re heading into deepening change and chaos. All around me, I see planned scenarios and business models being turned…
Read moreI snapped under the pressure. Now I have to make it whole.
Whistler, British Columbia, 11pm, September 29 2008 Last Tuesday was a very long, very bad day. I flew to Baltimore from Toronto to deliver two workshops – one for the YPO organisation and the other for the PCM Construction company. I left my house at 5.45am and returned at 9.45pm. Both sessions were fabulous.…
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