There was no note, no vase, no one there to tell me what was going on. Just the flowers in their plastic packaging…

My role in brand extension required new ideas, products and markets. In one company, several of the other executives were dead-set against anything I came up with.

It is an opportunity to unlearn, to strip away, to let go of my addiction to knowing things, to stop straining to figure out why things happen. There is freedom in returning to our real purpose.

I came down with Covid, and the fog it created in my brain hampered my ability to form coherent paragraphs.

I would notice the branches become barer and the resentment start to surface. I was actually getting mad at the trees for losing their leaves. The victimhood is cringe-worthy.

Why do we feel we have to glaze over the truth if it doesn’t sound good? Do we forget that we are all in this together, and part of our human experience is to feel sadness, joy, struggle, happiness and the full range of emotions?

I knew there was no more pleading my case. The action to take was clear. I needed to have this conversation…

Should you have the good fortune to achieve a measure of success in your professional life, it’s tempting to sit back and get comfortable. But rest assured, the market and your competitors are not relaxing!

I have typically thought of my best as working the hardest, going the extra mile and speaking up when I have an idea. However, it occurred to me that perhaps there were other, seemingly opposite ways for me to express my best.

The culture of approaching a discussion as if it’s a battle of wits and the winner gets a prize extends well beyond the microcosm of my family.

“People all over the world want a good job with mission, purpose with a living wage. This finding gets you pretty close to the meaning of life in the new millennium.”

We have spent years endeavoring to bring the principle, “decency pays,” to the people we work with, and Wizard has been a great model for us.

I’ve been living the dream lately, so how is it possible I don’t have anything to share? Sometimes when we are the most on purpose is also when we have the least to talk about because our actions already say it.

How many organizations evaluate what they are grateful for in the outcomes they identify? Every outcome, whether positive or negative, is an opportunity to learn.

There were a lot of things on my list that needed to be rethought. And … there are actually a lot of cool things influencing my son today.

We do judge others based on superficial details such as grammar errors, habits, behaviors and appearance. Some of us work hard to get past or de-prioritize those judgments and assumptions.

Momentum in business, or even in your personal life, is like physics. Getting going, the start-up energy, is the hardest thing to muster…

I compounded my error with a bigger one: denying responsibility. I was willing to cross over into the absurd to avoid the consequences of my actions.

There appears to be a genuine shift in recognizing the power of decency in our business structures and models. If the business community is genuine in these efforts rather than playing to an audience, the shift could accelerate quickly.

Often, decency is viewed as at odds with corporate culture and policy, as antithetical to profit and business success. I would asset, though, that not only does decency not hamper corporate success, it promotes it. Some high-profile CEOs agree.