I was denied a favor the other day. It was fairly insignificant, but I was surprised, mostly because I had an expectation; one in which a favor would be returned. But I’m supposed to do favors without expecting anything in return. Which made me wonder about this idea of social capital – that you help […]
Faking It the First Time
I embellished my restaurant experience to land my first fine dining server position in 1989. I’d only waited tables for a few months but said I’d done so for years. No one wants to be first, and let you be their guinea pig. So we sort of fake it that first time in order to […]
A Story With Two Lessons
I was reminded yet again just a few weeks ago that not everything is about me. I’m sharing the story because it has not one, but two lessons: First, our natural tendency is to jump to the most paranoid conclusions and second, Triberr is a really good tool for boosting blog traffic and search engine ranking. […]
Five Lessons on Living Life
I was born on Mothers Day Weekend and every year my grandmother loved to tell me the story about our Rabbi, who in his sermon that week said he had just been in to visit the most bee-UTIFUL mother with her most bee-UTIFUL baby. “What a Mothers Day gift,” he said. And of course, I […]
Should You Pull The Plug or The Trigger, and When?
Yesterday I had an 800-word draft written to publish this morning and I hated it. I kept writing because I thought I’d get somewhere good with it. It happens every now and then: Keep writing until you get to the good stuff. I might have to delete the first 500 words but that’s part of […]
The New SEO of Content Marketing
My friend Karol, a nutritionist, often threatens to write a book on “How to Lose Weight.” She said it will be one page. “Eat less and exercise more.” On that note, I could write a one-page book on SEO. “Write awesome content.” Over-simplification? On both counts, yes. But a very good start. You still need […]
How To Safeguard Your Social Media Accounts
I was asked, over the weekend, how to safeguard your social media accounts from the possibility of disgruntled employees hijacking them. My advice: Don’t disgruntle your employees. OK, just kidding. It could happen; you never know. You might have to let someone go, or you weren’t even aware, but someone leaves, and they take access […]
The Elixir That is Laughter
I’ve been relatively quiet on the blog this past week paying my respects to the insanity happening in our world. There seems to be no better topic for breaking the silence than the elixir that is laughter. Stop now and think back to the last time you had a really good laugh. What comes to […]
Don’t Let Your Automated Tools Turn You Into The Tool
and The Beauty of Please and Thank You. I wasn’t going to respond to the RFP (request for proposal). I usually don’t. They take a toll in terms of time and resources, the odds of wining are typically really slim, and sometimes the process is just a formality. They know who they want, but are required […]
Can Marketing Break the Grammar Rules?
I won second prize in a really difficult grammar contest against a room full of PR agency owners and CEOs. I like to talk about that as frequently as possible. I almost didn’t get married because in our very first argument in the first month we were dating, I interrupted Patrick to tell him “also too” is […]