-
Always the Right Answer
Back in spring we took a day trip to the beach during our vacation in Holland. Maybe we were caught off guard at the 30-degree weather in May, or maybe we didn’t realize that Holland had some sweet beaches, but we came seriously unprepared. No swim suits or towels. Of course, Olivia made a beeline…
-
Everything You Do
A while back I heard a McDonald’s franchisee share his, “Everything you do is marketing” mantra in talking about the importance of taking care of every customer that comes into his restaurants. Recently I saw this mantra in action at another McDonald’s restaurant. Last month, some friends of ours lost a wallet while they were…
-
Show and Tell and the Critic
Today I had a chance to update some of the recent work on my site. Looking back, it’s been a really busy summer, but a lot of fun. At Golden West I’m part of a great Online crew that’s been able to take on more responsibility in the company and work on some cool projects…
-
The Genius of Working Less
The story goes (as told by Dan Miller, quoting this book), that while Leonardo da Vinci was painting The Last Supper, he would spend many long days painting atop his scaffold, then would disappear for several days without warning. The prior of Santa Maria delle Grazie, who’d hired da Vinci, tried to convince the painter…
-
David Kelley on Creative Confidence
Is creativity a gift or a skill? Are we born creative (or not), or is creativity a muscle that can be exercised and developed? David Kelley, founder of IDEO, which has developed things like the first computer mouse, believes that we’re all creative, but that often our creativity gets stifled along the way. He has…
-
The Onions Need Space
It made enough sense this spring. We bought one of those little trays that holds about 30 tiny onion plants. When we planted them in our garden we figured, Why not plant them all? It was more like planting a strip of grass than individual onion plants, but we figured it would work itself out.…
-
Ears
Several years ago, a wise old preacher friend was giving me some advice about public speaking. “I want to keep doing it,” he said, “as long as my ears are good.” Although this sounded wise, it also seemed illogical, coming from a man whose main job (in my mind) was to talk. But I think…
-
Anatomy of the Potato
I dug up the first of the potato plants in our garden today. I can recall helping my parents dig up potatoes as a kid, but don’t remember it being so much fun! You pull this nasty-looking plant out of the ground and start digging. All of a sudden you come across these big pinkish-purple…
-
Coffee
I wonder how many things in life we do for a particular reason, while the real benefit is something completely different and unexpected. I’m reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, which has great advice for writers and anyone who’s creating stuff. She talks about writing like that. While you might start out writing to get…
