Musings at Altitude

After reading about my writer’s block, one of my good friends and business partners sent me a list of things to talk about.  So instead of making up my own (still in a thinking funk), I’ll just use the list of things he sent me to pontificate randomly:

(1) Nothing is more important than family and friends.  So true, and yet most business leaders will admit that no matter how much we talk about that, the priorities get skewed when the intensity of business activities increase. 

(2) You should never lick envelopes after eating Oreos.  I’d modify that one to instead say “you should never lick envelopes…period”!  Some of the worst paper cuts I’ve had came from licking envelopes.

(3) Mediocrity stops here.  With the current economic crisis and the soon to be changing federal spending patterns, many businesses are looking deep into their operations and deciding how to become more efficient.  At no time is mediocrity acceptable.  But in times of great success and great growth, many companies will overlook mediocrity because the growth has all the focus looking forward rather than within.  Great companies don’t tolerate mediocrity ever.

(4) Put a person in charge if you want to discover their true character.  It’s amazing to me how many people change when they move into leadership positions.  It’s also amazing to me how much they change when they move into leadership positions. 

(5) The New York Giants started 0-2 last year and still won the Super Bowl.  This thought came up when I was explaining how my daughter was distraught because the Colorado Avalanche lost the first game of the hockey season.  She told me that every time the Avs lose that first game, they have a bad season.  I don’t know if that is true or not, but since football is a 16 game season and hockey has 82 games, then to be equivalent to that 0-2 start for the giants, the Avs would have to lose the first 10 games.  I’m thinking that probably won’t happen, and since they have 81 games to go this season, I’m also thinking that this isn’t quite a crisis just yet.

(6)  Yadda, yadda, yadda.  This says it all!

I greatly appreciate the topics and the suggestion that such wise recommendations and such spirited talk earlier in any day should never end up in a mind numbing session when I sit down to blog.  That may be so, but I can certainly state that even spirited talk earlier in a day may not fire the musing cells in any form of coherent way!

The good news is that today is a new day, and with the mighty USC Trojans winning, something special will be sparked soon!