"The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.”~ Epictetus I discovered this simple truth the other day and despite its simplicity it is one of the most profound statements I've come across in a while. To follow this advice you needn't be hardhearted, you just …
Author: Gregory Hake
Son. Husband. Father. Thinker. Doer.
The Discriminating Powers of the Mind
"A multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor." ~ William Wordsworth Reactions to challenging those within your sphere of influence to think outside …
Hidden Resources
"What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts." ~ George Bernard Shaw My management and sales team and I invested an hour of increasingly precious time discussing the limiting assumptions that were preventing our company, Energetix Corporation, from becoming the best place to …
A True Lady or Gentleman
I am inclined to agree more with Theodore Roosevelt's assessment that courtesy is "as much a mark of a gentleman" than with Honore de Balzac's less encouraging assessment of courtesy being "only a thin veneer on the general selfishness." While the latter may be more predominantly the case, the former holds in it the promise …
Short but Sweet
Sometimes the shortest conversations yield the most abundant harvests. I had two such conversations yesterday and it is my pleasure to give a snippet of each, along with my resultant realizations, in hopes that your lives are enriched in the sharing. The first conversation was with a woman who was filled with an infectious spirit …
Intrinsic Value III
"Reputation is what the world thinks a man is; character is what he really is. Anyone can play shuttlecock with a man’s reputation; his character is his alone. No one can injure his character but he himself. Character is the sword; reputation is the scabbard. Many men acquire insomnia in standing guard over their reputation, …
Intrinsic Value II
"Life is not competition with others. In its truest sense it is rivalry with ourselves. We should each day seek to break the record of our yesterday. We should seek each day to live stronger, better, truer lives; each day to master some weakness of yesterday; each day to repair past follies; each day to …
Success is Optional
"Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result." ~ Oscar Wilde A perfectly aligned set of circumstances is more often the exception than the rule. Resources are frequently insufficient, tools are disorganized, agreements are not set and objections stand in the way no matter what you undertake, so one of …
The Truth is True
I stumbled upon an excellent article yesterday in The New York Times Sunday Review entitled "Biased but Brilliant." The author, Cordelia Fine, a senior research associate at the Melbourne Business School, points to research showing that confirmation bias - the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions, leading …
Time is Elastic
October by Robert Frost O hushed October morning mild, Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild, Should waste them all. The crows above the forest call; Tomorrow they may form and go. O hushed October morning mild, Begin the hours of this day slow. Make the day seem to …
Gregory Hake 