Like so many things in life, proverbs, considered one at a time, are appealing and have a generally accepted meaning. Consider them in the context of other proverbs, though, and you'll find many contradictions that may cause you to think a little harder about the sayings. What do they really mean? Are you drawing the right …
Category: Observations on Life
How to be Outrageously Happy
My five year old made another funny comment that you will appreciate. We were driving home from school on Friday and he said to me: "Daddy, is that an obstacle course?" I looked out in the direction of his gaze and to my delight saw of all things, a cemetery. I held back my chuckle as the irony of his …
“Daddy, what was war?”
My eldest son, who just turned five, loves to ask me questions on the way to school every morning. "Excuse me Daddy, what types of storms are there?" "Daddy, what is the difference between asphalt and concrete?" "Why does it look like the moon is following us, Daddy?" The questions come daily, and I am thrilled to help provide …
Hard work? Bring it on!
Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all. -Sam Ewing I had the good pleasure of spending time with a number of successful business people while travelling this week. I hesitate to call them "hard workers" as each one had …
The Third Approach: Baby Steps
As a businessman interested in making a positive difference in the world, I am often faced with the challenge of finding the way to make change digestible. One way to present the necessity for change is by appealing to logic and reason. Another way is to make an emotional appeal, calling on the heart of …
Point A to Point B, A Message for Humanity by Viktor Frankl
I had several conversations this weekend that made me think how easy it can be to give up hope for the future, specifically by losing confidence in the decency of mankind. There is so much corruption in the world and so little evidence of integrity. Staying positive and maintaining faith in humanity can be a challenge. Every once in a …
Continue reading Point A to Point B, A Message for Humanity by Viktor Frankl
The Relative Freedom of our Era
What would King Louis XIV have done to have the kind of access to the world that virtually everyone in the industrialized nations and many people in developing nations have at their fingertips? Engine driven travel, whether it be train, motorcar or airplane, shrunk the world in a period of several decades. Analog and digital …
Placebos, Perception and Subtlety
I heard an interesting segment on NPR the other day entitled "The Mysterious Healing Power of Placebos." (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126802142). Jennifer Ludden interviews two guests: the first a neurosurgeon from Washington D.C. and the second, a doctor and the Director of Psychiatric Research at Brigham and Women's Hospital, who both note the power of the placebo effect. …
Shortcut or Efficiency?
Shortcuts are never advisable but the most efficient path always is. No doubt we've all been humbled by a shortcut that turned into the long way around. Shortcuts, the attempt to skip over critical elements in a process to achieve the end more quickly, always results in a compromised foundation. The various stakeholders in the recent oil …
All Work and No Play!
The year was 1989 and I had just finished another ceremonial soiree with 60 of my American, French and Soviet peers in Paris, France. I had been selected to represent the United States as a student delegate to tour France in celebration of the bicentennial of the French Revolution and we made our way by bus, by train and by air around the countryside …
Gregory Hake 