How are you doing today? And how is your summer going? I hope you are taking time out to do the things that you love while the warmer weather is here (at least for those of us who only enjoy three months of real warm weather). I made a decision to make sure I always enjoy the summer months and do more with my family. I must say we've done quite a bit this summer already. This weekend we discovered a new spot in Boston - Castle Island. I've lived in Boston for many years and

Have you said to yourself this week? "I'm so busy", "Where did the time go", "I wish I had more time for....". Your answer is probably yes! As professionals and executives, we often get caught up with day to day activities and never know where the time has gone at the end of each day. We never seem to get the important things done and we always leave work or end the day feeling unaccomplished. How do you get more done, feel accomplished each day and do what you really want

I was working recently with a client facilitating a strategic planning session for her organization and after going over the action items we came up against an obstacle that would have prevented her from carrying out one of the action items we had come up with to help her organization. I quickly pointed her to the SWOT analysis we had completed earlier. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. A SWOT analysis is a tool designed to help individuals and

One day while on my lunch break, I left my phone in plain view on the passenger seat of my car and got out of the car to grab my lunch. As I was walking away a thought popped into my head: "What if someone woke up this morning thinking that they wanted to steal a phone?" I quickly went back to my car and grabbed my phone. Yes, a lot of people would have walk by my car and probably not notice the phone but that one person whose intention was to steal a phone that day would not

Happy Wednesday! Today, I want to share with you one of the ways you can raise your influence and maximize your impact. In our different roles, we want to be able to influence others. You may be a professional, a boss, a parent, or business owner; you are a leader and you need to make an impact and become more effective. One of the ways to do this is to add value to others. True Leadership is success and leaders add value to others. What does it mean to add value? It's simpl

As we enter into a new season, you might be looking back and asking yourself why you are not reaching your goals or why things are not happening for you yet. Did you set SMART goals at the beginning of the year and you haven't achieved them yet? It's one thing to set a goal, but when not properly done, it will be hard to achieve. There are some things that you need to consider before the "S" and beyond the "T" in SMART goals to achieve them. Follow this seven step process and

Your technical skills, talents and abilities are not enough for success. In order to become more effective and become more successful in your career, business, or in your role as a parent, child or leader, you need to take personal development seriously. Your talent, title, formal education and skilled training are not enough. Personal growth is the foundation for overall growth. How do you build that foundation? Develop your skills and talents futher. Recognize your strength

I know that Christmas is over and I'm really glad it is. Giving my kids Christmas gifts this year did get me thinking and taught me a few lessons about customer satisfaction. We all know that customers make your business and satisfied customers make your business even better. Want to make your customers feel like a happy child does on Christmas morning? Check these out: Lesson #1. Ask Your Customers for What They Want. Just like you ask your kids what they want for Christmas

Image courtesy of rgbstock.com So you want to grow your business. You want to be better, you want to be more successful. Every year businesses set goals and want to grow more than they did the year before, and one of the first things we think about when it comes to growing and making more money is to engage in more advertising, more social media marketing or create more products. All these are great and necessary but how could you give your growth a boost? How could you set y

I wanted to grow one of my ventures to yield more income and realized I needed to do something different on the inside of the company to accommodate the influx of customers and additional sales. If as a business owner you’ve decided to grow, get more customers and increase revenue, there are certain things you need to do to fulfill your customers’ needs and sustain that growth. In fact, on the flip side, many companies stay where they are because they do not have systems in p