Recently I was at Trader Joe’s which is one of my favorite grocery stores. I have been going there for a long time and I know many of the employees well. Many of them know I went to Michigan State University because I often wear an MSU sweat shirt during the fall and winter months.…
Two friends of mine just returned from an Alaska cruise. The price of the cruise included tips for all the service employees. The porter who was assigned to them was very friendly and did an excellent job of getting them settled in their cabin. As a result, they tipped him with a twenty dollar bill…
I was sitting next to a gentleman on a plane who decided to tell me about how he solved one of his life problems. He was into his fourth marriage and it was a very happy one. His first three had failed miserably. When I heard this, I asked him what made his fourth marriage…
A few nights ago, Toledo Mud Hen’s player Mike Hessman set a minor league baseball record by hitting his 434th minor league homerun—a grand slam. The record had stood for 80 years! This is his 20th year of professional baseball and nearly all of it has been spent in the minor leagues. So what did…
A gentleman that I was sitting next to on a plane recited his favorite poem to me. It went like this: I and me are words oft used, By people who are themselves confused, Why can’t these superegos trust, The use of words like we and us? Using the words I and me to draw…
A former student of mine posted the following quote on Facebook: “Happiness comes a lot easier when you stop complaining about your problems and you start being grateful for all the problems you don’t have.” We all know someone who, when things don’t go their way, they take it personally and start complaining—as if they’re…
A friend of mine posted the following excellent quote from author Simon Sinek on Facebook: “A true leader would sacrifice the numbers to save the people, not sacrifice the people to save the numbers.” “The numbers” is a phrase that refers to the measures of success of a business—things like profitability, productivity, costs and so…
When I asked if everything was alright, she said she had been feeling that her life stood for nothing and she was asking herself the question, “Why am I even here?” I then shared with her that during the week prior I was in the meat department and observed what she did during the course…
I received the following email from a subscriber in response to a recent Reminder titled, “When You do Kind things, People take Notice.” “Ross, I think that we forget that almost always someone else is watching what we do and how we treat others. It might impact them to where they want to emulate us,…
The above is a quote from the late Ernie Harwell who was the Detroit Tigers’ play by play broadcaster for 42 years. While broadcasting for the Tigers, he became the most popular sports figure in the state of Michigan and his popularity came from living out the above quote—putting the interest of others before his…