During the past decade, life has been difficult for most major airlines as they have posted billions of dollars in losses. Beginning in mid-2008, in an attempt to increase revenue, American Airlines began charging passengers a fee for each bag they checked and most of the other airlines quickly followed suit. Today these fees can…
John Wooden, legendary basketball coach at UCLA, died recently at the age of 99. While Coach Wooden was known for winning (10 NCAA titles in 12 years), he never once stressed winning with his players. His philosophy was, “Always do your best and the winning will take care of itself.” He also believed his players…
A few weeks ago, I mentioned how Connecticut Attorney General and Democratic Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal lied about his military service record–he said he had served in Viet Nam when he hadn’t. When confronted with the truth he said he had misspoken about his military service. More recently, Illinois GOP Senate nominee, Mark Kirk, lied…
Recently, Charlie Wedemeyer, a football player who was a year behind me at Michigan State University, died at the age of 64. After his college football career, Charlie took a job as a teacher and football coach at Los Gatos High School in Northern California. At age 30, he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease…
Recently, my wife observed two Great Blue Herons. One was standing in the middle of a swift flowing stream while the other stood safely on the bank. You can guess which one was catching fish–not the one standing on the bank. The same is true for people. If you expect to become successful, you have…
Ten years ago, my wife and I adopted a pair of stray six month old cats who had been living on the lam since shortly after they were born. These cats were very untrusting and extremely cautious. The only way we were able to get them in the house was to offer them food as…
Art Linkletter, popular television show host from the 1950’s and 60’s, died recently but he left us with some sound advice on how to live a long life and make our dreams come true. As Mr. Linkletter put it, “As early as possible in your life, find what you love to do and then do…
Often times, when we set goals for ourselves to do things like exercise more or lose weight, we start out with all kinds of enthusiasm and then back off or procrastinate when the going gets a little tough. At times like these, a gentle nudge of encouragement is all that is needed to keep us…
This is a very sound but seldom honored concept. Most success seekers are so taken with trying to make high-powered friends that they treat people in low places like they’re invisible. My wife recently attended a speech given by former Secretary of State, Colin Powell. During his speech, he mentioned that he always took the…
Some people want to impress others so badly that they’ll actually lie about their accomplishments and experiences in order to do so. Such is the case of Connecticut Attorney General and Democratic Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal. On several occasions during his speeches he said that he had served in Vietnam when in fact he hadn’t. …