Speaker Blog Posts

People love the new year for the sense of renewal and a fresh start. Think about how to make the most of your time, talents, and resources. What will make the most sense for you, increases your happiness factor, and focus on where you want to be in a year? It is important that we know what we want more of, as well as what we want less of. Think about what gives you satisfaction, joy, and provides value to your sense of purpose.
Then make a P.R.O.M.I.S.E. to yourself to enthusiastically pursue those aspects that are the most meaningful, most productive, and most important to you.

My river house in the mountains of North Georgia just got fiber optic high speed Internet. In Internet talk, we went from 10 mpbs to over 100 and the capacity to stream TV instead of using a pricey satellite dish. But one of the older TVs needed a fire stick to interface with the Internet. We wanted a 4K, not a 1080. I called Target in Athens to inquire if they had an Amazon Fire Stick 4K in stock; they did. So, on our way to the river for the weekend, my wife and I stopped to buy the fire stick.

Mary shares 10 tasks to give your business a digital and physical cleanse for a fresh start to 2021!

Understand that a plan to get the right things accomplished is far more powerful than a plan to get 1,000 things accomplished that will never happen. Stop wasting time. Focus on the right things for your business. Let the rest go.

All my life, I thought leaves departed trees in the fall because they got too old to hang onto the branch and gravity bested their grasp. It does not work that way. Trees literally release their leaves from the limb. Here is how a leaf becomes the prey of gravity.

As days get colder and shorter, trees create a hormone that sends out a chemical message and triggers the creation of cells that appear at the spot where the leaf stem meets the branch. These abscission (root word for scissors) cells make a microscopic sized cut that gradually severs the leaf from the branch.

Most business owners and leaders want to provide experiences that drive customer engagement, loyalty, and referrals. However, designing and consistently delivering experiences that emotionally resonate with customers is daunting in the best of times, let alone in a pandemic! Sadly, many companies haven’t effectively found ways to adjust their customer experiences to meet the challenges of COVID-19.

Customers and employees today are sometimes scared to tell us what they think. Ask a customer, “How was your meal?” and you are more likely to get “fine,” than the whole truth. Ask employees for their best ideas, and you might get safe answers if you get answers at all. But there is a tool for changing all of that

It’s easy to get stuck in the rut of negativity and believe there have never been days as challenging as these. That’s why it is more important than ever to remember the way you get meaning in your life: Devote yourself to loving others, to your community around you and to striving to make a difference.

Even the most resilient leaders and capable team members are under more than the usual amount of stress right now. Every crisis comes with its own set of challenges and changes. What can we as leaders do to help our teams get through the current and future crises?