Current events have placed old memories into our watercooler conversations, and it just so happens that I have been binge listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast series called Revisionist History. In season 3, he provides a series of episodes on memory. In these, he documents, in his unique professorial style, every detail fully researched yet with […]
Category Archives: Metacognition
What True Leadership Looks Like
On a hot and humid Saturday in Houston, Texas, I was honored to facilitate offsite strategic planning for Cy Fair Federal Credit Union. Cy Fair is a former education-based credit union, transformed into a community CU charter, but the board substantively consists of current and former educators and administrators. The CEO is Cameron Dickey, and […]
Counting the Apples in a Single Seed …
Every July, I teach at the University of Colorado’s Graduate School of Banking for two weeks. This is an amazing experience for these bankers since they are being groomed by their institutions to become future leaders. Many of the students I teach will become C-Suite members in the years to come, so I take my […]
Now that’s using your head …
After driving a U-Haul 920 miles from Valdosta, Georgia, to Sugar Land, Texas, I arrived to a mostly-empty apartment. It was a Sunday, and the men I had arranged to unload the truck were not available until Tuesday. I had luckily remembered to put a queen-size air mattress at the end of the truck, so […]
The Best $250 I Ever Spent – On Creating a Memorable Experience
I recently attended the 2017 Payments Conference put on by the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA). This is a gathering of all of the stakeholders in the payments biz and generally is a great big meet and greet for those of us who have spent decades in payments. One of the highlights of this […]
Cocky Goliaths Can Fall Hard
The year was 2004. Two software giants were duking it out for supremacy in the microcomputer market. Well, that’s not really true. They were not equally gigantic, at least in relative terms. The giant was Microsoft and in 2004, it had a revenue of $36 billion. Its “competitor” was Apple and in 2004, it had […]
Does OK Mean I Agree or I Understand?
Words matter. They convey a specific meaning, both to the speaker and to the listener, but the meaning sent is not always the meaning received. Picture a husband or wife coming in the door to his or her home after a hard day of work. Their spouse is in the kitchen, busily preparing dinner. “Hi […]
Jamaican Blue Coffee
While I was in Jamaica for the Destination Experience event, I took the opportunity to learn more about Jamaican coffee production. As an owner of an artisan coffee roasting business (www.thebeanery.com), I try to learn as much as possible about coffee production. Since I was in Jamaica, I wanted to connect with someone who makes […]