Posted by Grant on June 14, 2008 – 7:54 am
Like many, I was shocked and saddened yesterday when I learned of the death of journalist Tim Russert. I’m not a huge political buff and never met Russert so I know little about him other than what I catch on the news every so often.
But watching the occasional evening news during this election year or past Presidential election years for that matter, I was always struck by how passionate Tim Russert was about his work. The guy loved politics and he seemed to absolutely love what he did.
And over the past 24 hours, there has obviously been a wave of emotion from fellow journalists and the media remembering Tim Russert. I was sitting in the airport yesterday and was catching clips of various journalists from Tom Brokaw to Campbell Brown to Larry King all talking about Russert and all the positive things they had to say. And all of this reminded me of a simple question…
How will people remember you?
Posted by Grant on June 13, 2008 – 9:39 pm
I send out a monthly e-newsletter that has some updates of where I’m at, what I’m working on, and an article that hopefully is a little thought provoking! If you are interested in subscribing to that e-newsletter, you can do so by just entering your email address in the box at the top toolbar on this page.
I’ll be sending out a new e-newsletter early next week. Just a little FYI in case you’re interested…
Posted by Grant on June 12, 2008 – 6:38 pm
I spoke in Corpus Christi today and decided to enjoy the moment tonight by hanging out on the beach…
Posted by Grant on June 12, 2008 – 4:56 am
As a speaker, I spend a lot of time traveling but I also spend a lot of time searching for cost effective flights to travel on. Earlier this week I booked a ticket for a trip to Denver next week and out of Springfield the ticket was nearly $1,000 but out of Kansas City it was $370. Wow.
I know jet fuel is expensive right now but I didn’t think it was that bad…
Posted by Grant on June 11, 2008 – 5:41 pm
Often times we think of pride in a negative connotation but at the same time, having pride in something can be an extremely positive thing. Think of the various things you take pride in…
Your school.
Your sports team.
Your job.
Your hair.
Well maybe not your hair but you get the idea. I got to thinking about this idea of pride this afternoon on a 2½ hour drive I had through the southern part of Texas. To me it was a relatively dull drive but you would never say that to someone from Texas or they might beat you with a longhorn. People take a crazy amount of pride in this state. So it brings me back to the question…
What do you take pride in?
And are you taking pride in the right things?
Posted by Grant on June 11, 2008 – 10:26 am
Filed under Funny, Random
A few days a month I do some seminars for business professionals on time management and organization. But before I get too deep into the day I always enjoy going around the room and having people share a little bit about themselves and what they do. And I’ve heard of some interesting jobs, but this one today took the cake…
This guy worked with a local university in the medical school and his job was to order cadavers and specific body parts for students to work on! He works with various companies who sell this stuff and his job is to sort through pictures to determine which bodies and body parts they need.
Wow…
And you thought you had a strange job…
Posted by Grant on June 10, 2008 – 6:08 am
Filed under Random, Travels
I’m in McAllen, TX today and tomorrow speaking at a seminar. But one thing that I’m really excited about is that I’m staying at a Holiday Inn Express. Do you remember the infamous Holiday Inn Express video?
But this morning whenever I received my wakeup call, something happened that I wasn’t used to. Normally hotels have some type of recorded message wishing you a “cheerful and magnificent” day…or something like that.
But this morning, my wakeup call came from an actual live person.
It caught me off guard and thankfully I didn’t say anything stupid expecting it to be a recording. But it got me thinking…I would kind of like to go down to the front desk and interview that person because I bet they could tell some great stories of how people answer their phone. Naturally, people aren’t at their best when the wakeup call comes in so I’m sure they would have some pretty humorous stories to tell.
Posted by Grant on June 9, 2008 – 7:42 pm
Last night I spoke at the Missouri Student Council Leadership Camp in Fulton, MO. The event went really well and enjoyed my time with the StuCo students. Here are a couple of pictures:
Not sure what I was doing here…
Posted by Grant on June 8, 2008 – 10:00 am
As a youth speaker, I regularly utilize the social networking tools, Facebook and MySpace as resources for staying connected with teenagers. When I originally started using these tools, I noticed that MySpace was the more popular of the two but it seems like lately that Facebook is taking a more commanding lead in popularity. Although I’m on both sites, here is why I prefer Facebook to MySpace:
- Less Clicks – Facebook seems much more user friendly to me than MySpace does. On Facebook, if you want to write on someone’s wall (equivalent of MySpace’s leaving a comment), it takes one click whereas it takes 3 clicks on MySpace. The same is true if you want to add a friend. You have to jump through a ridiculous number of hoops on MySpace that leaves you asking, “Do I really want to be friends with this person that bad?”
- Easier to Find People – A huge challenge with finding people on MySpace is that so many people use some type of screen name instead of their real name. On Facebook, you almost have to use your real name so if I’m trying to find you, it’s a little easier to find “Bob Smith” than “Sweet Sassy Big Daddy.”
- Integration with Other Tools – I like the fact that I can incorporate my Blog and my Twitter feed right into my Facebook page. So every time I update something on Twitter, it changes my status update on Facebook. I like that.
- Standardized – I know a lot of students like the ability to customize their MySpace pages but with most students, the more you customize, the tougher it is to find what I’m looking for on your page. You can still customize some stuff on Facebook but it is not an insane amount of stuff.
What’s your preference between MySpace and Facebook?
Posted by Grant on June 7, 2008 – 12:01 pm
This morning we got up early and went to the local farmer’s market just for fun. Of course we ended up buying strawberries, tomatoes, some pumpkin bread, a few plants, and a jar of strawberry jam. But what was interesting to me was how many kids and teenagers were involved in selling items. While you could tell some were there to help mom and dad sell their product, you could also tell that some of them took an active role in bringing their product to market.
And as I watched some of these students and the various vendors, I was reminded of some simple business lessons:
- You Can’t Be All Things To All People – At the market, I saw fruits, vegetables, plants, flowers, handmade furniture, meats, jellies, candy and herbs. But one thing I noticed was that no one was selling one of everything. There was no one-stop-shop. If there had been, I bet it wouldn’t have been that busy. People sold what they could specialize in.
- Being the Best Attracts a Crowd – There are apparently strict rules that forbid vendors from selling before the person in charge blows a whistle. But even before the whistle blew, there were lines at certain booths. There were probably half a dozen booths that sold strawberries but only one of them had a line the whole time. A long line. A line that I waited in and actually paid more for the strawberries, but that were known to be the best.
- Start Young Learning Business – I loved seeing students get involved because a venue like a local market provides such as opportunity to learn Business 101. I started in elementary and junior high mowing yards and shoveling snow and I learned a lot of valuable lessons that I keep with me today.
- Love What You Do – There was a clear difference between those people who loved what they did and the monetary benefit was just secondary to them and those people who were just doing a job. If I have to be up early on Saturday and sell something in the hot sun, I’d rather sell something I’m passionate about. But that’s just me.
