Eric Taylor's Blog

TGIM #234: Past, Present & Future

It’s New Year’s Resolution time — again. Each year it seems to come around faster and faster, doesn’t it?

It hardly seems that a decade has passed since we were caught up with the calendar flipping over to Y2K and we were all contemplating and planning for a New Age.

Can you recall what you envisioned then?

And how did that work out for you?

Right. As the great sage Yogi Berra opined, “Predicting is difficult — especially about the future.”

As creators of something we dare to call the Best Year Ever Program, Eric and I have some fairly well-tested ideas about the what-to-do and how-to-do-it secrets and strategies for going about the process of constructing future success.

Those many ideas are enough to fill a book — and then some. So they exceed the parameters for this e-blast. But recognizing that most folks have just recently or are about to begin to pencil a List of Resolutions for 2010, I will share some core Best Year Ever thoughts you may find useful.

Here’s one: Your Best Year Ever doesn’t begin on January 1, 2010.

Huh?

TGIM #232: De-Stress The Holidays: Step Two

Let’s pick up where we left off last week. Apparently this particular stretch of the calendar — “the holidays” — grows more and more stressful every year. And we agreed last week that –

You can’t wait for someone else to reduce your stress. Fortunately, effective stress management is not as hard as many folks think. During the holiday season — and year ‘round — it boils down to two main steps:

#1: Change the things that you can change.

#2: Accept the things you can’t change.

Step #1, we concluded, involves strategies such as:

Don’t let “the holidays” be another excuse. ● Don’t expect too much.

● Get healthy. ● Learn to say “No.” ● Manage your schedule.

● Don’t over manage your schedule. ● Streamline.

● Look for silver linings. ● Know the value of your values.

Now it’s time to tackle Step #2: Acceptance Skills.

TGIM #230: Worthwhile Wisdom from the World’s First Consulting Detective

Sherlock Holmes is among the best-known characters in English language literature. And he’s on tap for a 21st Century blockbuster movie revival this year around Christmas time.

And that got me thinking: The first story to feature the adventures of “the world’s first consulting detective” also appeared at this time of year, in Beeton’s Christmas Annual for 1887. (It was A Study In Scarlet, “recorded” by his companion Dr. Watson and brought to the world through the graces of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.)

From that beginning sprang the far-flung empire of Sherlockiana that persists to this day.

At the heart of it all. Doyle’s original Sherlock Holmes stories are deemed The Canon and include 56 short stories and four novels. Embodied therein is wisdom aplenty for mystery fans and just plain readers.

TGIM Takeaway: One of the most useful and personally applicable popular quotes often associated with Holmes appears in several forms in several stories. It’s most succinctly stated as –

TGIM #228: Life and Leadership Lessons from an 8-Foot 2-Inch Six Year Old

“You never turn down the opportunity to work with a legend like Caroll Spinney,” the actor Noah Wyle recounted some time ago. “He has thrilled audiences from more than 140 countries daily for the last quarter of a century.”

Noah Wyle is best known for his 254 episodes of the TV show ER.

Perhaps you, like millions of fans, know Caroll Spinney better as his 8-foot-2-inch, yellow-feathered, six-year-old alter ego:

Big Bird

And perhaps, like Noah Wyle, you have a fondness for Big Bird because he made mistakes, got frustrated, and was baffled by questions that plague kids and adults alike:

* What makes a friend?
* What’s good and bad?
* What’s for lunch?

In case you missed the Google banners and all the news stories, last week that “quarter of a century” on Sesame Street clicked over into four decades – 40 years. And that reminded me of Wyle’s description of his Big Bird encounter as I originally shared it with readers of the magazine Leadership – with a human touch in 1999.

TGIM #227: You Can Hear Dead People Laughing

When? Where? Has TGIM moved into some otherworldly realm? Has this Monday morning message become some kind of spooky, crossing over to the other side, paranormal thing?

Fear not. For the most part we’re going to keep these messages grounded in the reality of here and now. In fact the information that triggered this headline is all too here and now.

24.85. Does that number mean anything to you?

According to the Nielsen survey/rating folks, the average weekly hours of TV watched by children ages 2 to 5 totals 24.85 – the highest figure on record.

“But wait,” as they say in those infomercials. “There’s more.”