Whenever leaders get together to talk about what’s working in their businesses, staff recognition is always high on the list. As a matter of fact, on nearly every list of the top ways to reduce turnover and increase employee engagement, recognition and/or encouragement make the list.

Happy National Day of Encouragement. If you’re a leader and aren’t already in the habit of looking for ways to praise, recognize, and encourage your team, use today as your reason to get started. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results you can achieve with a zero-dollar perk that pays great dividends. You can’t always allow flexible work schedules, grant promotions, or give raises – you can always give praise, and in all the ways that count, that’s a huge benefit to your company, your team, and your individual employees.

Encouragement boosts morale, builds relationships, and is contagious. What kind of recognition/praise/encouragement can you give to your...

When the word “leader” is bandied about, most people don’t think of recording artists. They usually think of world leaders, prominent business leaders, religious leaders – not famous musical performers.

That’s a mistake because much can be learned from them. As an illustration, let’s look at the life and leadership of Jimmy Buffett, a man who led millions of Parrotheads while building an impressive fortune. In possession of a shiny new history degree after a rocky college career, he went to New Orleans in 1969 and played music on Decatur Street while tourists dropped change in his guitar case. He moved to Nashville in 1970, and two years in Nashville saw Jimmy Buffett rejected by nearly every record company in town, many of them two and three times. Two years later, in an interview, he said, “Got depressed, got pissed off, got divorced and left. Best move I ever made.”

The move was to Key West, where he worked on an...

Countries are at war. Banks are failing. The stock market is teeter-tottering. Inflation is behaving like a spoiled brat, refusing efforts to control it. Politicians are taking dirty laundry and gleefully hanging it out for all to see. And all of this is coming in the wake of a worldwide pandemic, which created a mental health crisis worldwide.

If you’re feeling a bit more stress, world events could be playing a role. If you want to feel less stress, read on for some scientific news and some practical ways to easily lower the angst.

To say that times are uncertain is an understatement. To say that every person has to feel the pain of the uncertainty, live in the stress of the uncertainty, and rule their lives based on what can only be guesses at possible outcomes is incorrect. Not everyone has to suffer in uncertain times. As a matter of fact, visionaries, great leaders, and innovators often thrive in uncertain times, because they see the opportunities that the upheaval...

Today is the day when Louisiana blooms, not with bougainvillea's riotous blossoms, but with partying people, parades and portable adult beverages. Today is the last day before Lent begins, the final day of the Mardi Gras season, and it’s traditionally a day for gluttony of all sorts before the Christian season of atonement and deprivation starts. Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday, Carnival Tuesday and Pancake Tuesday are some of the names this day gets called.

• Mardi Gras is Fat Tuesday in French.
• Carnival Tuesday is a pretty good description of life in the over 50 countries where the weeks before Lent are a big, decadent blow-out of a public party.
• Pancake Tuesday is the day people prepared for Lent by cooking and eating all the things they couldn’t have during lent. Things like butter, eggs, milk …mmmmmmmm, pancakes…
• Shrove Tuesday is a day of repentance before the Lenten season begins. From the looks of the parties being held in celebration of Mardi Gras,...

If you’ve seen a billboard, heard a radio or TV commercial, been inside a store or even just poked your nose outside your front door in the last week, then you already know what today is. Did you know that, in addition to Valentine’s Day, it’s Galentine’s Day, Madly in Love with Me Day, International Flirting Week and National Week of Chastity? Heck, I’m feeling a bit whiplashed with those last two happening at the same time, aren’t you?

This day is fraught with so many emotions and expectations. For happy couples, it’s a celebration of their connection and commitment to each other, wrapped in feelings of love and joy. For unhappy couples, it’s a reminder of what they once had and don’t have now, and that can bring with it sadness, despair and a feeling of letting loved ones down. For those who aren’t part of a couple, it can feel like they’re an outcast in a sea of togetherness and aren’t living up to societal...

Could your self-esteem use a boost, and just how the heck could that be accomplished? Let’s talk about that this week.

This month is International Boost Self-Esteem Month, intended to shine a light on just how tough most of us are on ourselves. If you grew up hearing phrases like, “don’t blow your own horn” and “don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back” then maybe you think it’s not OK to recognize and appreciate your strengths, talents and abilities. If you live or work with someone who is constantly belittling you, perhaps you’ve come to believe in their opinion of you instead of your own. And maybe, like most people, you feel pretty good about yourself most of the time and now and then doubts creep into the dark corners of your mind, gutting your self-esteem for a little while, until you regain your mental balance.

High self-esteem, not to be confused with egotism or sociopathic tendencies, is a healthy regard for who...

It’s the last day of the first month of the new year. And it’s cold. OK, it’s winter and it’s supposed to be cold. Seriously, Mother Nature – 18 in Maine, 4 in North Dakota and minus 1 in Minnesota? The freezing temperatures are coast to coast, north to south, and make me want to hibernate. You, too? Then today is the perfect day to cuddle up to your computer and plan a vacation!

On this National Plan for Vacation Day, let’s look at how a perk at work gets treated like a jerk. Over half of Americans don’t take all their paid time off from work. They have the benefit of vacation and personal days, in addition to sick days, and yet they don’t take full advantage of the benefit.

That, in spite of the fact that in the most recent comprehensive study of vacation time as a benefit, 63% of workers said a generous paid time off package was a deciding factor in whether or not they would accept a job offer. Clearly we want to be offered vacation...

Have you ever had an idea, brought it to fruition, and during its infancy you discovered that your idea was bigger than you knew? International We Are Not Broken Day began in 2019, so is still fairly new, as is the organization of the same name. The founder, Texan Nochola Cotto, intended it to be a day for women who’ve been touched by any sort of trauma to be heard and helped. The “we are not broken” part has resonated with so many people that observance of the day has spread to anyone who’s suffered any kind of trauma.

Amputees
PTSD sufferers
People with depression
Victims of violent crimes
People with diminished mental abilities
People who are “different” in any way

Just being outside of what humanity at large considers “normal” subjects people to all sorts of unintentional, and sometimes intentional, abuse. Attitudes about people with disabilities, whether mental, psychological or physical, can be quite harsh, and human beings can...

Today, let’s celebrate peculiar people. It’s officially Peculiar People Day, though no one knows how this one got started or why. It seems to be a nod to a group of faith healers formed by Englishman John Banyard, “Peculiar People,” in 1838. Or maybe not – the two events simply share the words “peculiar” and “people.” The peculiar and slightly murky beginnings of this day make it peculiar enough to celebrate, though you know I’m going to dig a bit deeper for you, right?

While most of the world’s institutions, including family units, religion, schools, and governments work to enforce conformity and societal norms, it feels a bit rebellious to celebrate peculiar people. First, just who are these people we’re celebrating today? People like:

Albert Einstein.

Frida Kahlo.

The first woman to experiment with blue and purple dye in her hair.

Mark Zuckerberg.

Nikola Tesla.

That Chinese man who wore 140 pounds of bees as...

Welcome to the first “official” workday of the new year. Around half of Americans make resolutions to start a new year, and of those, fewer than 10% will follow through and succeed at their newfound resolve. Of the other 90+ percent, most will quit this week. This.Week. Ouch!

Before you get all bummed out about the looming mass failure, let’s step back a bit and examine why the failure rate is so high. There’s interesting brain science involved, and I’ll make sure you’ll understand it perfectly.

The brain loves patterns. Humans can learn as fast and as much as we do because brains look for patterns, connect the dots, and voila! A new pattern is formed around the new information. That’s where language skills come from, math skills, driving skills…all the skills start out as a basic pattern the brain forms. If you’ve ever driven somewhere and realized that you don’t really remember driving because you were preoccupied with...