Happy 4th of July – 2013
Jul 5 2013

Happy Independence Day for those of you in the United States of America.   I am thankful to be living in a country that has given us so much opportunity.  I’m grateful for those who fought and sacrificed for our way of life.  I know I’ve been able to do things personally and professionally (entrepreneurial-ly speaking) that would have been 10 times harder, if not impossible elsewhere.

Happy Birthday America! I hope everyone had a safe and happy 4th of July.

Happy Birthday America – 2012
Jul 4 2012

What a great country!  What great opportunities await.  What questions have you asked?  What questions have you not asked?  What help have you sought?  What help have you given? How often have you expressed your gratitude?  How many times have you forgiven yourself and others and reinvented yourself?  Americans, what are you waiting for?

Happy Independence Day – July 4, 2012.

Life Imitating Art or Art Imitating Life
Jul 3 2011

An age old debate for sure as to whether what we see, read, and hear on TV, radio, or film influences our behavior versus our real life behavior influencing the media.  I enjoy watching movies and certain TV drama shows.  It gives one perspective on what’s potentially going on in other people’s lives.  Hopefully no one is doing all the weird things they do in soap operas, but sometimes based on the stories I hear from every day people, I’m astounded to find that some of those crazy things do go on.

Thanks to a co-worker who has tons of DVDs, I’ve now watched all but one of the Jane Austen movies, the Twilight series, Baker Boys, a bunch of other older movies, Avatar, King’s Speech, etc.  With little kids in the house it was very hard to see movies when they came out so now I have to catch up on DVD.  I think she’s going to loan me the Harry Potter series next because I’ve only seen one of those I think.  On the big screen, I’ve seen Hangover 2, Larry Crowne, Cars 2, Bridesmaids, Mr. Poppers Penguins, and probably a few other kids movies.

Watching “art” gives you insight into humanity and vice versa.  As a leader or manager, understanding the people you work with is a critical piece of helping them realize what they are capable of in the system they are working in.   Although people try to separate their work and personal lives, it rarely (in my experience) is possible.  We are human and everything is connected.  We aren’t vulcan, borg, or robots who can turn off their emotions at will or check them at the proverbial door.   We are illogical, irrational, crazy, sensitive, brilliant human beings.

Some of the best leaders I’ve seen realize how fragile we all are and take that into account when building and motivating their teams.  The not so successful, in my opinion, tend to be self absorbed and really don’t care or maybe it’s just that they don’t know how to care or show they care.  Sometimes they are so dang smart they realize their shortcomings and they hire managers/leaders who do care to compensate for their lack of ability in that area.

Happy 4th of July weekend!  Yes, I know the content of this post is not directly related to the 4th of July other than there were some great leaders who helped with the independence of our great nation…so that will have to do.

Playing With Fire – Happy 4th of July 2009
Jul 4 2009

The thing I enjoy most about 4th of July is the fireworks.  I remember my dad taking us to parks to watch fireworks when we were kids and letting us light fireworks at his house or other friend’s houses.

I have a great friend who has a house on the lake and every year, they throw a 4th of July party.  This is the same friend who got me the purple peacock hat for my birthday.  You get a perfect view of the fireworks right from the back yard of her house and there’s nothing like watching fireworks in an uncrowded place while sitting on chairs.

Needless to say I got my pyro-fix for the time being with a few firey delights which shall remain nameless.  I’ve always been fascinated with fire.  My mom used to get really upset with us for melting candle wax on the fireplace ledge and making things out of the wax when she wasn’t there.  Rightly, she was worried that we were going to burn the house down.  Fortunately, that never happened.

I did accidentally burn my sister’s fingers when we were kids.  I got in huge trouble with my grandfather who rarely got upset with us.  He sent me to a corner and I was devastated.  I think I was about 9 years old and in my mind I was conducting an experiment with medical tape wrapped around my sister’s finger and lighting one end of the tape with fire.  I have no idea what I thought would happen, and I had no idea how quickly it would burn.  I guess I just thought it would just stay at the end like a candle wick, but I was wrong and after my sister screamed, I knew I would get in trouble!

With little kids around, we don’t burn that many candles in the house these days but when I do see fire, I find myself mesmerized by it for a while.  It’s sort of calming in a weird way.

I wonder if other entrepreneur’s have a fascination with fire because really what we do is play with fire with some of the risks we take…

Happy 4th of July – eMail Our Military
Jul 3 2008

I hope everyone here in the US enjoys their long 4^th of July holiday weekend.  We’ll be heading to a couple of parties with some fireworks and sparklers so I know the kids will enjoy themselves immensely and we’ll be making sure they don’t burn themselves on the sparklers. 🙂

Since we no longer have a tree to put our US Flag on, I’ll have to do an extra patriotic blog post! 

By now most people around the world know that July 4^th is when we here in the US celebrate our Independence as a country.  We celebrate our freedom by getting together with friends to watch fireworks. 

I’m not sure what our troops overseas do on July 4^th or even if they will get to see fireworks in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere.  I bet they miss their home and would look forward to communicating with people back home. 

So, if you would like to share emails with someone in the military, you should sign up at eMail Our Military and have them assign you an active duty military personnel to communicate with.  I signed up and hopefully soon I’ll get assigned someone to share experiences with back home.  It only costs $2 plus a couple of stamps! 

Also, my company, Babble Soft, partnered with eMail Our Military to offer free subscriptions to active duty military personnel with newborns to help them stay connected while they might be separated by thousands of miles. 

Happy 4^th of July!