Hello, Friends! After taking some time off from sending out Great Days e-Tips, I’m back! How have you been? What have you been doing? I’ve spent a little time this summer cleaning out, clearing out, cutting out, getting rid of a lot of “stuff.” While I’m far from being a minimalist, I’m working on simplifying, and in doing so, I’m discovering that the process clears not only the clutter but also the mind. Admittedly, a significant amount of time is still spent looking for things (i.e., my phone, keys, glasses, phone, glasses, phone…). But I’m learning that life becomes more manageable when there’s less to manage. One of my projects has been to eliminate the number of emails I receive,… [Read More]

When Jane “Nightbirde” Marczewski appeared on America’s Got Talent, she immediately grabbed the hearts of the judges as well as the television audience who saw her performance. Her voice was amazing, captivating – as was her story. Marczewski shared that she had stage-4 breast cancer and that her chances of survival were slim, so slim that –although she was a hands-down winner – she took herself out of the competition so that she could focus on dealing with her health issues. Her story of faith and courage in facing her disease caused her to be interviewed on numerous talk-shows, and those interviews spread her fearless message. Although her body was frail, her message was one of strength, tenacity, persistence, and… [Read More]

Last week I heard someone suggest that we should “elevate the everyday,” and I’ve been thinking about that ever since. What does “elevate the everyday” mean? And how can we benefit from doing it? The term simply means to pay attention to the little things, the small changes you can make to feel better, lift your spirits, improve your job performance, upgrade your health, find more pleasure in living, and thus, enjoy life more. So, I started thinking about what I could do, about what small changes could I implement that wouldn’t cost much – if anything – and would make me feel better about myself, my work, my environment. Here’s my list – some of which I am already… [Read More]

I recently met a lovely woman whom we’ll call Sofia. Sofia grew up in poor family in a foreign country. Because she worked hard and was very bright, she was able to attend college, paying her own way as she went. After college, she married, had two children, and secured a job in her field of study, and again because of her hard work and business savvy, she became a very successful executive in a large organization. She and her husband had plenty of money, lived in a high-rise condominium in the capital city of her country, and enjoyed “the good life” – at least as much of a good life as her country could afford. But Sofia’s life was… [Read More]

For several years, I had the unique privilege of working with my friend and colleague, Dr. Shirley Garrett, as an adjunct faculty member at the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, VA, a facility that provides leadership training for high-level government executives. I was fortunate enough to be Shirley’s assistant in teaching a class on executive communication. One of the benefits of that experience was getting to interact with government executives from every department – from Agriculture to Transportation and the Treasury to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Through our interactions and each person’s presentations to the class, we learned about fisheries, education, energy, food and drug safety, healthcare, weather, Medicare, national parks – almost every US government agency. The… [Read More]