Tesar-Reynes

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This is how long it’s been since I’ve written. I sent this article to Tony from Peter Bregman at the Harvard Business Review on Aug. 3. It’s a great little piece about doing the work that’s important to you, and cites some stats from several studies showing how much time people spend working.

It also mentions the two top regrets people say they have about their lives when they’re lying on their deathbeds. Do you know what they are?

I suppose the old cliché’s are accurate. Be true to yourself. You work to live; you don’t live to work. …

Think of the great movie trilogies of our time. I’m talking Star Wars, The Matrix, and of course, the Lord of the Rings. Every one of those movies had a main character who was doing something so profound, the writers couldn’t fit it into one movie. They couldn’t even fit it into two. The journey took three films, and their stories required a large cast of characters to keep the plot going.

Of these characters, every protagonist has what screenwriters call a window character. The window character is dubbed so because he or she helps the protagonist “see” themselves in a new light. These windows act as a guide to the story’s hero, seeing them through, in one way or another, the completion of the quest. Neo had the Oracle. Frodo had Gandalf. And, of course, Luke had Yoda. …

I was gone the other week for an outing with 12 other photographers in Northern Arizona and Southern Utah. As many of you know, I am an avid shooter. (I invite you to view my photography site here or visit me on Flickr.) As many of you also know, this economy has not produced a super abundance of searches in our industry recently. Getting out of the office was wonderful! I was able to leave behind most of the frustration and disappointments that the last few months have generated. But, in those locations and attitudes, I did not get away from Chicago-like weather.

My expectations for the trip were just about perfectly realized: the fetters of the work place and the household faded away and the real me was able to …

I talked to someone the other week that was told that “he had been relieved of duty” as a CMO. I was one of the people he called after he took some time off to get his head on straight. He was fortunate that the news still had not reached the press. Before discussing the steps for his next job, I asked him these questions:

- Had he gone through most of the stages of grieving?
- Was he thinking straight and were his emotions under control?
- Was there any negotiations left on his separation package, and, was he centered enough to do it?
- Was there agreement with his old company as to the rationale of his leaving the company?
- Did he know what was being said about him by his peers and subordinates at the old company?
- Had he done a personal P&L on how long he …

Roland brings up a good point about sleep on his last post. I used to be terrified about not getting enough sleep. I had the perception that when I allowed myself to be overtired I couldn’t think right, I could put in real long hours and I was always getting sick. Invariably I would get into a cycle where I either couldn’t go to sleep or would awake at 1 or 2 am. I would then torque myself up to believe that I couldn’t go back to sleep……and that, of course, was self-fulfilling.

About 10 years ago I developed a new strategy. I figured out the minimum sleep I required to function at work the next day. It was 4.5 hours. I am an early riser, …

A recent article from the Huffington Post by Ph. D. Michael Gervais talks of the correlation between the high performance of Olympic athletes and sleep. I couldn’t help but think of thousands of us that hack it at a weekly 8-6+ and can never seem to get enough sleep in our lives. The four sleep strategies of elite athletes, which Mr. Gervais highlights in his article, apply to us just as much as they do a Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt.

1. Allow for pre-sleep readiness.
2. Be consistent with sleep patterns.
3. Clear your mind.
4. Account for jet-lag.

I’ll add one more to the list, which is:

5. Prepare for tomorrow at the end of today.

Rather than waking up in a panic, rushed mode in the …

I got a call in the late summer from a guy I placed at a large company back east. He runs corporate communications and advertising. If I remember, the guy is in his mid-40’s and is a certifiable Type A. The conversation started with “I am going f’ing postal! You gotta minute?”

The gist of the explosion had to do with the fact that his three agencies were going in circles with non-relevant off-strategy creative. And the digital shop was the worst. I swallowed hard and asked if it had to do with bad direction. His next 16 sentences were not complimentary to me, my family or the company. His net-net was an entirely different observation: they seemed to keep reinventing the wheel. What was being presented to him either had failed before or was poorly thought out.

I asked him …

Marketing managers are inundated with e-mails, phone calls, and requests daily. Convey your ideas to them in clear and concise words, and not only will they thank you for your brevity, but they’ll think you’re smart too.

That’s how my new boss feels about any client contact we have. At PRSA’s International Conference in San Diego last week, she noted this 3-minute drill for communicating with clients and managers. She shared it with us at a staff meeting:

Looks simple, yes?

Why is it whenever we communicate with our superiors we feel the need for longwinded correspondence and pedantic tactics? I can recall a handful of times as in intern when I sent wordy e-mails in …

There seems to be a few things that are in common with many of the people I talk to today. They are fearful, frustrated and reinventing themselves.

I just talked to a person who spent many years in the QSR industry and they have honed a new concept store that will be opened by the end of the year.

Recently I ran into another person who is going into personal career training to help Baby Boomers transition into a new way of making a living.

We are dealing with someone we knew years ago who is trying to buy small distressed agencies and grow a local midwestern network. I had lunch last month with an old candidate who has propelled herself up the organization by becoming …

How do you handle stressful workplace situations where your own ethics come into question?

Recently, some friends and I discussed a very uncomfortable and unfortunate workplace incident over e-mail. One of us works as a financial advisor at a mid-sized office. He received word that 6 of his coworkers had been fudging numbers just to meet minimum productivity levels. They were found out and most likely will be fired.

I won’t get into the details of the situation, as I’d like to respect my friend’s privacy and the privacy of his firm. I think all of us encounter similar temptations in the workplace and can relate to similar circumstances. The extra pressure to perform can drive some to disillusionment. It may be tempting to fool yourself that you’re acting within moral grounds in the name of your position or family.

Another friend spoke …