This is Alan Weiss with a major consulting opportunity. To find out … well, you know the routine. Just click on the arrow to play.
and now also on iTunes 
http://www.contrarianconsulting.com/airline-consulting/
Click Here for entire podcast series table of contents
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We have a new electronic calendar for 2010, free to access and use, with an Alanism for each day and notification of my upcoming events and activities. During the year, on certain days, we’ll have special offers if accessed through the calendar links. They will include discounts on workshops, free products, inclusion in teleconferences, etc. I hope you’ll enjoy using it.
http://www.summitconsulting.com/calendar/
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Drew Stevens is interviewing me Thursday, January 7 on How to Write Engaging Copy for Speakers and Conferences. It will be for an hour at 11 am Eastern US time. It is a free teleconference. You may not record it or use it for commercial purposes.
Logistics:
Dial In information:
Conference Dial-in Number: (712) 432-0600
Participant Access Code: 765354#
DO NOT WRITE TO ME FOR FURTHER INFORMATION.
Drew’s info:
Stevens Consulting Group
drew@stevensconsultinggroup.com
627 Thorntree Lane
Eureka, Missouri 63025
877-391-6821 (Office)
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Alan’s Monday Morning Memo’s mission is to help readers to thrive.
January 4, 2010—Issue #16
This week’s focus point: Historically, from the Trex to the cheetah, predators have been successful in about one out of ten hunts. There is no such thing as a free lunch. If you’re not failing, you’re not trying. The key is not to make the same mistakes repeatedly.
Monday Morning Perspective: The limits of my language are the limits of my world. — Wittgenstein
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Contact information: info@summitconsulting.com
http://www.contrarianconsulting.com
ISSN 2151-0091
© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved
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Del Posto was outstanding for New Year’s Eve dinner, though only about a dozen tables were occupied from 6 to 8. They may have been filled for the late seating, but they certainly weren’t doing two turns. We baby sat until 1:30 for the grandchildren, who slept throughout (my wife unhappy, me not so unhappy). For the 4,000th time we watched the ball drop somewhere over Dick Clark! (Highlight of the evening: Jennifer Lopez’s outfit.)
A car took us back to The Palace and the streets were still crowded with people. Everyone’s a buddy on New Year’s in New York!
We attended mass in St. Patrick’s yesterday (Holy Day of Obligation) and then took some time to wander around behind the altar and near the crypts. The Cathedral is striking, and it is not supported financially by the archdiocese, only by contributions.
Last evening we had a drink with Mike and Elie Robert. Mike is the co-author of my very first book, The Innovation Formula, and they were visiting New York with their two daughters. We’ve known each other since the early 70s.
Maria and I then had corned beef and cabbage in an Irish pub next to the Lyceum, the oldest legitimate theater in New York (1903) where we saw “In the Next Room,” also known as “The Vibrator Play.”
It’s written by Sarah Rule, a protege of Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel, with whom I served on the Trinity Repertory Board, and who is now at Yale. Set in the 1890s, it describes the historically accurate treatment of women’s “hysteria” using newly invented electricity to power the medical intervention, shall we say.
The work is about 45 minutes too long and the second act is a disappointment. But it’s a fascinating story, well acted, if not tightly written. The house was packed.
We’ll spend an hour with the grandchildren this morning, then head back on the Acela where a ton of financial paperwork 2009/2010 awaits me as i watch football tomorrow. Nice problem to have.
Enjoy 2010. After all, what’s the alternative?
© Alan Weiss 2010 All rights reserved.
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Here are some thoughts for beginning 2010 with the right philosophy and mentality. (In Cole Porter’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” Sinatra sings, “Use your mentality, wake up to reality….”)
Remember Y2K? Not exactly going to be more than a minor blip in the footnotes in Wikipedia, is it? No airline crashes, no banks collapsed, not even the alarm clocks failed. The “swine flu” has proved to be a rather average illness, with fewer deaths than those caused by the normal, seasonal influenza. All deaths are tragedies, but we must retain proportion.
Global warming? My reading tells me that no one is really sure how much humankind is contributing or even if we can seriously alter what we are contributing. The Russians just announced plans to create rockets to engage and deflect an asteroid that’s due in the next 20 years, that most scientists estimate has one chance in 450,000 of hitting us. (The Russians are understandably sensitive, since the last rock of this sort DID hit Siberia and leveled about 80 million trees a while back.)
There are those claiming that the government is hiding aliens somewhere, and that the Mayan calendar is predicting the world’s end, and that excess spray tanning will eventually end life as we know it. (Maybe it already has—have you taken a look at some of those “stars” on “Dancing with the Stars”?!)
We can’t fall victim to the panic epidemic.
My point is that we (fueling and/or fueled by the media) have a tad of a tendency to be apocalyptic. I’m not deep enough to tell you that it’s meant to represent expiation for our sins, or redemption for our hubris, or simply deal with the fact that, basically, no one understands the universe.
I can tell you this: Live each day to the fullest you can. That needn’t be a flurry of activity, it may be spent in quiet contemplation. But it should not be subsumed in fear. It should not be wasted in constant apology, but rather invested in ongoing contribution.
We are all too ready to believe that there are huge, uncontrolled forces trying to destroy our lives or at least manipulate our futures. I’m here to tell you that’s not so, and that empirical evidence does not support such a belief system.
My computer wasn’t affected by Y2K, nor was my brain (which recognized panic and overwrought reaction at the time). I’m concerned, not detached, about the challenges we all face, but I’m much more concerned about the pragmatics of how we educate our children, take care of the helpless, and make the streets safe, than I am about claims that medium-rare cheeseburgers will kill me if that asteroid doesn’t.
Maybe I can get the Russians to work on the burger thing. They apparently have plenty of time on their hands. But, in the meantime, I’m going to enjoy everyday life, try to improve the lives of those around me, and thereby improve and enrich my own.
© Alan Weiss 2010 All rights reserved. Alan’s latest book is Thrive! Stop wishing your life away….
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