It’s Graduation Season
May 31, 2024
Summertime Feeling Throughout May and June, millions of students across the nation reach that major life milestone of graduation. Some are leaving school and moving on to other educational institutions; others are heading into the workforce. But, to a person, I can guarantee that they are nervous about their future. This is why this is such an emotional time for all these students and their families. I participated in this rite of passage this year…
Read more“Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy,” Or, Optimal Engagement in the Workplace
April 10, 2024
When I first heard Michael Stipe cry out that line from the R.E.M. song What’s the Frequency Kenneth? something about it stuck with me. And it still resonates with me today. I was relatively new to the workforce, and that one line said a lot about what I saw every day in my workplace. I was surrounded by incredibly bright, capable people who, on the surface, seemed at best apathetic. Were they really apathetic,…
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Unplugging the Entrepreneurial Way: Strategies for Success in a Distracted World
March 7, 2024
Maybe you’ll see the humor in this blog by the end, maybe not. I sure did as I was writing it. Around this time in 2021, I wrote a blog titled “A Managerial vs. Entrepreneurial Approach to Leadership.” At the end of the piece, I mentioned how future blogs would deliver more nuggets of wisdom. My assumption at the time was that I’d pump out a blog a month and become a prolific content creator.…
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Why A Little Mental Turbulence Can Be a Good Thing for Early-Stage Startups
July 26, 2022
After welcoming each new cohort of idea-driven participants to Entrepreneurial Mindset Training, facilitator Joel Barrett issues a warning: Turbulence Ahead. Barrett is a business development consultant with the Missouri Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He and his colleagues use the Ice House model to redefine entrepreneurship as the self-directed pursuit of opportunities to create value for others by discovering and solving problems—and he has firsthand experience with the…
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Adding to the Startup ‘Knighthood’ in Florida
July 19, 2022
As each new cohort enters the Self-Employment Workshop Program in Tampa, Florida, facilitator Carol Minor sets the tone by knighting the participants as finishers. “You can’t do anything halfway,” she tells the group with her trademark spunk. “You can shift and pivot, but you can’t start something and not see it through.” Minor starts on an upbeat note, but she’s a realist. She knows not everyone will finish the first eight sessions, where she…
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