Everything I ever needed to know about business, I learned in less than 10 minutes at the age of 16. I was a junior in high school when I ‘accidentally’ signed up for a business course titled “D.E.” I thought I was registering for Driver’s Education, but this class was Distributive Education (aka, DECA, now called…
Q. What do professional dancers, actors, musicians, and athletes have in common? A. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they’re all in the top 6 of the 15 dream jobs that our nation’s youth aspire to have one day. What jobs didn’t make the list? Roofer, custodian, auto mechanic, welder, truck driver, short order…
When I hear the word family, beyond the mental images of my own, I can’t help but think of the Cleavers, the Bradys, the Cunninghams, and the Huxtables. Growing up, I probably spent as much time hanging out with those families as I did my own. Television families of the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s…
On the days Josh Drean is not in class listening to a lecture in his graduate program at Harvard, he’s in a school gymnasium giving one to hundreds of teenagers. Only to his youthful audience, it doesn’t sound like a lecture. That’s because Josh is a hip, cool, relevant youth speaker who breakdances and beatboxes as he…
Walking through Denver International Airport on my way to Nashville last week, it wasn’t difficult to pick out the Southwest gates from those of all the other airlines. They were the only ones that looked like …well, like it’s late October. That’s because Southwest Airlines takes fun very seriously. They know if they promote a…
I went camping with my wife in the Colorado Rockies over the weekend. The campground was clean and pristine, particularly the public outhouses. Anyone who’s frequented campgrounds that have no running water knows how disgusting the restrooms generally are. The sign that hangs above the toilets in the two gender-neutral stalls reveals the answer to…
Growing up, I saw a lot of ads on TV and in magazines for products that were compared to Brand X. Of course, there was no such thing as Brand X, so advertisers had the freedom to disparage it as if it were the competitor’s product, and then point out how theirs was clearly superior. Mature adults…
My new high-end coffee brewer drives me absolutely insane. It brews the absolute perfect cup of java – hot nectar of the gods – about every third day. The other two result in either an average tasting cup of convenience store coffee or an evil black muck that you wouldn’t throw down your kitchen drain for…
I’ve been writing and speaking about millennials since they first made their way into the workplace as teenagers in 1998. Since then, I’ve interacted with thousands of mature business owners and leaders who’ve confessed their struggles and frustrations in managing this enigmatic generation. Today, more than half of all millennials (born 1980-2000) are 25 and older, and the part-time teen workers of 1998 are…