My reading list tilts heavily to the past. I recently finished The Minister’s Wooing, a pre-Civil War Harriet Beecher Stowe novel. Leaping over decades, I then moved onto A White Bird Flying by Bess Streeter Aldrich, written in 1931. But as I listen to the radio and read current newspapers and magazines, I often jot...
I recently eavesdropped on a conversation taking place at a table adjacent to mine. A customer in the Dallas kosher restaurant in which I was having dinner was talking to the waitress. After thanking the waitress for excellent service, he asked what she did when she wasn’t waiting tables. When she responded that she was...
Have you seen those puzzles which show you two seemingly identical pictures but ask you to spot a dozen subtle differences between them? Well, no one would mistake Dallas for my Pacific Northwest hometown, but in this period of national branding they each have their Starbucks and Half-Price Books, their Nordstroms and Macy’s. And in...
Four years ago, Business Week magazine ran a story about how Hindu thinking was influencing business in the United States. It stated, “Academics and consultants such as C. K. Prahalad, Ram Charan, and Vijay Govindrajan are among the world's hottest business gurus.” It turned out that over 10% of the professors at the best business...
That may not be the most original title, but it pretty much sums up my recent trip to Jerusalem. Arriving just a few days before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, meant starting off with an intense prayer experience. Yom Kippur is an annual occurrence, and unfortunately, it is often wrongly perceived by many Jews...
A few weeks ago, sitting in the waiting room while a relative had shoulder surgery, I read a Wall Street Journal piece about unnecessary infection rates after surgical procedures. It seems that lack of hygiene relating to surgical scrubs is relatively common. My stomach was already in knots anticipating the coming surgery, and reading the...
This year’s James Cameron movie, Avatar, introduced many to the wonders of 3-D, a technology providing the illusion of depth in an image. I don’t know if the current excitement about 3-D is a passing fad or whether all movies will soon be in 3-D and all computer screens will soon show 3-D images. What...
Here is an entitlement program I can support: graternity leave (maternity = mother; paternity = father; graternity = grandparent). I’m not thinking of initiating a lawsuit or picketing corporate America, however I would like to raise social awareness of this option. After a month of Jewish holydays which substantially cut down on available work...
I was in the supermarket this morning when I heard hysterical laughter, of the kind that I associate with teen-age girls, coming from the next aisle. My guess was confirmed when I heard a young voice say, presumably to a store employee, “Sorry. It slipped out of my hands.” I couldn’t hear his reply but...
I love conducting sales training events for companies with large teams of sales professionals. Needless to say, I don’t reach the ankles of some of the legendary sales and motivational giants such as my friend Zig Ziglar. Nonetheless, Zig pronounces the unique sales strategies from ancient Jewish wisdom that I teach to be vital. ...
