Why did it take a pandemic to finally question the purpose of the Monday through Friday grind? “I’m in the office at 7 a.m. and I leave at 7 at night. I’m trying to make an example.” — Howard Schultz (Starbucks) The best leaders value productivity over convention In the wake of the pandemic and the unionization…

Smartphones and other communication technology are crushing employees and undermining quality productivity. — “When you leave this job I am going to take your work phone and run over it with my car.” I recall the instance at roughly 3 AM on a weeknight when my (former) wife said this to me out of sheer frustration. I was a senior officer in the…

When the excitement of the purchase wanes, the burden of ownership emerges. — “…the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run,” Thoreau, Walden, “Economy.” Yes, that is my trailer with a tree on top of it somewhere in Nebraska. I subsequently sold the…

Avoid self-destruction, and your future self will thank you. Our response to a volatile market is to do something. Anything. Trade. Sell. Buy. Act quickly. Act on impulse. Act on emotion. When your gut or your heart (or both) is telling you — compelling you — to trade, I recommend…