billdurkin

On December 19, 1918, Robert Ripley was a sports journalist working for the New York Globe. It was a slow sports day, so he created an illustrated newspaper feature highlighting nine athletic accomplishments that seemed almost impossible to believe, but all of them were true. The unusual stories attracted a remarkable amount of attention. Ten months later, Ripley turned the Believe It or Not idea into a weekly column. What started as filler on a slow sports day became an international...

Today we are faced with an overwhelming number of challenges and choices that need to be addressed while we’re being constantly bombarded with emails, phone calls, texts, and tweets. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to make meaningful progress on important goals because we are spending so much time fighting fires and dealing with distractions. Urgent and Important In 1954, former General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower stated that he had two kinds of problems. One he classified as...

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring simple ideas that can help us reduce unhealthy conflict in our workplaces, families, and communities. Here’s one more: Slow down today. There are times when we need to move quickly. Emergencies, deadlines, unexpected problems, and crises sometimes require us to act fast. But if we honestly look at our day, how much of our hurry is essential? We change lanes trying to get somewhere a few minutes faster. We check our phones while waiting in line. We...