I was on the 2016 KPY retreat and I suddenly remembered how, as a kid I used to love to play with Barbie dolls: I would come-up with a story line — Barbie the doctor who saves lives, Barbie on beach vacation, Barbie the princess going to a ball to meet her prince — and then I would dress-up the Barbie dolls to fit the story, to become the characters….

The Home Owners Association fees at my friend’s condo went way way up and she and her husband could no longer afford to live there. She knew she needed to sell, sooner rather than later, but she absolutely refused to consider a listing price less than $X00K. The reason: $X00K is what she believed she would need to buy a new house in cash, in a new neighborhood where she…

We had a meeting at work to talk through a multi-team project, but I was feeling a little philosophical and started talking about a ‘big picture’ problem I hoped the project might solve — poor communication in my workplace.  I gave around 3 examples to illustrate my ‘poor communications’ point, one of which involved a mistake by the Marketing Team, made months ago,  communicating survey results. I left the meeting…

I was out to dinner with a friend and when the waiter came to take our order, my friend invited me to go first. “I’ll take a salad and a side of fries” I said. My friend proceeded to order her meal, but –wah wah wah — she did not order fries. “Fuck” I thought, “I can’t believe she didn’t order fries, she loves fries and now she is totally…