1.Quote I’m Reflecting On: You may delay, but time will not. – Ben Franklin

2. What I’m Noticing: There is a lot of cardboard in my recycling. So much of what we buy is shipped to us in cardboard boxes. I wonder about the environmental consequences of this.

3. Thing I’m Thinking A Lot About: – Kindness, empathy, and civility as acts of protest.

4. Thing You May Not Have Known About: Medical records companies are the worst. For years, the law was that we could obtain medical records for our clients for $6.50 electronically. An awful court decision reversed this and we will now be charged $.65 a page for medical records. This is bad for consumers to the tune of billions of dollars.

5. What I’m Counting: Victories in not doing things. For much of my life, I celebrated doing things. I’m now finding joy in not doing things – like passing on tortilla chips.

1. Trend Worth Watching: Meditation apps grew by 52% in 2019 to become a 195 million dollar a year market. I’m a big fan of the app Headspace. I’ve used it for 5000+ minutes over the past 3 years.

2. Another Trend Worth Watching: KFC is rolling out Beyond Meat Fried “Chicken” in a 100 stores in February. The stores are in Nashville and Charlotte. Early reviews are two thumbs up. May the future be more humane.

3. Policy Change Needed: Fatal car accidents in the United States spike by 6% during the workweek following the “spring forward” to daylight saving time, resulting in about 28 additional deaths each year, according to new University of Colorado Boulder research.  Needless deaths – we should stop changing clocks based on seasons.

4. Thing I Watched: Netflix’s Aaron Hernandez documentary. It was very good. The more we understand about the brain the better. The documentary is sad on so many levels. A complete tragedy of a life.

5. Thing I’m Listening To: Nirvana’s Bleach Deluxe Edition which features a pre-fame concert at Pine Street Theater in Portland Oregon in 1990. It’s a great set.

1. Story I’m Loving: I love Pearl Jam’s new song “Dance of the Clairvoyants”. I really love Stone Gossard telling the story of the creative process behind it.

2. Truth I’m Believing: The more we criticize others the louder the voice of self-criticism in our head becomes.

3. Book I Can’t Put Down: Ronan Farrow’s “Catch And Kill“. Abuse isn’t a glitch in the system – it can be the system for the rich and powerful. Read it.

4. Question I’m Asking Myself: How do I want to feel today?

5. Space I’m Making: I’m creating safe space for my ideas. Allowing myself to create without being critical is allowing me to think bigger.

1.Thing I’m Doing: Just noting behavior. If someone is upset – I just think there’s an upset person. No different than going for a walk and noting a tree. I get to control my reaction. And I do this by noting my environment.

2. Thing I Did That Is Resonating: I love writing on LinkedIn. This post I wrote about giving myself permission has resonated with a number of people. Check it out.

3. Thing I’ve Stuck With The Works: Not drinking caffeine after 11 am. My sleep and sanity are better.

4. Thing I Won’t Be Doing: I’ve purchased nearly every Pearl Jam CD on the day it debuted. I’ve been doing this since 1994. Pearl Jam just announced a new album that will debut in March. I no longer own a CD player.

5. Best Service That’s New To Me: My firm needs a lot of documents notarized. We are all notaries in the office. In today’s mobile and busy world that’s not enough. We have taken to using Notarize and it is great. Check it out.

1.The Best Way To Show Your Team They Matter: Fix their small problems. Every team member has some small problem – like they always have issues logging into some app. Find out what it is and fix it. That’s how you show you care.

2. Creating Culture Around Celebration: When your team has a win tie it to playing a song. Magic will happen.

3. Thing I’m Watching: Masterclass. I’m loving these. And what’s not to love? David Sedaris teaching you writing and Chris Voss teaching you negotiation – and so much more.

4. Hack I Learned This Week: Exporting audio from video in iMovie is really easy. Simply click the share button – select file – and pull down audio only. Your videos can be turned into podcasts with the click of a button.

5. Thing I’m Thinking About: – What I want my life to be apart from running my firm. It’s important to remember that it’s all one thing – personal and professional goals.

1. Simple Winter Tip: I was always losing lip balm. This winter I bought a 4 pack and left one in my car, one in my office, one in my coat, and one on my nightstand. It’s like magic. I wish I had thought of this sooner.

2. Currently Reading: The “The Infinite Game” by Simon Sinek. One of the great problems of today is so many people playing finite games. Read this book, it’s great.

3. Loving This: I’m loving this Best Self 6 month planner. I have used the quarterly planners before. The set up of this 6 month planner is outstanding. I highly recommend it.

4. Fitness App: Many have goals for the New Year that involve fitness. I have used a bunch of apps and can’t think of a better one than the free “My Fitness Pal” app. Check it out.

5. The Thing I Hate That Works: Logging my food. Simply being mindful of my consumption makes me consume less. I’m back at this in 2020.

1.I’ve Wondered About This: Water goes “stale” overnight because when it warms up its aroma opens up. Cold essentially masks taste. Wired.

2. Elf On A Shelf Tip: Parents know modern Christmas Eve means hiding your elf in a safe place to be taken out 49 weeks later. The last thing on your mind is remembering where you hid the elf. Set a reminder on your phone for next Thanksgiving with the “safe place” you hid the elf.

3. Hack of The Year: Use your phones Notes app to dictate ideas as the come to you. Time block time on your schedule to execute on those ideas. For example, I have a note called “operational ideas” and I block off 2 hours on each Wednesday to work on those ideas. I have not found a better way to move things forward.

4. Skill of The Year: Training yourself to listen to podcasts and audio books at 2.5x. It took me roughly 20 minutes of listening at those speeds for my mind to adjust. I’ll never go back. I can consume 2.5x the content that I would at 1x. That’s a lot of knowledge.

5. Percussive Massagers: Got one for Christmas. I haven’t felt this flexible in decades. Amazing technology.

1.Winter Solstice: One of my favorite days of the year. A signal from the universe that major change often begins unnoticed and in the depths of darkness.

2. For Any Small Business Owner: I love Gary Vee. His keynote “How To Get Your Business the Most Attention Possible in 2020” is especially excellent. Watch it now and go out and “crush it” in 2020.

3. Best Tech I’ve Bought In The Last 6 Months: Apple TV 4K. It never loses wifi connection or buffers. The UI is intuitive. The remote is well done. And it plays so nice with all things Mac and Apple.

4. Big New Projects: I spent a lot of 2019 without a big new non-firm related project. Last week, I discovered my next big new project. It is invigorating and necessary for me. These things tend to fuel all else.

5. See Me In New Orleans: I’m beyond thrilled to be speaking at AAJ Annual Winter Conference in New Orleans. I’ll be talking about basically this.

1.Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker: Want to change your life? Change your sleep.

2. Beastie Boys: A story of friends and growing up. Life happens fast. Enjoy the ride with these MCA, Ad-Rock, and Mike-D.

3. Trillion Dollar Coach by Eric Schmidt: The story of Bill Campbell and the life and business lesson’s he taught the leaders of Google, Apple, Amazon, Ebay and many others.

4. Radical Candor by Kim Scott: Growth as a leader lies just outside your comfort zone. Kim Scott does an excellent job on how to give and receive feedback and move a business forward.

5. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyou: An absolutely gripping book about Theranos. What fascinates me about this book is it is a book about what happens to smart people when they want something to be true. Great read.

1.Trend I’m Watching: Most retail is contracting. Dollar Store is expanding rapidly. “Dollar Tree CEO Gary Philbin added last week that low-income consumers are often “one doctor bill or one car repair bill away from not being in such good shape.”

2. Daylight: In Hartford, and across the northern hemisphere, the days are getting shorter. Between today we will lose 8 minutes and 12 seconds of daylight. The darkness dominates this time of year. But come December 11th we will actually start gaining daylight in the evening.

3. Quote On My Mind: “One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.” – Maya Angelou

4. Thing That Has Gotten Much Easier: Creating a playlist. I don’t usually do this but did one this week. Creating a mixtape for someone in the 1990s took a lot of time. A good mixtape was a well received gift. Now it is so easy to do that it is instantly disposable.

5. What I’m Listening To: The Notorious B.I.G. – he died at age 24. And 25 years later his music sounds as fresh as the day it was released.