Recently I read a thought provoking article which shines a bright light on making the ‘hard calls’. It came at a perfect time, as the jovial energy of the holidays and the newness of 2014 are dimming, and once again – reality in its unvarnished way has revealed itself.

As the holidays rapidly approach, December becomes a hectic time! Shopping, cooking, wrapping, decorating, and of course, all the year-end business deadlines! The last week of December can be an extremely productive week in 2013; and can help position the start of 2014 in the best possible way! So, this blog is intended to be a handy ‘end of the year’ checklist to help guide us – and trigger additional things to think about before the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve!

Recently, I was turned onto a book entitled The Compound Effect, written by Darren Hardy, the founding editor and visionary force behind Success magazine. I love this book! It is not just the nuggets of basic insights which are indeed relevant and salient; it is how he references the many interviews he has conducted over the years in writing Success magazine, which give applicable examples to our own lives. A few key takeaways to wet our whistle…

Recently I read an incredible article in Forbes entitled 35 Questions that will Change your Life. And yes, those questions will indeed make you stop, think, and course-correct in some cases. I am a huge believer that the questions we ask ourselves and others throughout our lives inform our decisions, our priorities, and ultimately our outcomes.

This week’s podcast definitely addresses ‘a fine line’ in today’s world of networking, connecting, and full transparency through social media and other means. What are the rules of etiquette and professionalism when it comes to sharing, asking for and giving ‘free’ advice, and opening our virtual rolodexes for those in need? This is by definition – A Fine Line – and one for which is there is no pat answer. However, this podcast asks a few questions to hopefully get our juices flowing! Weigh in. I am quite certain there are opinions out there!

This week we are re-launching our podcasts for A Fine Line. We briefly discuss 4 ways to embody the “X Factor” in business. What exactly is the X Factor?!!

Recently, a colleague of mine and I were discussing a phenomenon that has been coming up quite often in my recent client sessions and other personal discussion. Individuals, with tremendous experience and successful careers up until now, have become inhibited, and in some cases paralyzed, by their perception of others. Their reasons are illogical when we take the time to truly digest and dissect them; however they are very real and indeed quite powerful at the time.

At the request of many of my readers, on the anniversary of the crash of 2008, I am reposting a blog from that period. The truisms remain the same and the charge to each of us – unaltered.We are writing our new chapter – right now. How are we doing? I hope you will weigh in and share your thoughts.

There is such a prevalence of negative messages in today’s world. The media is chock full of ‘if it bleeds it leads’ coverage…and in some ways we have become conditioned to not only expect the icky news, we feed on it. This morbid expectation and, at best, the placid tolerance of negativity has the potential to leak into every aspect of our lives.

Nothing like disruption to get the stories going! And when the uproar is about the newspaper business, we get more than the usual number of critics thinking and writing about what it all means. So when Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post, using his personal fortune from founding Amazon, the stories were flying like Angry Birds.