Category Archives for "Life Coaching"

My friend Chris Castillo is nearly finished writing his pithy and insightful book, Bucket of Wisdom available for pre-order at, https://bucketofwisdombook.com/ Here’s my review of his work: “Some of Chris Castillo’s stories remind me of what a top end bike salesman once told me about what he was like as a teenager. He had a […]

Why is it that, for the longest time, the National Football League refused to allow corporations to own one of their franchises? It’s because the NFL understands perhaps better than any other league that a close relationship between ownership and fans/sponsors/corporate community/marketing partners/suppliers/agents/players/coaches/GMs/scouts/lenders/staff/local, state and federal politicians, police and regulatory bodies is incredibly important. With […]

My real job is not real estate investment and business coach and realtor, it’s file clerk. That’s right, file clerk. My computer is the other half of my brain. I keep great files and detailed notes so when a client calls me (even after a few years), I remember who his/her lawyer is, renovator, mortgage […]

Developing a message map for a business, organization or even a sole practitioner like me, is really important. It helps you quickly tell folks what it is you do and why because, as Simon Sinek says, people don’t buy what you do or how you do it, they buy why you do it… Here’s what […]

By Richard Paul Evans (2005) Review (from Amazon): When Richard Paul Evans was twelve, his father, a building contractor, shattered both his legs. With no insurance, no income, and eight children, the family was destitute. At that difficult time young Evans was introduced to a kind multimillionaire who taught him the five secrets of wealth. […]

I’ve written before that it’s a mistake in my view that many companies in North America these days push out employees over 50 (and, in tech, anyone over 40). These people are your time machine, your Wayback Machine (aka, internet archive) if you will. Plus, they know how to work hard, which means, basically, they […]

Sales and marketing are about storytelling, true, but it’s also about improving your ability to communicate. A client of mine started his storytelling business–teaching enterprises how to do a better job at communicating their stories. His first step is interviewing clients using a two-way video tool like Zoom, which he records and uploads (unlisted) to […]

As readers of this blog will already know, I am not much of a believer in life insurance–it’s costly and its financial returns are low. Still, if you have a family to take care of and debts to pay (like, say, mortgage balances), term insurance might be a better choice. For a healthy non-smoker in […]

Young clients of mine refused to meet with me last week to learn about how they could rent a house for free or close to free (via an augmented tenancy) and they said, “No we just want to rent!” No wonder they’re poor. Are they stupid for saying this? Maybe. But I think not… it’s […]

According to podcaster Mark Leruste, Ernest Shackleton’s famous recruitment ad for his 1914 Endurance expedition to Antarctica could be a useful stand-in today for anyone thinking of becoming an entrepreneur, https://youtu.be/f6nxcfbDfZo. Here’s that ad, which it is believed first ran in the London Times (although that is far from certain, https://discerninghistory.com/2013/05/shackletons-ad-men-wanted-for-hazerdous-journey/): Men wanted for hazardous […]

Ever wonder why, according to Sports Illustrated, nearly 80% of former NFL players go broke within three years of leaving the league? Not to mention other high net worth people like successful actors or busy executives and entrepreneurs experiencing financial problems as they age. According to superstar player agent Leigh Steinberg, there are five main […]

[This article originally appeared in Ottawa Business, Journal, https://obj.ca/article/opinion-big-rig-gaining-steam-microbrewery-biz.] What’s in a name? Well, if you are Ottawa Senators defenceman Chris Phillips and the other four founding partners of Big Rig restaurant and brewery, a lot. Mr. Phillips and his partners – Angelis Koutsos, Lon Ladell, Pierre Cleroux and Jimmy Zourntos – spent $5 million […]