A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving.

– Lao Tzu

I’m headed to South America to explore the Galapagos Islands and look for the origin of species.  But no worries, if you need anything at all, the rest of the staff will be in the office working hard as usual. Till I return, enjoy some insightful words on respite:

A good vacation is over when you begin to yearn for your work.

– Morris Fishbein

A vacation frequently means that the family goes away for a rest, accompanied by mother, who sees that the others get it.

– Marcelene Cox

A vacation is like love - anticipated with pleasure, experienced with discomfort, and remembered with nostalgia.

– Author Unknown

A vacation is a sunburn at premium prices.

– Hal Chadwicke

A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you’ve been taking.

– Earl Wilson

Babies don’t need a vacation but I still see them at the beach. I’ll go over to them and say, ‘What are you doing here, you’ve never worked a day in your life!’

– Stephen Wright

He who returns from a journey is not the same as he who left.

– Chinese Proverb

– rick

It takes 8,460 bolts to assemble an automobile, and one nut to scatter it all over the road.

- Author Unknown

I begin each morning with a cup of Starbucks, a nonfat donut (the politically correct term is bagel), and the advertising section of the paper. I then search the car section for the latest on new and used cars.

I never buy cars, you see. I just look. I’m an automotive voyeur–perpetually green with car envy. When I feel a particularly strong desire to tame my urges, I drive to the nearest car dealer to engage a sales person about a particular model or two I know I won’t buy.

More often than not, though, I sneak onto the lot after hours. Then I can fantasize on my own, with no intrusion from a sales clerk.

My most recent excursion took me to the Tesla dealership in Newport Beach. I can’t afford this electric Ferrari, but it sure does juice me up thinking about it. It gives new meaning to the term, Going Green.

- rick

“Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.”

- Mitch Kapor

About 99 percent of us who search the Internet using Google do so just by typing in a few words on the Google search bar in our browser and hitting enter.

Certainly this can get you some quick results, but savvy Internet users need more.

And Google provides more. Much more.

Here are a few tricks to help you optimize your Google search results.

1. When confident in the keywords you’re searching for–typing in a known website, for example–rather than hit the search key or pressing enter, go for Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. This will automatically open up the very first web page resulting from your search.

2. To refine a search result, go to the bottom of the first page, where you’ll find the fine print: “search within results.” Enter additional keywords to refine your search, and voila, you can whittle a search result of thousands down to just a few pages of more meaningful results.

3. Next time you need to search, avoid the Google window in your browser, and go directly to Google.com. Click ‘advanced search.’ Here you can limit your search to a particular language (I find English to be particularly helpful) or domain (such as .org or .gov) or even file type (like PDF, Word, or PowerPoint). Follow the template to further refine your results.

4. If you really have some time to kill, after you get your first search results, look to the column that appears to the left of your results. There, you’ll be able to refine your search even more by time span or related searches. Next, use Google Timeline and Wonderwheel, which provide a unique way to arrange your search results. Timeline arranges them chronologically on a bar graph, and Wonderwheel presents results as a spider graph. Can’t find the links? Well, just Google them…

Google has amazing features, and used correctly can help you find the important pieces of information that will make a difference for you!

- rick

“The problem with life’s unwritten rules is that no one’s bothered to write them down.”

- Rick Jameson

I’m cruising into work this morning on the freeway, and I notice another car beside me in the next lane. I have my cruise control set, so my speed is a stable 70 mph. Any moment, I think to myself, this car is going to either pass me or fall behind.

I glance over again a few moments later. Still shadowing me.

“Hmm,” I think to myself. Why isn’t this guy passing me? I glance over again to confirm that it’s not a police car.

I start shifting my focus from me to him. I’m uncomfortable. I’m also stubborn. I was driving at this speed first. The other driver is supposed to move ahead or slow. Why isn’t he moving? I’m standing my ground. He better move … or else…

Or else what? Yeah, it’s an unwritten rule that you never drive at exactly the same speed as the driver beside you; that two cars should never be perfectly aligned on the road, unless stuck in traffic.

But what do you do about it? If I swerve into him and knock him off the road, that’s not going to go over too well with the police or his widow or my wife. I’d have broken a pretty serious written rule. I also can’t hit him with a fastball, either.

Nope. I’m stuck. Here’s another unwritten rule: You can’t enforce unwritten rules by breaking written ones. So, unless you’re a baseball player, you pretty much can’t do anything.

Except, perhaps, tell myself, “Don’t sweat the small stuff” (at least someone wrote that rule down), and step on the gas ….

- rick

No satisfaction based on self-deception is solid, and however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once and for all, to get used to it, and to proceed to build your life in accordance with it.

- Bertrand Russell

I recently engaged a colleague in an interesting conversation about bias and self-denial. We concluded that people are naturally biased in favor of themselves, and this contributes to self-denial.

This self-denial is carried over to many things: our driving, our rationale for decisions, our kid’s athletic ability, and so on. Let’s face it, we overlook our own blind spots.

A wise friend once told me, if people were half as good as they thought they were, they’d be twice as good as they are.

How to overcome your self-deception? Take a moment to reflect on a situation from the point of view of others. Have the courage to solicit honest feedback from a trusted colleague. Try to become more aware of yourself and those around you.

Awareness leads to mindfulness. Deception leads to mindlessness. Be well.

- rick

“Action cures fear.”

- David J. Schwartz

I remember standing over the water, thinking to myself, “I can do this.”

Yet, I stood. Motionless.

I thought some more, and with each moment, it became even more difficult to move.

I was afraid. There was no rational reason to be afraid. The drop to the water was just a few feet. I knew how to swim. But still, I was afraid.

Then without thinking, I took the plunge. Not sure how I was able to do it, but once I moved forward, once I jumped off the high diving board, once I was airborne, I was no longer fearful.

I just did it, and when I did, my fear dissipated.

I have to give Nike credit. The company took a simple fact of life and made it into one of the most well-known tag lines of all time. The best way to overcome procrastination or fear or paralysis-by-analysis is to Just Do it.

You won’t regret it. The biggest impediments to action are fear or planning.

Don’t get in the way of yourself. When you don’t know whether to do something or do nothing, do something.

There’s a reason moss doesn’t grow on a rolling stone. Standing still gets you nowhere.

When in doubt, tie your sneakers and just do it. Remember, action cures fear.

- rick

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Recently I met with one of my employees, who complimented me on how well I ran a recent meeting. He said that he appreciated that I listen, that I was flexible, and that I was willing to change my mind when a change was necessary. He added that the people who say I’m weak say so because they’re not getting what they want.

So what do I do? I immediately launch into an internal conversation, complete with a walk up the ladder of escalating thoughts: Some people think I’m weak?

I start thinking about how I’m going to defend myself, how I need to educate these people on what leadership looks like, who are these people, how dare they?

Then I took a deep breath.

I reminded myself that it doesn’t matter what other people think. I can’t control their thoughts, only my behavior and my thoughts. Besides, I am weak in some areas. People even question the leadership of the president. Why shouldn’t I expect them to question mine?

Warriors know that different people have different ideas of what a leader looks like, based on their bias, their experience, and their knowledge. Even their upbringing plays a role.

But warriors accept criticism as part and parcel of leadership. They acknowledge there may be some truth to the perception of others, but they do the right thing anyway.

I am certain I look weak in the eyes of some of my followers. They’re looking for me to make all the decisions for them. I am not willing to do that. My organization needs a leader who is flexible, collaborative, and reflective. Not directive.

For those who think otherwise…well, I’ll just thicken my skin.

- rick

A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

- William Strunk Jr. in Elements of Style

Whenever you take your pen to paper or your fingertips to the keyboard, keep this in mind: Make every word count.

Too often, we write wordy e-mails, memos, and letters. I believe that the more words it takes you to get your point across, the more likely your point will be lost.

Good writing is concise.

How do you write concisely? The first step is to use your word document toolbar to count the words that you’ve written. Then you should seek to revise the number of words you’ve written by 10% without changing the content. Got it?

In the previous example, my paragraph contained 43 words. Here’s my rewrite:

How do you write concisely? First, use your word document tools to count the words in your document or paragraph. In your revision, reduce the number of words by 10% or more without changing the content.

The rewrite above has 16% fewer words, and the content is the same. Other strategies include writing in the active voice, avoiding “to be” verbs, and limiting prepositions.

Warriors write concisely. Use the word count strategy to make every word count.

- rick

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

- Goethe

We’ve all heard of the 80/20 rule.

Discovered by economist Pareto in 1906, he learned that 80% of the wealth lies in the hands of 20% of the people. There is an unbalanced relationship between inputs and outputs. Some matter more than others.

It’s not always in the proportion of 80-20; sometimes it could be 99-1 or 70-30.

But the idea remains: some inputs contribute more to outputs than do others.

Why is this important for us?

If we know what actions contribute to most of our results, which clients or products contribute to most of the profits, or at what part of day we are most productive–we can truly maximize our productivity.

Warriors pay attention to how the Pareto Principle impacts their life. Once they identify the maximizing inputs, they leverage them into high-return actions.

Starting today, make the Pareto Principle payoff for you.

- rick

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

- Benjamin Franklin

Yes, as Franklin puts it, we are reasonable people. So reasonable, in fact, we can rationalize just about anything, especially our tendency to procrastinate (you know, it’s more reasonable to wait for just the right opportunity…to why bother to make the bed every morning, I’m just going to mess it up in the evening?).

Warriors resist the urge to rationalize, especially when it comes to deciding.

They think enough, but not too much.

Consider the choice that precedes whether a book or article or website ends up in your “to read” pile. If you are like me, you have an endless “to read” stack: Recently purchased books from your latest trip to Barnes and Noble; magazines lying around from your nephew’s plea to support the school magazine drive; to all those articles passed on to you by your boss or subordinates.

Each time you look at this pile, you tell yourself you’re going to read through it…tomorrow, when you have more time. You’re afraid if you don’t read all of this stuff, you might miss something important.

Guess what? Each day you look at this amorphous pile, you are missing out on something important - all the other things you could be doing besides mindlessly worrying about your read pile.

Here’s how Warriors deal with reading lists: they decide up front.

A Warrior previews what comes across his or her desk. They note anything of import and record that information in their notes (whether paper-based or Internet based, such as Evernote). If it’s definitely worth reading, and they’re willing to commit some time to reading it, they place it in their “to read” pile. If not, they simply toss it.

Make the decision up front. Don’t put stuff to read in your basket in order to decide again later. And if you do slip up, when you review your to-read file in a week or two, toss everything you haven’t read yet.

Always make the decision to not read at the earliest opportunity. You’ll save yourself much angst later.

- rick