If tomorrow never comes…

Another New Year

The Art of Writing

Lesson on Knowing Your Customers…from Kids

For Easter weekend, my brother and his family visited me in Indianapolis for the first time. This was the first time any of my family members had ever visited me in Indianapolis since I moved here seven months ago to join Lumina Foundation; I hadn’t seen my two nephews who are now seven and nine years old, respectively, for a long time so I was super excited to say the least. We would only have a couple days to spend together, so I wanted to make sure they got to see the most well-known attractions in Indy, namely the renown Children’s Museum and the Garfield Conservatory/Botanical Garden as well as Monument Circle and took them to my favorite Vietnamese restaurant for pho, which is their favorite food. We did all of the above, got gelato and even watched Ice Age: The Meltdown on Saturday night on my 65 inch 4K HDTV. I want to maintain my favorite uncle status, so I was pulling out all the stops.

Come Easter Sunday morning before they had to head off to catch the 11am flight back to Dallas, I asked the two of them what their favorite part of the visit was. My seven-year-old nephew Jonathan immediately replied…getting to wear my tiger paw slippers and running around my home with them! With all the effort into planning and thinking about what would make their short time in Indy enjoyable and fun, and genuinely believing I had nailed it, it was incredibly humbling to discover I had completely missed the mark! In return for that valuable lesson, I let him keep the pair of tiger paw slippers which he gleefully packed in his little backpack to take back home to Dallas.

2016-03-27 09.46.09-1

Do you REALLY know your customer, or do you just think you do??

(This was also posted on my LinkedIn page earlier)

Appreciation

How you know

Falling in love is easy, staying in love is the hard part; that’s how you know you are with the right one but the majority of people today get it wrong…my parents got it right

2013-08-29 17.39.08

Mom & dad married 50+ years

Caged

A long day during a short business trip;

I sit in The Edgewater’s lobby, warmed by the fireplace flames while staring out at the passing ship;

The gentle waves reflect the glistening rays of the setting sun;

Some seabirds swoop by the wall of windows, a few gracefully glide high up in the sky;

Looking down at me, the little suited man, as I slump exhausted in the wooden chair on the other side;

Whose entire days center around career and taking care of others;

Caged by the metal exterior, and nature-themed interior walls of the famous hotel where The Beatles once fished from;

Envious of the freedom and simplicity that is true nature, whose goal is simply to live.

image

 

 

Words

Lies are easier with words than with actions.  People say things they don’t always mean, and mean things they don’t always say.

2015-06-28 19.54.32-1

Young children are not only adorable but also consistent with their words and behavior, as adults we think it is our job to teach but in this case they have something to teach us.

Math genius may reject award–things that make you go hmmm…

I hadn’t written anything in over a year as life has gotten more complicated and busy, but when I saw this article, I just had to put in my 2 cents on the topic.

This is the article I am referring to: Math Genius May Reject Award

So apparently the guy is a math “genius” but his actions (or lack of actions I should say) make me wonder how smart he really is.  I understand if he was already wealthy and didn’t need the money, but even then there’s always something he could do with it like donate it to charity (or to a poor bum like me trying to get a start-up going…as a loan of course, I’d pay him back with interest or make him a partner!).   Yet he’s just a poor bloke with an elderly mom and he can’t seem to add the two simple points together:

$1 million prize/award + poor financial situation = better financial situation and happier healthier elderly mom.

While I’m all for maintaining privacy, he could just use some of that money to buy a cave somewhere to be reclusive, let alone a basement apartment somewhere.  I feel bad for the elderly mom because she gave him too much mathematical intellect and too little common sense.