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This morning I had a disagreement with someone. I was already frustrated about something, and the disagreement set me off. In principle I still think I was right, but in hindsight I could have handled it better. Our disagreement escalated quickly, and after the tiff we both went our separate ways and gave each other the silent treatment for a while. Feeling slighted, and feeling justified for feeling that way, I was prepared to spend the rest of the day ticked off and channeling my anger into being productive. This would accomplish several things: (a) let it be known that I was still upset, and (b) fuel me to bang things off my ever-present to-do list. This would, I thought, be a win.

Sometimes when you win, though, you really lose. In a post just two weeks ago I committed to making decisions on the basis of (a) whether it provides me joy and/or (b) whether it’s consistent with my long-term goals. In this case, the answer was really neither. (Being productive? Yes to both. But being angry? Neither.) So understanding that my current path was really a loss, I shifted my mindset and reengaged. Within minutes, the cloud had lifted and I was happy.

We coach our kids to control what they can control, that they have the ability to affect to affect outcomes through the way they conduct themselves. We do this because we believe it. Happily, today I was able to coach myself and change my mindset, and in the process change the outcome.

My shift this morning wasn’t about giving in or admitting I was wrong. I haven’t apologized or acknowledged anything, and I don’t plan to. Sometimes the best way to move forward is to do just that; rather than retracing the past (and risk reigniting the situation), sometimes it’s best to just move forward. To do so, you don’t have to let go of your principles, but you do have to let go of your emotional anchoring. Now—as I write this—I’m in the midst of a terrific, productive afternoon and looking forward to a fun, harmonious evening. And that’s much healthier and happier for everyone.

Give it a try. Shift your mindset.

I love when different parts of life intersect and provide meaning. This was one of those weeks.

Thursday was Halloween. It’s not my favorite day, not by a long shot, but I can get into the spirit of it and certainly enjoy watching my kids having fun. Thinking back, it’s neat to reflect on how my older two (ages 12 and 10) have matured through the years. I recall their early years of trick-or-treating, when each house was as exciting as the last and we spent as much time hunting in the grass for their dropped candy as we did knocking on doors. This year, my oldest went off their friends while my youngest (age 3) really experienced it for the first time.

Halloween strikes me as pivotal for a few reasons:

• First, and rather obviously, this may be where our kids first get trained in the art of accumulation. They dash about in a mad scramble to collect as much candy as possible before the night is through, all to marvel at the size of their pile at the end of the night. I’m not a big fan of this, and admittedly should do a better job of redirecting a portion of the pile to good causes (the less fortunate, the troops, etc.).
• 

  My youngest, with three of her Halloween-week costumes.

  Second, and everyone knows this, the night ends with the championship of negotiations as kids barter their way toward the perfect pile of candy.

• Third, the day removes a lot of social barriers and permits (nearly) unrestrained self-expression. What people choose to do with that freedom is up to them, and some embrace it wholeheartedly and others are less comfortable with it or even intimidated by it. My youngest, the three-year old, dressed up for Halloween four different times in four different costumes during the week, fully embracing that freedom. I like to see that creative expression; it is an echo of the you-can-be-whatever-you-want-to-be refrain that we preach in our house.
• Fourth, there is a social training aspect to the day. My youngest ultimately wanted to wear a costume that was too small for her. Rather than fret and try to force her to change, my wife and I went with the flow. Perhaps we’re more lenient than we used to be since she’s our fourth child, but I really think it’s a case of priorities. As long as she practiced her interpersonal skills at each door, speaking with confidence and using her best manners, it was less important to us what she wore. While she still needs some help with confidence and manners, I have confidence our emphasis will pay off. To wit, my ten-year-old son reported that he had been rewarded with extra candy at some houses during the night in recognition of his manners. I couldn’t ask for better positive reinforcement.

The next day, my wife Colleen attended the Pennsylvania Conference for Women, a sold-out event in Philadelphia with 7,000 attendees and speakers including Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Sallie Crawcheck. Though I didn’t attend, I did learn a lot about the conference through her enthusiastic feedback (and her Twitter stream, as she live-tweeted the event).

As someone who’s been taught not to align along racial or gender lines, I don’t respond to the gender-war aspect of the women’s networking movement. I understand it, though, and frankly I’m a fan of collective efforts to inspire, teach and motivate as long as they are positive in spirit and additive rather than zero sum. What really impresses me about the female entrepreneurial community I’ve glimpsed through my wife’s experience is the spirit of collaboration, positivism and determinism that the group shows. I think there’s a little rah-rah bluster, but it all seems to stir up a lot of intrinsic motivation (necessary to succeed) and there’s no question the natural networks that emerge pay dividends. As I think about my children (daughters and son alike), this is the discussion, the drive, the daring do-er that I want for them. Credit to Colleen for opening this window for them, teaching them that they can be whatever they want to be.

So how do these two events—Halloween and the PA Conference for Women—intersect to provide meaning? Having the imagination to dream big, to become what you want to be, to work together, to work hard and to have fun…these are all things that apply to little kids on Halloween and adults in our everyday personal development. Seeing my youngest daughter and my wife inspired by these lessons on back-to-back occasions was truly eye-opening.

What a great pair of days. My kids and my wife in their glory, doing what they love and growing as people. And when my family grows (intellectually and socially, that is…no more kids), so do I.

One of the downsides to big business is the inability to treat customers as individuals. People become collectives within demographics, as only scale moves the needle. This has a dark downside, masked as operational efficiency, which ignores the specific interests of any single customer. We’ve all been there.

Some companies have worked hard to prevent this. Starbucks, for example, is said to hire its baristas to preserve that one-to-one feeling and avoid the industrialization of the neighborhood coffee shop.

I recently stumbled across two great examples of big companies acting small. A few weeks ago I was in New York on business and visited the Park Avenue headquarters of JPMorgan Chase. Here’s a massive company that has gotten a lot of negative press recently for regulatory missteps, and I’ve experienced its big bank bureaucracy firsthand. However, as I approached the building on Park Avenue and braced for the sterile-but-necessary security admittance process, I received one of the warmest welcomes I’ve gotten anywhere, at any business. The gentleman monitoring the perimeter gates saw me coming, made eye contact, shook my hand, and proceeded to enthusiastically welcome me like I was their most important visitor of the day. “We are so glad you’re here today!” he told me. And on the way out, he again shook my hand, this time expressing gratitude for my visit, wishing me well and encouraging me to return. I was blown away. Huge company in the heart of Manhattan and one individual made a huge difference in the quality and feeling about my experience there that day.

Sometimes big companies are known for their emphasis on customer service, but they can still impress. Friday was my mother’s birthday, and we had a family dinner in the New York suburbs. My brother had purchased a gift for her online at Nordstrom and arranged for in-store pickup. He planned to take the train out from the city, swing by the store to get the gift, and then scoot over to his son’s soccer game. However, the store didn’t have the gift when he got there. At that point his options were limited, and all were suboptimal. Miss the soccer game? Not give the gift? As one might expect, Nordstrom tried to fix the situation, by calling around and even running over to check a competitor. But it was the next step that blew my brother away. While he went to the soccer game and then on to dinner, the customer service rep drove 30 miles in rush hour traffic to another store, got the gift, and then drove another 35 miles to the restaurant to hand deliver the gift in time for dinner. At dinner, instead of complaining about how Nordstrom’s cross-channel ordering system is screwed up, my brother raved about their service, and he’ll probably do so for the next week.

My wife runs a small online personalized baby gift company, Baby Be Hip. Great customer service is how her business differentiates itself from her big competitors. It’s one of the only ways a small company can out-maneuver a big one. But it’s equally possible for big companies to think small and make a huge impression. I love stories like these, because they put the customer first and illustrate an understanding—at least by the JPMorgan greeter and the Nordstrom customer service rep—that acting small and treating customers as individuals makes a big difference.

A big underlying principle in my life is incrementalism. I often explain this as the single footstep phenomenon, where putting one foot in front of the other over time covers a lot of ground. This is true literally…I run, and once in a while look over my shoulder and am surprised at the ground I’ve covered…as well as figuratively. Stringing school days together educates children. Stringing productive workdays together builds a successful career. Stringing workouts together creates fitness.

It’s important, however, to keep an eye on the big picture. This can be hard to do if you’ve always got your head down focusing on the task at hand. This is commonly known as “getting lost in the weeds”, and is usually followed by that “Oh crap, how did I end up over here” moment. The key is to pick up your head along the way once in a while to keep some context and gauge the appropriateness of your daily activities. If you see you’re off track, course correct and head in the right direction…before the cost of recovery is too high.

Yesterday we had a breakthrough course correction at Baby Be Hip, and it was awesome. Not so much realizing that we had been marching in the wrong direction (no one likes to waste effort or money, especially when we should have known better), but identifying the mistake and heading in the right direction was empowering. Now, with the help of a promising new partner (shout out to Mark Kennedy of SEOM Interactive, who is helping us pivot our search marketing strategy), we know we’ll be in a better position to increase our relevant traffic and drive more revenue.

Take a few moments this weekend or in the week ahead to make sure your daily activities are aligned with your bigger goals. If they are, forge ahead! If not, take the opportunity to redirect them so they point to your objective. While the winding road may be interesting, it is not the most efficient. After all, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

It’s Fathers’ Day, and I am waking up in the hospital with my daughter Ellie. Her roommate started fussing in his high-pitched voice around 5:30, which jolted my day into motion. It is only a matter of time before he wakes my daughter. My family will join us in a few hours, and we’ll celebrate by having brunch in the hospital cafeteria.

This isn’t the Fathers’ Day you seen in cards or on commercials, at least this part of the day. No breakfast in bed or golf here. Yesterday we heard an ad that said that Fathers’ Day is about sleeping in, good food, and family. I didn’t get to sleep in, and my breakfast will be institutional grade. But…my family will be awesome, and that part of the day started when I sat up and saw Ellie.

Ever since I became a dad, I’ve wrestled with what to do with Fathers’ Day. Is it a day for me, a “day off” when I can relax and do some of the things I’ve put off because I’ve been changing diapers and helping with homework and coaching youth sports? Or is it a day for the kids, an opportunity for me to show them how important they are by giving them my undivided attention for once? The yin-and-yang of the day has always made me a bit uncomfortable.

On this particular day, however, I begin the morning as the caring and responsible parent of a child in need. Granted, this is a role my wife plays regularly, and I am merely the weekend substitute. I take no special credit. But I do take great comfort in the notion that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing as a dad. I am being the best dad I can be, and that’s a great way to start Fathers’ Day. I can’t wait till she wakes up, looks over, sees me and smiles.

As our nation’s political leaders wrestle with our debt and deficit, and more immediately the looming fiscal cliff, we hear a lot of opinions about what to do with tax policy. Setting aside the debate on whether we should be raising taxes or cutting spending, nearly everyone agrees that our existing tax policy is a mess and needs to be “fixed”. Of course, opinions are all over the place with respect to the solution, i.e., what “fixing it” really means.

Happy New Year! Wishing everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous 2012.

Much like many other people, New Years Day is one of my favorite days of the year. I love the freshness that it introduces, the opportunity to reset the clock. While cynicism tends to reign as years wind down, optimism takes over on New Year Day and sticks around for a few weeks.

Over time, my New Years Day philosophy has evolved. I used to make resolutions, but it didn’t take long to realize that they are short-lived. I started making goals; instead of saying I’m going to do more of X or less of Y, I now say I’m going to accomplish Z. Then I just do what I have to do to accomplish it. Two years ago I resolved to work out more, but that was too wishy-washy. Last year I set the goal to work out 120 times in 2011, and I did 131 times. Setting goals works.

This year, I am taking it a step further. I have set new goals for 2012 (work out 150 times), but I am also deciding what I want the year to look like. At New Years, we are quick to judge the year gone by (it was a good one); I want to pre-judge the year ahead (it will be a great one).

We never truly know what’s in store for us, so we can’t accurately script the year ahead. But I am very excited to chart its course with a mixture of goals and attitude. I have a vision for where I want my life to go, I am determined to get there, and I couldn’t be more excited about it.

Decide what you want your year to look like next New Years, and make it happen. Carry the New Years optimism with you all year, and make the today’s hope your permanent reality.

I’ve generally had enough of the ubiquitous Steve Jobs worship over the past few weeks, but there was one quote of his that got my attention:

“A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. They don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions, without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better designs we will have.” ~ Wired, February, 1996

I think the quote comes to life through another quote of his, in reference to Bill Gates:

“I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.” ~ The New York Times, January 12, 1997

Upon reflection, I may be more Bill Gates-like than Steve Jobs-like (not a big surprise for those that know me). That doesn’t make my accomplishments any less worthwhile, but it can teach me something about myself. I’m a creature of habit, preferring familiar surroundings and circumstances to unfamiliar ones. As such, I probably tend to be less adventurous (and perhaps creative) than I otherwise might. And I’ve been okay with that, under the premise that I can have a perfectly happy and fulfilling existence and let my boundaries expand naturally on the margin.

Scottsdale, November 2009. Hiking Camelback Mountain was more impactful than sitting by the pool.

Lately, as I’ve become more aware of my own tendencies and confident in my own skin, I have attempted to push my boundaries a bit more aggressively. I’ve done this by taking on commitments that stretch my comfort zone, particularly in areas where I’d like to expand my skills and, well, comfort zone. Not by dropping acid or running off to an ashram, mind you, but trying new things related to my everyday life and raising the bar for myself.

Now, thanks to Jobs’ quote, I better understand the value in trying new things. It’s not in becoming something different, but in making the existing better. And that’s something I strive to do all the time.

Now, with greater awareness and purpose, I can make a conscious effort to add more dots to connect and broaden myself. Join me.