Category Archives: It’s My Blog and I’ll Post What I Want To

The Importance of Diversification

The Importance of Diversification

The Importance of Diversification

Yesterday, I had a sobering telephone conversation with a prospect I called from my day job as an outside-sales-turned-inside-sales print consultant. That’s when I truly learned the importance of diversification.

He’s in the tourism industry. I recently started calling people in the tourism industry, offering them polycarbonate barriers and social distancing signage/supplies as they slowly reopen for business. This man was kind and gentle, but his view of the future was grim. He said, “Everyone is talking about how Alberta needs to diversify and stop focusing so much on oil and gas, which is true. But nobody in Banff realized the importance of diversification for us—becoming more than just a tourism town—until the day came when we had to lay off 85% of our workforce.”

One town. 85% of its workforce shut down due to this pandemic.

The Importance of Diversification

I’m one of the lucky ones. I remain the same workaholic I’ve been for the past several years—working seven days per week at full-time and part-time jobs while running my book publishing company. I’ve never been more grateful to have the continued privilege to work this hard.

Why do I have all these jobs? Well, as those closest to me are aware, I took around risk three years ago. I knowingly, purposefully went to the edge of the proverbial cliff. But before I could jump or fly or do anything of the sort, that cliff crumbled out from under me. I’ve been climbing back up ever since. My choice. I own it. Zero regrets about it. Learned a lot. Life goes on.

That fall forced me to find two jobs to supplement my book publishing business. Ever since then, I’ve worked weekends at London Drugs. And I work weekdays at Mountain View Printing. I’m fully diversified with these two “offline” jobs and my “online” book publishing work. So, I feel safer than most people feel right now. But that wasn’t always the case.

Forced Shut-Down

I remember the first day, back in March, when we were all told to stay home by our government. I felt shell-shocked. As a salesperson who is accustomed to driving all over the city, cold calling, and meeting in person with clients, I sat there with my phone in my hand, wondering how in the hell to make myself relevant. I can’t deliver anything. I can’t meet with anyone. And it’s socially unacceptable to try to sell anything right now. What am I supposed to do here? I felt scared.

I was unsure what to do, so I just started calling and emailing my clients to say, “Hey, I hope you’re okay. There’s another human being on the other side of this call who is going through this with you. I’m here if you want to talk.” The first day I did that, I received six replies saying, “THANK YOU. I NEEDED THAT.” That’s when I knew I was on the right track.

I’ve made anywhere from 35 to 50 phone calls and emails per day, every single day, since then. Thank God I have employers who immediately saw the value in that—and continue to see the value in me, my character, and my loyalty to both them and my customers. The owners of Mountain View Printing have had stresses of their own to deal with, but they’ve continued to show such patience with their staff. I have so much respect for them and appreciate that they’ve allowed me to blow off steam by sharing in the occasional social media comment/discussion in between calls. That’s how I manage stress; I exercise my brain by thinking out loud and debating with people.

We All Handle Stress Differently

My other job, at London Drugs, has taught me some interesting things about human nature. If you would have told me, three months ago, that I would one day be thanked and called a hero for showing up to work to ring through people’s toilet paper purchases, I would have laughed and called you nuts. But I get thanked and called a hero at least three times per weekend now. It’s downright bizarre.

What’s even more bizarre is all the different ways that people are handling this forced shut-down. I’ve seen people wearing full-on helmets with plastic facemasks standing two meters away from someone in flip flops and shorts. Some wear gloves. Others don’t. Some people are terrified. Others think the whole thing is ridiculous. Every single one of them thanks me for being there for them—which is laughable considering that, just three months ago, many of them were downright rude to retail people. They saw us as somehow below them. Now we’re all gods and goddesses to them. It’s so bizarre.

To those of you who have felt afraid for your health, I have compassion for you. I also ask that you have compassion for the people around you in these stores. Some of you have yelled at other people for not standing far enough away from you. You’ve criticized the clerks in front of you for not wearing masks, or not changing their gloves after every damn order, et cetera. STOP! Please understand that some of the people who are working there are just as afraid as you are, but they must be there. They don’t have a choice because that job is their only livelihood. You, on the other hand, have a choice. You don’t have to be there. So, if you’re that bothered by what you see around you, please leave.

London Drugs is a phenomenal employer and retailer that has been so patient with both staff and customers during this entire time. This company does its best to accommodate everyone while respecting the protocols the government has set forth for everyone.

Respecting Government Protocols

As for me, I have also done my best to respect these protocols … even though I have questioned most of them right from day one, and still do. I personally agree with Sweden’s handling of this coronavirus. Still, for the past three months, I’ve done nothing but go to work, come home, work from home, go to work, come home, work from home. I buy as many of my groceries from London Drugs as I can to avoid going into the large grocery stores too often. I wear gloves when I’m serving customers, and I spray hand sanitizer on those gloves quite often each hour. I don’t wear a mask. We couldn’t get them for such a long time that we learned how to manage at London Drugs without them. We have those polycarbonate barriers up between us and customers, anyway, so I hope that makes people feel safer.

What I’ve truly learned from this whole pandemic is the importance of diversification. Thank God I’m fully diversified in all that I do. I wear many hats—both online and offline—so I’ll always have work. I never realized just how lucky I am until I talked to that gentleman in Banff yesterday. He’s genuinely frightened for his family’s future.

You might consider syndicating this content on your own blog. If you do, make sure to attribute the original source so neither of us gets dinged on the SEO front. You can do that by including this line at the bottom of the article: This content first appeared on the PPG Publisher’s Blog and has been republished here with permission.
As a user of this website, you are authorized only to view, copy, print, and distribute the documents on this website so long as: one (1) the document is used for informational purposes only; and two (2) any copy of the document (or portion thereof) includes the following copyright notice: Copyright © 2020 Polished Publishing Group (PPG). All rights reserved.




Workplace PTSD Awareness Deserves its Own Week

Workplace PTSD Awareness

Workplace PTSD Awareness

Why would I write a piece about workplace PTSD in November? After all, I’m one month late for Healthy Workplace Month in Canada. I’m six months late for Mental Health Month in America. And the month of June, when Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) awareness is highlighted for both countries, has long passed. Well, I’m writing this because of the current economic conditions where I live. Recent layoffs, and threats of more to come, are a prime trigger for PTSD. It’s a conversation we all need to have, to help each other through these times. In fact, I think “Workplace PTSD Awareness” deserves its own special week of recognition.

How Shareholder Primacy Compounds Workplace PTSD

The Oxford dictionary defines Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as “a condition of persistent mental and emotional stress occurring as a result of injury or severe psychological shock.” Most of us imagine soldiers and first responders when we think about people who may suffer from PTSD. The truth is, this condition is far more common in corporate workplaces than many would like to admit. I believe shareholder primacy not only compounds it; it is one of the primary causes of it.

…The idea that businesses exist primarily to benefit shareholders — also known as shareholder primacy — took hold in corporate America in the 1980s. In 1997, the Business Roundtable embraced the idea in a document outlining governance principles.

The concept has been criticized for leading to a fixation on short-term results and helping fuel the rapid increase in executive pay. (Bloomberg, August 2019)

My parents’ generation had more job security than my generation (and younger ones) have ever known. Long gone are the days when anyone got a job out of school and grew with one company through to retirement. I graduated from high school in 1989 and business college in 1993. I’ve only worked under this shareholder primacy ideology; it’s all I’ve ever known. For 25+ years, I’ve experienced the constant stress and uncertainty caused by corporate buyouts, restructuring, and the inevitable resulting lay offs at pretty much every company I’ve worked for. Everyone I know has experienced the same. It’s commonplace now. But that doesn’t make it any easier on the human psyche.

Workplace PTSD and the Constant Fight-or-Flight Response

I got my start in newspaper advertising years ago after Conrad Black’s Hollinger Inc. took ownership of all the daily newspapers across Canada. I can still recall hearing about the day he arranged for Saskatoon StarPhoenix staff members to meet at a nearby hotel. They were divided into three groups and herded like cattle into different conference rooms, so the story goes. One of those groups (approximately 80 people) lost their jobs that day and were forbidden from re-entering the business premises again; their personal belongings would be couriered to them. The others were told that 80 of their friends had lost their jobs that day. Then they were sent back to work. Conrad Black ripped the proverbial Band-Aid off, decisively cut costs, then brought in fresh (e.g., younger, cheaper) labour like me two months later.

Workplace PTSD Awareness

Workplace PTSD Awareness

That sounds like a cruel and insensitive form of shareholder primacy, doesn’t it? Maybe. I’ve experienced the opposite extreme where, one by one, over a period of several months, my colleagues received The Call from Human Resources. Some companies preferred to do that on Wednesdays; others did it on Fridays. If our phones rang on those particular days, all our hearts would skip a beat. We all lived in constant fight-or-flight response which is both mentally and physically exhausting: “Who’s next? When will it happen?” Personally, I prefer Conrad’s “rip the Band-Aid off” form of psychological shock.

I’ve been the person walked out that door. And I’ve also been the one called into the meeting room and told my friend was just walked out that door. As a matter of fact, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve experienced this kind of trauma during my career. I’m somewhat desensitized by it all now. I suppose that’s a survival mechanism.

Here’s the Good News

The world seems to be shifting now. I see our collective priorities changing in so many ways, and I think this is a good thing. I was thrilled to read the following article earlier this year, and I sincerely hope it comes to pass:

Jamie Dimon and dozens of other leaders at some of the world’s largest companies—including United CEO Oscar Munoz, Abbott CEO Miles White and Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg—said they plan to abandon the long-held view that shareholders’ interests should come first.

The purpose of a corporation is to serve all of its constituents, including employees, customers, investors and society at large, the Business Roundtable said Monday in a statement. (Bloomberg, August 2019)

Husky Oil laid off hundreds of people this past month. Encana is moving its head office from Calgary to Denver which will, no doubt, result in more layoffs there. Our premiere, Jason Kenney, unveiled Alberta’s new budget which will result in “the elimination of more than 2,000 public-sector jobs” over the next four years. The list goes on, and I feel for every single person who is affected by these latest cuts. I honestly feel your pain, because I’ve been in your position before.

I hope you nurture your mental health at this difficult time and never take what is happening around you personally. In reality, it has nothing to do with you. Our world is in flux, trying to redefine its priorities and figure out how exactly to “serve all of its constituents, including employees, customers, investors and society at large.” It’s one thing to say this change should happen, but an entirely different thing to actually do it.

Hang in there. Have hope that it will someday happen.

Related reading:
On Failure and Faith

You might consider syndicating this content on your own blog. If you do, make sure to attribute the original source so neither of us gets dinged on the SEO front. You can do that by including this line at the bottom of the article: This content first appeared on the PPG Publisher’s Blog and has been republished here with permission.
As a user of this website, you are authorized only to view, copy, print, and distribute the documents on this website so long as: one (1) the document is used for informational purposes only; and two (2) any copy of the document (or portion thereof) includes the following copyright notice: Copyright © 2019 Polished Publishing Group (PPG). All rights reserved.




When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]

When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]

When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]

As America’s National Bullying Prevention Month comes to a close, I find myself wondering why a recent Forbes article reports that workplace bullying is on the rise. With all the knowledge we now have about the effects of bullying on people’s mental health, and all the resources at our disposal to effectively deal with it, how can this be? Perhaps, we have yet to clearly define one very important detail: when is it business and when is it bullying?

You might think bullying is something that only children have to worry about. And with all the media attention, you might even think it’s a behavior that has waned. But let’s look at the alarming statistics. An older 2008 poll on workplace bullying found that 75% of employees reported being affected as either a target or witness. And a new 2019 Monster.com survey out this month found that nearly 94% out of 2081 employees said they had been bullied in the workplace. That’s a huge increase (19%) in the last eleven years. (Forbes, Bryan Robinson, October 2019)

Robinson encourages people to speak up and act immediately. He even lists which actions to take to protect oneself and others. But what if a corporation’s success ideology inadvertently supports bullying behaviours? Then those actions will fall on deaf ears time and again, won’t they?

When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]

When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]

When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]

Interviews with Dr. Robert (Bob) Hare and Dr. Paul Babiak, who co-authored Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work, provide some serious food for thought. These gentlemen estimate that from one to two percent of the general population is psychopathic in nature. Alarmingly, they find an even higher population of psychopathy within corporate environments:

“And what we find, surprisingly, was that there was a rate of 3.9% in that population of individuals that had scored high enough on the psychopathy checklist that they had hit the mark for being assessed as a psychopath.” (CBC Docs, Dr. Paul Babiak, September 2018)

What is this psychopathy checklist that Paul Babiak speaks of? It was created by his Canadian co-author, Bob Hare—a forensic psychologist touted as being “the godfather of psychopathy” by courts and law enforcement agencies the world over. Both Hare and Babiak consider psychopaths to be society’s most dangerous individuals. This is not only because they behave like predators at the top of the food chain. It is also because they are clever chameleons who can appear normal to the rest of us. With their severe emotional detachment to anything coupled with a lack of remorse, it is easy to see how these pathological liars can infect a workplace.

Did Bank Executives Use the Psychopathy Checklist to Recruit Employees?

Bullying is traumatic. When a trauma happens in your personal life, people rally around you to help you heal. Unfortunately, more often than not, when it happens in a corporate environment, you’re expected to just get over it and get on with it. You can clearly see this mentality in a 2018 CBC Go Public article about banking employees who complained to the media about chronic bullying in their workplaces. After completing an investigation of the bullying allegations, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) deputy commissioner, Brigitte Goulard, had this to say:

“The bank environment is a sales environment. … If you’re not a salesperson, perhaps working in a bank is not for you.” (CBC Go Public, Brigitte Goulard, April 2018)

According to Clive Boddy, a Professor of Leadership & Organizational Behaviour, this attitude is common within the financial sector. In fact, some bank executives took it a frightening step further a while back.

When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]

When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]

“Modern business is a perfect environment for [psychopaths] because it enables them to achieve the desires that they want in terms of money, in terms of controlling other people, in terms of gaining power and prestige, of course.” British professor and author, Clive Boddy, believes psychopathic behaviour was largely responsible for the global financial crisis. … Boddy says investment deals were so complex, even the brokers didn’t understand them. “You ask yourself: what kind of people would sell a product that they don’t understand and can’t properly price? You’d have to be without conscience—wouldn’t you?—to sell that kind of thing.”

…And Clive Boddy saw it all coming. A few years before the financial collapse, he began hearing that some bank executives went so far as to use Bob Hare’s psychopath checklist to recruit employees. “Presumably, that was because they thought those new employees would be cutthroat and ruthless towards their competitors. The danger, of course, is that they are cutthroat and ruthless towards the bank that employs them, as well. It’s like saying criminals are good at guarding Fort Knox, guarding the gold, guarding the crown jewels. The outcome would be inevitable. The gold would go missing. The jewels would be stolen. … If the system has been corrupted by the presence of corporate psychopaths, then the best thing to do is to get those people out of there rather than hope that the problem will go away on its own. Because it won’t.” (CBC Docs, Clive Boddy, September 2018)

Clearly, we all need to take a pause and rethink our society’s success ideology. When is it business and when is it bullying? And who exactly should be calling those shots in the workplace?

Workplace Bullying Can Affect the Bottom Line

For those who value money and power above all else—who are not swayed by the plight of others who are bullied in the workplace—I will appeal to your thinking from a different angle. When you place economy ahead of integrity, that economy will only sustain itself for so long. Employees and the public will begin to see through the deception. They’ll start complaining. First in small numbers. Then those numbers will grow larger and larger until a domino effect takes place that ultimately causes a recession … possibly even another stock market crash.

You need to care for the mental and physical health of your people first. Then they will take care of you.

Related reading:
On Failure and Faith

You might consider syndicating this content on your own blog. If you do, make sure to attribute the original source so neither of us gets dinged on the SEO front. You can do that by including this line at the bottom of the article: This content first appeared on the PPG Publisher’s Blog and has been republished here with permission.
As a user of this website, you are authorized only to view, copy, print, and distribute the documents on this website so long as: one (1) the document is used for informational purposes only; and two (2) any copy of the document (or portion thereof) includes the following copyright notice: Copyright © 2019 Polished Publishing Group (PPG). All rights reserved.




Why is Sharing Failure More Powerful than Sharing Success?

Why is sharing failure more powerful than sharing success? Because sometimes you win, and sometimes you learn.

Why is sharing failure more powerful than sharing success? Because sometimes you win, and sometimes you learn.

One of my most cherished mentors from afar is a beautiful soul named Lisa Nichols. She is a captivating public speaker who openly shares her life story with others in all its darkness and light. Why is sharing failure more powerful than sharing success? Because, in doing so, we can all reach a higher level of freedom and healing.

The benefit for the sharer is that you have “nothing left to protect, prove, hide, or defend” (as Lisa says) once it’s all out in the open; you’re free. The benefit for the receiver is being able to see another person’s humanity; seeing how that person gets back up after falling. We all need someone to show us how to get back up again, because we all fall from time to time.

Why is Sharing Failure More Powerful than Sharing Success?

I’m sure Lisa will be fine if I share this small portion of an inspirational speech she gave at a Mindvalley conference not long ago. Her presentation, titled “Step Into Your Life Purpose,” provides a glimpse of just how powerful it can be to share one’s humanity with others.

The first thing to know is when you’re out of congruency with who you’re designed to be. That’s the first thing. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t hide it. Don’t shy from it. Just step into that truth. That truth is sexy. Because it will make you do something you never thought you would do. It will make you get radical.
And I sat there with my son, not having food, eating beanies and weenies six days a week … I was so broke and broken. His father had just gone to prison. And, all of a sudden, my worst nightmare had come true.
I had made a commitment, being born and raised in South Central L.A., raised between the Harlem Crips 30s and the Rollin 60s—those are not cheerleading squads, y’all—that I wouldn’t engage on any level. I wasn’t available on any level for any gang activity, for anything criminal, because I would never be connected with jail. That’s just not my thing. I knew, early on, that’s just not my destiny. So, when my girl friends and my best friends started dating the neighbourhood thugs, “I’ll pass. I’m going to the library. I’m not participating. I don’t know where I’ll end up, but I know I won’t stay here.”
And so, I planned all this. I got out. I was an athlete. I was an all-American athlete. I held the record for the 330 low hurdles for 18 years after I graduated. My head was down. I was MVP all three years of high school. I was focused. I got out. I got out.
And then, all of a sudden, the man that I met at 27—beautiful soul, brilliant soul—just still had that hustle in him. And I’m not mad about a little hustle, but it can’t manage your integrity. And, for him, it just got the best of him. And I got the call. I said, “Hello?”
He said, “Lisa.”
I said, “Yes?”
He said, “I’m in jail.”
And my heart dropped. I’m 28. I had just given birth to his child. And now I’m linked to the very thing I tried to avoid for so long.
I’m sharing with you my story so you can validate and level set your story. Because I look up, and I say, “Wow, I’m working on my seventh best seller, I’ve had great conversations with Oprah and Larry King and The Today Show, and I’ve built a multi-million-dollar business, and my company’s gone public.” And it doesn’t change my story.
And now I realize that I used my story as my fuel, not my fortress. My story wasn’t my, “I get to be successful in spite of.” My story was my “because of.” It’s because of.
And so, I remember sitting on my couch going, “Oh, my God. My very thing I tried to avoid—my nightmare—is my truth.” And for years, eight years, I never mentioned where my son’s father was. I denied that he even existed. I wouldn’t talk about him. You couldn’t talk about him. … I walked around with this baggage on me, this story that if I spoke too loudly and let my light shine too brightly, then the light’s going to shine on him, too. And everyone’s going to know my connection.
…Yours is going to be different. But we’ve all got this chatter. … That was just my chatter. And I would be remiss if I didn’t share my chatter with you before I share with you how to get to an abundant life. You’ve got to know the depth that I come from. (Mindvalley, 2016)
Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.

Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.

That is so powerful. Don’t you feel that much more motivated after learning the depths Lisa rose from to reach her current level of success? Why is sharing failure more powerful than sharing success? Because it touches our hearts and shows us just what the human spirit is capable of. That’s where true inspiration lives—in rising up from failure, especially when all the odds are stacked against you.

During this same speech, Lisa talks about how abundant thinkers still fail like everyone else does; they just fail forward. They take the lessons from their failures and continue onward with persistence. Abundant thinkers leave everything that no longer serves them behind. They leave it in the past where it belongs.

But they’re also unafraid to share it. They live to serve others. If it will help you, they’ll share it.

The Importance of Persistence in Overcoming Failures

Napoleon Hill and Earl Nightingale are two more of my mentors from afar. I highly recommend listening to “Napoleon Hill’s Think & Grow Rich Condensed and Narrated by Earl Nightingale” in which the 13 proven steps to riches are discussed—”riches” being defined as “whatever it is that you want.” Persistence is listed as the eighth proven success principle.

Why is persistence so important along the pathway to success? Because you’re guaranteed to fail along the way. Failure is not the opposite of success. In fact, it is a natural part of success. So, expect it. Embrace it. Learn from it. Grow from it.

Napoleon Hill defines persistence as the power of will. Willpower and desire, when properly combined, make an irresistible pair. Persistence, to an individual, is what carbon is to steel.
In uncounted thousands of cases, persistence has stood as the difference between success and failure. It is this quality, more than any other, that keeps the majority from great accomplishment. They’ll try a thing. But, as soon as the going gets tough, they fold. Experience with thousands of people has proved that lack of persistence is a weakness common to the majority of men. It is a weakness which may be overcome by effort. If you are to accomplish the desire you set for yourself, you must form the habit of persistence.
Things will get dark. It will seem as though there is no longer any reason to continue. Everything in you will tell you to give up, to quit trying. And it’s right here that the men are separated from the boys. It’s right here that, if you’ll go that extra mile, and keep going, that the skies will clear. And you’ll begin to see the first signs of the abundance that is to be yours because you had the courage to persist. With persistence will come success. (Success Consciousness, 2017)

You may look at successful leaders in society and think they’ve had life easier than you. Or you may think they’re somehow different from you, smarter than you … better than you. That’s simply untrue. One need only read a recent article by Jeff Rose in Forbes magazine, titled “9 Famous People That Went Bankrupt Before They Were Rich,” to see that each of these leaders had to develop the habit of persistence to overcome some pretty major obstacles in their lives.

Why is sharing failure more powerful than sharing success? Because knowing that it’s possible to become one of the most beloved Presidents of the United States, even after experiencing repeated failures, is impactful. Learning that some of the public figures you admire most came back even stronger—even better—after experiencing failure, is energizing. It makes you want to try even harder in your own life, doesn’t it? It gives you hope that you can succeed, too, no matter where you’re starting from now.

There is Never Any Shame in Sharing Your Failures with Others

Failure is not the opposite of success. It is part of success.

Failure is not the opposite of success. It is part of success.

Whatever your faith, this story will inspire (and challenge) you to look at failure in a new way. It may even empower you to take the reins in your own life and go public like others have before you.

Why is sharing failure more powerful than sharing success? Because society can learn far more from your failures than they’ll ever learn from your successes. You may even help others to avoid some of the pitfalls you encountered along the way. And maybe you’ll change a small part of the world for the better in the process.

The corporate world seems to teach us that failure is something to be avoided. Sales managers implement performance improvement plans (PIPs) that are designed to shame those who fall behind. Investors will only look at startup founders who repeat the axiom, “Success is the only option!” and hastily discard the rest.

Maybe a more empowering alternative to this Darwinian “survival of the fittest” mentality is instead empowering and lifting each other up. Perhaps, we should invest our time and energies into those who share triumphant stories of how they climbed back up from the depths of despair. The truth is, there’s never any shame in sharing your failures with others. The only shame is in staying down after you’ve fallen.

Related reading:
On Failure and Faith

You might consider syndicating this content on your own blog. If you do, make sure to attribute the original source so neither of us gets dinged on the SEO front. You can do that by including this line at the bottom of the article: This content first appeared on the PPG Publisher’s Blog and has been republished here with permission.
As a user of this website, you are authorized only to view, copy, print, and distribute the documents on this website so long as: one (1) the document is used for informational purposes only; and two (2) any copy of the document (or portion thereof) includes the following copyright notice: Copyright © 2019 Polished Publishing Group (PPG). All rights reserved.