• Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what it is that drives some people to take consistent action and other people to do nothing. Many of you already know this, but for me, I’m driven by my personal script. While there is no doubt that “my script” is the driving force in… [Continue Reading]

    The Thing That You Should Value Most

  • On New Year’s Eve as I was lying in bed with my wife waiting for the ball to drop in Times Square, I silently asked myself a question that will undoubtedly shape my entire year, if not, my entire life. “If there is one thing that I would change in the world in 2013, what… [Continue Reading]

    Rise of the Nice Guy

  • There is nothing more important in the world than this. When you’re done reading this post, I’m confident that you’ll agree with me. Your happiness, success, your health, the job of your dreams, inner peace, true love, even your sanity depends solely on this one thing. It’s called the slash, and you cannot live another… [Continue Reading]

    After the Slash

  • I should have known better. As a corporate trainer, I have had the joy of training thousands of front line employees on how to become the best customer service professional possible. Nothing brings me more professional satisfaction than providing people with the skills and knowledge to not only make their jobs easier, but much more… [Continue Reading]

    The 21 Inescapable Laws of Customer Epicness
May 20, 2013 by 12 Awesome Responses

Addition By Subtraction

Sometimes, it's best to walk away.

Sometimes, it’s best to walk away.

Have you ever dealt with a difficult person before?

Silly question, right? Of course you have.

I bet that it wasn’t a lot of fun, was it?

I believe that one of the hardest things that we have to endure in our lives is dealing with difficult people. In fact, it’s so tough that I even wrote a free guide to help you navigate through the challenges of it.

In this post, I’m going to take it a step further.

Specifically, I’m going to talk about the people who are, without a doubt, the worst of the worst. While it’s true that difficult people are fairly common, these people are thankfully very rare.

I’m talking about toxic people.

These folks are dangerous and have the power to destroy your life if they are not dealt with swiftly.

The only way to deal with these people is to fully embrace the “addition by subtraction” philosophy.

I can promise you that using this technique when it comes to dealing with toxic people will positively change your life in ways that you wouldn’t even imagine. Continue reading…

Filed Under: Inspiration Tagged With:
May 6, 2013 by 33 Awesome Responses

A New Reality

The face says it all.

The face says it all.

Eight months.

Believe it or not, it has been 8 months since I launched Cubepiphany. Even saying that sounds strange, because it honestly feels like this blog has been a part of my life forever.

In a sense, it has.

The dream to make our workplaces (actually, our lives) more enjoyable and more positive has been a burning passion of mine ever since I was a teenager.

I’m currently 38 years old, so that means that I’ve had the same dream floating around in my brain for over 20 years.

That’s a long time.

Eight months ago, after years and years of just thinking about my lifelong dream, I finally decided to do something about it by launching the blog that you’re currently reading now.

Ever since I hesitantly hit the “Publish” button on Cubepiphany for the very first time 8 months ago, a lot of amazing things have happened in my life.

I’ve connected with people from all over the world.

I’ve made new and incredible friends.

I’ve gone to bed every night with a feeling that I’m making a difference.

Most of all, I confirmed to myself that this dream of mine isn’t a hobby, a passing fad, or a cool way to pass the time until I find something else interesting to do.

Without a shadow of a doubt, I have realized that this is how I plan to spend the rest of my life until the day that I die.

Because of this realization, I’ve also realized over the past few weeks that I need to do something very important.

It’s actually something that I should have done a long time ago.

It’s time for me to officially end Cubepiphany, forever. Continue reading…

Filed Under: Other Stuff
April 29, 2013 by 7 Awesome Responses

What’s Really Important

What's really important to you?

What’s really important to you?

I know of quite a few coworkers, friends, and family members who usually respond to the “hey, how are you doing?” question in the same, predictable manner:

“Man, I’m SO busy.”

“Ugh, I’m busy as hell.”

“I’ve never been so busy in my life.”

Busy.

It’s almost as if that word carries with it some invisible street cred. I personally know of quite a few people who proudly rock “busy” as a shiny badge of honor.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing impressive about being “busy.”

We all know of at least one “busy” person in our lives who is always running around doing something, but in reality, he/she isn’t accomplishing a damn thing.

That’s because proudly saying that we’re busy all the time doesn’t mean that we’re actually doing anything important.

So, let’s start here with that critical word.

Important.

What is important, anyway?

Let’s be real, there is not one person reading these words who doesn’t have stuff to do–and a lot of it is very important.

It’s important to go to work in order to keep a roof over our heads and food on our plates.

It’s important to finish that proposal before the boss gets back into town next Monday.

It’s important to clean the house before our in-laws arrive this weekend.

I won’t argue that those things are important, but I will argue that there are other things in our lives that are equally as important, if not, much more so.

And sadly, sometimes we use “busy” as an excuse to put off those things.

For example:

Our kids tug on our shirt and excitedly ask us to play catch outside or play dress-up, but we’re too busy cleaning the house, cooking food, or writing blog posts (I’ll give you one guess who that last point was directed toward) to take the time to play with them.

Our significant other wants to have a meaningful conversation with us, but we’re too busy swiping through our iPhones or catching up on our favorite TV show to pay them our full attention.

Our parents haven’t heard from us in weeks, but we’re too busy with our daily lives to pick up the phone and give them a call.

Our friends have been trying to get us to go out for drinks for months, but we keep blowing them off because we’re too busy with all of the work that needs to be done at the office.

I’m going to challenge you in this post to deeply think about the following question:

Why is it more important to clean the house, write a blog post, or stay late at the office than it is to make genuine connections with the people in our lives who matter the most to us?

Tough question, isn’t it?

Or is it?

Either way, it may be time for all of us to re-evaluate what’s really important in our lives. Continue reading…

Filed Under: Inspiration
April 22, 2013 by 15 Awesome Responses

Guest Post: You Are Not Crazy For Wanting More

[Shola's note: Man, do I have an extra special treat for all of you! This week's post is written by the insanely fabulous Kelly Gurnett, founder of one of my all-time favorite blogs, Cordelia Calls It Quits. If you have never heard of Kelly before (first of all, where have you been?), it's time for you to get familiar with her awesomeness. So, without further ado, buckle up and prepare for some of her signature ass-kicking goodness. Here's Kelly!]

Why settle?

Why settle?

No one likes their job.

Be thankful at least you have a job.

Suck it up. We’re all unhappy. That’s life. 

Funny how standards change when it comes to the thing we do for the majority of our waking adult hours.

If you were in a miserable marriage, full of resentment and hate and irreconcilable differences, how many of your friends and loved ones would tell you, “No one likes their spouse. Be thankful at least you have a spouse. We’re all miserable in our marriages—what makes you think you’re so special?”

If our friends and loved ones said those things to us even once after we admitted how unhappy we were—let alone saying them over and over until we finally learned to keep our complaints to ourselves—how many of them would we still consider friends and loved ones? (Or, better question, how many of them would we turn right around to and express concern over their own apparently awful circumstances?) Continue reading…

Filed Under: Guest Posts, Inspiration Tagged With:
April 15, 2013 by 18 Awesome Responses

Never Too Late

Think that your time is up? Think again.

Think that your time is up? Think again.

“It’s always too early to decide that it’s too late.”

I read that quote a few days ago on the Facebook page of one of my favorite blogs, and ever since then, I cannot stop thinking about it.

In life, it is far too common for people to believe deeply in the myth of “too late.” Maybe you’ve believed in it too. I know that I used to believe in it at one time.

Be honest with yourself, have you ever said or thought any of the following things?

It’s too late to completely change careers.

It’s too late to start a new diet and/or exercise program.

It’s too late to fix my credit.

It’s too late to get a college degree.

It’s too late to tell (insert person here) that I’m sorry.

It’s too late to write a book.

It’s too late to find true love.

It’s too late to move to a new city with warmer weather.

It’s too late to learn a foreign language.

It’s too late to start my own business and be my own boss.

It’s too late for me to be a better mother/father to my kids.

It’s too late to stand up to my coworker who is making my work life a living hell.

It’s too late to leave my significant other.

It’s too late to travel the world.

It’s too late to make any meaningful changes in my life.

It’s too late to have a bigger impact on the world.

It’s too late to be happy.

If so, stop it.

It is never too late for you.

In the words below, it’s my hope that you’ll see exactly why that is true. Continue reading…

Filed Under: Inspiration Tagged With:
April 8, 2013 by 13 Awesome Responses

Defending Optimism

This poor guy is totally misunderstood.

This poor guy is totally misunderstood.

Last week for April Fool’s Day, I wrote a blog post about how I was choosing to embrace a lifestyle of pessimism and misery over optimism and positivity, and surprisingly, I was able to “fool” quite a few of you guys (yes, I’m still shocked that I was able to pull that one off!)

But before we move onto our regularly scheduled goodness, I have to revisit last week’s April Fool’s post for a minute.

While it was definitely unexpected and cool that I was able to temporarily “fool” so many people last week with my April Fool’s prank, something else happened last week that was far more unexpected and far less cool, too.

Believe it or not, I actually had quite a few people come out to support the “fake me” that was in the first 2/3 of last week’s post.

Yes, seriously.

In the past week, I’ve heard everything from “you were right the first time–optimism and positivity will only end up getting us hurt in the real world,” all the way to my personal favorite, “what is so bad about always expecting the absolute worst outcome? I do that all of the time to protect myself from getting disappointed.”

In case you were wondering, there wasn’t any April-foolin’ going on during those conversations–they were dead serious.

I guess that now would be a good time to address this issue head on. And to be honest, I’m very happy to do it because I get to talk about my favorite topic in the whole wide world:

Optimism.

Or more specifically, the defense of optimism. Continue reading…

Filed Under: Inspiration Tagged With:
« Older Posts