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This is the third installment in our series on Being Proactive. If you missed the previous two, I encourage you to go back and read them — they set the foundation for everything we’ll talk about today.

If you are a salesperson in a showroom (retail or trade), or if you manage one, it’s likely that you rely heavily on incoming opportunities — traffic — for new business. That’s understandable.

It’s also understandable that you may consider your greatest competitors to be other showrooms offering…

This is the second installment in our December series on Being Proactive. In the first newsletter, we defined proactive as taking responsibility for one’s own life — and all the elements that come with it.
Now, let’s go a little deeper into what it looks like in practice.

We often hear being proactive used interchangeably with taking initiative, which is accurate — even if it’s not the full definition.

Consider the many ways initiative shows up:

• Creating instead of waiting
• Going after what …

This is the first in our December series on Being Proactive. Before we talk about actions, habits, or outreach, it’s helpful to revisit a term that’s become so commonplace — maybe even overused — that we’ve lost some of its power.

Stephen R. Covey introduced “proactive” in Habit 1 of his landmark book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He wrote that human beings are responsible for their own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate fee…

This is the final post in our month of gratitude… in the last week of the month… before the last month of this year.

A Season of Reflection

I am grateful for both the common and the extraordinary gifts in my life — for the work I do and for the clients who trust me to do it. I am grateful for the life that this work affords me, for the opportunities it supports, and for the ability to share what I learn with others walking their own path.

I am grateful for where our paths merge — and for wher…

Every month, I look forward to gathering for the Sales BE Series. These sessions always ground me, and our November conversation on gratitude did exactly that. What began as a seasonal topic quickly opened into a deeper discussion about presence, appreciation, team culture, and the small habits that shape our daily work.

I started by admitting that my own gratitude practice had slipped this year. I wasn’t as present or patient as usual, and I could feel it. At a friend’s suggestion, I picked up…

This is the third post about gratitude and intentionally bringing it into your life. So far, we’ve explored gratitude as a practice and as a presence. Now, let’s look at how gratitude lives in relationship — how we share it.

Gratitude in Connection

Take a moment and consider these questions:

• How does gratitude show up in your life with others?
• Do you express it to the people you’re grateful to have in your world?
• Do you share your gratitude with clients, colleagues, and associates for wha…

This is the second post on gratitude. The first was about gratitude as a practice—something we do intentionally and regularly. This one is about gratitude as a presence—something we feel and embody in the moment.

Gratitude in the Present Moment

I am grateful now… in this moment as I write this.
Grateful for the ability to write.
Grateful for thoughts that inspire me.
Grateful for a keyboard that lets those thoughts flow.

I am grateful for all that comes into my life—what makes it easier, more jo…

How will you measure your improvement?

This is the last post in the BE Series on BEing Skillful.

Now that you are a month into this new habit and practice, pause and ask yourself: how are you doing? Where have you moved the needle the most?

Reflect on what you’ve learned—not just about the skill itself, but about the process of BEing skillful. How are you more capable today than when you started? What can you do now that surprises you?

And if you didn’t achieve what you set out to by now, th…

When can you practice—and with whom?

This is the fourth post in the BE Series on BEing Skillful.

It’s hard to practice alone, isn’t it?

Sometimes we avoid asking someone to practice with us because we’re not yet as good at the new skill as we want to be. We worry about looking bad or foolish. But remember—everyone who is now good at the skill you’re working on was once a beginner. Chances are, they’ll be charmed and even honored that you asked them to join you. They might even offer insights …

Which skills need more practice?

This is the third article in the BE Series on BEing Skillful.

Since we’ve been exploring this topic for a couple of weeks now, you probably have some evidence of what’s working—and what’s not working as well as you’d hoped. Maybe you set aside time each week to practice. Maybe you even scheduled it. And maybe you thought you’d be further along by now.

As we’ve discussed before, the only thing that produces results is action. And action can be split into two ca…