“You never know who you’ll run into.”
Marilyn was a vivacious blond that lived around the corner. True to her name, she was athletic, well-proportioned, and a woman of classic good looks who always appeared nicely attired and fashionably turned out. It was a time when sundresses were standard, yet she looked like she came out of the pages of a magazine.
One evening, a group of teenage girls had dinner at Marilyn’s. They worked up the courage to ask her for beauty advice. She gave them five simple steps and began by setting the stage:
“When you go out, even to the pharmacy or grocery, you…
When Lady Gaga’s French bulldogs were stolen, some saw it as the crime of the century. I think it’s the coming thing.
When a pair of thugs stole Lady Gaga’s French bulldogs, the world came to a stop. I thought it was coming to an end. In fact, it was a preview of a coming thing and it’s going to be big.
On a Wednesday evening, a dog walker walked the world’s most famous French bulldogs, Asia, Gustavo, and Koji. Two men driving a white Nissan Altima approached, according to LAPD’s Drake Madison.
By the way, when did cops starting having actor names?
According to the LAPD, “Two suspects exited a vehicle and demanded the dogwalker, Ryan Rischer, turn over the dogs…
1938 was not a very good year for Frank Sinatra. Three decades before releasing his hit song, That’s Life, the 23-year-old fell flat on his face. In time, he would pick himself up and get back in the race, but at that moment there were bigger things to attend to, like making bail. In November, the blue-eyed crooner spent the night in a squalid New Jersey jail cell after being charged with a serious violation.
The charge seems quaint by today’s standards. Sexual activity was a morality test in those days, not a multiple-choice exam as it is now. In…
The Habits and Habitats That Shape Our Destiny
The Decision Makers
Steve Jobs: Adios The Critics
The Apple founder warned, “don’t bring in the critics too early; they can be idea killers.”
The Scottish historian lost his life’s work. Then he discovered the power of resilience.
In 1859, Charles Dickens wrote the best-selling novel of all times, A Tale of Two Cities, with the opening line: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
Dickens may have been writing about 2021 when you read the next lines: “It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…”
We may hope Dickens was right, and…
“A mighty woman with a torch; her mild eyes command — give me your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
“A mighty woman with a torch; her mild eyes command — Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me!”
— Emma Lazarus, 1891 (Engraved on the Statue of Liberty)
Tired and Poor
In the summer of 1950, a young African American girl woke at 4 a.m. in Moultrie, Georgia. On nights when it rained, twelve-year-old Reatha Belle Clark would smile because she made $6 for picking 200 pounds of cotton, “The more it rained, the heavier the cotton and the more money I made.”
As Reatha Belle climbed into the back…
Queen Elizabeth II was having second thoughts about Brexit. She asked the most important question.
It was the summer of 2016, long before the American election, and the English-speaking peoples of Britain were engaged in a raucous debate over Brexit vs. Remain. Small stores and antiquaries along Portobello Road carried placards posted the shopkeeper’s preference. Simultaneously, London cabbies who know something about everything would happily give you the ‘full Monty’ if you asked (named after WWII Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery).
The Queen gathered together an elegant salon, as reported in Times of London, an inner circle of British nobility who knew their way around the economy and politics. Now those appetites were whetted for…
Jeffrey Immelt revealed the seven principles that he took from his experience running GE in the modern age in our interview.
1. Be Fast and Slow
“I think we used to think that if you had good leaders, you could be in any business. We want to have good leaders, but we actually believe that this deep domain expertise is also critically important for the future.”
Deep domain expertise can develop skills to take advantage of newer markets like crowdsourcing, AI-driven decision-making networked organizations.
2. Build The Company For Volatility
“When I took over GE, the biggest surprise was the world twisted from one of relatively benign growth to one of…
The GE maestro was the “Buddha” of business because he would take the underpinnings of organizational success and turn them into a mantra.
- Managers Muddle: The definition of leadership is to excite through an inspiring vision rather than enervate, depress, and control. Control, supervision, and bureaucracy kill the competitive spirit. “Weak managers are business killers, job killers. You can’t manage self-confidence into people, but you will be amazed by how much people do when they are not told what to do.”
- Leaders Simplify: Instead of KISS (keep it simple stupid), I believe in INSIST (if it’s not simple, it’s stupid). Have the courage to be as simple as Abraham Lincoln (“You can fool some of the people all of the time”). …
Cronkite called foul or fair regardless of whether JFK or Nixon threw the pitch.
Anchorman: The fastest runner on a relay team. The term was first used to describe Walter Cronkite’s role in CBS’ political convention coverage — when the PR department asked news producer Sig Mickelson “What’s Walter going to do?” He replied: “He is going to anchor for us.”
If your only memory of Walter Cronkite is an avuncular fellow with a trim mustache and a sonorous cadence (he spoke at a rate of 120 words per minute), you are missing quite a story.
The real Walter Cronkite recalls Winston Churchill’s resolute formula for victory: “I have nothing to offer but blood…
Jeff Cunningham
Author of “Be Somebody — Extraordinary Lives” (published 2021); 2019 Telly Award for Documentary @IconicVoices.tv; ex-publisher @Forbes
