Ok, it might not be the travel that has improved it, but being stuck on a plane for 12 hours certainly allows time to focus. The task for Day 11 of "31 days to build a better blog" is to prepare 10 blog posts for use in the future, when time or imagination are working against you. So here is what I did # 1. First I took the trusty Moleskine notebook that @PJ_Danny gave me for Christmas and at the top left of each opening wrote a blog topic. I set myself the challenge of doing 40 and kept at that one task until I had 40 openings with a blog topic on each. #2. Next I went through, and on each opening To View More >>

If I go out for dinner and people ask me what I do, and I say, "We make photo albums", I swear their eyes glaze over and you see them searching for the door. After a little conversation, however, people are often fascinated. Ours is a successful comany in an exciting industry ... we see people on the happiest day of their life ... see what spending $100k on a wedding is like ... see guests at weddings like Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker ... make albums for princes and princesses, sheiks and other famous people. We work with incredibly talented and creative people. I think mine is a To View More >>

There is a saying "Get in Line, Stay in Line", basically it means if your start something keep at it until the end. Some people however give up just before the finish line. Below I share what we can learn from Kids when it comes to persistence in negotiation, once you start don't stop. Does No really mean no? Some children left to their own free will, can out last an adult in a verbal argument or negotiation. Kids are built with the extraordinary ability to stay focused on the goal and be so much more persistent than we can be bothered being. This hyper negotiation can happen angrily during a To View More >>

When I grow up I want to be just like House MD ... Not only is this such a wonderful show, but isn't he a wonderful and inspiring man? LOL I don't want to scare people, and I say this partly tongue in cheek, but I think it would be kind of cool to be like him. Think about it ... - he's incredibly intelligent - he saves lives when others can't - he's creative, and works outside the box - he knows how to differentiate between the "symptom" and the actual "problem" - he says exactly what he wants to say, when he wants to say it, and political correctness doesn't hold him back - he inspires (also To View More >>

One of the incredible blessings of working in the Queensberry Group is the wonderful people we get to spend our time with, and few are more inspiring than Peter Haythornthwaite. [flickr]photo:3099049094[/flickr] I was sitting at the kitchen table about to take a photo of this wood pigeon when I got an email from Peter commenting on my blog. Amongst other things he said "I guess a natural 'other' would be small videos of family discoveries at the beach - your area, your 'forest' area, your Titirangi - why do you live there etc." The timing made me smile as this beautiful bird perfectly symbolizes To View More >>