Archive for Starbucker
I’ve Come to Bury Starbucks, Not to Praise Him
Filed Under: Featured Articles • The Business Pages • The Lighter Side
(with apologies to William Shakespeare)
Julius Starbucks, Act III, Scene II
{Prologue: Julius Starbucks lays on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, with traders and consumers delighting in his demise.}
{His close friend, Terry Starbucker, begins to speak……}
“Friends, Twitterers, Blogosphereans, lend me your handheld devices
I’ve come to bury Starbucks, not to praise him
The mistakes that companies do lives after them
The good is oft interred with their stock certificates
So let it be with Starbucks. The noble business scribes
Hath told you Starbucks was ambitious
If it were so, it was a strategic fault
And strategically hath Starbucks answer’d it
Here under leave of stockbrokers and the rest–
For stockbrokers are honourable men
Come I to speak at Starbucks demise
He was my friend, always with hot lattes to me
But analysts say he was ambitious
And analysts are honourable men
He had brought many other businesses to the latte trade
Who profited too from his good fortunes
Did this in Starbucks seem ambitious?
When the workers wanted good benefits, Stabucks complied
Ambition should be made of less costly stuff
Yet some consumers say he was ambitious
And some consumers are honourable men
You all did see that in the coffee world
He was presented beans from unfair trade
Which he did many times refuse: was this ambition?
Yet critics say he was ambitious
And sure, critics are honourable men
I speak not to disprove of that the stock market spoke
But here I am to speak what I do know
You all did love those lattes once, not without cause
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgement! Thou art fled to Dunkin or to the Arches Golden
And coffee drinkers have lost their reason
Bear with me;
My heart is on the floor there with Starbucks
And I must pause until the stock comes back to 40″
{to be continued………..}
A Thousand (At Least) Birthday Wishes for Liz Strauss
Filed Under: Featured Articles • Fellow Half-Fullers
Today the blogosphere celebrates the birthday of one of its most distinguished residents, Ms. Liz Strauss.
She is a great friend, business partner, and mentor, and her selflessness, kindness, and passion for her craft has inspired me from the very first time I read her blog over two years ago.
Liz sees the blogosphere as much more than a platform to jot down our assorted musings and hope people read them - it’s a place to forge and nurture relationships, both business and personal. It’s also a place where love, common courtesy, and integrity abound.
Fostering these online relationships to go beyond a blog page was the basis for our founding of SOBCon, which has been a labor of love from the get-go. To have had a chance to work with Liz on something like this has been a real honor and pleasure, and I really lookforward to seeing where the “Spirit of SOBCon” takes us.
Lastly, Liz is someone who never hesitates to share her learnings with others. She recently put out an e-book that I recommend highly to anyone who wants to improve their blogging and writing skills.
So many, many Happy Birthday wishes to you Liz - thanks, and much love always.
In Search of The Leadership Litmus Test
Filed Under: Featured Articles • Leadership
About a month ago I was speaking at a training session for a group of our newer teammates, and I was asked this question:
“How do you know if you are a good leader?”
Now that’s a query that I bet has generated a billion answers, at least.
Leadership has been dissected, discussed, debated, deliberated, delineated, debunked, debased, and deified ever since the first human decided to tell someone else what to do, or show them how to do something.
Do a “Leadership” search on Google and you’ll get 187,000,000 listings (that’s not a misprint).
Do one on Amazon and you’ll see 266, 982 books on the subject.
So how did I answer the question?
The first thing that came to my mind was an image, rather than a concept. This is unusual for me for it is not my usual thought pattern (that’s why I went to business school instead of the art academy).
The image was a hoop of fire. I was channeling a lion tamer, training and guiding his charges through the flames like it was just another day at the circus. Is that leadership? I wasn’t convinced, because the image quickly faded from view.
Then I thought of a brick wall - I’ve often heard people describe their loyalty to a leader by saying “I’d walk through a brick wall if he (or she) asked me”. In other words, potentially putting your life on the line because of leadership.
Plausible? Of course. Workable in most every context? No - I couldn’t imagine asking the people in front of me to risk their lives for our business cause.
My mind then went elsewhere for inspiration (fortunately the process had only taken a few seconds up to this point, so I hadn’t lost my audience), and I landed at the base of a large hill.
Somehow I knew I was now in the right place, and I began to speak. Good leaders should be able to lead their teams up any hill, but when do leaders know in their hearts that they are capable of doing it, again and again, without doubt or hesitation?
When they charge up the hill and don’t look back the whole way. Great leaders get to the top, confident that when they turn around, the whole team is standing right there behind them at the summit.
And they are - every time. Over-confident leaders can get to the top without looking back, but see people still at the base of the hill when they turn around. Doubtful leaders may get everyone to the top, but not without turning around often and zig-zagging up and down exhorting their teammates, perhaps even dragging some people with them.
It’s not a case of never looking back - as Randy on Twitter quoted to me the other day, “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. It’s when the stakes are high, and the challenge is difficult, that a leader needs to step up, gather the team, issue the call, and then climb the hill, always pushing forward. When the challenge is met, then the learning can take place.
If the groundwork has previously been laid, with all the many other traits of leadership that are illustrated in all those books and all those posts, the team will hear, and respond to, a call to climb. They will trust your leadership, and watch your back. Because they know that to get to this point, the leader was always watching their backs too.
It’s not a perfect summation of great leadership, but as I spoke about it out loud for the first time it rang true, at least to me. Maybe that’s the thing - as leaders, we all search for our own “Litmus Test” that benchmarks our progress and helps us determine where we need to go next in our quest for greatness.
What’s yours?
Mopey, Harry, and the Fight For My Attention
Filed Under: Half-Fullism • Personal Development • The Business Pages • The Lighter Side
For those of you that have been readers of RFGHF since its inception (and I thank you very much for that, by the way), you probably know my “alter-egos”, Harry Halffull and Mopey Murphy.
These fine friends pop up every once in a while to “moderate” (if you can call it that) my subconscious thoughts.
Sometimes it’s a high-level battle between Murphy’s Law and Half-Fullism.
Another time it’s a struggle to get past the post-holiday blahs.
And, of course, they always like to advise me during tax time, or when I’m at airports. Yep, they really like airports.
Lately, however, they’ve engaged in the biggest, most important moderation of them all - the allocation of my attention.
Fact is, what is happening to me is what an article in the NY Times called yesterday a “War Against Distraction“. Apparently I’m not the only one fighting this war, since the person who wrote the article (Maggie Jackson) has written a book, entitled “Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age“.
Pretty serious stuff, it appears. I didn’t like the Dark Ages when I read about it in history class, so I doubt I’ll like it much now. So a lot is at stake here, and Mopey and Harry are on the front lines of this war, sorting through all the demands and pings that come my way. The trouble is, Mopey would just LOVE to plunge me into the distraction abyss, while Harry would just as soon create for me what Ms. Jackson calls a “renaissance of attention“.
Here’s just a small sample of the dialog from “the front”:
Harry: Hey Starbucker, you have a meeting at 11AM, and it’s 10:30AM now - don’t you think you ought to be preparing for it? After all, all your bosses will be there and they like to ask pretty detailed questions.
Mopey: Tsk tsk tsk Harry, this guy doesn’t need to prepare for a meeting! Not when there are 50 Twitter messages up on his screen that he can answer! Or 100 e-mails from the day before that need to be read. Or 3 phone messages that haven’t been returned from yesterday. Oh, and he hasn’t caught up on the news yet. Don’t ya love the Internet!
Harry: C’mon Mopey, none of that stuff is urgent, is it? Twitter messages? Those streams of consciousness can certainly wait. E-mail? Maybe a couple need to be attended to, but no more. And the news can wait - isn’t that what a lunch hour is for?
Mopey: You just don’t have any faith in this kid and his multitasking abilities, do you? Oh, and he needs another cup of coffee, by the way.
Harry: Now is not really a good time to be going to the break room for coffee - there’s that meeting, remember?
Mopey: What meeting? The break room has such great possibilities for distraction - coffee, plus a water cooler discussion about something like golf. How about that Tiger Woods!
Harry: Gosh, that Tiger was something…. HEY! You are pretty darn clever Mopey - ya almost got me. He’s not leaving this office.
Mopey: You’re right - there are those Twitterers he needs to attend to. Lots of important stuff there. And he’s addicted to it, to boot. He’s just going to have to wing it at the meeting, my man.
Harry: Oy. Maybe I should just unplug the computer, and hide his Blackberry.
Mopey: The Blackberry? Gosh no - that’s the most important interrupter of them all! He even takes it into meetings with him.
Harry: Wait - I hear the phone ringing; can’t his assistant handle that?
Mopey: Are you kidding? It could be something really unimportant, like a friend calling about setting up a dinner or something. He’s GOT to pick that up!
Harry: Starbucker, please - pay attention to what I’m trying to tell you man! Mopey is going to push you into the Dark Ages, just like Maggie Jackson said. Look at the quote she wrote about, by William James - “Wisdom is the art of knowing what to overlook”. You want to be wise, right? And are unwise people successful? I think not.
Mopey: Hey, that’s not fair, appealing to those higher ambitions and painting the big picture. We’re lost in the details, remember?
Harry: Do you think I was born yesterday? I know this guy. Sometimes I just need to get him back up to 50,000 feet.
Mopey: But he still needs coffee…….
Harry: OK, just coffee - but right there and back. OK?
Mopey: And can he answer a Twitter or two?
Harry: Two, no more.
Mopey: You’re a hard bargainer, Harry, but next time, he’s GOIN’ DOWN!!
Harry: Not on my watch! Starbucker, you have our orders now. Let’s make it happen.
So there you have it - the war rages on. Battle after battle, morning after morning.
At least I’ve trained them to always put the coffee on the negotiating table. 
Starbucker’s Quotes of the Week
Filed Under: Personal Development • The Business Pages
I had to share the two best quotes I’ve seen over the past week, plus one of my own:
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it” - Vinod Khosla, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, when asked what would be the next “big thing” in the field.
So true. Our futures are not predestined - we have more control over it than we think.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts” - attributed to Winston Churchill
(Interesting side note on this one - in doing a little research on the quote the site for the Churchill Centre claims that he never said it, claiming to have made a careful review of all of his papers, books, articles and speeches)
Whether Churchill said it or not, I really like this quote because it illustrates the need for continuous forward motion in our lives, whatever the result.
“Happiness is a box we should always check ‘yes’ ” - Starbucker
Being happy starts with intent - ya gotta want it to get it.
Hope these little “bon-mots” help you as we end another week and enjoy the first day of Summer, 2008.
Have a great weekend!
Good Advice Hiding in Plain Sight
Filed Under: Featured Articles • Half-Fullism • Personal Development
In the last several months I’ve spent very little time in my office - I travel quite a bit to begin with, plus there were numerous other excursions for personal and professional reasons, including one to Chicago in May for SOBCon08.
As someone who has worked for the same company for 14 years, my workspace is really my second home, with many knicknacks, books, pictures, plaques, art prints, posters, and (mostly) piles of paper. It’s a comfortable place I often take for granted, rarely actually looking around at the accumulation of “stuff” and all the memories and lessons that they represent.
Most of the time I’m “thinking forward”, trying to stay a few steps ahead in my business, and operating what I call the “mental vacuum cleaner”, reading and scanning for new learning and personal development opportunities.
I surmise this is a pretty natural thing for most people to do, especially in a world where new information and learning is so readily available (thanks to the Internet and E-mail).
So it was a pleasant surprise to rediscover a lesson this morning just by looking six inches below my computer monitor. For whatever reason today my eyes wandered a bit below my e-mails and Twitters and saw that there were 5 small pieces of metal arranged on the monitor stand.
These metal pieces have been there for over 5 years - they were given to me by a dear friend when I was at one of my career crossroads. I hadn’t really looked at them (or absorbed their content) for that long, even though they were hiding in plain sight.
What did these things say? Each piece had a number and a lesson.
- Free Your Mind From Hatred
- Free Your Mind From Worries
- Live Simply
- Give More
- Expect Less
After I re-read these lessons, I couldn’t help but smile. I couldn’t think of a better way of describing how I wanted to live my life of “Half-Fullism”, and it was right in front of me for all those years.
I’m leaving those metal pieces in place (of course I made sure they were all nicely lined up and in order) in the hope I’ll refer to them a little bit sooner next time.
I write about this today because this is a great take-away for all of us. While we always want to learn and experience new things, we shouldn’t forget about the key lessons we’ve picked up in the past, especially the ones our “past selves” have put on display, hiding in plain sight.
We did that for a reason. Sometimes we forget that reason. Next time you are in one of those “comfortable places” like my office, take a look around and re-familiarize yourself with your past learnings. Like me, I bet you’ll be glad you did!
The Value of Work (Thanks Dad)
Filed Under: Featured Articles • The Essence of Me
Last Sunday I read yet another thought-provoking column by Ben Stein, entitled “When You Weren’t Looking, They Were Working“. Ben wrote about his father, and how he didn’t realize how well he had benefited from his Dad’s hard work until after his passing. Consequently, he exhorts us to express our thanks to our parents while they are still here to hear it.
He puts it this way: “Get it in your heads that if you throw away your moral duties to your parents, you are thieves. You were born on third base and your parents put you there, and you think you hit a triple. It’s not true. It’s time to give back.”
These words lingered in my head for days after I read them, because they rang so true for me. My parents did put me on third base, because they had worked so hard to make sure I got there. And I am so grateful to the both of them.
My father essentially worked 7 days a week in two jobs to support us, and he taught me a lot about the value of work. It was a means to an end- the support of a family, in particular - but there were bigger lessons for me. Lessons of determination, sacrifice, nobility, and above all else, love.
So on this Father’s Day, I dedicate this post to my Dad, who worked so hard to make sure I had all the opportunities I desired. Thank you, and much love always.
Talking the Talk, and Walking the Walk….With Grace
Filed Under: Fellow Half-Fullers • Half-Fullism • Joyful Jubilant Learning
I encountered a perfect example of grace the other day - I was checking my WordPress dashboard and I saw a link to Joyful Jubilant Learning, a site that I contribute to.
Rosa Say, the founder and leader of JJL, posted about a essay I had written nearly two years ago about one of my college teachers, a man named Brother George.
It was something that I enjoyed writing and was honored that it was given a second life, but what really got me was the way that Rosa presented it - I was receiving a gift from someone blessed with grace.
How did I know this? I simply traced back to my own definition of grace that I had posted many months ago:
When one lives with grace, it means that in one’s manner, talk and action, there flows an elegance and warmth that respects and honors all individuals with kindness, compassion, understanding, and tolerance. This warmth is capable of spreading to everyone this person encounters, so that the person is described as adding “grace” to an occasion or to any other gathering (or a blog, for that matter). When one lives with grace, they also possess grace, in that they draw moral and spiritual strength from it, and ultimately, true happiness and fulfillment.
That’s Rosa Say, right there. She “walks the walk”, every day. And I’m blessed and thankful to be her friend.
She also inspires me to live in the same way - with grace.
Thank you Rosa!
5 “Swing Thoughts” for a Half Full Life
Filed Under: Half-Fullism • The Essence of Me • The Sporting Life
I had the opportunity to play the famous Pebble Beach golf links in Monterey, California the other day, and it was an awesome experience, even though I really don’t play a lot of golf these days.
It was awesome because of:
- The incredible scenic beauty, and
- A reminder that life, like golf, is about proper preparation
Look at the picture above - there I am, about to hit my 3rd shot on one of the most beautiful finishing holes in all of golf. I’m mentally preparing my “swing thoughts” before I try to execute the shot. My aim. My tempo. Where I need to position my head, and my hands. I try to relax, and focus. Then, and only then, I step up and hit the shot.
As I was doing this for a golf shot, I realized that good preparation also works well in life , especially for someone who wants to live a Half Full life.
Nearly two years ago I posted a little mental “swing thought” checklist for a Half Fuller. I know that if I can think about these 5 things every morning, I can significantly increase my chances of having a fantastic day.
I repeat them here:
So how did my third shot at Pebble Beach turn out?
7 Iron to about 15 feet. One of my better shots of the day. Because I did a great job with my swing thoughts.
Of course, I missed the putt. But I had a fantastic time (that’s where the Half Full preparation came in handy).
Can The Elimination of 5 Words Improve Your Life? I Say Yes
Filed Under: Half-Fullism • The Essence of Me
As part of a consistent “Glass Half Full” approach, sometimes it’s the words we DON’T use that are more important than the ones we do. In developing my philosophy of “Half-Fullism” I’ve found that these 5 are the ones that I take the greatest care to avoid:
- “Never” - This one is just too finite for me; as I’ve said before, negative absolutes like these box you in, and if used too often, can turn someone into an outright pessimist.
- “Nice” - Just too imprecise of a word; I dislike it so much I “banned” it from my vocabulary.
- “Impossible” - An optimist just can’t say this and still be called an optimist (can they?)
- “Can’t” - There’s a story behind this one; my old boss used to have a poster on his wall that said this: “It can’t be done”……”It can’t be done”……..”It can’t be done”…….”It can’t be done”……………...”It’s done”. This boss literally drilled “can’t” out of me, and I’m grateful that he did.
- “Hate” - Maybe my least favorite word of all; probably because I appreciate the opposite word so much. Am I too Pollyannish to believe in love and the essential goodness of people? I certainly hope not.
What about you - what are the words that you try most to avoid?
(this post originally appeared on RFGHF on January 22, 2007, just in case you had read this before and has a little case of deja vu)
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Et tu, Terre? 
Terry;
I must confess that I'm not much of a fan of Shakespearean work with all those art thous and haths ...
Great post! I agree that getting away from the computer really helps. I think of sitting to write at the ...
Alas, poor Starbucks. I knew him well. Fantastic Terry! The best caffeinated prose I've read in some time. 
Innovative, poetic, truthful and digg worthy!