Looking into the future, I wonder what retirement will look like.

What about you?  What do you want to do?  Will your time be filled with travel, helping in the community or just not having a schedule?  All of the above sounds like a start but what else?  Obviously, I am not ready to retire because I am still worried about having a list to check off.

Recently we had a family vacation in Maui.  My kids are young adults which made this vacation …

As some of you may know from my blog earlier this year, I am currently in the process of looking for a Scottie puppy.  When I think back on how my family acquired pets in my youth (via a newspaper ad, a friend, or a local pet shop), I am both appalled at how naïve we where then about entering such a long-term relationship and mentally exhausted by the amount of effort now involved in finding a good purebred dog.
…

What direction are you sailing?  The wine industry is showing positive signs that the storm has passed and a bright future is just beyond the horizon.  However, I don’t think the industry can fall into a false sense of security that it is going to be the good old days again.  I have heard a lot of chatter that the customer has changed.  They are looking for a deal or not purchasing.  I think there is something else at play.

The day of order-taking is over!  The perception of value …

On looking back and moving forward, by Terry Hollenstain.

Kathi and I have two daughters.  Like all parents we are very proud of them.  Kaitlin graduated from Lewis & Clark College last year and Kristen is a senior at UCLA.  At last year’s graduation, I had the opportunity to sit down with them and talk about life after college.  I thought it would be important for them to know what they faced, why, and what the future would hold for them.  Many graduates are having a hard time finding jobs in their fields.  You probably know some of them.  Not a surprise given the slowness of the recovery from …

As part of our assignment for attending the Mentor Plus® Consulting Accountants’ RoundTable (CART) meeting last month, Craig Underhill and I read Patrick Lencioni’s book The Three Signs of a Miserable Job. The book, like all Lencioni books, does a great job of using a business fable to make a point. According to Lencioni, the three signs are : “Anonymity: People need to be understood and appreciated by someone in a position of authority; Irrelevance: Everyone needs to know their job matters to someone; Immeasurement: Employees need to be able to gauge their progress and level of contribution …

While we’re certain you don’t want an  accountant who improvises with your numbers, we are positive our team gained a new perspective on communication from the Improvisation exercise we tried at our firm retreat on Monday. 

The theme of our retreat was communication and the exercise came from The Improv Handbook  by Tom Salinsky and Deborah Frances-White.The idea was to  put one of the core concepts of Improvisation (the idea of “yes, and…”)  to the test using three different simulated conversations. We matched everyone in the room with a teammate and instructed each pair to plan an imaginary trip, event, or …

Why is it that young pups believe the next big customer lies just around the corner?  What’s not to love about this optimism?  For in it exists the creative drive often needed to reach people. 

I just read a report that said social media had no impact on retail sales.  Does this mean we should all abandon SM?  Of course not.  SM is still very young and there is a lot to be learned.  I would argue that SM is a unique platform for connecting with people.  More importantly, it is …

Spreadsheets are a wonderful thing.

They have functions and formulas and fonts.  They offer symmetry and order – all of the things that matter to accountants. When we’re feeling creative, we can apply conditional formatting to any spreadsheet cells that deserve a little extra color. We can auto-filter our way through a massive list of details to find only the pertinent information. We can sort a list of values so  the largest dollar amounts are at the top. We can combine strings of text to make other strings and we can turn data into tables.

…

Growing up as a kid my family referred to me as “Mr. Neg”.  I didn’t see the glass as half-full but really questioned whether the glass would be there for future use.  Boy, what a joy it was to hang out with me.  Many years have passed since then and I have gained a greater appreciation of how my perspective impacts those around me. 

Now you might be thinking, “Gee Craig, what a revelation. What took you so long?”  and I respond yep, you’re right!  Recognizing your short comings is one …