Engaging Others With Feedback of Another Kind

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you better engage others to follow your direction. Reading time: 3:45

I was 10 years old. My dad took me to see an historic baseball game at Yankee Stadium. And I learned something that had nothing to do with the game that day about leadership that still sticks with me. Call it a gut feeling, a gut feeling that could be helpful to you even today in engaging your staff in a new project or initiative.

The New York Yankees were hosting Ted Williams and the Boston Red Sox. This is the same Ted Williams, who in 1941 became the last professional baseball player to hit over .400 in a single season, a record so remarkable that it still stands today 71 years later!

Ted Williams would retire later that season. In the summer of 1960, the famed No. 9 slugger was playing one of his last games. History in the making.

And adding still more luster to this baseball dream day: Mickey Mantle, the home-running hitting star of the New York Yankees.

This was truly a historic game for any baseball fan, a chance to see two super star sluggers.

And yet I was only interested in one person that Saturday afternoon. And he wasn’t even on the playing field. But he did have a uniform. And he had great game-day chatter. “Get your Red Hots here .” Yep, The hot dog vendor. Continue reading “Engaging Others With Feedback of Another Kind” →

Commitment: Keep Hope Alive No Matter The Score

Mets 1969 World Series — New York Mets Win 1969 World Series

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to inspire your performance especially when you’re feeling down.

Your savings account went the way of the dinosaur long ago. Your career has careened into a dead-end.

And the only thing growing in your life besides your waistline is the balance on your credit cards. Now what do you do?

Keep hope alive.

I know that is easier said than done. Yet I have always been fascinated by those who defy the odds and embrace the notion of noted leadership author John Gardner that “the first and last act of a leader is to keep hope alive.”

Continue reading “Commitment: Keep Hope Alive No Matter The Score” →

Are You Turning Forty or Forte?

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you better cope with a perceived personal crisis. Reading time: 3:57.

Dreading your 40th birthday? I sure did. But I survived and even thrived because I practiced one of the most critical leadership skills: framing the problem or issue so you can better solve it.

Even if you’ve already turned the BIG 4-0, this framing concept can work for you.

Let’s examine the problem of turning 40 as initially presented: Sure, I was getting older. But, could I also be getting stronger? You decide. Here’s how I framed the issue.

At 40, I thought of myself stepping onto a launching pad — not onto a guillotine. A launching pad? Where did I get an absurd idea like that? From a visionary author who saw deep into the heavens, deep into the sea and deep into the center of the earth.

Jules Verne helped me see deeper into the center of me.

There on page 117 in his book From the Earth to the Moon, Jules Verne is describing the first manned moon launching 104 years before Neil Armstrong.

38…39…40 Blast Off

And significantly - even poignantly - Jules Verne launches his man to the moon with a count UP …38…39…

You guessed it. At the count of 40, the rocket ignites, propelling the fictional astronaut to go higher, faster and farther than any other human has gone before -to the moon. Blast off! At 40!! Continue reading “Are You Turning Forty or Forte?” →