Last night I came across a movie that I haven’t seen in a very long time called, “The Family Man.” Not sure if you have ever seen it before but it’s a romantic comedy starring Nicolas Cage and Tea Leoni and basically, at the heart of the plot, the story centers around “decisions” and what could have been had we made different choices in our past. Unlike Jack Campbell , the main character of the movie, we can’t go back in time to see a glimpse of what life could have been. We have to trust the decisions we make in the here and now on a daily basis.

I often find myself repeatedly telling my clients “Life happens every day for each of us”,  so simple  of a statement correct? What isn’t so simple is our reaction to the obstacles we encounter. Hard decisions will happen, this is inevitable. What separates the doers from what I like to call the “Excusers?” When life happens and it gets in the way of your daily plans, the doer does what he sets out to do.  The doer stays on track and doesn’t allow whatever the situation is to overshadow his or her whole entire day. The excuser looks to build upon nothingness, and try as hard as he may, at the end of the day, he/she will have accomplished nothing.

Your day should be comprised of a single vision, to fulfill your daily tasks towards your goals. Do Not become frazzled when an unplanned event stumbles upon you.  To start allowing the “NOISE” to permeate your brain waves is giving yourself permission to start making excuses.  Do what you set out to do each day and remember to “REMOVE the NOISE!

We have all seen the funny Verizon commercials in which the technicians states over and over again, “Can You Hear Me Now?”  Over the years in business and in my role as a CEO, I’ve noticed that people really don’t “hear” what the other person is trying to say and even worse, they can’t express properly the thoughts they form in their mind. I call this, “ineffective communication”, and it’s the most common type of mistake I’ve witnessed over the years.

People often say to me, “David, isn’t communication a broad, over-used term?” To peel the proverbial onion, I’ve found that there are generally four types of ineffective communication and yes, I will admit to having made every mistake that follows.

• Context 
• Wrong Audience 
• Delayed Information 
• Inaccurate Information 

Now I won’t bore you with a detailed explanation of each of the above mentioned but I will say briefly that people often fail to provide background information which is key to the recipients decision making. We also tend keep our audience out of the loop, thus making it difficult for the listener to react on the correct message being delivered. At the end of the day, we must provide timely information as in the words of William Shakespeare himself, “Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.”  Finally, and more detrimental is verbalizing inaccuracies and although it doesn’t frequently happen, when it does, it could be detrimental.