Rick Smith · Entrepreneurship & Business Development Expert

I recently went on spring break with the family. I just completed a big project with the UN and Hollywood (which went extremely well – trying to figure out how to communicate this – Demi says hi), and have been engrossed in starting a new company.

So, I made the annual workaholic promise not to open my email while on break with my family. No sneaking to the bathroom. No waking up early with coffee for an email binge. No “kids are in the water” sneak peak. In fact, I waited a full 6 days without checking my email. 6 DAYS!

And guess what…. No one emailed me. Couple spams. Couple facebook …

Roses
By George Bilgere

A late fall day, and unseasonably warm enough,
for whatever dire reasons,
to let me paint the rose trellis
a deep red in the brittle afternoon,
enjoying the gratitude of thirsty old wood
soaking up the blood.
This is satisfying,
for some reason, although I realize
that somewhere an aging surgeon
is stepping out for a showdown
with a famous young tumor
on the dusty street of somebody’s life.
And somewhere else a soldier
Is burning in his Hummer,
and a girl in a border town
is strapping a bomb
to the shy breasts
nobody ever got to kiss
before she h…

For me, 2010 looks to be a year of living tri-polar. I am deep into the process of launching a new company, and just putting finishing touches on my partner group. In November, I was also brought into an extremely important non-profit initiative, which I hope to announce in mid-January. Add to this continued promotion of The Leap (I gave a keynote speech today for BlackBoard, Inc. in Nashville, and will deliver another in Baltimore tomorrow evening for a senior training group). Whew.

These two new initiatives have been all consuming through the holidays (had a conference call Christmas Ev…

I just had the most interesting conversation with a friend – a very powerful business person, wise from experience, likely one of the top 100 influential female professionals in the world. Her comment to me?

“Hurry up. The window is closing…”

She was referring to the state of the economy, which she was optimistic about. Her basic point was that for the last year, nearly everyone was whacked upside the head with a two-by-four. No one trusts their instincts right now. They are searching for a savior. They are searching for someone with new ideas, who is positive, motivated, and ready to l…

Below is a clip of my interview last week on Fox Business News. The topic at a high level was about how retailers were going to approach Black Friday – would they simply look to their competitors and follow their lead? Who is doing well? Who is scrambling?

[vimeo.com]

The general business point here is that when you are confident, you can think in longer time horizons. Price wars are notoriously dangerous for business. A one percent drop in price results in an 8% drop in profit (averge for S&P 500 – mckinsey & co), and it is historically very difficult to raise prices bac…

Through a friend of a friend, I was recently introduced to Janet Hanson, and I think I instantly fell in love with her! (ok, that would be “professional” love. I mean, I am married. 3 kids. And we haven’t even actually met in person yet. Should I bring flowers?)

What Janet and the extraordinary women of 85 Broads have created is remarkable. This group represents a significant percentage of the female professional movers and shakers around the globe. As the founder of a global executive community myself (World 50, Inc.), I have grown fascinated with this group! I even asked Janet i…

Among all the players who were paraded passed us over the last year, there has been one common characteristic: they were nearly all MEN. Therefore, we might have expected that the MEN at the top would take a disproportionate hit in compensation due to the fallout.

Not so.

Women CEOs were the ones absorbing the greatest pay cuts this year, and they lagged significantly behind their male counterparts in bonus and perquisite compensation, according to a report released last week by the Corporate Library.

According to the study: “Total realized compensation, which adds stock option …