I have been wanting to meet Miss Destructo for a long time. She is one of the most creative people in social media today.

I asked her how she gets unstuck. Watch the short vid for her secret!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I felt honored to speak at the famed Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. Every major political and business person has spoken at the club. The format was a Question and Answer with Cassie Phillips, founder of Failcon. Here is a sneak peak of our prep session for the event. (yes and I spelled Commonwealth Club wrong!)

Here is the actual interview!

If there is one person in this country that needs to bounce back it’s Tiger Woods. Selfishly, I want to watch the greatest golfer that ever lived, well play golf again.

I will not pass judgements on Tiger’s past actions, but instead give him advice on what he needs to do to bounce! (and what we can all learn):

1. Humility. No one now knows more than Tiger Woods that life changes very quickly and bad times happen for even billion dollar sports heroes. There is alot of luck and randomness at play here if any of the news reports are close to correct.  Tiger needs to accept what has happened and right size his ego. Whether this is fair or not, I will let others debate that. Tiger finally took the first step in this direction when he announced on Friday on his web site that he was leaving golf for an indefinite period of time to focus on his family. Step 1 has started for Tiger.

2. Give Up the Shame and Let Go. Believe it or not, Tiger needs to give up the shame around his admitted actions. He can wallow in it for awhile if he wants and ask why me now? It can be therapeutic sometimes for me to cheer the darkness. But eventually to move on to whatever comes next, he has to grieve this failure and let go. An appearance on Oprah would probably help. If Elin was there, if that fits for her, that’s even better.

3. Set Patient Interim Goals for the next success. Tiger needs to focus getting back on track. What can he do to feel like he is repairing the damage? He states he will be focus on rebuilding his relationship with his family. He should also look at rebuilding the relationship with his business sponsors such as Accenture, AT&T, Gatorade, and Nike. He should slowly take on new commitments to regain the relationships from people around him.

4. Get back on the golf course and win! Although we hold up our sports superstar to super hero standards, we will forgive Tiger once he gets back on the golf course and wins. In the end, what we really what we want from Tiger is for him to play amazing golf. He is the greatest golfer that ever lived, and we want to watch more of him on the golf course more than any evening news! Our Sunday afternoon’s won’t be complete until that happens.

What other advice do you have for Tiger to bounce?

 I spoke at the National Tour Association Conference this past week in Reno. The travel industry has been hit hard by the Great Recession and in real need of Bounce! This is a conference of tour operators (they package the tours and sell to consumers or travel agents) and the suppliers (destinations, local guides etc). The heart of this conference is not the trade show or the keynotes, but the one on one meetings that go on between the tour operators and the suppliers. Behind the exhibits, there are rows and rows of assigned areas where the the two parties make appointments and meet. BTW- the sign “No appointments available” is a good thing! Alot of business gets done here. It kind of looks like speed dating. This “facilitated networking” is a model that more trade shows should adapt since left on our own, all most of us do is exchange business cards at these events and do not have meaningful conversations that move the relationship forward.

What type of speed networking has been successful for you?

I walked around today feeling like a big loser. I think everyone in Chicago did.

Like the Americans we are, we thought we would win.Las Vegas was betting with us. Like the Chicagoans we are, we thought we had “greased enough palms” to win. I mean come on, we had the A team on this one. The Obamas and Oprah! Who can resist that  star power? Well, I guess 80 of the 98 members of the International Olympic Committee did.

I don’t mind losing every once in a while, but to come in dead last? Chicago was eliminated in the first round. Geez! Now that is embarrassing to come in after Tokyo. Chicago got 18 votes in the first round and we spent, what about $70M in putting together our bid? We spent almost $4M a vote? Think of where that money could have gone?

Why did we not get the Olympics? While I was hoping to win, I picked Rio to actually get it. For it to be in South American simply proved to irresistable for the IOC members. (Although I thought we would come in second). Maybe its payback for what the international community feels about how we have behaved militarily abroad the last 8 years. We will never know.

So where does Chicago go from here? After our pity party today feeling real good and sorry for ourselves, we should follow these steps which I detail in my book, Bounce!

1. Humility- Realize that sometimes we lose despite our best efforts. Things like this can right size our ego.

2. In Failure, Give Up the Shame- Okay so we came in 4th, but we raised the money to put together a credible bid and handled ourselves respectively in the process.

3.  Realize that Failure Gives Us Choices- We were able to raise alot of corporate dollars to sponsor the bid. The committee came up with ways to build wonderful venues. Let’s use this as a basis for further economic development and planning in Chicago.

4. Let Go! and move on! After we are done feeling sorry for losing, we have to let go and move on to other things that can give us a chance at success again.

5. Set New Patient Goals. Now without the Olympics as our focus, let’s set new goals to improve the infrastructure of our city or new causes we can rally around.

6. Value Action- Above all, let’s go do something, get on a new path. Only the experience of future successes will build our confidence again.

What do you think Chicago should do to Bounce?

I spoke  yesterday at Academy Plus for the Western Association of Chamber Executives (WACE). It was part of a three year training program to produce effective and leading edge directors of Chambers of Commerce.

I love speaking at Chamber executive meetings because before there was anybody else helping main street businesses, there were the chambers (over 100 years ago). They are definitely someone to turn to during these tough times. This is probably one of the best ways to meet other businesses in your community and build profitable connections.

Brad Hicks, Medford Chamber CEO and President, one of the leading directors in the field, talks about how chambers can thrive in this economy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I also talked with Laurie at Cal Chamber who talked about why she created a huge rubber band ball for her son in Iraq.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Crains Chicago Business featured my client, Pari Schacht of Nuturing Wisdom and I this week in their publication this week. We talked about two things that really are surprise time burners in your business even today:

1. Finding the Right Employees- even in today’s economy, great people are still hard to find.

2. Finding Reliable Vendors- this is always the biggest surprise to me. If you pay people money, you would think they are reliable…think again.

This past Saturday was a special time for my family. My 16 year old son, after 9 years of training tested for his Karate Black Belt. This was significant to me for many reasons.

First, Sedio Karate is one of the only things now that my son at16 years old wants to share with me. Those of you with teenagers know what I am talking about. In many ways, he is like me, so he wants to be not like me. I have been training for 7 years and although I am far behind him in skills, it’s alot of fun to do at least one activity together as father and son. I even had a chance to fight him during the test. After 4 hours, he was exhausted so it was my chance to get a few punches in!

Secondly, it is an amazing achievement for a teenager of 16 years old to stay involved in this subtle ancient art form for so many years with all the distractions of growing up. Karate has shaped him and molded him to be the strong man in body, mind and spirit.

Finally, his test on Saturday was enlightening for me. The test is a 5 hour grueling physical and emotional rollercoaster. About mid way through the test, he became light headed and had to sit and lie down. After a brief period of time, he came back to the board breaking part of the test. This showed incredible resiliency and bounce (as my book says) for a 16 years old, not to call it quits despite how he was feeling physically (tired) and emotionally (defeated).

He learned at 16 that the test did not turn out quite the way he had planned- an important lesson in our journey of life. I can’t remember too many days in my life that turned out as planned, can you?

Today was one of those miserable travel days. A day that no one should try to fly out of Chicago. I was delayed in an airplane for 7 hours on the ground!

But when I finally got to my destination, I did meet a woman who epitomizes Bounce! Barbara (not here real name) is 63 years old and was close to retirement. She had her money in a “safe” investment- a large insurance company named, AIG. In this economic downturn, she proceeded to lose her job and her savings. She became so distraught that she stopped eating for two weeks and went on medical leave for stress syndrone for three months. When I met her, she had finally bounced! She had a new job at a higher salary. She was saving her money again and feeling she was once again enjoying life.

I told Barbara how proud I was of her – if she can Bounce! so can we….even after a miserable day.

I have always loved Mark Cuban’s perspective ever since I was the ‘warm up” act for him in Atlanta years ago and I had a chance to interview him on stage. He has always been generous with his time.

Recently, he posted the following advance for President Obama:

“If we are going to solve our current economic problems, our President needs to get first hand information on the impact his proposed policies will have on real Joe the Plumbers. People who are 1 person companies living job to job, hoping they get paid on time. We need to know what the impact of his policies will be on the individually owned Chrysler Dealership in Iowa. The bodego in Manhattan. The mobile phone software startup out of Carnegie Mellon. The event planner in Dallas. The barbershop in LA. The restaurant in Boston.
Entrepreneurs that start and run small businesses will be the propellant in this economy. PE Obama needs to have the counsel of those who will take the real risk inherent in creating companies and jobs. Those who put their money and lives on the line with their business.

Without it, the rules of unintended consequences of any economic policy could hit you in the mouth in ways you never expected. Things like forcing companies from being taxpayers to the underground cash economy, or forcing new hires to be independent contractors to avoid having to pay their insurance or higher matching social security amounts. Your current group has no one with 100pct of their networth on the line. I promise you that the possibility of losing it all will provide a completely different perspective than any of the “knowledge” the esteemed, learned members of his current advisory team offer.”