{Re-posted from ElephantsOnBicycles.com}

Growing up I watched a lot of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood (watch here) and I’ve always had a love for the show and the man behind that show, Fred Rogers. The thing about this show and the man himself is that he wasn’t interested in teaching people what actions specifically are “wrong” and what actions specifically are “right” – he instead nurtured an understanding of how our actions affect others and how our feelings have an effect on our own self.

I’ve been thinking a lot about anger lately, about how quick we as a culture are to get angry and point fingers and choose sides; I’ve been witness to where that leads – we all are. Crisis after crisis because we aren’t satisfied to let cooler heads prevail.

Well, today in my RSS feed I found this nugget courtesy of Coudal Partners: it is Fred Rogers testifying before Congress about PBS funding. Listen not just to the words he has chosen but to the calmness of his delivery. He doesn’t need to get his ire up because his words reflect the deeper honesty of his being.

I’m grateful for the chance to continue to learn from Mr. Rogers, no matter what age I am. If you haven’t seen the video take the 6 minutes to watch it and really let the ideas settle into your mind.

Banks are earning a reputation for how they make it more convenient for you to make poor decisions about the use of your accounts and, instead of alerting you before a problem arises, they profit significantly off of your mistakes through fees.

In the current climate of communications your clients should find it totally unacceptable to have such a lack of communication from you, especially when that silence carries such a heavy financial burden.

Communicating with clients isn’t just about finding a way to market your newest products or projects; communicating with your clients should be done in a respectful way that best serves their needs.

The opportunity you then have is to form a relationship of mutual respect, the kind that builds life-long partnerships; instead of abusive client relationships, mistrust and short lived transactions.

It’s Monday again. Instead of just organizing myself for the week ahead I’m looking to setup a framework for the year ahead.

Looking back at my last post I can get a sense of what I accomplished last year and what work I put in to make those things happen. This year I hope to continue to expand upon that foundation.

Yesterday, like many Sundays, I thought about what I had coming up in this week ahead. Similarly, over the past couple of weeks I’ve been considering what projects are in store for me this year and what I’d like to make happen. In this way the past few weeks have been my annual “Sunday” while the next couple of weeks will be my annual “Monday”.

I find that breaking time-frames down like this is much more comfortable for laying out my plans. What techniques do you use?