Wandering Into Wisdom

This blog chronicles the knowledge, insight and wisdom I encounter every day as a leadership consultant, executive coach, educator, father, friend and citizen. This site is dedicated to my father, Louis (Jack) Laughlin, who passed on to me an appreciation for wisdom. A special thanks to my friend Isaac Cheifetz, a businessman and journalist, who helped me understand the value of blogs and encouraged me to write one.

Small Minds*

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."
Abraham Lincoln

“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

“It is remarkable that such a tiny mind can contain such enormous contradictions.”
Chris Bliss

Secure In The Knowledge*

"The more you know the less you need to say."
Jim Rohn

Suffering Buddhism*

Suffering is caused by the tension between reality and expectations.
Enlightenment calls for the alignment of expectations with reality.
Insanity is the obsession with changing reality to meet expectations
... while constantly raising expectations.

Afterthought*

I have focused most of my marketing communications time, energy and financial resources on my website. Almost as an afterthought, I fleshed out my LinkedIn profile. I recently started tracking the traffic to both and realized that I get twice as much traffic to my LinkedIn profile as I do to my website. I’m spending a lot more time working on LinkedIn these days.

Going Through Hell*

As I reflect on the past year and the difficulties created by the recession I am struck by the quote a friend recently sent me. “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Winston Churchill

Integrity*

Integrity depends on the consistency between our words and deeds. Our actions follow a path from intention to impact and finally, to interpretation. The unintended impact of our actions and people’s varying interpretation of the outcomes make integrity a challenging virtue to maintain.

Ethics*

"We have a tendency to use ethics more as a way to judge others than as a tool to guide our own actions."
Chad Weinstein - Ethical Leaders in Action