If you had to give some advice to young graduates, what would it be? I threw out this question on LinkedIn as I had been asked to be a commencement speaker at the Sheridan College convocation. I should also preface this by stating that I only had four minutes to...

We recently held a Making your Pitch Contest and I learned a lot about making business videos from the judges as they provided feedback to the contestants. Now, I would be the first to admit that producing a video is nerve-racking. There is something about talking into a camera that...

I have been alive 22,630 days, of which 14,600 have been spent being married to the same man and 12,410 on raising children. Wow. If I live just ten more years, it means I have only 3,650 days left. Doesn't seem much in comparison to the other numbers, does it?

Much is written these days about the importance of finding a mentor, based on the premise that once a mentorship is in place, your career will just take off.

But how easy is it to find a mentor? Do you just go up and ask someone "will you be my...

More and more, I am hearing from my colleagues that they need to get into social media but have no idea where to start. With all the options available, it can be overwhelming and time-consuming as you grapple with the information.

A couple of years ago, that was me....

It is frequently said that people do business with people they know, like and trust. But how do you build that trust? Because as Steven M. R. Covey explained to a group of Home Hardware leaders, there is an economic cost factor when trust is not there, or worse still,...

It is 5.00 am. Friday April 12, 2012 and outside a terrible ice storm is taking hold.

I am working by candlelight as we have a power cut here at the farm and will only be able to do that for as long as the battery on my laptop...

I never liked math at school. Growing up in the U.K., I managed to scrape by with an "O" level in the subject, but that was it. Math was definitely not my forté.

It's therefore ironic that I would end up throughout my career managing large budgets. I was forced...

"In a world full of me-firsts and gimme-gimmes, the best strategy for standing out is ruthless generosity. Nothing builds trust and engenders loyalty better than unselfishness."

These are the wise words of a young writer, Jeff Goins, whose blog I have been following for over a year now....

My father was a smart cookie. No matter that he started out working for a big corporation, he was always entrepreneurial in his spirit and approach. Despite his lack of schooling, he was a high flyer who rose through the ranks, and achieved success because of his intuitive business acumen....

Sort. Declutter. Clean... Repeat.

That's been my life for the past eight months since we decided to put our home of 28 years up for sale.

We're nearing the end, and my firmest hope is for a quick sale... and a long closing. So I have a break from...

If you had to give one word that described how you were feeling right now, what would it be?

My answer last week when asked was quite simple -- exhausted. I had had a marathon week, co-ordinating and attending three events in two days, and in three cities. Too much...

When I started blogging over seven years ago, I was doing it purely because I liked to write. It was often good therapy for me, especially when I'd had a bad day, week, month and so I didn't really care if anyone read what I wrote, let alone followed me.

Recently I signed up for and have listened to several business webinars and in one case, a live webinar which had its shaky moments, especially with the camera.

The one consistent aspect to these 60-minute, free webinars is that the presenters devoted at least the last 10 minutes trying to...

"You must not be indecisive today, because an opportunity will arrive out of the blue, and if you don't make use of it immediately, it will pass you by just as quickly. You may not feel confident, but act as if you are." My horoscope for January 25.

I have...

There is no one way to grow and build a business successfully. We all bring our unique strengths and styles to the process.

For some the route to success is looking at the big picture, setting goals, objectives and putting a structure in place so that it can be measured...

When was the last time you did something completely new to you? So often we get into routines and stuck in our comfort zone. Stepping beyond those protective boundaries we have set for ourselves can end up being scary and a bit intimidating.

Sometimes it means taking small risks. Take...

As I reflect back on the past year, I realize I have learned a lot -- some of it the hard way, other lessons were a pleasant surprise, but like everything in life, you have to take the bad with the good, and the key is to learn the lesson...

For years I would come up with the usual New Year's resolutions -- you know the ones -- lose weight, get healthy, not work so hard, and by February, they were a thing of the past.

So in 2012, instead of making New Year's resolutions that I never keep,...

Fear. For a four-lettered word, it sure carries a lot of weight and for the would-be entrepreneurs in my newbie group, no matter what their business aspirations were, it was an emotion they were all feeling.

For some, they were over-thinking what they had to do to make sure their...