Beginnings and Endings

I’ve put off blogging.  With the best of intentions, I asked my web person to put the capability in place last year, but this is the first entry.  I got remotivated after seeing the ABC special on the last lecture of Randy Pausch, the inspired ideas of a Carnegie Mellon professor battling pancreatic cancer.

Why the delay?  Life happened:  surgery to repair a mitral valve, and then recovery; an exceptionally busy time with teenage children; the demands of my consulting practice; and most recently, taxes.  And then there were the self-judgements:  will I have enough to say?  Will it attract readers?  Will it have meaning for me and for them?  Couldn’t this as easily occur within the pages of an offline diary?

We’ll see.  Expect short, weekly postings on my passions:  the vagaries of our behavior and how we analyze and organize ourselves in families, businesses, teams, churches, political parties, et al; the books and other media we use to communicate and clarify our values; and the news.  My work involves helping people and organizations to answer vexing questions and to make meaning and connections, to gain courage to change their strategies when needed, and to effectively influence others.  It’s an inexact science.  I’ll muse about it, provide what I hope will be interesting links and, if Encouragetalk draws some readers, invite you to dialogue.  The tone will be idiosyncratically personal with occasional infomercials.  Caveat lector!