Would two animals of the same type, but from different countries “speak” the same language? German and Russian cows… French and Egyptian roosters… Indian and Italian cats… Wherever you see a dog, you know what kind of a sound it will make… or not? Psychologytoday.com reports that virtually all dogs can understand the barks of […]

The picturesque coastal village of Portmagee in County Kerry, Ireland has a unique New Year’s Eve tradition, which dates back to 1727. The “Old Year Festival” sees locals accompany an old wizened character up the main street in a torchlight parade. At the stroke of midnight, the ‘Old Year’ character symbolically ‘dies’ and is replaced […]

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an ovation as “an occurrence in which a group of people at a play, speech, sporting event, etc. show enthusiastic approval or appreciation by clapping their hands together over and over. Although one might say that the ‘etc’ would cover anything else not cited in that definition, I would for sure […]

I love it when I hear children ask naive questions like “Why do men have beards?”, “Why do birds fly?” or “Why is the sky blue?” As we grow up, I think we begin to lose that free questioning ability and start “knowing” everything. Now and then, I try to look at the world around […]

Today, all entrepreneurs need to be great salesmen. And if they’re not, they should hire the best salesmen they can get their hands on. Surely no one would disagree with me on that? Then why is it that whenever I want to buy something from a company that has more than two people working for […]

I never got along that well with ballet. Though I can see how technically brilliant it is: the harmony between the dancers and the smooth flow of the movements can be overwhelming. This can happen thanks to the music played in the background. That music keeps everyone together. Unfortunately, in the business world we don’t […]

A few days ago I went to a bookstore and did something I had wanted to do for a long time. I bought all of the business magazines in the store. First observation: The number of business magazines has increased quite a lot recently, and I’d never heard of many of them before. First question: […]

Some time ago I read an article on the website devsbuild. it about what should be done to prevent disagreements among business partners. In addition to the ability to communicate and generally ‘get along’, the writer argued that partners’ DNA needs to be compatible, too. Partnerships are not easy to sustain, and you shouldn’t expect […]

You might be familiar with the poem The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost. The last lines read: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. The words that capture me are “I took the one less traveled by”. In […]

Recently I was invited as a speaker to a breakfast meeting in Istanbul, which was organized by kadinlararasi. com, a web platform for women in business. 12 businesswomen and I spent that morning talking about the companies they own. The headline of this pleasant meeting was Selling the Future. It is not possible for me […]