This issue is made up of the following sections:

1. Personal Effectiveness Tips
2. Day in the Life
3. Reality Check - A Moment with Monet

1. Personal Effectiveness Tips
1. Remember that competence isn't enough this day and age if you want to impress others. How you deliver that competence is just as important. Sweat the details in your professional life-etiquette, dress, language, follow-up, body language, etc. Otherwise, you'll never stand out in a crowd.

2. Here's a thought: When we die, we will have bills yet unpaid and emails yet unreturned that survive us. If we are to live a better life, we better come to grips with this reality. Death ultimately destroys our physical beings, but the idea of death can save us anew each day weare lucky enough to cheat it.

3. When interacting with others, keep mental notes as such about human behaviors: Once is not enough, twice could be a coincidence, and three times is a habit. Don't make assumptions and inferences based on behaviors that may never appear again. Observe, look for patterns, gather the data, and then make your case...

4. Life is unfair. Don't expect it to be otherwise, or you'll walk around feeling cheated and angry all the time. You won't get the job you deserve, others will forget to notice your new haircut, your lousy neighbor will win the lottery-twice. Get over it, and move ahead.

5. Surround yourself with people smarter than yourself. You'll be amazed at how much you learn, and how well your head fits through doorways.

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2. Day in the Life

I received an email the other day from an individual in Canada who wanted to know if I used a certain biofeedback system in my work with elite athletes. He requested that I call him with said information, and then proceeded to let me know that he guaranteed that he could improve my work with my current clientele.

I emailed him back, informing him of three important issues relevant to his email:

1. He had emailed me to ask me to call him so that he could sell to me.

2. That was a crazy sales strategy ("call me, but you don't know me, but I want to sell you something!")

3. His business degree was obviously not being put to use.

Shortly after sending out my email response, which I thought was tame given my proclivity for speaking my mind, I received another email, from the same gentleman. It was the same email, and even contained the same misspellings. He had obviously copied and pasted his previous email.

My next response was more cogent:

"I've changed my mind. You're a half-wit. Looking forward to another email. Cheers, Leif"

I never heard back from him.

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3. Reality Check - A Moment with Monet

I was listening to NPR the other day and they were discussing Degas and Monet and the Impressionist movement. Being one who knows very little about this subject matter, I tuned in to the local Executive Director of the Columbus Museum of Art as she described Impressionism and Monet's take on the concept, which I found to be enlightening and useful in our everyday life.

Impressionism at it's most basic is a study of what Monet called the objective visual moment. He was more concerned with painting the moment in time rather than the haystack or landscape before him. Of importance in this painting style is the condition of light on the subject at the moment of painting. Because of this, Monet reportedly never spent more than a half hour or so on a painting, as the lighting was sure to change, resulting in a new picture. This was why he spent a day painting one haystack repeatedly: eighteen times, eighteen different paintings.

Monet's concept of the objective visual moment can be readily expanded to what I'll call the subjective experiential moment. This is the moment at which our senses confluence, the point at which we realize simultaneously that this moment is special and that it will never be the same again. Sometimes these moments are staged: A birthday party for a child, a going away party for a dear friend, a funeral for a loved one. Most other times they are spontaneous and fleeting: an unexpected hug or smile, a moment examining the fall foliage, a compliment from a stranger, a silence with a friend.

Life at it's very core is about the experiences-the subjective experiential moments, if you will-that we enjoy on a daily basis. I'm convinced that we hold on dearly to the "moments" in our lives, and soon forget other details that no longer seem important.

If we are to live more fully, I believe that we need to be more proactive in seeking out these moments instead of waiting for them to land in our laps. There is a beauty to be found in even the mundane details of our everyday existence, and it usually involves the people around us. For me, it can involve talking to a complete stranger in line at the grocery store. It can also involve making obscene and juvenile faces at a ten month old baby. Occasionally it involves making a fool of myself, intentionally or not, for the sake or perspective.

There is a greater quality of everyday life available to those who believe that life is about the moments we can experience, create, and share with fellow travelers. If you haven't looked around lately, you've missed a lot.

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