By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD In my office is an evocative black and white aerial photo of my grandfather’s chicken farm, circa 1960. Grandpa and Dad ran the farm, along with a revolving assortment of hired help. The farm consisted of five barns, in two interconnected groups. Together they accommodated 15,000 hens. Four buildings housed […]
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What If There Was No Mail?
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD On Monday this week (in the United States) we had no mail delivery because of Veterans’ Day. To miss mail for one day is not a problem, but what if this occurred on a regular basis? What if Saturday delivery was omitted or we only received mail three days a […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Jamey Hopper and Darlene Campbell both contributed to the recently released book, In It to Win It: The World’s Leading Experts Reveal Their Top Strategies for Winning in Business & Life. In addition to Campbell and Hopper, the book features Tom Hopkins and other experts sharing their insights. Hopkins opens […]
How concerned should we be over passive sentences? My response has included both extremes: ignore every one of them and kill each one. Right now, I’m somewhere in the middle. Years ago spell check shocked me by showing all of the passive sentences I used when I wrote. Seemingly every sentence. It was so bad […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD I recently received a press release that surprised me. In part, it said, “It’s an open secret in healthcare communities: Patients lie.” I suspect that the reasons are many. Some lie because they don’t want to admit unhealthy behaviors to their doctors. Others, by not voicing a concern, subconsciously deny […]
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How to Improve as a Writer
I recently read a piece I wrote a short five months ago—an article I worked hard to perfect—and was shocked. It wasn’t that my writing was bad; it was that I’ve improved in the intervening time. For most of my life writing has been something I did as part of my job; it was secondary. […]
Every Writer Needs a Tribe: A Practical Guide to Finding (and Writing For) Your Audience By Jeff Goins (reviewed by Peter DeHaan) Every Writer Needs a Tribe is essential to book for all writers who desire others to read their work. Merely writing a great book is not enough. A writer needs a platform, an […]
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Amaze Your Customers
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD After a recent online purchase, I was given the projected delivery date. The package arrived a day before it was promised. I was impressed. However, two hours after it arrived, I received an automated phone call from the shipper telling me the delivery would be tomorrow. The message came too […]
November is National Novel Writing Month, “NaNoWriMo” for short. The idea is to write with abandon throughout the month, completing the first draft of a novel by November 30. Writers who embark on this annual quest, do so within a community of other sojourners who encourage and support one another to keep moving forward. (In […]
When I was in high school, I remember sitting in my parent’s living room watching the USA hockey team play the Soviet Union in the medal round of the 1980 Olympics. My dad, like most everyone else, predicted a sound defeat for the USA, but I held out hope a miracle would happen. And it […]