Life Cartography is written by Charles Porter.

Tag: leadership

  • Life Lessons: 49 Life Lessons. Lifecartography, 9 years later.

    49 Life lessons learned by age 49. As I approached 40 years old, I decided to sit down and write. I wanted to write things I had learned, so that I wouldn’t forget them. Well, research says that you don’t forget as much as your library gets bigger. But that’s beside the point. So those […]

  • When the obvious leadership call is the wrong one.

    “Management rounded on the nurses and saw they were all tired looking. Their response? Cut the over time rate. “ I had no idea what that last sentence meant when I heard it the first time too… I was sitting with a friend who told me about his wife’s working situation at a hospital. “What […]

  • What Jeff Gordon’s new Pepsi Max Commercial teaches about leadership

    Have you seen the new Pepsi Max commercial with professional driver Jeff Gordon? If you haven’t, you probably haven’t been online the last few days. A Journalist named Travis Okulski sounded off about how the first video Gordon made was fake. His friends gave him a wake up call.  Go ahead, watch it if you […]

  • The difference between kissing up and a giving good compliment.

     Life Lesson #30 Learn to give good compliments. I know that people like different things. But a good compliment someone will remember for a while. Say, 50 years at least. Mark Twain said “I can live for two months on a good compliment.” The Anatomy of a bad compliment. Lie. “Go get’em Johnny, you’re the […]

  • How to connect with absolutely everyone. Life Lesson #12

    Not everyone succeeds. But everyone hurts. I’ve done public speaking for years. Communicated, written, told stories. Judging by the general response, I’m not boring. My wife, on the other hand, dislikes the public stage passionately.  Crowds of more than 20 people are uncomfortable to her. But in 2005, almost a decade before I write this, […]

  • Don’t quit that loser job: 40 Life Lessons I learned before I turned 40: #11

    Don’t quit your job, even if it’s a bad one. My great Uncle Donny grew up in remote Arkansas. He tells of going hunting with friends for squirrels. On their way out into the woods, the boys passed Grandpa, holding his shotgun just sitting in a plastic folding chair in front of an enormous oak, […]