Placers’ Insights

Have you had that frustrating moment when your computer screen freezes as if suspended in time? Lately, our Zoom screens lock mid-sentence making our faces look contorted and unnatural. Our lives and interactions are being played out over grainy pixels. Oh, what a difference a few weeks makes to our ability to adapt, thrive, and survive? The quarantine of […]

I’ve been joking that it feels like the last 30 days require a daily business plan; things have been changing that quickly. We ask, “what is our priority today and do we have the focus and ability to get it done?”. I feel like Bill Murray in the movie, Groundhog Day, but my day is spent […]

In the material world of late, we have seen what fear and anxiety can do to us. The concept of hoarding has become the new normal. Good, everyday citizens are feeling the need to acquire mass quantities of essential items: milk, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and bleach. The supply chain can’t quite catch up and […]

When we are afraid, we make a choice. There is light, and then there is darkness. There is fear, and then there is hope. We are trudging tepidly down a tunnel of uncertainty – chaos even. While there is no playbook, there are distinct paths you can choose to go down. We could choose to […]

For the last few weeks, I have been in Wyoming on my sabbatical (all Placers team members take one every 10 years). I’m accompanied by my wife, Kim, and two Aussie Shepherds, Ziggy and Gracie, in a small cabin-style rental.   Nature has welcomed us into its embrace as short-term guests in a place where […]

As a history buff, I recently read a short story about the fall of Napoleon. Yes, the Emperor of France who conquered most of Europe in the 1800s. In a famous event, Napoleon raced back to Paris from the battlefields after receiving intelligence that his two top government officials were apparently conspiring against him.   […]

If you’ve been part of the Outside Insights community for a while, you know how important I view goal setting and developing actionable steps to make them a reality. We set our sights on outcomes that we want to reach and then act with intention, every day, to achieve them – knocking tasks out one […]

When I was a young man, I avoided problems and stressful situations. I operated by the mentality that if I didn’t talk about it or think about it, the stress would disappear for a brief moment. Sound familiar?   As you can guess, and likely know first-hand, the stress would always come back bigger and more […]

The start of the year holds so many feelings – gratitude after time spent with loved ones, perhaps a little melancholy as we settle back into the routine of things, and a hell of a lot of inspiration to make the new year the best it can be. No matter what your unique goals are, […]