Jesse Meijers

A lesson in empathy by Abraham Lincoln

One thing that I used to be rather bad at, was empathy. Placing myself in someone else's shoes was hard for me. For an entrepreneur this is very important, it is a lesson worth learning. The story that helped me learn this lesson is about Abraham Lincoln, a very inspiring man. More recently, there was a very interesting TED presentation on the same topic, yet from a completely different perspective. These two sources will help you become more emphatic in no time!

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See one, do one, teach one

Recently I was talking to a friend of mine who has worked for NATO and United Nations. We got talking about learning skills and how rules of thumb which explain methods can help you in easily remembering a process to learn something. In his line of work, the method 'See one, do one, teach one' is used. This is a very good method to remember when you want to learn a skill yourself, and to remember when you are teaching someone else a skill.

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How to bring good news and bad news

From time to time we have to bring people bad news. Luckily, we also have good news to bring them now and then, so all is not lost. But how do we make sure that we take advantage of good news, and we minimize the impact of bad news?

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The simplest, easiest way to have less problems INSTANTLY!

We all have problems from time to time. Without problems, you could even argue that life wouldn't be worth living, since the good times wouldn't feel as good without a reference to problematic times. But let's face it, when it comes down to it, we would all like to reduce our problems... This post is about the simplest, most effective way to reduce your problems ... INSTANTLY!

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The meaning of the word ‘but’…

This very simple word, 'but', which is used in many languages, has a very profound meaning that most people do not notice. We tend to use this word very much, yet underestimate its power.

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How to build trust and become trustworthy

If you want someone to trust you, you will first have to become trustworthy. This is not an easy feat to pull off and being trustworthy has to do with very deep and basic personality traits. Stephen M. R. Covey dissected trust in his fantastic book The Speed of Trust. In this article I will discuss the the way to build trust and become trustworthy along the lines set out by Stephen M.R. Covey (this is Stephen R. Covey's son).

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Professional Time Management with Stephen Covey

When I just started as an entrepreneur, managing my time was easy. I didn't. I just put every bit of energy into my company. Of course I also had my education to focus on, but obviously it suffered. Sports suffered too, as I stopped playing any sport for about one or two years. Almost every bit of time went into my company. And then it failed. I felt miserable. Something had to change.

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The rules of rulemaking

Our society thrives on rules. There are rules for everything. From the size of a door or window in your home, to what you should do when you switch your job, there are rules in every aspect of your life. And people are expected to abide to these rules. But if you are an entrepreneur or a manager of a department, or even running a household, you are faced with a different aspect of rules: rulemaking. There are certain dos and don'ts about rulemaking, the rules of rulemaking. Abide to these rules and you'll notice that you are creating success. Break them, and you will end up with chaos!

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Top 5 Meeting Tips

Most of the time I dread them, meetings. They tend to get all lengthy. Back in university the annual members meeting would sometimes last as much as 5 or 6 hours... And meetings usually seem to avoid fun topics like you would the plague. But I also know they are a fact of running a business, so today I present to you my top 5 meeting tips. These tips can be used to steer a meeting in the direction you want to, and have it done with in an orderly time frame.

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4 rules for being successful

During my work as a project manager for IT projects I have seen many different kinds of people. Internal company employees, externally hired consultants, company management, the list goes on. Some of these people are successful. Most are not. What is it that separates the successful from the unsuccessful?

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