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The Passing of Two Innovators

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Robert Ringer

Whenever someone famous died, my dad used to say, “The Grim Reaper just keeps mowing ‘em down, one by one.” Simply put, but accurate. And this past week, the Grim Reaper was working overtime. In a harsh one-two combination, he took the lives of two living legends, Steve Jobs and Al Davis. What was eerie […]

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The Comedy and Tragedy of Spontaneity

Posted on January 4, 2009 by Robert Ringer

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My approach to life is to plan carefully, then relentlessly focus on execution.  I don’t mean to sound stuffy, but to me impulsiveness is a sign of irresponsible behavior. That’s why those who know me best would lay 100-to-1 odds that I would never make a spur-of-the-moment decision to hop on a train and head […]

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Kicking the Can Down the Road

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Robert Ringer

Too bad it wasn’t mandatory for every American to watch the segment 60 Minutes recently did on David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States.  Walker heads up the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, which acts on behalf of taxpayers to assure a nonpartisan, honest assessment of government operations — especially government spending. Walker bluntly […]

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Hiccup Businesses

Posted on April 12, 2008 by Robert Ringer

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I’ve often referred to the airlines as “hiccup businesses.”  Meaning that if an airline has a cash-flow dip (read, “hiccup”) for one or two months, it’s in serious trouble.  And if it’s a big hiccup and drags on for three or four months, the airline may find itself in bankruptcy. What makes a company qualify […]

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Disasters Really Do Happen

Posted on March 1, 2008 by Robert Ringer

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If I’ve learned anything at all about life, it’s that disasters really do happen.  I’ve always been amazed at how most people live their lives on the assumption that worst-case scenarios haven’t yet been invented.  Students of human behavior refer to this mind-set as “normalcy bias.” The recent rash of tornadoes are perfect examples of […]

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Beware the PC Police

Posted on September 21, 2007 by Robert Ringer

If being a contrarian is conducive to success, you can learn something valuable from the Politically Correct Dark Ages that has all but swallowed the remnants of Western civilization.  It used to be that everyone knew there were just a handful of subjects that you simply avoided and opinions that were best kept to yourself. […]

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Beware of False Perceptions

Posted on July 30, 2007 by Robert Ringer

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Recovered memory syndrome (RMS) is a phenomenon whereby a questioner “helps” someone remember events that may be fictional by asking leading questions.  The reason such questioning works — in bogus molestation cases, for example — is because the mind is very susceptible to suggestion. But RMS is just one aspect of a much broader problem […]

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Playing to Win

Posted on July 18, 2007 by Robert Ringer

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I have often said that a football game is a microcosm of life.  There’s an ebb and flow to every game, with each team experiencing its share of adversity.  These adversities include such things as fumbles, interceptions, injuries, and bad calls by the officials. In the National Football League, the teams are so evenly matched […]

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Learning from Everyone

Posted on July 6, 2007 by Robert Ringer

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I recently received a nasty e-mail from someone who implied he had read my book Action! Nothing Happens Until Something Moves.  He lashed out at me with a vengeance and resorted to some pretty nasty name-calling. What was he so ticked off about?  Would you believe it was because, in the first chapter of the […]

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It’s What We Call the News, Part II

Posted on May 5, 2007 by Robert Ringer

Yesterday, in Part I of this article, I shared a dream I recently had about being visited by an alien (“Proxi”) from the nearest star to our solar system, Proxima Centauri.  As (I hope) you will recall, after watching the late night news on my living room TV set, Proxi asked me, “What did you […]

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