When I left Brazil for the life I now have I didn’t leave well. In wanting to hold on to my fond memories, I decided not to say goodbye to anyone. After all, what would a “high dose of sentimentality accomplish anyway,”  I reasoned.  So I walked out of the only life I had ever known without much ado. It’s been decades since that time. I have never stop regretting it. There’s an art to saying goodbye.  Whether you’re walking away from a job, a relationship or moving away, there are a few things you should consider. I wish I had thought about them long ago: Celebrate the good times. Even if leaving was not your idea, or you’re finally able to walk away from a bad situation, or you’ve had enough from your jerk of a boss, take inventory and celebrate what you can. Most relationship, (and yes, work…

Sometimes I am reminded why I have the best job in the world. This past week was one of those times. The marketing team of The A Group presented Metro Ministries in Brooklyn, NY with our proposed marketing and branding campaigns. While we had immersed ourselves in learning about the ministry, nothing truly prepared us to being in the middle of it all. Metro Ministries started over 30 years ago by the remarkable Bill Wilson, who after being abandoned by his mother on a street corner at a young age, felt the call to go back to the streets of one the nation’s most dangerous neighborhoods and share the gospel with at-risk-children.  Metro Ministries claims the largest Sunday school in the world with over 42,000 children in NYC, the Philippines and now an exploding number in Africa. But numbers often fail to tell the story of the people they represent.…

The way you leave a job says more about you than the way you started it. Recently Tiger Woods fired his caddy of 13 years, Steve Williams. Unfortunately for Mr. Williams, his public reaction to the event is a classic case of how not to walk away from a job. Whether or not Tiger was justified in firing Williams, the time and manner of it is truly irrelevant. The only thing Williams can control is his reaction. In Steve’s own words: “Following the completion of the AT&T National I am no longer caddying for Tiger after he informed me that he needed to make a change. After 13 years of loyal service needless to say this came as a shock. Given the circumstances of the past 18 months working through Tiger’s scandal, a new coach and with it a major swing change and Tiger battling through injuries I am very…

So you’re doing a job you are over qualified for. That’s not that uncommon these days.  I have friends who are working in positions they had mastered several years back. They have more education, experience, skill and knowledge than the job requires, and yet, they find themselves performing tasks that those whom worked for them used to do. Whether you are in this situation because of a life transition, a re-entry into the work force or a corporate restructure, you might be tempted to be frustrated and even disillusioned. Before you get too discouraged consider: You are not defined by what you do. For most guys this is easier said than done. We often have too much of our identity tied up in our careers. I know I do.  I often need to be reminded that who I am as a person is much more important than what I do…

We all have thought about quitting our jobs because we just can’t take the pressure, the abuse or both, and life is miserable. Some of us have actually done it. Several times. I remember lying in bed years ago and thinking of the different scenarios on how to quit my job. I was planning the perfect way to finally let my boss know what I really thought of him. But for the majority of us who walk away from a job because of frustration, we seldom quit because of ideological, organizational or even monetary issues. The truth is that we don’t quit our job; we quit our boss. Before you walk in and give notice along with a piece of your mind, consider this: Incompetent people don’t last. In most organizations incompetence only lasts for a while. Granted, some places have a higher tolerance for poor performance than others, but…