Hair Cuttery has 1,000 company-owned Salons in 18 states in the USA.
Dennis Ratner, the founder and CEO is a huge success story.
– Puts people first.
– Gives back to the community.
– Believes in vision, planning, and execution.
– Dennis said: “Effort = Reward” and to be “Relentless” in pursuing your passion.
– Great roles model.
(Source Video: Andy Blumenthal)
Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, “I Pray For The Day.”
While I am a staunch supporter for the security of Israel, I pray for the day (a miracle) when Jews and Arabs can be brothers again–shoulder to shoulder–that embrace and help each other, rather than enemies “at each others’ throats.”
In my mind and heart, there has got to come a time when the hatred and violence ends, and when instead peace can and will prevail. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
What’s the fascination with the mythical cyclops and the single eye in the center of the forehead?
If the eye represents seeing and knowing then aren’t we better off with two or even a dozen eyes to see with?
See more, know more, do more.
How about eyes in the back of the head?
Or all around the head in a cool circle–like a majestic crown of sight all around you.
Seeing is miraculous.
The beauty of the world–people, nature, and the stars above.
Seeing is function.
Being able to navigate, get around, and do things with relative ease.
Seeing is safety.
Sensing path from obstacle and friend from foe.
It’s frightening to think of not having vision–what a challenge!
One old lady is possibly legally blind, but still serves as a notary public–how does she do that?
Eyes themselves are beautiful–brown and blue and hazel, and soft and deep and mesmerizing.
Looking into someone’s eyes, have you ever seen their soul.
Show me thy ways oh L-rd and let me learn and grow in the world you’ve created for us–seeing the material and spiritual world we’re enveloped in.
I see the beauty, necessity, and lessons you have for me.
However many eyes, seeing is believing in it all. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
{I don’t know what this is, but it came to me, and it just feels important to share…I start to feel spiritually overwhelmed, very emotional, and then all choked up…and so it starts}
Behold, the day cometh when the earth will open it’s mouth.
And there will be a very great slaughter.
And the earth will shake and tremble before the Holy One blessed be he.
He walks before the nation of Israel.
Ready to strike with the all-powerful tip of His spear.
Like a bolt of lightening without warning.
Magnificent in beauty and damning in tumultuous energy.
The sky thunders before His majesty.
The angels stir and flee before the All-Mighty Creator.
His holiness envelopes the earth and stars.
His eyes are full of mercy, but justice is in his mighty outstretched arm.
Those that stand in evil before His glory will soon be buried in a very great rubble.
The skies are darkening; the day is arriving.
And all the people will know that G-d dost live, and His people shall live.
Evil will be obliterated from off the face of the earth, and His holiness will manifest in peace and redemption.
The implements of war will be smashed to smithereens, engulfed within the insides of the earth.
And their makers buried beside them, crushed and utterly destroyed.
A mass grave to the east and to the west, and then a great rebuilding.
From the L-rd goeth forth justice to his enemies and mercy to His children.
{The streaming stops suddenly…I want it to continue…but it’s over…I try my own words, but they are not His…I give up for today.}
(Source Photo: Minna Blumenthal)
I wanted to share some good tidbits about effective management, collaboration, and engagement that I heard this week at a Partnership for Public Service event.
It Takes A Village – No I don’t mean the book by Hillary Clinton, but rather the idea that no one person is an island and no one can do everything themselves. Rather, we need the strengths and insights that others have to offer; we need teamwork; we need each other!
2-Way Communication – Traditionally, organizations communicate from the top-down or center to the periphery (depending how you look at it). But that doesn’t build buy-in and ownership. To do that, we need to have 2-way communication, people’s active participation in the process, and genuine employee engagement.
Get Out Of The Way – We (generally) don’t need to tell people how to do their jobs, but rather develop the vision for what success looks like and then get out of the way of your managers and people. “Make managers manage and let managers manage” and similarly, I would say, hold people accountable but let people work and breath!
Things Change – While it’s important to have consistency, momentum, and stay the course, you also need to be agile as the facts on the ground change. “Disregard what’s not working, and embrace what is.” But you must stay open to new ideas and ways of doing things.
This is our world of work–our village–and either everyone helps and gets onboard the train or they risk getting run over by it. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Love this exhibit by Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama, at the Hirshhorn Museum.
Unfortunately, they were out of passes for this special showing, so I could only grab a quick photo or two.
But I was amazed at how splashes of dots and color can make such am amazing impact on a room.
Futuristic and yet surreal.
Everything in the room–walls, floor, chairs, tables, fixtures, and ornaments–had the design elements on them.
The only thing that didn’t were the people checking it out and what a contrast that was.
It felt like being in the fantasy world of Willie Wonka and The Chocolate Factory or something amazing like that.
It is no surprise that people were lining up out the doors for tickets to this exhibit.
What an spectacular vision for the world–so happy, so magical and so wow beautiful! 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So we were promised hope and change, but what’s the difference?
Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal says, “Hope is the helium -filled ballon of politics. Governing in office is the gravity that pulls it back down to earth.”
Many politicians are giving the false impression that “giving people the rhetoric of hope, lifting them with words, is more important than delivering results, which some might call change.”
Despair is when we are told that there is hope and promise, but we don’t get meaningful, impactful, and lasting positive change.
The hard work of leadership is not just providing a beautiful Garden of Eden vision for people to salivate over and to get their votes, but rather it is making something REAL happen that makes people’s lives and the world better.
As they say is plain english, “Words are cheap!”
We don’t need any more fancy oratory skills–Hitler had those too and it led to the murderous genocidal Holocaust and disaster of World War II.
Time for some elbow grease and some results that aren’t fake like the news we’ve been getting.
We’ve heard too many lies, too much spin, and been subjected to language control of the “media echo chamber.”
Just one prominent example has been regarding terrorism and radical Islam which is not and never has been “workplace violence” and traffic accidents.
Who is the President of the U.S. fooling when he says that theres been “no foreign-planned terror attacks in 8 years.”
Gee, ISIS and their numerous terror supporters seem to violently disagree about the many terrorist attacks we indeed did have on U.S. soil in the last 8-years, including Orlando, Garland, Fort Hood, San Bernardino, Minnesota, Ohio University, and many more.
It’s time that we stop being fed a bunch of false hope and political malarkey and instead we get some genuine change, improvement, and progress in our lives and the nation. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
I really liked this T-shirt.
It says volunteer, but in three rows like this:
vOl
uNt
eEr
So in the center is ONE!
When we give of ourselves, we shed our billions of individual selfish natures to be one–with humanity and with G-d.
These days, seeing from how shattered and fractured this nation and world is, it is just a dream again for unity.
– The fighting between different races and castes of people
– The fighting between rich and poor
– The fighting between communities or family members
– The fighting between unarmed (and armed) civilians and police
– The fighting between republicans and democrats
– The fighting between proponents and opponents of X, Y, or Z policy, person, place, or thing
– The fighting between governed and those who govern
– The fighting between terrorists and terrorized
– The fighting between religions and within religions
– The fighting between East and West
– The fighting between good and evil
This reminds me learning in yeshiva from Zechariah 14:9 (when the destroyers of Jerusalem will themselves be destroyed)”
“And the L-rd will be king over all the Earth. On that day, the L-rd will be one and his name one.”
Oneness–unity–peace is a vision and a goal.
With unity we recognize our ONE true maker and guider of all creation.
And with unity we seek and find solutions to the world’s big problems (global poverty, disease, war and so on).
Fractured and fighting among ourselves, we are small, petty, selfish, and weak.
But together, we can unite with Heaven and conquer all that ails humanity. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
The people of the United Kingdom voted in referendum yesterday for Brexit (British exit) or independence from the European Union (EU).
Unity is a wonderful thing when values and vision is widely shared and the burden and benefits are more or less evenly distributed.
But in the case of the UK in the EU, the vote for independence was anchored in the unsettling issues of mass immigration from the Arab Spring, the debt crisis of many of the poorer Southern EU states (e.g. Greece, Spain, Portugal, etc.), the decision of the UK to maintain their own currency (not accepting the Euro), and culturally (and language-wise), even though they all interact with each other, the UK has more in common with the US and Australia, then they ever had with Germany, France, and the rest of Europe.
It is really very understandable that the UK doesn’t want to lose their identity and sovereignty and just be another EU state–rather than be a unique, independent, and dominant entity of it’s own, charting their own course and driving their own fate.
While it’s great to a part of something bigger, sometimes being yourself is more important, and you can still interact with the rest.
No people should be forced to become a shadow of themselves, and if the call is for independence, then that is noble call even if it is inconvenient for those who would rather call themselves the EU.
Unity may best be by alliance rather than strict integration…one for all and all for each and every one. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Interesting editorial in the Wall Street Journal today titled, “These Five Are the Best We Can Do?” referring to the current slate of Presidential candidates.
According to the author, Joseph Epstein: “Viewing the candidates of both parties during the debates, one felt that nearly everyone of the participants was in the business for him- or herself.”
Yes, so many people are getting turned off by the selfishness, obscurity and outright deceit, vulgarity, and off-the-chart impractical and impolitic views of the candidates.
Yet the editorial mistakenly attributes the presumed dearth of good-to-great candidates is due to no one impressive wanting to run in the age when “media and Internet are the major instruments of contemporary political degradation.”
In other words, no normal person wants to be put under a microscope for their person, rather than their personal views of where to take this country.
However, this doesn’t ring true to me.
I think that true leaders are and would be willing to endure the scrutiny of the traditional media and social media in order to take us into a meaningful, righteous, and better future–it’s simply part of the job like Moses having to endure the gripes against him when he led the Children of Israel out of Egypt and to the Promised Land.
Maybe the real reason that we don’t think we have the quality of leadership that we expect is that there is a perception of a genuine dearth of sincere, unadulterated, whole-package leadership out there.
Think about it–with a virtually unlimited supply of false messiahs across the leadership spectrum from politics to corporate and religious life–we have been let down by fraudsters, liars, thieves, and sex abusers.
Like with the Israelites in Egypt who waited hundreds of years for G-d to bring a Moses to lead his people, perhaps we are looking with eyes heavenward for an appropriate gifted leader to take us into the future…and this is more than just what an education or pedigree can provide, but rather a person inspired by a purity of heart and a clarity of vision.
For that, we need a leader that will not just talk the scripted talk or walk the overconfident boisterous walk, but we need to see the person whose promising words match their deeds and whose heart is aligned with the people and the nation for a truly greater future and not just for the political donations, superdelegate counts, their party nomination and the electoral college votes to land them the coveted Oval Office. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
andyblumenthal