May the holidays and the New Year bring peace to you and your special corner of the world.

Thank you for spending your time to read, consider and comment on my musings. I learn from you every day and am deeply grateful for your lively participation and generous spirit.

Wishing you all the joy and magic and peace that you can possibly imagine.
 

Sometimes, lurking behind a charming façade is a poseur.

You’ve met him: the slick-talker who pairs precious little smarts with an outsized ego. In Texas, that guy is “all hat, no cattle”.

You're savvy enough to spot the type quickly and ignore or neutralize him.

But what if he is your competition?

You might remember a young Maria (Julie Andrews) singing this song to fortify herself as she left the convent to care for seven motherless children.

Her Mother Superior could see that Maria wasn’t a good fit for convent life and had pushed her to her destiny.

But what about the rest of us?

Confidence can be elusive, especially if you don’t have your own Mother Superior to give you a proper shove in the right direction.

The grouchy and ever-brilliant Simon Cowell has introduced yet another British remake to American TV: The X Factor.

While it’s a singing competition, it’s the participants’ X factor—sometimes eclipsing their performance—that tugs at our hearts.

There’s the young woman who unleashed her Caribbean accent after years of masking it to fit in. She literally blossomed on-screen once she stepped into her true identity.

If writing for a mission-critical audience makes you squirm, this is for you.

Your best bet? Spend a few bucks to hire a professional. But if you can’t (or prefer to hone your talent), it may be time to try A.T.O.M.

A is for action. Choose words and phrases that bring action and purpose and results to mind. Avoid soft words like help, teach, become, make and try. Think powerful: build, boost, construct, captain, conduct, direct, lead and design.