Food Bank Can-Do Dinner

Last week the New York City Food Bank had a fundraising dinner.


My company sponsored the dessert party


Former President Bill Clinton showed up, said a few words and rubbed shoulders with U2's Bono.

American Marketing Association Speech

Yesterday I went to Chicago to give the keynote address at the American Marketing Association's Leadership Conference.

Like most people, I get anxious about public speaking. But I've found the more you do something, the more comfortable you get with it. And at some point you actually start to get good at the thing that used to scare you, and being good at it actually makes it fun to do, and you end up enjoying the thing you used to hate. So this is why I try to say yes to as many speaking opportunities as possible.

For the AMA conference I gave an one hour talk to 300 people on my principles for success and


on the history of Food Network. The creative theme for their conference was the restaurant industry, so I built my success principles around the spice "pepper." They are:

Passion

Emotional intelligence

People Leadership

Prudence

Education and Learning

Relationships and Sharing

I shared many of my favorite leadership quotes like

The greatest leader forgets himself

And attends to the development of others.

Good leaders support excellent workers.

Great leaders support the bottom ten percent.

Great leaders know that

The diamond in the rough

Is always found “in the rough.”

- Lao Tzu

and

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. - Maya Angelou

The audience was really wonderful. They stayed engaged and gave me lots of positive non-verbal feedback during my talk.

another quote was

The only true gift is a portion of yourself - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I was so fortunate to be able to share a little of myself with the group.