Last week congress passed the most comprehensive overhaul to the US tax code in decades. While the largest parts of that bill target large corporations (the drop in the corporate tax rate could save the six largest media conglomerates a combined $6 billion annually by one estimate), many of them will affect you directly.
I recently had the opportunity to watch all ten episodes of the brilliant Ken Burns’ documentary, “The Vietnam War.” In episode nine, I was introduced to the phrase (which was the title of the episode) – “A Disrespectful Loyalty.” Seeing the Vietnam War era footage of mass protests reminded me of the broad spectrum of local and national protests that have been building momentum since the presidential election about a year ago. And then this recent headline (October 28, 2017): Americans are facing the largest social and political crisis since the Vietnam War, according to new poll results
Comparing today’s global environment vs. one year ago feels to me a bit like Lewis Carroll’s insightful metaphor. Despite all of the apparent unsettledness in the world these days, perhaps there are lessons from Lewis Carroll’s classic work of literature that we can apply to today’s challenges.
Authors and poets often use metaphors to convey their true meaning. Nobel Prize winning (for Literature) Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was especially adept at the use of metaphor to convey images – take this example from Neruda’s love poem If You Forget Me:
Our Chief Technology Officer and reluctant nerd, Tony Shur recently got involved with hobby drone flying. Since this is a fascinating and growing space, we thought it might be fun to have Tony talk about his experience in case there are other budding drone enthusiasts out there among our reluctantly nerdy clients and colleagues.
Every year now, it seems that tax season brings about a resurgence of financial fraud. As we rely more and more on smartphones, we open up a whole new world to cybercriminals who desire access to our financial accounts, email accounts, text messages, etc.
I’m getting married this Saturday to Donna Mason. It’s the second marriage for both of us. We each have two children, so it will be a blended family. We are both fairly independent and free-spirited, as she’s a bronze sculptor/art teacher/animal lover/horse woman, and I make my living as a business manager/accountant/financial advisor/planner who enjoys golf, drumming circles and new adventures/learnings near and far.
It’s easy to impress people from a distance. It’s much harder to create trust. To do that, we must be brave enough to reveal the wholeness of our being, including our strengths and our weaknesses. Perhaps the most essential quality of leadership is credibility; otherwise, people won’t believe us. How do we build credibility? Not by hiding our imperfections or, much worse, by creating an image of perfection. We create credibility by being honest and embracing the fullness of our own humanity. Only then do we deserve to be trusted.
SB Capital remained the highest ranked firm from Los Angeles, and was the only California based firm in the top ten.
We are a learning organization: We continuously increase our awareness, knowledge and experience in order to provide the best practices in our profession.
