What is holding you back from your dreams?

A while back, I was helping my son clean out his closet and get rid of old toys that he has long-since outgrown. In this process we came across something that I can only describe as a mass of string intertwined with a ball, a hand-made paper medal and an expensive, portable insect observatory. When we first saw this tangled mess, my son exclaimed, "My ball! I remember this!" It was a ball that he himself had constructed with an elastic string attached which caused the ball to immediately bounce back to the thrower. In his enthusiasm, he began to try to untie the mess.

After about ten minutes of frustration and very little progress, he said, "Forget it. It's not that important anyway. Let's just throw the whole thing away." And with this he put the clump in the trash bag. I saw his disappointment, so I took it out of the bag to look at it. There was the ball with its elastic and wristband; there was the insect observatory; and...

In January 2020, comparatively few people even knew what Zoom was, let alone how to use it. Now, a little over a year later, not only do most people know what it is, it has become its own verb. “Can we zoom tomorrow?” “We’re zooming at 4 pm.” It has become a part of our daily life, a way to connect with colleagues, friends, and family while we are locked down at home. And in all likelihood, it will continue to be part of our lives long after the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided.

As we are thrust into holding meetings remotely and connecting primarily through virtual platforms, very few people understand the importance of mastering communicating on these platforms. How you communicate remotely with your employees, customers, and business partners is as important–if not more important–than how you communicate in person. 

In person, we give non-verbal signals which show respect and build trust that we have mastered after years of co-existing...