Edo’s Squid.  It’s right on the VCU campus upstairs over Stuffy’s sandwich shop where they give you a free straw with every drink.  The food at Edo’s Squid is good and fresh.  They serve a lot of seafood as you can tell by the picture of the menu I’ve attached.  I snapped the picture because I thought it was an innovative use of a flip chart.  The menu changes frequently and it’s a lot easier to take down the flip chart and create an up to date menu than to stand on a chair, booth or table and deal with a chalk board which is the most common solution I’ve seen to this problem.  Simple and obvious in hind sight, but I applaud whoever thought of the idea and executed it.

><(("> Gayle Turner

Gayle is a ><(("> Team Member at Catch Your Limit, a consulting firm headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. To learn more, visit www.catchyourlimit.com.

An increase of 12,292 new jobs or 13.8% over 2011.

That’s a very encouraging sign.

Things are looking up.

><(("> Gayle Turner

Gayle is a ><(("> Team Member at Catch Your Limit, a consulting firm headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. To learn more, visit www.catchyourlimit.com.

If you work this back I think you measure what you value and what you value is tied to your values.

In my experience people’s values are mostly held subconsciously.

We go along day by day with our values operating in the background and they only move into our consciousness when something happens to offend them.

Even then most of us don’t seem to be conscious of what our particular values are or why we have them.

On the other hand when something happens that runs contrary to our values (consciously held or otherwise) we’re very clear we have been violated.

All of this ruminating is to encourage people to bring their values out into the light of day and explore them.

Why do you feel the way you do about certain things?

How do your feeling impact the things you value and as such measure and as such reward and do?

I’m going to write about some of mine.

I’d be interested to hear about some of yours.

><(("> Gayle Turner

Gayle is a ><(("> Team Member at Catch Your Limit, a consulting firm headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. To learn more, visit www.catchyourlimit.com.

Over the last decade or so we as a team have developed a core competency helping people manage change.  After all when you’re working on catching your limit you’re de facto changing the status quo.

Tom Laughon likes to say, “If there were no need for change, there would be no need for leaders.”

Hence, we’re always exploring how people successfully lead.

The Gallup people, too, spend a lot of their time asking the same kinds of questions trying to understand what makes people successful leaders.

After querying 10 million people they’ve discerned that followers look for four things from leaders:

• Trust
• Compassion
• Stability
• Hope

><(("> Gayle Turner

Gayle is a ><(("> Team Member at Catch Your Limit, a consulting firm headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. To learn more, visit www.catchyourlimit.com.

The restaurant is located in downtown Richmond right across the street from the Times Dispatch’s back door.

He’s survived snow storms that shut the city down.  He’s managed his cash flow as best he could, but it’s the layoffs at the newspaper that have done him in.

There are at least 65 fewer people working across the street than there were back in 2006 when he opened the restaurant.

There just aren’t enough people in the neighborhood anymore to warrant four restaurants.

Nate and his team have become my friends.

His beignets, red beans & rice and chickory coffee, not to mention his crawfish boils, smoked pork shoulder and fried oyster po’ boys and most importantly the attitude of his staff have made raving fans of his customers.

My Wednesday mornings are going to be bleaker with out their smiles and beignets.

A couple of days every week my lunches are going to be blander without Nate’s special seasoning.

But again, I’m going to miss the welcome I get every time I walk in the door.

I sat down at Catch Your Limit’s offices yesterday with Nate and we laid out his options.

Do you know anyone looking for a personable, capable chef with a following here in metro Richmond?

If so, reach out to me or give Nate a call at the restaurant 804.612.9066.

Meanwhile, you have until lunch on Saturday the 30th to enjoy great Cajun cooking.

Y’all come now, ya hear.

><(("> Gayle Turner

Gayle is a ><(("> Team Member at Catch Your Limit, a consulting firm headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. To learn more, visit www.catchyourlimit.com.

When the Virginia Company sent John Smith, Christopher Newport, Thomas Dale and the rest of their cohort to the New World in 1607 it wasn’t to settle Jamestown or Williamsburg.  No, their mandate was to initiate trade and that’s why they traveled up the James River to the present day site of Richmond.  The Falls of the James River where Richmond is located was where Chief Powhatan had a large settlement and the “Indians” were already trading among themselves.  They came for the same reason the great bank robber, Willie Sutton, said he robbed banks, “That’s where the money was.”

Jump forward a hundred years or so to the 1740’s and George Washington surveyed the Kanawha Canal from the falls all the way up river to present day Lynchburg.  The purpose of the canal was to make it easier to bring goods to market.

Eventually, the canal’s towpaths became the rail beds for what has become today’s CSX Railroad.

Walk outside our offices and cross the street and you’re at the nation’s only triple crossing where three rail lines cross over each other.  You can walk along the canal or cross over to the river and at this time of year watch dozens of blue herons nesting in the trees along the river’s banks or the peregrines, hawks and eagles soaring overhead looking for dinner.

All in all it’s a wonderful place to take a stroll and refresh your creative batteries.

Which is why at the moment I am so damned angry.

I had to walk uptown to a meeting yesterday and decided to use the canal path.  As I was walking along I noticed a piece of trash and stooped to pick it up. (My mother is smiling right now.  She’s the one who taught me this particular piece of good citizenship.)  My intention was to throw it in a trash can.  As I searched for a trash can I noticed another piece and another piece and I was getting really ticked off with the thoughtlessness of people littering this beautiful piece of our heritage.

A couple of ladies walked past me and complimented me on picking up the trash.

I wound up with a nice little collection of cups and wrappers and what not.

This was when I really started to burn.  I could not find a trash can.

I wound up walking from 15^th and Canal all the way to 12^th and Byrd and from there under the Downtown Expressway and all the way to The Tobacco Company at 12^th and Cary in Shockoe Slip before I found a trash can.

I am angry with the people who dropped their trash, but I am no less angry with our Mayor and the rest of the inattentive people who have not placed trash cans along this beautiful stretch of our city.

I normally end these blogs with some little pithy reference to Catching Your Limit, but at the moment I’m up to here with people who for whatever reason can’t seem to work together for our common good.

People, work with me here.  Dispose of your trash properly, even if you have to carry it five extra blocks.

AND one last thought. Your Honor, it also wouldn’t  be a bad idea to put public bathrooms in this area.

><(("> Gayle Turner

Gayle is a ><(("> Team Member at Catch Your Limit, a consulting firm headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. To learn more, visit www.catchyourlimit.com.

There is no doubt we are living in “interesting” times.  The digitization of information has thrown many industries for a loop.  X-rays are now read half a world away.  Newspapers struggle to develop a new business model.  And the neighborhood bookstore is getting hit from all sides.  The big box stores are buying in bulk and selling for less, you can buy online and have the book shipped to your doorstep and the new digital book lets people buy online and the “book” is delivered through the ether.

Independent booksellers have banded together to buy in bulk and they have even signed on to offer digital books.  They, like every small local business, are offering services to their clientele.

One example is the book club.  Independent booksellers frequently provide a place for customers and prospects alike to gather, discuss and share their passion.

It’s basic manners to buy the book from the bookseller host.  After all, selling books is how they make their living.

That said, I walked into The Fountain Bookstore in Shockoe Slip, Richmond, VA today to discover the owner, Kelly Justice, looking shell shocked.  Kelly had for the first time in her career in retail just told a “customer” off.   And she was still stunned at herself and at the idiot that had provoked her outburst.

Disclaimer:  Kelly has been by book connection for over 20 years.  I would claim her and her employees as my dependents if the IRS would let me.  She and her staff are family and her shop is a home away from home.  Kelly is charming and gracious as is the rest of her staff.

About an hour before I arrived Kelly hosted a book club.  One of the attendees arrived sat down, reached in her purse and set her Kindle on the table.   Kelly said she barely heard a word that was said during the book club she was so transfixed by the Kindle sitting right there out in the open.   Her assistant, Tess, was furious.

Afterwards, Kelly explained to the woman that Kindles can only purchase from Amazon.  At which point the woman stated she would never buy a book from The Fountain, because she lived in a small apartment and was on a fixed income and had no room and that the Kindle had been a gift.  The woman refused to acknowledge her rudeness.  Kelly said she finally lost it and told the woman to get out of her shop.

The woman seemed to think that she was entirely within her rights to use Kelly’s services with no intention of doing business.  The expression that comes to mind is “idiot”.

I subscribe to the concept that the customer is always right.  It’s just that not all customers are right for me.  In this case the woman had no intention of being a customer she simply felt entitled to freeload.

Bringing a Barnes & Noble Nook or a Sony Reader to an independent bookstore is fine, because you can buy e-books for them from the shopkeeper.  Bringing a Kindle is a slap in the face.

I commend Kelly for being as patient and polite as she was.

The next time some boor pulls a stunt like that I hope Kelly lets Tess give them a piece of her mind.

><(("> Gayle Turner

Gayle is a ><(("> Team Member at Catch Your Limit, a consulting firm headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. To learn more, visit www.catchyourlimit.com.

Randy Sager.  She was lamenting how difficult it is to find time to replenish.  I empathized and then

I wrote, “Take it”.  Take the time.  The work will be there when you get back and you’ll be better able to handle it.

Stephen Covey talks about taking the time to sharpen your saw.  Mark Bryan writes in The Artist’s Way at Work, about replenishing your creative well.  America, for that matter the world, needs innovative solutions.  Innovation is applied creativity.  Our ability to create needs to be fed.  Take the time, feed the artist within and then get out there and catch your limit.

><(("> Gayle Turner

Gayle is a ><(("> Team Member at Catch Your Limit, a consulting firm headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. To learn more, visit www.catchyourlimit.com.

I was honored to be the keynote speaker yesterday for the annual meeting of the Virginia Chapter of the Society for Marketing Professional Services.  SMPS VA members are responsible for selling the services of architects, engineers and interior designers.

It was dreary, rainy day in Charlottesvile, but I had a delightful time.  I saw friends I’ve made at previous gatherings and made new friends.  I learned something from the other speakers and frankly from every conversation.

I walked away impressed by how knowledgeable the participants were.  At the same time I was saddened by a pervasive sense that the members do not feel respected by their employers.  On more than one occasion I heard the sentiment expressed that because the marketing department’s activities were not directly billable to clients they were seen as an expense versus revenue generators.

I’d like to say this is an unusual perspective, but it’s one I’ve heard over and over again from the professions.  Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants and the professionals represented by SMPS’ members are frequently guilty of the belief that somehow their work sells itself.  This myth is even perpetuated by advertising executives.

It’s sad, because in my experience nothing sells itself.  Every product and service has to be packaged in a manner to appeal to its prospective audience and then they still have to be sold.

As irrational as this perception may be it is still held by many professionals.  And telling your boss he or she’s wrong can be a career limiting decision.

So what’s a body to do?  It’s enough to make you cry in frustration.

I’ve a suggestion.  Engage them in conversation. Ask your boss or bosses out one at a time for a cup of coffee or a beer.

• Ask them to talk to you about your business.
• Ask them to share their perceptions about how they think your clients consider your firm, choose your firm or choose your competitors.
• Ask them how they think your efforts impact your clients’ decision making.

I offered participants at the conference 10 questions; I’m sure once you start you’ll think of lots more.

When you’re done each time, write up your conversation to reflect what you heard and send it to your boss as a way to further your conversations.

Engaging your bosses in conversation with the intent of understanding before you seek to be understood is the first step toward clarity for the entire organization.

And that’s one of the tried and true tactics for catching your limit.

><(("> Gayle Turner

Gayle is a ><(("> Team Member at Catch Your Limit, a consulting firm headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. To learn more, visit www.catchyourlimit.com.