Enjoy Ron Culberson's insights on a variety of topics
When I sent out my last email newsletter, I received more than 350 autoresponders. You know what autoresponders are, right? They’re those automatic return emails that say something like, “I’m out of the office having more fun than this and will respond to your email when I return.” Generally speaking, I receive about 30-40 autoresponders […]
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In 1987, my wife and I were visiting college friends in San Francisco and decided to see a movie. We caught the midnight showing of Fatal Attraction, the thriller starring Glenn Close and Michael Douglas. The movie was both entertaining and terrifying but what made that particular show unique for us was that we saw […]
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The largest non-profit children’s literacy organization in the U.S. is Reading is Fundamental, Inc. When I was a child, however, I found reading fundamental-ly frustrating. You see, I was a slow reader and every assignment felt like drudgery. I remember lying on my bed one Sunday afternoon trying to finish Tom Sawyer so I could […]
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Early in my career, after speaking at a hospice conference, I walked to dinner with two of my colleagues. Dale and Elliott were both psychologists and I was a social worker. On the ladder of psychological hierarchy, social work is often placed on a lower rung than psychology and psychiatry which suggests that my Ego […]
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Each of us has unique skills that we can use in our life and work. Sometimes, however, it takes a while to figure out just what those skills are. Early in my career, I heard other speakers talk about how they customized every presentation they did. They would interview people, read organizational documents, and then […]
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When I was young, we dialed 411 or “Information” on the telephone when we needed to find out the time, the weather, or someone’s phone number. Today we use Google or Siri to find just about anything we need. But sometimes, in the middle of a conversation, we may need clarification or more details to […]
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Whenever anyone complains about the challenges of today’s technology, I always reboot my memory back to my first social work job when I had to fill out forms by hand…in triplicate…using carbon paper. For those of you who are too young to remember carbon paper, just imagine a piece of paper that’s slick on one […]
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I recently got demoted by United Airlines. Well, that’s not exactly true. They didn’t really demote me. I just didn’t fly as much last year so my frequent flyer status is lower. In the big scheme of things, this is not a big deal. It’s not a serious illness; it’s not a car accident; it’s […]
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The C&O Restaurant in Charlottesville, VA is a very special place for my wife and me. Back in 1982, when I was in college, I had more hair but less money. I took my then girlfriend Wendy to the C&O Restaurant for Valentine’s Day. We had a wonderful evening but the meal set me back […]
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For years, I’ve bragged about turning a social disability of talking too much into a lucrative career as a professional speaker. My loquaciousness (that’s “blabbing” for you non-talkers) works well for my job but can be a challenge for my wife who has spent the last thirty-one years becoming a professional listener. Thankfully, she rarely […]
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