By Tim Hayes In the winter of 1982, I had a fiancé, a year of college left to finish, and zero job prospects.  Then, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania came to town.  Allow me to explain. Walking from my off-campus apartment to an evening  “Introduction to Computers” class – which I hated and […]

By Tim Hayes Close your eyes and you can hear it.  That explosion of sunshine from George Harrison’s guitar.  That aural blast of brilliance, excitement, and innocence.  The iconic blending of sounds in the distinctive chord at the beginning of the Beatles’ classic, “A Hard Day’s Night.” Bwaanngggggg!!! … … …”It’s been a hard day’s […]

By Tim Hayes Three years before he was even born, it started. One inning away from the World Series.  One fluke hit, one bad throw to home plate from left field, one missed tag, and the Pittsburgh Pirates’ fall from the precipice of winning baseball began. As an infant, we dressed him in Pirates t-shirts.  […]

By Tim Hayes In case you haven’t noticed, fellow Pittsburghers, a giant 40-foot rubber duck has been docked in the Allegheny River for more than a week now.  Not sure why.  What is sure, however, is that this enormous floating yellow attraction has become inescapable. It’s all we’ve heard about for weeks around here.  The […]

By Tim Hayes For 363 days a year, the local YMCA was just that – a fully functioning YMCA in a small town hard along the banks of a major river in northern Pennsylvania. But two days out of the year, the YMCA metaphorically tugged off its eyeglasses, ran into a phone booth, and emerged, […]

By Tim Hayes Art carried all the keys down at Transverse Park. He was a good man to get to know.  Art could unlock the basketballs, the checkerboards, or the shuffleboard pucks and sticks.  He could repair the see-saw or sliding board.  He could even turn on the sprinklers at the pool any time he […]

By Tim Hayes The invoice lay there on my desk, as I stood in mute disbelief.  This had to be a mistake.  A clerical error.  An executive assistant’s idea of a joke that misfired terribly. A $500 bill from my attorney’s office, when I had not been in to see them for three months, and […]

By Tim Hayes It quickly became the first book I couldn’t put down.  The one I read over and over again, underlining sentences that I thought were especially funny or pointed or that sounded like they came straight out of my head. “The Catcher in the Rye,” by J.D. Salinger, in 12th grade high school […]

By Tim Hayes Like Superman for Jerry Seinfeld, and like the Flash for Sheldon on “The Big Bang Theory,” it’s always been Batman for me. With a backstory drenched in drama, Batman always stood far and away the coolest, toughest, smartest, and most bad-assiest superhero in my view.  Nothing more than a royally PO’d billionaire […]

By Tim Hayes It happens to me at least three or four times a week.  Driving through the parking lot of our local supermarket, some daydreamer coming out of the store walks right out into passing traffic, completely oblivious to the fact that a rolling ton of steel, glass, and rubber under my control is […]

By Tim Hayes Fresh out of college, the ink on my bachelor’s degree still wet, just weeks from getting married, I met The Rebel.  And a major life lesson got set into motion. We had a little townhouse about four blocks from the small-town newspaper where I had been hired as a cub reporter, so […]

By Tim Hayes I believe I now understand why no one ever smiles in old colonial or traditional New England Yankee historical photos. The chairs hurt like hell up there in those olden days.  Trust me, they still do. On a recent swing through Boston, Cape Cod, and western Massachusetts on vacation, the family and […]

By Tim Hayes Being apart sucks.  Whether it’s for a day, a week, or months on end, when your partner and best friend is not where you are, it stinks. It’s easy to offer advice to the person in such a situation.  It’s easy to say, “Your connection is strong enough to weather this.”  Or, […]

By Tim Hayes Scandal of scandals!  The outcomes of professional wrestling matches are predetermined! In other breaking news, the sun is hot and water is wet.  Film at 11. This week, a blogger who goes by the alias “Dolphins1925” has taken it upon himself to divulge the results of numerous World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) matches […]

By Tim Hayes Last May, we marked 10 years in the house where we live.  Lot’s changed over that decade, naturally. The daughter in sixth grade back then just graduated from college.  Another daughter, a fourth-grader, will be a college junior.  And our son, the youngest, who was just starting to climb the elementary school […]

By Tim Hayes Things I think I’ve thought of lately… = = = The other day I pulled out my old high school yearbook from my senior year, and became struck at a disturbing realization.  Of the scores of notes and signatures and “RMA”s (remember me always), and “I’ll never forget that time in Mr. […]

By Tim Hayes My college career wasn’t two days old, when I saw this girl.  A knockout.  She was part of a group of girls from the same floor of a dorm where a friend of mine from high school lived.  I was actually meeting that friend at a hypnotist show during Freshman Orientation, when […]

By Tim Hayes It had to be one of those cosmic coincidences.  Somehow that December, the planets aligned in just the right sequence, and the gods of parental Christmas gift decisions decided to blow our collective pre-teen minds. I and my best friends in the neighborhood all found new 10-speed bicycles next to our respective […]

By Tim Hayes Last week, 100 belligerent, entitled, insufferable high school seniors and their chaperones got tossed off of an AirTran airplane at New York’s LaGuardia Airport because they refused to sit down and turn off their cell phones. Hallelujah!  Welcome to the rest of your lives, kids, where actions actually have consequences.  Where self-absorption […]

By Tim Hayes Okay, so it wasn’t quite as theatrical a conversion as Saul being thrown to the ground and struck blind on the road to Damascus.  But it felt – and continues to feel – like a thrilling, punch-to-the-gut, hair-raising, baffling, wonderful conversion to me nonetheless. I switched from a PC to Mac over […]

By Tim Hayes Paul McCartney woke up one morning and had the melody to “Yesterday” – a number one song for the Beatles, and the song that’s been covered by more artists than any other in history – fully formed in his head. Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones opened his eyes in the middle […]

By Tim Hayes We’re in upstate New York this weekend for the graduation of our oldest daughter from college.  Just as it’s been all along for the past 22-plus years, her experience today is the first among our three kids, and it promises to be an emotional, joyful, file-this-in-your-memory-bank day. This is always a sentimental […]

By Tim Hayes “My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.” – George Washington The Father of Our Country knew how important his mother was to his bearing, his success, his life.  And if good […]

By Tim Hayes On March 30th, hockey fans in Pittsburgh drew a collective gasp, as Penguins superstar captain Sidney Crosby took an errant slap shot to the face, the puck shattering his jaw, cracking loose a few teeth, and giving him some facial lacerations.  He required surgery to repair the damage, and missed the final […]

By Tim Hayes You want to hear my job description?  Here’s an abbreviated version.  Expert writing, presentation skills coaching, offsite meeting facilitation, visits to school nurses’ offices, college dorm move-ins, grocery and drug store runs, and even some spring afternoons throwing a baseball around with my kid. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the wonderful world […]

By Tim Hayes We had reason to visit Manhattan recently, and decided to make the six-hour drive instead of flying.  On the return trip, after crossing the state line from New Jersey into Pennsylvania, a thought seized my brain. “Why don’t we take one of the Allentown exits and see the old house?” I thought […]

By Tim Hayes The ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras – he of the theorem memorized by millions of high school geometry students, wherein a-squared plus b-squared equals c-squared – once said, “Music is math made audible.”    If anybody had the street cred to make such a statement, good old Pythagoras did. Give a child four bars […]

By Tim Hayes That Easter morning, she had never looked so lovely. As my wife and I headed out the door to Easter Mass – the last one at our parish that Sunday in the late 1980s – we both looked springtime fresh and dapper.  I wore my favorite suit and tie, and she had […]

By Tim Hayes I bet I knew what John Calipari was thinking. “I’ll go back home, have a really good spaghetti dinner with my folks, then get to this tiny gym and watch my guys wax this little nobody school.” Well, he got some of that right.  Calipari, the head coach of the University of […]

By Tim Hayes Saturday, March 16, 2013 – a date that forever will be known (at least in my head) as “Time Warp Saturday,” and a day that I’ll always remember fondly.  Maybe because it fell between the Ides of March and St. Patrick’s Day, March 16 this year had something ethereal, magical, wondrous about […]

By Tim Hayes Could things actually be starting to change in Washington?  Has the confluence of Daylight Savings Time, the first crocus buds pushing up through the ground, and baseball spring training, combined to melt those frozen hearts at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue? Dare we dream that our representatives in Congress and the President […]

By Tim Hayes “I am no longer the pope but I am still in the Church. I’m just a pilgrim who is starting the last part of his pilgrimage on this earth.” So said Pope Benedict XVI in his final public audience before resigning his office earlier this week.  Finding the right words to say […]

By Tim Hayes Sitting at my old wood-and-wrought iron desk in fourth grade, the smell of floor wax and fresh pencil shavings wafting through the ancient classroom, I stared at the list of words that Mr. H. was screaming at us to finish working on. We were converting nouns from a description into a personal […]

By Tim Hayes We have never been big on cruise ships as a vacation destination. The sense of isolation while out at sea, the potential for high drama in the bathroom given the rocking motion, the fear of needing serious medical attention that can’t be easily obtained – no thanks, we’ll stick to sitting on […]

By Tim Hayes Copywriters and graphic designers working on advertisements for magazines know about the “Stopper” – the headline or visual image that causes a person leafing through the publication to freeze in their tracks.  They must pause at that page and learn more.  The Stopper holds immense power precisely because it refuses to be […]

By Tim Hayes Smart coaches in all professional sports know that to publicly criticize, call out, humiliate, or embarrass a game official means a hefty fine from the league.  Notice I said “smart” coaches. Fans have seen coaches wig out on referees, umpires, line judges, you name it, on a regular basis.  At the corner […]

By Tim Hayes One of the most enjoyable toys when I was a kid had only three moving parts – a pen, some plastic pieces, and your brain. Spirograph.  A box full of different plastic discs with teeth around the edges and holes in various spots.  You’d line up the disc against an outer frame […]

By Tim Hayes This may go down as one of the most painful and embarrassing cases of pen-pal fraud in history.  And it offers a lesson for anyone foolish enough to rely on social media as a suitable substitute for personal interaction. Notre Dame senior linebacker Manti Te’o has been exposed as never having an […]

By Tim Hayes The first time I heard it, my skin began to crawl.  It has yet to get back to normal. “From NBC News…this is TODAY…with Hoda Kotb…and Kathie Lee Gifford…live, from Studio 1-A in Rockefeller Plaza!” Then, this past Sunday night, the world was treated to the “Golden Globes Preview Special,” featuring vapid […]

By Tim Hayes Back in eighth grade, I kind of felt sorry for Tom C. All the way from kindergarten and on up through every grade level, Tom C. stood taller than any of us.  Whether through genetics or wishful thinking, he simply started out tall and lanky and stayed that way. But that’s not […]

By Tim Hayes In rummaging through some plastic tubs in the garage a few weeks ago, in preparation for decorating the house for the holidays, I came across an old red fleece jacket, a pair of black leather gloves, some jingle bells, and a well-worn old Santa hat with the beard sewn right onto it.  […]

By Tim Hayes To apply logic or reason to such an unspeakable, unimaginable, unconscionable act of monstrosity as the events of Friday at the Sandy Hook Elementary School is a waste of time and brain cells.  But would it be too much to ask for some accurate reporting, so that at least the facts are […]

By Tim Hayes We’ve crashed through the chronological wall into December now, so it’s a no-holds-barred, downhill-with-no-brakes sprint to the Big One – the holiday that bespectacled Red Ryder BB-gun lusting Ralphie Parker described as “lovely, glorious, beautiful Christmas, around which the entire kid year revolved,” in “A Christmas Story.” Like Ralphie, Christmas brought a […]

By Tim Hayes Black Friday.  It sounds so ominous, so forbidding, so unwelcoming.  I don’t get it.  I don’t like it.  I don’t participate in it. Instead, the day after Thanksgiving at our house has always been the day to put up the Christmas decorations.  They stay up until one of our kids’ birthdays right […]

With the new motion picture, “Lincoln,” doing so well in theaters currently, with the approach of Thanksgiving this week (made an official national holiday by Lincoln), and with the 149th anniversary of his Gettysburg Address occurring tomorrow, I wanted to share with you this essay, first published on July 4, 2009.  Have a wonderful and […]

By Tim Hayes My Uncle Jim was a bear of a guy, a man’s man, and it was impossible not to like him. He and my Aunt had three daughters, and since my Mom and Aunt were sisters, our family spent a lot of time at their house, and vice versa.  I loved them all, […]

By Tim Hayes It felt good stepping away from the voting machine on Tuesday, didn’t it?  Like walking out of a cold, dark cave of relentless ads, predictions, and analysis, and into the warm sunlight of a decision, regardless of which way it would eventually end up. So now all the dust has settled, the […]

By Tim Hayes It’s almost over, gang.  In a little more than a week, the incessant pummeling of wild boasts and finger-pointing, the fearsome voiceovers and sunny testimonials, will cease emanating from our televisions and radios. Then the recounts and lawsuits can begin. If it looks and sounds like this year’s election campaigns have been […]

By Tim Hayes The other day, I was driving one of my kids from her college dorm to a series of appointments and other stops, and it hit me. Weaving through traffic, taking little-known or appreciated short-cuts, skirting the numerous construction delays, and generally zipping around the city with ease and speed, the thought came […]

By Tim Hayes Man, it must be love.  To do something so permanently stupid, that is.  After his fiancée, Miley Cyrus, showed off a tattoo of half (half?) of a Theodore Roosevelt quotation on her arm in July, noted fellow thespian and obvious super-genius Liam Hemsworth recently debuted the tattooed continuation of the sentence on […]

By Tim Hayes The last time I swung by the neighborhood where I grew up, the little family-owned store about two blocks from my house had been boarded up and abandoned.  And for quite some time, from the looks of it.  That made me sad. In its heyday, this tiny structure – owned and operated […]

By Tim Hayes Call it a personality quirk.  One of hundreds, in my case.  I cannot stand to be late. Where this comes from, I have no idea.  It may be genetic, it may be just some self-imposed standard that has calcified into a rigid, unbending, inexcusable bright red line that exists only in my […]

By Tim Hayes These guys really ought to know better.  When you reach the pinnacle of American presidential politics, you think you’d realize that nothing – NOTHING – that comes out of your mouth is secret or sacred. Mitt Romney discovered this the hard way a few days ago when a video of him referencing […]

By Tim Hayes A few days ago, as the Chicago Bears prepared to play the Green Bay Packers, Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, feeling his oats, felt compelled to share his perspective on the Packers, stating, “Good luck. Our speed guys are going to get around them and our big guys are going to throw and […]

By Tim Hayes In the late 1970s, things were pretty rough.  Double-digit inflation, mortgage rates at 18% or higher, long lines where you could only buy gasoline on odd-numbered dates if your license plate ended in an odd number, and vice versa. From the perspective of a 51-year-old father of three today, it’s remarkable and downright admirable […]

By Tim Hayes  Reality TV hadn’t been invented yet.  Or it hadn’t yet been foisted upon a fetid, pudgy, limp-minded American population, is perhaps a better way to state it.  But if it had existed back then, I knew a household that might have garnered its own slow-motion train-wreck of a show. I never even […]

  By Tim Hayes As Hurricane Isaac tore across southern Louisiana this week, the news reports carried the anticipated results – entire communities under water, innumerable homes evacuated, loss of electricity for hundreds of thousands. We don’t get many hurricanes in my western Pennsylvania neighborhood, thank goodness, but the power still goes out fairly regularly […]

By Tim Hayes In the prehistoric days before FM or satellite radio in the car, much less iPods or Twitter or any of the myriad media options to occupy one’s attention these days, we had something different.  Something old fashioned.  Something better. We had Big Little Books. Many a car ride to a favorite aunt’s […]

  By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com It doesn’t matter whether you’re famous or not, if you ask me.  As long as you work your head off to constantly perform at your best, remain humble about it, and are ever willing to share your talent on other people’s behalf. A few names come to mind who […]

  By Tim Hayes She walked back to the starting point of the vault at the London Olympics, knowing that her first, more complicated and challenging attempt – while technically sufficient – really wasn’t her best.  On her second vault, an easier, less taxing one, she’d show ‘em.  She’d knock it out of the park […]

By Tim Hayes The magical pennant run now being waged by my beloved Pittsburgh Pirates, 20 years in coming, got me thinking about something that happened more than 40 years ago, when the Bucs won it all in 1971. Ten years old and a dyed-in-the-wool Pirates fan, I knew they were gonna go all the […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com, www.totalprotraining.com We’ve been there plenty of times before, but this time had a much different vibe to it.  I’m talking about State College, Pennsylvania, home of The Pennsylvania State University. And no wonder, seeing that this was the first week following the blistering report from former FBI Director Louis Freeh, citing […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com Two experiences over the past week reminded me that when something is done well, with superior talent performing at its absolute peak, the resulting benefits can last for decades, even centuries. The first came as my wife and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary.  Family events dictated that our original […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com Sister Frederick knew how to run a Catholic school. She never raised her voice in the eight years we both inhabited St. Joseph School, her as the principal, me as an elementary school student.  Way back when, Catholic schools sported a nun-to-lay teacher ratio of about 50:50, and my experience […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com “Being a great father is like shaving. No matter how good you shaved today, you have to do it again tomorrow.” ~Reed Markham Doesn’t it strike you as strange how some men have such an odd relationship with their fathers?  Like when a father never gives his wholehearted endorsement of […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com Certain occurrences just happen in nature.  You can’t do much about them, they simply recur with no plausible explanation.  There’s not much else to say. Each March 19th, the swallows return to Capistrano. Every 75 years, Halley’s Comet streaks across the night sky. And in the first week of June, […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com Among the back pages of a magazine many years ago, shortly after the end of the Vietnam War, a small ad caught my eye: “P.O.W. Bracelets Available.  Let them know you haven’t forgotten them.” For a nominal fee, I sent in the form and a few weeks later, received my […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com This can’t be for real, I thought, when I first saw it on the Internet today.  But it is.  And I can’t figure out whether it’s a stroke of marketing genius or a little piece of molded plastic delivered straight from the Gates of Hell. The Atlanta Braves, at a […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com In the 1970s, on Pittsburgh’s Channel 4, a 30-minute cultural touchstone was beamed into homes every evening at 7 p.m.  Its name?  “Bowling for Dollars.” Hosted by local legend Nick Perry – who later served time in prison for masterminding the infamous “6-6-6” Pennsylvania Lottery fix – “Bowling for Dollars” […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com One of the fatherly pearls of wisdom I’ve tried to pass on to my kids goes something like this: You know you’re an adult when you no longer permit what other people think to bother you. So in that same spirit, I’ve decided it’s high time to reveal something I’ve […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com It’s no secret that people like lists.  David Letterman has been making a living off of his Top Ten list for 30 years.  Speechwriters know that if a presentation has a lively list, people can remember the information more accurately and for longer stretches of time. But some lists are […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com On an episode of the old “Mary Tyler Moore” show, Mary and Rhoda stay up all night writing pre-emptive obituaries for use on the air when notable people would pass away.  The last one they write – while in a state of exhaustion and silliness – is for “Wee Willie […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com Fair warning!  Feeling a little cranky, gang, so here’s my question.  It’s a simple question, I believe, borne of years spent in silent frustration. Would it kill them to put more tables and chairs in Starbucks? Every time I’m in one of those chic, trendy coffeehouses to meet a client […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com This would be a special day, so I wore my best suit and favorite tie.  On this day, I would be meeting a personal hero.  I didn’t want to let him down, after all he did for me and my family. Standing amid a group of other professionals in a […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com  www.totalprotraining.com Somewhere across Denmark, 300 Danes are still fuming. Seems the Danish state lottery made a slight boo-boo this week, wherein 300 winners of the “Keno” game received official letters informing them that they each had won 28 billion kroner, which would be equivalent to about $5 billion.  28 billion kroner.  […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com The weather around here for the Ides of March today was off-the-charts gorgeous.  Sunny, upper 70s, warm and comfortable.  An unbelievable blessing.  So we decided as a family it was time for Dad to fire up the grill and cook some burgers. With the summer outdoor furniture still in storage, […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com “Life isn’t fair,” said Mr. Cooper, our high school sophomore English teacher.  It was his standard comeback when you received an essay with a grade you didn’t like, or when the class would go off on a tangent about the injustice of current events. Decades later, I’ve caught myself telling […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com When you’re in sixth grade, comparisons count. Among my fellow classmates at St. Joseph School, circa 1972, especially the other guys, footwear somehow became a critical barometer of status and coolness.  We were starting to embark on the road of impressing girls, with all of the misfires and ridiculous ideas […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com So I’m chatting with a group of mainly young professionals, 30 years of age or less, when I tell a sure-fire joke.  A real snapper.  One that has never failed to get a laugh.  The punch line goes, “And the guy says, ‘Let’s go in the darkroom and see what […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com A tall drink of water who wielded a sharp pen and a wicked wit, was my friend Davey O. For the six years my wife and I lived in Allentown, Pennsylvania, I worked alongside this guy and knew that every day would be as unpredictable as the next.  Davey O […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com  They’re memorializing the late songstress Whitney Houston today in New Jersey.  Every cable channel has a complete satellite compound up and broadcasting, as they have been for days, and flags across the Garden State are flying at half-staff, as directed by the governor.  Two weeks ago, they played the Super Bowl […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com “you hafta tweet dad!!!” So read the message from one of my kids after I had, at long last, opened by own Twitter account (@TimHayes82) yet had only posted one message in two weeks. Maybe it’s me.  Maybe I’m turning into the Fred Mertz of my circle of friends.  The […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com It’s tough to stun a bunch of hormonal, unfocused 15-year-old sophomore boys, but we were good and truly stunned. Up on my high school’s stage, a man paced like a panther contemplating his next meal.  His voice was low but powerful, a deep baritone growl buzzing beneath every word he […]

By Tim Hayes www.timhayesconsulting.com www.totalprotraining.com The new Chief Executive Officer of Wendy’s made the news a few days ago by doing something hardly anyone expects these days. He told the truth. Commenting on a string of disappointing quarterly earnings reports of late, CEO Emil Brolick did not take the easy road and lay the blame […]

By Tim Hayes www.timothy-hayes.com www.totalprotraining.com When “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” debuted in 1937, Walt Disney stunned Hollywood and began his ascent to conquer the world with entertainment that no one had seen or experienced before. An unqualified success, the 80-minute film – scoffed at by outsiders during its production as “Disney’s Folly” – […]

By Tim Hayes www.totalprotraining.com The airwaves and news pages are awash with reminiscences and remembrances of Penn State’s late, great Joe Paterno.  But if you will kindly indulge me, here’s mine. Nearly 20 years ago, as I labored in the Corporate Communications Department of a major company here in Pittsburgh, I found myself scurrying around […]

By Tim Hayes [www.timhayesconsulting.com] There’s a scene near the end of the movie “The King’s Speech,” where the king – a severe stammerer, who has just successfully delivered his first wartime speech at the outbreak of World War II – turns to his unorthodox speech coach, Lionel Logue.  The king, as his emotions begin to […]

By Tim Hayes [www.timhayesconsulting.com] I’ll say it right up front.  In the interest of complete transparency, openness, and honesty, I’ll tell you right now – I love the Cracker Barrel chain of restaurants. Maybe it’s because the place virtually oozes globs of heavily breaded, gravy-ladled comfort food that tastes so good even though you know […]

By Tim Hayes [www.timhayesconsulting.com] The kids just roll their eyes when I pull this old chestnut out of storage.  “When I went to elementary school, we had to walk there in the morning, walk home for lunch, walk back to school, and walk home again.” Occasionally I throw in little sweeteners to embellish this heart-tugging […]

By Tim Hayes [www.timhayesconsulting.com] Flam, Roll, Paradiddle, and Ratamacue. No, it’s not a law firm specializing in personal injury cases.  It’s not a listing of naughty homonyms, either.  It’s a sampling of the 40 basic drum rudiments – the equivalent of a piano student learning fingering and scales, or a clarinet or trumpet player learning […]

By Tim Hayes [www.timhayesconsulting.com] It’s a simple question: Are you nervous when you talk with your family over the dinner table?  Assuming the answer is “no,” we move on – “we” being me and the speaker I happen to be training at the time. Why this particular question?  Because getting comfortable speaking in front of […]

By Tim Hayes [www.timhayesconsulting.com] Some years ago, our family traveled to New York City to shoot the works.  We stayed in Times Square, went to a Yankee game, traveled to the top of the Empire State Building – all the touristy things you’re supposed to do in the big city.  And, naturally, we attended a […]

By Tim Hayes www.tiomhayesconsulting.com So much happening across the country and around the world recently that fairly screams out the central, fundamental, core critical importance of communications – and the need to respect the people with whom one communicates. Take the budget impasse in Wisconsin, for instance.  On one side, the Governor wants to rein […]

By Tim Hayes [www.timhayesconsulting.com] Back in the pre-historic, pre-digital days of banking, circa 1979, I had the opportunity to work one summer alongside Millie and Betty – or, as I came to refer to them, the Bank Ladies.  My summer job between freshman and sophomore years was helping on the commercial check processing floor of […]

By Tim Hayes [www.timhayesconsulting.com The Super Bowl is again upon us and, for once, it’s a shame somebody has to lose this game. Two of the NFL’s most legendary and respected franchises, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers, will battle it out for the world championship of American football.  But even though one […]

By Tim Hayes [www.timhayesconsulting.com] At a large company where I toiled decades ago, some wise guy (not me, for once) had a big sign in his cubicle that read: “The difficult we do immediately, the impossible may take a little longer.” That message came to mind one afternoon back then, as I stood in the […]

By Tim Hayes [www.timhayesconsulting.com] On this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, it’s worth spending a little time examining the magnificence of his legendary “I Have a Dream” speech.  It’s worth actually reading through the entire transcript of that address, because it points out with painful clarity how lazy and lousy today’s alleged orators actually […]

By Tim Hayes [www.timhayesconsulting.com] Brilliant sunshine almost immediately turned into one of the most wicked whiteouts experienced in my long highway driving history this weekend.  While en route to upstate New York on an end-of-college-break trip, I saw the dense cloud of blowing snow quickly envelop the car, making it nearly impossible to see anything […]

By Tim Hayes [www.timhayesconsulting.com] At least once each winter, as the cold and the slush and the snow seep into our bones around here, I find myself driving past Kennywood Park – a grand old Pittsburgh amusement park with some of the best roller coasters anywhere.  Of course, in the dead of winter, nobody’s enjoying […]