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Humble pie
WotD: Humble pie For starters, humble pie doesn’t taste very good at all. It has kind of a grainy texture, and not only does it taste bad, but it also makes you feel bad. After eating it, you get a bellyache, and on the way out, well, I’ll say that it’s not a pretty picture.…
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Be still my beating heart
Idiom: Be still my beating heart Contrary to what you may think, Sting may have a song titled Be Still my Beating Heart, but he did not invent the phrase. It was used as far back as the late 17th century. Remember how you felt when you first saw the love of your life or…
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All’s well that ends well
Proverb: All’s well that ends well Life is full of trials and tribulations (difficulties), but at the end of the day, all’s well that ends well. This means that a happy outcome makes up for all of the problems you had to go through. When experts give advice on achieving happiness, they often say we…
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A nail in the coffin
Idiom: A nail in the coffin Massive failures are composed of many smaller failures. If we go back and examine why something failed, we will find many small reasons that accumulated until the thing was destroyed. In the idiom, a nail in the coffin, ‘a nail’ is a minor failure and ‘the coffin’ is the…
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Work smarter, not harder
Phrase: Work smarter, not harder For decades, the West has admired the Japanese for their work ethic. We have all heard stories of how the stereotypical salaryman or salaried worker dedicated his life to the company at the expense of his home and family life. It’s time for the Japanese to learn to work smarter,…
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Lax
Word of the Day: Lax The initial response to the coronavirus pandemic was lax, and mistakes were made. There is no doubt about it. We can all see that now. Hindsight is 20/20 (twenty-twenty), as they say, and there is nothing we can do about the past. When rules are not enforced properly and carefully,…
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The Benefit of the Doubt
Phrase: The benefit of the doubt There’s a constant struggle between giving people the benefit of the doubt and second-guessing them until they give you a reason to trust them. Giving someone the benefit of the doubt means to believe what they say or do is right or justified until you have a reason not…
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Above your pay grade
Phrase: Above your pay grade Humans, both on a group and individual level, like to think we are all-knowing and all-powerful. However, there is a hierarchy of knowledge and authority that governs what we can and cannot do. When someone says that something is above their pay grade, they admit they lack the power, knowledge,…
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Shoulder the blame
Phrase: Shoulder the blame Many people are quite willing to blame others when things go sideways, but few volunteer to shoulder the blame themselves. Think about blame as a heavy burden that people have to carry. Often, we may carry something heavy on our shoulders. Therefore, we can use the word shoulder as a verb…
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Fiasco
Word of the Day: Fiasco Show me an idiot in a leadership role, and I’ll show you a fiasco waiting to happen. Why? Well, because a fiasco is a complete and utter failure. Not only is a fiasco a failure, but it is a humiliating and stupid one. A perfect and very timely example of…
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