My Top Ten Favorite Moments at the 2014 IFA Convention:

1. Sunday's Prayer Breakfast - @ChrisConlee "Sustained Focus = Sustained Success"...
2. ...and his 5 Questions to help figure it out:
   • What are you naturally good at?
   • Historically where have you excelled?
   • Where do you consistently excel at today?
   • What do you do easily that is hard for others?
   • What do you that gives you the most compliments?
3. Nancy Friedman, @TelephoneDoctor Session - If you are in almost any role in franchising, you need to know the "5 forbidden phrases" and all the rest of her nuggets.
4. Tweetup - Meeting new friends and catching up with my tweeps
5. Tech Summit - While being a part of the planning and admittedly #biased, the future is here and several of the leaders in the space spoke and/or lead roundtables.  
6. FranJam - These sponsoring companies deserve a lot of credit and thanks for funding such a fun event.
7. Leon Panetta - Exceeded my expectations. "It doesn't matter if you don't fight."  A potential VP candidate 2016??
8. Cheryl Bachelder/Popeyes  What a great communicator, breaking down the Zor/Zee - multi-stakeholder success model into very clear terms
9. The nice round of applause our Marketing and Technology Committee gave me Saturday morning as I stepped down from my Vice-Chairman's role with my retirement.
10. The Photo Booth in the Exhibit Hall.  What can I say?

And two moments I missed that I hear were great:

1. Mary Thompson's (mkennedythom) Keynote at Saturday's Leadership Conference
2. Google's Todd Rowe and his Tuesday morning keynote "The Digital Road Ahead". I noted the tweet from @franchising411 - "Google would have to grow 35 times to equal franchising's 2.1 trillion output"

Reflect on what were yours.  Keep to yourself to act on, or please comment here and/or post to FranSocial

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Top 5 Things About Retirement I've Learned So Far:

Wow!  It's been over 2 months since I retired.  After working, in some capacity, since I was fourteen and the past 28 years with Valpak and it's parent company, this is a very interesting change.  I've really enjoyed the opportunity to catch my breath, smell the proverbial roses and celebrate crossing the finish line.  

Here are the top 5 things I've learned so far:

1. Time seems to go even faster than at work.
2. Taking a step back and recharging will probably help me live longer.
3. Technology is your friend.
4. Sleep is good. 
5. The perspective from atop the forest is different than within the trees.

I haven't retired from life, so I am doing limited franchise sales/development consulting.  If I can provide some value to you and/or your organization, I'd enjoy the opportunity to chat.   See you in New Orleans!

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