About Jim

My Story

On the first day of my first full time job as a Public Health Sanitarian in Durango CO, I unexpectedly found my passion for a new career. I learned the importance of understanding relationship dynamics the hard way!

As I was walking across a frozen grass field, hearing crunches beneath my feet, I’m thinking, “I am so well prepared for this job. I have my MA in Biology. I’ve been through the Army School of Preventive Medicine. This feels good!”

I was pretty full of myself and my knowledge about science. My job was to design an individual sewage system for a rancher. During the soil percolation test, I told the rancher about the soil, bacteria and disease, and all the sewage system options.

After about an hour of going on and on, I said to the rancher, “Do you have any comments, you haven’t said anything?” He angrily retorted, “You are the most arrogant person I have ever seen, get off my property! I never want to see you again!”  

My heart dropped to my stomach with these words cascading through my mind.  My thoughts were, “Why didn’t somebody tell me I would have to be good with people?”  After my encounter with that angry rancher, I immersed myself in learning. I read every book I could find, listened to customer service audios, attended workshops, and studied communication and relationship dynamics. This journey eventually led me to start People Smart Tools.

I was thrilled when others noticed my enthusiasm and it was easy to find businesses that wanted personal skills training. My ambition to learn about persuasion, influence, leadership, customer relations, emotional intelligence and other business building topics was insatiable. I devoured audio, written, video and in-person training and coaching materials with great gusto. Still do.

What is Fascinating about Teaching People Skills?

The way managers and employees communicate and deal with people dramatically affects morale, teamwork, productivity, and employee retention.  Frequent workplace interpersonal communication breakdowns can cause employees to become disengaged.  It takes so little to turn things around.

Often organizations do a good job in training their managers and employees in necessary job duties, but completely overlook interpersonal skills training.  Most managers or supervisors want to improve interpersonal communication with those they manage but have no idea how to do this.  They don’t know where to start, what to do or how to make communication truly effective.   

Influence is the central key in great careers. I get a lot of pleasure from learning and sharing nuggets with others and seeing them gain lifetime habits that make a difference.  I developed the People Smart Workshop ‘How to Improve Your Personal Influence’ specifically to help managers improve their influence with those they supervise by sharpening their personal skills.