Blog

Twelve years ago, I was talking with my mother about her bucket list. She said she had been blessed to travel to Europe and other exotic places, but there was one thing she still wanted to do above everything else. “Have you heard of the Passion Play?” she asked me. I...

Coca Cola was invented by an Atlanta pharmacist way back in 1886. Even now, over 130 years later, the recipe remains a secret. The only written copy is kept in a vault deep inside Coke’s headquarters in Atlanta. Dr. Pepper, meanwhile, split its secret “23 flavors”...

Last week I got a call from a young man named Jeff. I’ve known and mentored him for many years as he rose the ranks to become second in command of a major tech company on the West Coast. But when I picked up the phone, I could tell that Jeff was in distress. “What’s...

This past week, my wife, Jill, and I took a vacation with our longtime friends Lisa and Byron Haselden. We travel every year together, and this time we had the honor of staying at Blackberry Farm, located about thirty miles south of Knoxville, Tennessee. Situated on...

Last month, my son, Tate, was invited to participate in the Western Regional Hockey Combine at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He got to skate against some of the best fourteen-year-old hockey players in the country. It was a big opportunity for Tate,...

Like millions of Americans, the Covid-19 pandemic prevented me from working for many months. I was no longer crisscrossing the country working with business leaders and organizations. I was no longer giving speeches to big crowds in auditoriums and convention centers....

Once upon a time there was an old man who walked on the beach every day before breakfast. One morning he was strolling along the shore after a big storm had passed. The beach was littered with starfish that had been washed onto the sand by the roiling seas. In the...

After I graduated business school, I moved to Boston and started my first corporate job working as a salesman for IBM Lotus Development. I lived in a brownstone condo in the South End, and my downstairs neighbor was a wonderful man named Colin...