Blog
Tuesdays With Tommy
How Bad Do You Want It?
I received a text message this past fall from an old college friend that I had not heard from in years. Stephanie was coming out to Denver to visit her oldest daughter, Ivy, who was living out west working at a medical office. Ivy, to her father’s hopes, was pre-med...
Standing on the Shoulders
There are words in the English vocabulary that are drastically overused by westerners. One word that comes to mind: Love. I lived in Nagano, Japan for two years teaching English when I was in my twenties. The thing I appreciated most about the Japanese culture and...
Pick ’em Out
There’s an unwritten rule in the publishing world to not write about Chick-Fil-A and a handful of other companies. Not because these companies have done something wrong. Quite the opposite. Because these companies have done a lot of things right. I wrote about...
Wad of Heart
Last month, a few days before Christmas, my good friend Brian Smith invited me to lunch. He wanted me to attend his annual holiday luncheon with his leadership team. Brian and his wife, Mikelle, own two Keller Williams Real Estate offices in Denver, Colorado. They...
A Wedding and an Organizational Culture
I attended a wedding in Iowa this past June that I’m still thinking about. I’ve been to a hundred or more weddings in my lifetime, but this one was beyond special. I’m half Italian, so growing up in New York, most weekends were spent attending family functions – many...
24 Thoughts for 2024
1) We spend half of our life trying to look older and the other half trying to look younger. 2) Your ability to be happy for someone else’s success is in direct correlation with your ability to happy with yourself. 3) People think money changes people. It does not....
Everyone Has a Superpower
I was too young to understand the technical terms of my learning challenges. No eight-year-old kid understands what dyslexia, ADD, ADHD and reading comprehension challenges are. But I knew, even back then, that something was wrong. I remember when my third-grade...
Punch in the Nose
My father has a gentle and kind heart. Probably one of the softest spoken and loving humans that I know. He could not kill a dead fly. He is a lover, not a fighter. So that is why it surprised me forty years ago when he wanted me to...
Celtics Fan
We had our 21st annual Global Youth Leadership Academy this past July in southern Italy, with forty-three amazing high school students and seven volunteer staff from around the country. After GYLA, Jill and two of our kids decided to visit Capri, an island off...