Following is the commencement address I gave on Saturday at my alma mater Wakefield School in Huntly, VA. The various comments below about amputees, homicide detectives, Native Americans, etc. are all references to their senior thesis papers. Enjoy. Thank you to the faculty and administration of Wakefield School. Thank you to the parents, family and relatives […]
A young woman is waiting in a busy airport. She has some time to kill so she buys a little bag of cookies and sits down with her book to read. Pretty soon a young man comes and sits beside her and starts reading a magazine. They keep to themselves and after a couple minutes […]
I recently interviewed Gene Klein, 87-year old holocaust survivor, born in Czechoslovakia in 1928. In our interview as he vividly recounted the horrors of the experience, the only time he became emotional and tearful was when he was consumed with gratitude and recollected small acts of kindness – a guard who gave him portions of […]
It’s true that often those who are the most assertive in their own promotion and compensation get what they ask for. But their promotion doesn’t necessarily make them more effective leaders. According to Jean Twenge, Ph.D., co-author of The Narcissism Epidemic, “People who are narcissistic want to be leaders. They don’t necessarily make better leaders, but they want […]
Leadership presence requires being present. – Scott Eblin Pressure to be more productive in today’s workplace was been escalating for years. And many of us have a false impression that by attempting to do many things at once, by multitasking, we are being more productive. Car and Driver magazine wanted to figure out just […]
Did you ever walk in a room and forget why you walked in? I think that’s how dogs spend their lives. – Sue Murphy Forty years ago Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review, had been given six months to live. He’d been diagnosed with a painful, degenerative disease of the spine. Although Cousins was […]
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. – Annie Dillard Does this sound like you? You rush around in the morning, get the kids off to school, and hustle to get to work on time. You commute twenty to forty minutes every day. You have your own cube, but […]
Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul. – Douglas MacArthur Imagine a race in which you don’t know where the course is, what you might be asked to do along the way, or even how long the race will last. Imagine that when you sign up for this race, you are told, immediately and […]
Paul Hiltz, President of Mercy Healthcare, might be the toughest interview I’ve had recently. But for reasons you might not expect. It’s not because he isn’t articulate. He is widely praised for his ability to clearly communicate a compelling vision of the future. His mind is sharp. His ideas are clear. His voice is calm and assuring. […]
Whether you think you can, or you can’t — you’re right. – Henry Ford Confidence. That elusive je ne sais quoi quality. It’s like art, you know it when you see it. You know it when you feel it. The thing is, confidence isn’t summoned on demand from the heavens. Confidence isn’t brought on by […]