How 1960s Music Shaped my Life and a Generation For as long as I can remember, starting in 1964 as a seven-year-old, music filled the void in my psyche. Of course, that all started with The Beatles for me and millions of others around the world. I started taking guitar lessons two weeks later, and…
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Childhood Chaos and Painful Family Dynamics Growing up, I was one of four kids, plus a stepsister twelve years older than me. The stepsister, Judy, never had a chance after her dad married my mother. Especially after my sister was born seven years after my twin brother, Jim, and me. She became my mother’s sole…
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Selling with Grit and Grace I base much of my selling success on taking the time to do my homework. For those who know me, that first sentence may raise an eyebrow or two. People always considered me impatient. After a while, it no longer bothered me, as I happened to run at a different…
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Way back in the fall of 1975, after graduating from high school three months earlier, I entered college at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. This was roughly two hours, and from my family home, but it may as well have been on another planet for me. My parents and I took two trips to…
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After that not-so-subtle kick in the ass from my concerned father, I landed a warehouse job within a few days. It did not matter whether that company stored vacuum cleaner parts or automotive parts. That was the least of my concerns. I was on a mission to make my dad proud of me again. I…
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Why Donate ALL Book Profits to the WWP? Ever since the publication of It Worked For Me!, people have occasionally asked why I chose to donate all the book profits to the Wounded Warrior Project. It’s a fair question, especially considering that several excellent charitable programs exist that support our veteran heroes. A Personal Connection…
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The Power of OTFD: How Speed, Accountability, and Quality Built a $100M Brand Success A $100M company was built around a simple business mantra based upon OTFD (Out the Fucking Door). If you find that offensive, you likely worked at one of our so-called competitors. We preferred to consider them as pretenders. “Just Like BCD,”…
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Almost everyone has a childhood memory from which there is no escape. It could have been from being in, or even witness to, a car accident. Or the loss of a parent, aunt, or uncle. Most of those memories are private, deeply buried within one’s psyche. My terrible childhood memory was, unfortunately, public. Now, some…
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How One Reluctant Reader Became a Published Author (and Lived to Tell the Tale) A funny thing happened on my way to being a book author. I don’t read books, as I never had the patience. The family joke was that I would read the first page and then the last page. After accomplishing that…
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Replace Empty Apologies with Genuine Accountability For over three of my six-plus decades on this planet, I cannot even begin to count the number of times I have cringed hearing people cop out with these three disingenuous phrases: My bad Everything happens for a reason, and It is what it is. Yes, a genuine cop…
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