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…
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…
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…
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,”…
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…
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…
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…
I learned, in some cases, the hard way, that the quietest person listening in the meeting is generally the brightest person in the room. Early in my sales career, over forty years ago in the early 1980s, the combination of recently having the warehouse in the rearview mirror and me being excited to be in…
From Broken Bones to Big Risks: Learning the Value of Jumping In…Or Flying During my childhood, I spent a decent amount of time in the cast room of Evanston Hospital, what with four broken arms by the time I was twelve. Dr. Thomas Sweeney, who passed away a few years ago, was literally my orthopedic…
“Computers aren’t the thing. They’re the thing that gets us to the thing.” ~ Joe MacMillan, Halt and Catch Fire (2014 – 2017, four seasons) As crazy as it seems, as parallel as my career was to the overall theme of Halt and Catch Fire, I never had the chance to watch it, starting with…
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