A Secret Failure They say that success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. I’m going to guess that nobody who is reading this story has ever bothered to figure out who first uttered that phrase. It is one of those pithy credos that gets made into posters and etched into rocks that are sold to people to hold down papers on their desk with all the other kitschy things they’ve accumulated over their…
Networking for the Networked Network We’ve all learned about the importance of networking. Mark Zuckerberg taught us about the social network and its value by making $130+ Billion just for himself as well as spawning another seven billionaires (not including the venture capital funds that made….billions). Those others include, Eduardo Saverin ($5B), Dustin Moskovitz ($8B), Sean Parker ($3B), Jeff Rothschild ($1.5B), Sheryl Sandberg ($1B) and Chris Hughes ($1B). And lets not forget the Winklevoss Twins…
Getting Even We all live life out of balance to some degree. Even if we think we are in harmony with everything and everyone, chances are that we haven’t factored in the perspectives of others adequately and we are imbalanced without even realizing it. We get our wheels aligned and our tires balanced because at speed we can feel wobbles in our cars and on our motorcycles, but when things are more slow-going it is…
Back to School Over the weekend, I spoke to my daughter, who has spent the majority of the summer (the last six weeks since school let out) at our family home, Homeward Bound, in Ithaca. We were there with her and her family for the first week or so and then we headed back West. She stayed on and lived the life of fireflies, lunch in the pool for the kids, husband John doing his…
House of Sand and Fog Do you remember the 2003 movie House of Sand and Fog staring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly? It is a tragic story of how people who believe their position in righteous and just lose sight of the risks that confront them and instead play for the win at all costs. In this case, Kingsley is doing what’s right for his family as he tries desperately to recoup from his downfall…
Broadway on the Bay Our friend Matthew has been with us for a few days in the middle of Phillip’s whirlwind tour of all the Western upscale properties in the hotel portfolio of his new employer (a large household hotel brand that has been a part of our lives for decades and for whom Phillip plans to take sales to the moon and back). Mostly we have been showing him our very limited world of…
On Becoming an Elephant When it rains it pours. We’ve all heard that many times in our lives. What hasn’t been so well acknowledged is that when it does rain and therefore does pour, it does so even harder when you have planned a parade or a picnic. My retirement has been in process for twenty months now and the four primary activities I brought to the table to give me at least transitional purpose…
The Dagwood Effect The other day we were going to dinner in Escondido with Winston and Kathleen. Winston is such a great name, for a neighbor especially, since it evokes a person of interest that is both conservative and yet mildly daring at the same time. That description fits our Winston quite well, but more on that later. We drove down to the local Mexican restaurant (there are so very many in the area) that…
Come On Get Happy A few years ago when I was a Director of CARE, the International Relief and Development Agency, based in Atlanta, I took the opportunity to go to see World of Coca Cola. I had not clue what it was all about, but I knew that part of it involved the story of the famous Coca Cola formula and that it was the corporate museum of one of the oldest multinational companies…
The House of the Rising Sun My sleep patterns leave a lot to be desired. I am blessed at the age of 67 to be without significant maladies. I take medication for high blood pressure, but they seem to work well in keeping me at a BP level that is normal and apparently without major health complications. I do not suffer from reflux or any of the other annoying gastrointestinal problems that often plague aging…