“What do I say to a 99-year-old woman?” “What do I say to a famous person?” “What do I say to someone who could help my career without seeming selfish?” All I could think to ask was what it’s like to be 99, which seemed irrelevant and the same question people have asked her for a decade. I don’t like when people find out I don’t eat meat and ask[…] Keep reading →

What do say about yourself when you’ve hung out with half a dozen Presidents of the United States, won a Presidential Medal of Freedom, learned from Peter Drucker, been called the best leader in the world by CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, befriended four-star Generals, and things like that? Do you keep it to yourself, as modesty would suggest? How do you mention those things without bragging, or sounding like[…] Keep reading →

Over lunch Frances described to me her background. I had wondered how she got started, why when the CEO of Ford, Alan Mulaly, gave her a car, she picked it up near Pittsburgh. She told me about growing up near there and going to the University of Pittsburgh. If I remember right, she didn’t finish. It struck me because she is yet another prominent leader who didn’t graduate college. She’s[…] Keep reading →

Frances invited me to her office. The first day I went, I approached the front desk. The security guy was friendly. As he processed my ID he said, “Oh yeah, Frances gets big visitors. Sometimes Generals come in. Four stars, ones from TV. They all have to wait for her.” Impressive! Her office is in a big Park Avenue high-rise office building in the 50s. The lobby had fifty-foot ceilings,[…] Keep reading →

“To serve is to live.” Frances Hesselbein had the fastest, clearest, most direct, and most meaningful answer of anyone I remember asking her passion. Five minutes into our pre-lunch conversation and she went right to the point. Experience and, I believe, only experience enables people to encapsulate great meaning in a minimum of words. I was immediately struck by the power and meaning in these few short words: “to serve[…] Keep reading →

If I measure a book’s quality by how much it changes my perspective and enables me to improve my life, Dr. Farrell’s The Myth of Male Power (1993) is one of the best books I’ve read. He’s written valuable book after valuable books since, up to and including The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It (2018). I grew up believing in equality[…] Keep reading →

If I measure a book’s quality by how much it changes my perspective and enables me to improve my life, Dr. Farrell’s The Myth of Male Power (1993) is one of the best books I’ve read. He’s written valuable book after valuable books since, up to and including The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It (2018). I grew up believing in equality[…] Keep reading →