According to Jim Craig, goalie for the 1980 US Olympic hockey team, he and his teammates had no doubt they would win the gold medal. They did, of course, almost exactly 40 years ago, in a story that has now become legend. February’s milestone anniversary prompted Craig to write his new book, We Win! Lessons […]

This lovely little piece by Dennis J. Pittoco brought some long-ago memories rushing back to me, and awoke me to realities I was largely unaware of at the time. Dennis’s stories about contact with older people and spending some time listening to them made me think immediately of Mrs. Marie Walesewicz (wall-uh-shev-ich). She was an […]

A few weeks ago my older son John and I spent the better part of a week aboard the 52 foot sailing ketch Retriever, as part of the Scouts BSA Great Lakes Sailing Adventure. We had two experienced crew leading the way, Captain Steph and First Mate Jonathan. The actual crewing of the boat was done […]

I’ve been awfully neglectful of this blog since I started writing at Forbes.com. I resolve to do better in 2019. We just finished a great Christmas, although one that came and went way too fast. But even so, Miss ViVi and I knocked out pretty much all of our “canon” of old Christmas movies that […]

I had a great time collaborating with Gabe Batstone, CEO of contextere, on my latest Forbes column. Along the way, though, I learned about another part of Gabe’s life. Four years ago, his 8 year old daughter Teagan was murdered by her mother, Gabe’s ex-wife, who had had mental health problems and had attempted suicide. […]

This week I debuted as a contributor at Forbes.com, fulfilling a lifelong desire I’ve had to be “officially” recognized as a writer. It’s been a very interesting road getting here, and looking back I can’t help feeling that losing my little sister Michelle was a big turning point. Michelle was a writer too. She had […]

You sometimes have no idea of the effect a seemingly insignificant episode can have on a person. One of the most meaningful memories I have from growing up is the time my Dad showed absolute faith in me. Our tiny Catholic school system in our tiny hometown in Upper Michigan ran an annual spaghetti feed […]

I think a great way to approach life is to consider deeply all the moments you can never get back. To illustrate, let me give you an analogy. For a good chunk of my career I was a Packaging System Engineer with General Mills, providing technical help to the work teams who put cereal into […]

I gotta tell you, I’ve had a number of instances in recent years where friends or colleagues show up on LinkedIn with big new titles, and no doubt big new dollars to go along with them. I have a little stab of envy and little wisps of doubt about my own situation pretty much every […]

It was just two days ago I wrote about avoiding victimhood by counting your blessings and finding heroes. I closed with a postscript about there being heroes all around us, easy to find if we pay attention. Last night our Boy Scout Troop did a timely service project at a local cemetery, clearing overgrowth and cleaning up […]