A Raz Family Update
So it’s a long ways coming, but anyways here’s our update. It’ll be a quick entry, one because at the end of the day nobody really cares THAT much to know the minutiae about our move, but I still have people who text or email and say “dude, where did you go?” Where we went: [...]
Stuck Here in This Hole
I keep learning so much, the last month is no exception. Part of it is observation. Part self-reflection. Part experience. And part musical influence. Tonight via Pandora (no question, the best $30 I’ve spent for the ad-free version, and the free version is fine too) I heard for about the 20th time in my life [...]
Memories of Morristown
Recently I was visiting some family on the East Coast. Every time I’m in the area, I usually stop by the Hospital where my daughter was born–Royce–just about nine years ago. As many know, she was born very premature. I’ll skip the details of the story, I’m sure in accumulation or specifically I have a [...]
Goodbye, Univera
As many of you now know, yesterday with the internal team and today with the entire external field organization I announced publicly my resignation from Univera as the CEO of International. I’ll be wrapping up my time at Univera through the end of May. I have nothing but the greatest things to say about my [...]
Happy 5th Birthday Buddy
Here’s my annual disclaimer: The reason I write in my blog is to connect with people. Not just from one segment of life, but from many. Usually the focus revolves around finding your purpose, passion, and renewal. And as part of the thread of stories I try to share experiences and observations in leadership, volunteerism, [...]
Jake Shimabukuro
A simple song brings a simple message. Find your passion. Watch this guy, Jake Shimabukuro, play the Uke and ask yourself if this guy isn’t just amazingly passionate about what he does? With 50-years of training, I couldn’t do what he just did on this YouTube video. But, the point is that he couldn’t do [...]
Authenticity…From a Friend
Here’s another one that I didn’t intent to post, but it was simply on my heart tonight. So here it is, full of imperfections, my vlog on “Authenticity…From a Friend.”
Patrick Henry Hughes
A friend passed this onto me today, thanks Jan, and it’s such “postable” blog material I had to put it up right away but not without a few comments first. It starts a little slow and just keeps morphing into this amazing story of a determined spirit to succeed, find a passion and commit to [...]
Happy New Year! Now, Let’s Just DO IT!
I used to scoff a bit at the New Year’s resolutions. But no more… Everybody needs a “restart.” It’s one of the things that made high school or college so great; every year, or ever Semester, you got a do-over. But once you get into working adulthood, the do-overs are a LOT less frequent, and [...]
My Final Drive in Dune…
On Wednesday night I went for one last drive. Forever. I’m a little obsessive about cars–and they don’t have to be expensive. I just am particular about, and have a love for, automobiles in general. Just like a Cowboy from the 1800′s would have felt about his horse, that’s how I feel about four wheels [...]
Make Memories
In the summer of ’86 there was a great Wall Street Journal (hereinafter WSJ) article written about a Frozen Custard Stand in Lafayette, Indiana. I was 13 at the time. What was I doing reading the WSJ? Well, Friday night WSJ review nights, of course. Some of you know that every week we’d have “article [...]
A Great Weekend
Starting next week (or possibly earlier) I’m going to be posting a few great links on the Direct Selling industry, as well as some info on our Company. Today, I’m just sharing some personal highlights from my past weekend. Erica went out of town for four days, so starting a week ago Thursday evening I [...]
Keep on Keepin’ On–From Jerry.
I’m in a blogging rut. Big time. It’s been like two postings in about three weeks. Writing this is an important part of my life, for reasons I don’t fully understand. Successful writing requires consistency. And, right now, my consistency sucks (learned that word reading a Harvard Biz School publication). It’s not that I don’t [...]
Love
Last week has been incredibly busy, as you can tell from a blogging absence of EIGHT days (cringe!) with a lot of work activity along with business travel, some volunteering with the Olympia Hands On Children’s Museum, and then finally a bit of a personal vacation that started this week (but I’m headed to Portland [...]
Hannah Montana AND Tony Hawk
In the last few weeks I’ve been touched by a few people who have sought as a personal endeavor to give people unexpected gifts and “make a moment.” You might recall a few weeks ago I posted a story about skateboarding, and little Zoe’s cool new Hannah Montana skateboard for her birthday…and how I never [...]
A Moment of Reflection
Today I spent the day thinking about… Me. Not entirely, but the fact of the matter is I spent a bit of time thinking about my life, what I wanted to achieve, where I wanted to go, the impact I felt like I could have, and other such matters. Which, I thought was pretty important [...]
My Man, Mitch (Mitch Daniels)
Some of you may know that I had the privilege of spending some of my early work years at some really solid companies–Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson. I have nothing but admiration for these excellent organizations, and appreciation for all the great relationships formed as well as exceptional training, learning, and development. There are [...]
Free Hugs
I saw this video about Juan Mann, and his simple desire to change the world in a small way by offering people free hugs, and at first I even scoffed at it. Cute, I thought, but maybe it’s a front. Initially skeptical yet intrigued. But then I did a little bit more reading and research [...]
A Forever Wedding Memory
In College I had a football coach that used to say “you’ll be the same person ten years from now that you are today, except for the people that you meet and the books that you read.” I think there’s a lot of truth to that; from some of the people I’ve met over the [...]
Just Do It…And Do It Again, And Do It…
Art Williams is fairly legendary in the Direct Selling industry; he’s a strong leader, a normal “everyday guy” (who also happens to be #843 on Forbes list of “world’s billionaires”!) and delivered a really strong message twenty years back that still makes its rounds on YouTube. I know not everybody is going to agree with [...]
The Hannah Montana Skateboard
When I was growing up, in middle school, I wanted a skateboard. Not just a kinda-wanna, I mean I REALLY wanted one. Badly. All my buddies had them, the cool kids were always out in sidewalks of Jones Middle School doing tricks, finding a half pipe somewhere to ride on. I remember reading boarding magazine [...]
The Speed of Leadership
I used to hear someone constantly repeat this expression of “slowing down to the speed of wisdom.” I’m not sure why I disliked that saying so much, but I did. Maybe it was the way it was said (with a tad–a heaping and overfloweth tad–of self-righteousness), perhaps it just sounds so consultant-speake, and, quite likely, [...]
A Long Story Short
There are many great things that I loved about undergrad and grad school; I loved the education and friendships, the challenges and opportunities, the personal development and the learnings, and particularly graduation with an exciting departure to go to Kolkata for a month followed by a new job at Johnson and Johnson. Yet I also [...]