Musings

Last week, some friends and I got a chance to try our hand at abstract painting. An artist friend, Lauren Florence, walked us through some amazing exercises before turning us loose on a 3’ x 3’ canvas to paint our own abstract masterpiece. The first thing she had us do was select three colors of paint,…

I went to my primary care physician this week for my annual physical. I use the term “annual” loosely as it has been four years since my last one. Not a recommended approach to preventative health care. He ran several tests and had already sent me for some rather invasive procedures that are a regular…

Last week, my wife said, “The pool is green.” It’s not the first time she has said this, as I have a habit of letting the pool go. Interestingly, I know it’s going to happen, but it still surprises me when it does. It seems to happen suddenly, but this isn’t the reality. The final…

There are no right answers to wrong questions. This was the title of my keynote address at RECON22, the 2nd Annual Recovering Leadership Conference hosted by the Kimmell Foundation for Recovering Leadership. I was asked to talk about reimagining our metrics, and since I am an engineer, that seemed a reasonable topic to request of…

I watched The King recently. The 2019 movie about King Henry V depicts the struggles of a young king thrust into power by the death of his father and brother. Early in his reign, Sir John Falstaff, his most trusted friend, says, “A king has no friends, only followers and foes.” This may be true of kings,…

When was the last time you had a vacation? I’m not talking about just time off; I’m talking about time where you didn’t think about what was going on in your absence from work.  Spending a week with a bunch of CEOs can be refreshing but also challenging. I always learn and hear things that…

Friday, I was on a return flight from Utah. The flight attendant was making the usual announcements when something caught my attention. We were being instructed to put our electronics in “airplane” mode. On a phone, airplane mode disables the cellular radio so you can’t send or receive voice calls or text messages. Unless the…

I was recently in Chicago and noticed a sign mounted next to a stop light at an intersection. It read, OBEY YOUR SIGNAL. I found it interesting and ironic at the same time. I mean, if a person isn’t willing to obey the traffic signal in the first place, what impact will another sign have…

I recently stopped by a friend’s office to see him. He was dog-sitting for his daughter, and Bo was hanging out in the office for the day. Bo had a rubber ball, and he really wanted to play fetch. There was a problem, though. Bo didn’t want to let go of the ball. He would…

I got to see the Killers in concert this past weekend with three of my sons. It was a great show, and it was great spending time with my sons. We drove to Ft. Worth, and I was thinking about the trips we took when they were younger and they would be impatient for us…