Musings

“You can be comfortable if you don’t mind being average. The price of greatness is discomfort.” A dear friend said that to me over breakfast one morning. I was most likely complaining about the burden of responsibility that accompanies my leadership position and he, in his very direct way, responded with that. He is right.…

It fascinates me when people write or say things as fact when, in fact, they are not. I was reading an article about recent Supreme Court rulings which stated that with a stroke of the pen the Supreme Court had “saddled more than 40 million people with $430 billion in debt.” Regardless of your opinion…

I was in Dothan for a wedding. That’s Dothan, AL, not the Biblical one. The rehearsal dinner and the wedding reception took place in an event venue that used to be the Covington Planter Company factory. As I sat in what used to be a manufacturing facility eating wedding cake, I was struck by the way people…

The right to vote is significant because it allows each of us to participate in deciding what the future we will live in will be like. The accumulation of votes decides who will represent us and, often, how the issues that define our society are determined. While some may argue that a single vote doesn’t…

During the Global Leadership Summit this past week, there was an interview with Dallas Jenkins, the creator and director of “The Chosen.” He made an interesting observation about the story in the Bible of the feeding of the 5,000.  In the story, Jesus is teaching a large gathering of people in a remote place. When evening…

Last week, I was hiking in the Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). Each year I have the privilege of spending a week in a national park with a group of CEOs that I count as some of my best friends. We hike, talk, listen, and give each other honest and frank feedback. Having a dozen…

I was looking through old photos recently and came across a picture of my grandfather on my father’s side. It is very obvious I am his descendant. That is genetics. I never met him as he died right before my father was born, but I look like him. We inherit physical attributes from our parents…

Have you ever experienced a miracle? I have. Noah Benshea wrote, “A miracle is often the willingness to see the common in an uncommon way.” I see miracles every day. I agree with Walt Whitman who wrote “Miracles” when he says, “Why, who makes much of a miracle? As to me I, know of nothing else…

The existential crisis of our social development is that we are formed into a certain kind of being by everything we see, hear, do, and have done to us. We are not born with knowledge or experience. We gather these things by living in community. The communities we spend time in significantly shape us as…

When I was a pre-teen, I made my first pyrotechnics. Using a chemistry set my parents gave me, some gunpowder from our ammo reloading supplies, and materials I mail-ordered from a chemical supply company, I made a firework shell and lift charge and set it off in the intersection next to our house. Unfortunately, I…