I used to be jealous of some of my friends when we were early in our careers.  They all had jobs where they traveled a lot and earned points to take their families on extended vacations at virtually no cost.  We weren’t able to do that.

A decade or so into my career, I had a job for 2 years in Chicago that required a lot of travel.  Turned out that in order for me to earn the right to some nice free vacation travel for me and my family, I pretty much had to travel all of the time.  It wasn’t that there was no cost for my friend's nice vacations, it was a cost I decided I could not afford.

About 15 years ago, I led my first retreat.  Up to that point I had done a lot of presenting, but for all the wrong reasons.  Thankfully, what I intended for personal gain or affirmation, He had somehow intended for good.  

There was one young man with a serious stutter who said he had never spoken in front of other people.  At the end of the weekend, he wanted to address the others in attendance.  He nervously took my place in front of the crowd and started to tell his story.  He stammered and struggled with the articulation of each thought and word.

Early Celtic Christians talk about a “thin place” where heaven and earth seem to meet.  Where present life and eternity seem to blur into one single reality.  You know what that feels like, right?

Everybody wants a theme song.  To make a grand entrance.  To make a dramatic exit.  They want to say something profound, drop the mic, and exit stage left.  Some people even like to make a grand exit when they leave a job.  (Remember Jerry Mcguire walking out with a loud declaration and a goldfish in a ziplock bag?)

I was visiting with a younger man and his wife on the phone last night.  He and I have spoken dozens of times, but only met on one occasion.  Though we have “known” each other only a few years, we’ve helped each other walk through some of the most aggressive moves and challenging times of our lives.  

Walter Mitty has lived such an uninteresting life that his E-harmony rep, Todd Maher, feels sorry for him.  In trying to beef up his profile, they quickly came to the conclusion that not only isn’t there anything “noteworthy or mentionable” about Walter, but he hasn’t really been anywhere “noteworthy or mentionable” either.  

We rented for quite a few years before we bought.  One of the most beautiful things was that at the slightest interruption in service of any kind on that house, I could just call the landlord.  I remember the first few times things broke and wrestling with whether or not I should fix them or ask the owner.  I usually fixed them, but I could tell by the landlord’s reaction this isn't what people typically did.

That is one of our favorite words, right?  How couldn’t it be.  It is replete with goodness, sentimentality, and doing the right kind of things.  It speaks to not having too high of an opinion of yourself.  It is one of the two things that Jim Collins identified as the key difference between “level 4” and “level 5” leaders in his classic book, Good to Great.

Do you have the right people sitting around your leadership table?  It is your right and your responsibility to choose.  The fruit and impact that the right leadership team can produce are extraordinary.  It might just be the most important thing you do this year.

There is a writing convention called the “obligatory scene."  It is the thing that all of us expect to see at the end of a movie or story.  It is where the hero or the protagonist overcomes every possible obstacle to reach the promised land.

One of my favorite memories of my investment career was a meeting I had with one of the bond salesmen who covered me out of Chicago. We met for breakfast at his hotel, and he made a strange request: He asked if I would pray over him.

Everybody loves their university experience and for likely different reasons than everyone else.  It is a product of the time of life, the people in proximity, the growth you experienced, and the vectoring direction life took after that season.  Mine is no different, but again, for likely different reasons than yours.

Brock Stassi and his brother Max have been bouncing around the minor leagues for years.  Baseball has been in their family for generations.  Their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all catchers who played in the minor leagues.  A few weeks ago, at the almost impossible age of 27, Max found out that he made the final roster for the Philadelphia Phillies.  He is finally a major leaguer.  His reaction was priceless.

Lee had a wildly successful career.  First, for a couple of decades with the Marriott corporation and then for a couple more with Disney.  While he was already successful by many measures, he didn’t became a world class leader until a wake up call in El Paso.  He was there to meet with one of the mangers who ran a hotel that Lee had supervisory responsibilities over.

A good friend of mine was awakened to a calling while on a mission trip to Africa.  He saw what a game-changer it was to provide fresh water to a village by drilling a well.  He had a desire to do more... He realized that if he could get other people to participate in a similar experience, it would change their lives as well.

Michael Mankins, a partner with Bain & Company, is a productivity expert.  He utilizes their own proprietary research, like the best academic studies from places like Harvard, and their own anecdotal evidence from their client base.  Some of the things he summarized in a recent article are powerfully illuminating.

He says that super successful companies are not succeeding due to a higher percentage of high-performers.  They actually hire a comparable number based on the studies that measure that sort of thing.  Mankins says they win by reducing institutional drag.

One of my favorite leaders runs a self-storage business.  It was designed intentionally with the latest and greatest cutting edge technology to increase the customer experience, while minimizing the need for much staffing.  If anyone could make the case for not investing in an employee development plan, this guy could.

One of my good friends was trying to hear from God.  He was sitting on some simple questions whose answers would be revolutionary in his life.   After several weeks he came back to me with an exasperated, “I’m not getting anything.”  He finally confided that his hunting lease seems to be the one place where he really think and hear.