My Word for 2025: Surrender

I thought it was just me (but it isn’t) – Brene Brown

Nah, it’s me – Steve McCullough

Before I start, just a brief recap of the past four years and words to guide me:

2021 – Faith

2022 – Forgiveness

2023 – Gratitude

2024 – Kindness

I would consider all of them successful, at least on a certain level, the biggest shortfalls typically come when I turn them inward.  I haven’t gotten very good at forgiveness or kindness toward myself, but I still strive to get better.

In regard to surrender, this will be yet another lesson in “do as I say, not as I do”.  Well, hopefully I can

change that, and that is my goal.  I’ve spent most of my life, like a salmon, continually swimming upstream.  While I can’t complain about my life, it has really been incredible, it all could have been done so much easier.  As I continually fought the rushing currents against me, I could have just surrendered, and let the currents take me wherever they wanted.

Now, surrender isn’t giving up, surrender is just allowing what is to be.  I constantly have this mantra, that I really need to follow, do the best you can, and don’t get wrapped up in the results.  You can only do the best you can do.

It comes so much easier though when you just surrender.  Let me give you a prime example from where I learn most of what I learn – yoga.  When I just let the pose happen, it turns out so much better than when I tense up and work my ass off to get into a pose.  Just surrender, let it go, and if it happens, it happens, and if not, there’s always next time.

In all the other parts of my life, the story is the same.  I prepare and over-prepare for everything I do and pour my soul into whatever it is.  Best example lately is teaching classes.  I spend hours preparing, work weekends, try to design the perfect class.  In the end, I think for the most part, the classes go well but I can’t just accept that I did the best I could do.  I live and die based on the tests, and when my students don’t get perfect scores, or at least A’s, I go into a funk and try to figure out, where did I go wrong?

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors – we borrow it from our children”

On a much larger scale, this issue is tormenting me greatly.  In my mind, my generation is failing at this miserably.  I believe those who came before us gifted us with a better world than the world they started with, but through our greed, our selfishness, our hatred, those who follow us won’t see a benefit. 

 
Just a few snapshots of then and now that provide some perspective of where I’m coming from:

Back in the 1950’s, Jonas Salk invented the polio vaccine, which eradicated one of the worst epidemics in modern times.  He refused to patent the vaccine, giving up substantial profit and making it accessible and affordable to the world.  When asked, why didn’t you patent it, he replied, “There is no patent. 

Could you patent the sun?”

Today, we glorify the billionaires who, for the most part, have no moral compass and would gladly capitalize on any opportunity that came their way, no matter who suffered for it.  The lack of ethics that pervades business today is astounding, and quite frankly, I don’t think we care, we’re just happy if our stock prices, and retirement plans, keep rising.

Back in the 1970’s, Roberto Clemente, one of the greatest baseball players of all-time, died in an airplane crash while on a humanitarian relief effort to Nicaragua, after a devastating earthquake there.  His highest salary in his career was $150,000 (roughly $1m today with inflation).  One of the quotes I loved from him was “Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and don’t, then you are wasting your time on Earth”. Even though he didn’t make huge amounts of money based on today’s standards, he gave back and ultimately gave his life to help others.

The current minimum salary in Major League Baseball is $740,000 and there are several players making over $40m/year.    These types of salaries are spread out over all of our sports, and for those who say they watch college sports because of this, I’ll remind you that Texas A&M is paying Jimbo Fisher $75m not to coach.  I don’t begrudge the players, but I do begrudge us for pouring so much money into sports that allows this while there are so many in the world suffering, who we bluntly don’t even give a shit about.  Give us our luxury boxes, fuck the people starving throughout the world.

Last one, and this one is very close to home.  Back in the 1970’s, when we had an energy crisis, fuel was at a shortage, and gas prices were exorbitant.  My Dad had always bought and drove huge Oldsmobile’s, but he chose to do the right thing for himself, his family and the world.  He bought a Datsun 310, manual everything.  It was a tiny car, no air conditioning, no nothing, but it got fantastic gas mileage.  He recognized what the right thing to do was.

Now, even though we have global warming and issues with climate change, we go out and buy massive trucks for huge amounts of money that get maybe 15 miles/gallon of gas.  When the topic of global warming comes up, we put our hands over our ears, and like little babies we go “la-la-la-la-la” and ignore it.  We just keep on saying “Drill baby drill!”  Who cares if there’s a planet left for our children.

The worst part about all of this to me?  We still bitch about how bad we have it.  We constantly moan about the economy, and I don’t disagree that the economy isn’t great for the younger generations, I’m really not sure how they’ll ever be able to afford homes, but I have no earthly idea how my generation complains.  A couple of generations back was labeled “The Greatest Generation” made famous in a book by Tom Brokaw.  They lived through the Great Depression and World War II, which shaped them and made them more resilient.  Maybe too many episodes of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” shaped my generation …..

Ultimately, while I’m disappointed and embarrassed about how my generation has lived our lives, there’s nothing on a large scale that I can do about it.  There are some people who have changed the world with great efforts, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr., and there are some people I know like Jimmy Shafe, Dave Carr, MK Rogers and Jessica Woodside who work hard to change the world on a smaller scale.  We need people to continue to make these efforts, the world needs it.

That’s not me.  I will raise another great leader up, Mother Teresa, and as she once said, “Not all of us can do great things.  But we can do small things with great love.”  While I wish I could do more, I wish I could change the world, I will do my best to be content with the small acts I can do.  As I tell myself, I’m just a nobody.  With a purpose.  In the words of Saint Francis of Assisi, my daily goal is to “Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.”

Do what is yours to do; don’t do what is not yours to do – Swami Rama

I recently went back and re-read Ishvara Pranidhana (Surrender) in “The Yamas & Niyamas”, and I found the quote above.  It falls in line with the Serenity Prayer, and I’ll close this blog with a beautiful and modernized version of the Serenity Prayer that Nadia Bolz-Weber posted recently. 

 

Serenity Prayer – Nadia Bolz-Weber’s version

“Dear God,

There’s so much to fear right now that I’m sort of losing track of what to worry about most.

So I’m gonna need some help focusing.

Show me what is MINE to do.

Then grant me the strength to do it, and the humility to rest knowing it is enough.

Help me remember that even if there is more to worry about in life right now, it does not mean that there is less to love in life right now.

So protect every inch of our joy, Lord.

And if you could help me stop reading shit on the internet, that might really help too.

Amen.”

 

The Beatitudes - My Version

One of the most beautiful messages in the Bible comes from the Gospel of Matthew, versus 5-12, where Jesus teaches the Beatitudes during His “Sermon on the Mount”.  While there are so many parts of the Bible that are inspiring, the Beatitudes encourage us to live a life of humility, compassion and with a strong desire for justice.  They are simply a way, or THE way, for us to lead our lives.

I recently created a prayer for my students, stealing from Jesus and the Beatitudes, with my own twist to it.  Of course I give Him full credit, and to ensure it’s abundantly clear, that’s not a picture of me delivering this message.  In the age of AI, you can never be too careful, there are probably some who would post the Beatitudes verbatim and take credit, but that’s for a whole different blog post.

Without further fanfare, here is my version of the Beatitudes that I pray for my students (with deep gratitude to Jesus for what he said, and also apologies for falling far short of His beautiful message):

Blessed are the students who absolutely nail my tests

They make me giddy inside

Blessed are the students who nitpick everything I say or write

They make me more precise and detailed

Blessed are the students who aren’t the best and brightest, but they listen, highlight, draw arrows, and do everything possible, and they get a good grade

Blessed are the students who barely come to class, do very little work, and somehow pass, because they remind me of me

Blessed are the student athletes, because someday they will be as enthusiastic and dedicated to their career as they are right now to their sport

Blessed are the students who say “I don’t understand” in class, because probably no one else does either, they’re just willing to speak up and it helps everyone

Blessed are the students who show up at the end of the semester and have done virtually nothing, bargaining for a grade, because it reminds me I’m not a counselor, coach or savior, I’m their teacher, and it may be the best thing for them to fail my class

Blessed are all the students, in every gender, shape, size or personality, because it takes all of us to make life so interesting, special and magical

Life Lessons

 Unfortunately, you’ll probably have to learn these on your own

I recently posted one of my teaching techniques, “50 Shades of Fraud”, which I also expanded into another segment “What Would You Do?”  I use these as real-life examples of work situations, and I allow the students to tell me what they would have done in the situation before I tell them how I addressed the issue.  As I noted, in many cases, my students had a solution that I found better than how I handled it, but I obviously can’t change history.

Another technique I was planning on utilizing was telling my students “Life Lessons” that I learned over my life and career, but I deferred this one simply because we really need to learn our own life lessons for them to be most effective.  I can tell them all I want, what I learned, how I learned it, but I truly believe for a life lesson to be most effective, you really need to experience it fully.  There is one I do share because I believe it’s an important one for them to hear, and I’ll leave that one to the end. 

There are many more I could highlight here, I’ve unfortunately had many painful moments that have taught me a lot, and a few not so painful, but I’ll stop at the top ten I can think of:

Every Life Experience on the Journey is Valuable, Even the Hard Ones

The best illustration I can give of this one is working for a horrible boss.  I’ve had a few, two in particular, and it was extremely painful to work for them.  They were narcistic, habitual liars, had no respect for their employees, and really weren’t very kind or considerate people.  Most days, I dreaded being around them or having to work with them.

What I learned though is how I didn’t want to be treated, and I learned how not to treat people who work for me.  To be honest, I probably learned more from these bad experiences than anything else.  They were the antithesis of good bosses, or even good people, and it gave me role models not to strive for.

Ignorance is a Better Option than Bullshit

When I was at Barco Simulation, my supervisor in Belgium was Michel Vandeplas.  Michel was brilliant, a very smart person, who really knew our industry well.  Michel would ask lots of questions, and after a while, I figured out that in most cases, Michel already knew the answer, he wanted to see if I knew the answer.

Once I got smarter, I learned to just tell him, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out”.  I’d go back, research the issue, and give him a proper answer. 

Not everyone learned this lesson unfortunately, and it could be really difficult for salespeople in particular.  Michel would ask a question, and I’d be dying to advise the salesperson to defer on an answer, but they couldn’t help themselves.  They just had to answer.  The most painful was when one of our salespeople said he was working on a project with a university, and Michel asked what state was that university in?  The salesperson answered, he picked the wrong state, and of course, Michel knew the correct state and knew that the project was bullshit.

People Are Watching You

One of my less favorable traits is that I carry my emotions in my expressions.  When you are in a leadership role, that isn’t necessarily a good trait to have.

There were times when I was a Chief Financial Officer or General Manager, when I was deep in thought, and I would be walking around the building, scowling, thinking or worrying about something.  The next thing you know, there would be rumors or concerns about what horrible tragedy was happening in the company.  Eventually the rumor would work its way to me, and I’d have to assure everyone that the world wasn’t coming to an end, I just looked like it was.

Thankfully, the one person who worked for me for a great deal of time, Nancy Cox-Lupori, wouldn’t put up with it.  She’d come in and tell me, “Wipe that Snoopy-look off your face!”  It’s always good to have someone who can be brutally honest with you.

If You’re Trying to Prove You’re the Smartest Person in the Room, You’re Probably Not

When I was at WIKA, there were two individuals, we affectionately called Yogi and Boo Boo.  They used to love to pontificate on whatever the topic of the day was, going on these meandering speeches, using big words to impress, and never really coming to a point.  As our eyes would glaze over, one of my colleagues would often say, “What’s your solution?"  They never had one, they just liked to hear themselves talk and show us all how incredibly smart they were.

One of my other colleagues used to say, “If they think they’re the smartest person in the room, they’re obviously not, because Felix is.”  Some may disagree, but most of the time, Felix was either the smartest or one of the smartest, but you wouldn’t find him trying to prove it.  He didn’t need to.

Politics Unfortunately Do Matter

I’ve seen many examples of this in my career, but probably the best one is Michael Gerster, who was then the President of WIKA Instruments in the US.  In 2014, we were in the midst of a record sales year, record profitability year, we were just crushing it that year. 

Easter weekend, I was out of town visiting my son Sean at college, and I got the call that Michael had been fired.  The shock and sadness were devastating.  I couldn’t believe it, but in a way, I could.

I was copied on all of the board minutes from WIKA Headquarters in Germany, and when I read them, there was always a negative spin to everything we were doing.  No matter how good our numbers were, something was said to rain on our accomplishments.  I would bring the minutes to Michael, I would express my concern, but Michael would brush it aside, he said there was nothing to worry about.

And that was just it.  Michael just didn’t play the political games.  He did a great job, he was a great leader, but he didn’t manage his boss, and he didn’t manage his peers.  He had no clue he was in trouble, and he didn’t realize at that level, politics do matter.

Yogi Berra Was Wrong, It’s Not Deja-Vu All Over Again

Again, I could give various examples of this, but the best one I can highlight is when I took over as

General Manager at WIKA Sensor Technology.  It was virtually identical to when I took over as General Manager at Barco Simulation.  My time at Barco Simulation was probably the most fulfilling experience of my career, and I thought I was heading for a repeat performance.

Sadly, it was very far from the truth, and there were so many reasons for that, but part of it was probably my attitude going in.  I had an expectation from my prior experience, and I thought I could duplicate it, and even do it better based on my past experience.  Wow, was I ever wrong, it was a different situation, different company, different people, different industry, and really, a different me.  You can’t just go into a situation thinking it will be just like something you’ve done previously, there are way too many variables to take anything for granted.

Words Are Like Bullets, Once They’re Out, You Can’t Get Them Back

Another one where I have so many great examples, but I’ll pick the best, and it happens to be a personal one with Laurel.

Years ago, we were trying to sell our house, it wasn’t going well, and I was losing my mind.  OK, that’s a common occurrence for me, but I was desperate to control our financial situation.  So I developed an incredibly brilliant plan.  I would introduce a Purchase Order Policy within the home!  I think I’m already hearing sounds of horror coming from anyone reading this.

The one Sunday morning, it just happened to be Mother’s Day, I introduced the concept to Laurel.  As I did, and I saw the look on Laurel’s face, I was visualizing reaching my hands out and dragging those words back into my mouth, so that she wouldn’t hear them and wouldn’t have that look on her face.  No, too late, the words were out, they hit the target and exploded.  There was no getting them back.

Set Realistic Expectations for Yourself and Everyone Around You

I wish I could say that I’ve learned and improved on this one, but for the most part, I haven’t.  In so many instances in my work and personal life, I set conquering the sun, the moon, the stars as my goal, and when I only conquer the sun and moon, I’m disappointed. 

I was never satisfied with what I, or more importantly we, accomplished, and I always wanted more, to hit those unrealistic targets I set for my team and me.  If you always set your sights too high, you’ll never hit the mark, and you will forever be disappointed.  I’m trying now, but still, I’ll be grading tests, and when the grades aren’t quite where I’d like them to be, all A’s of course, I dwell on what did I do wrong teaching this topic?  Still, a work in progress.

No One Went to Their Grave Wishing They Worked More

This is the one I share with my students, because I believe it’s so valuable for them to hear.  At various points in my career, I put work first and foremost above anything else.  This was particularly true when I worked at Barco Simulation.  There was at least one year, probably more, where I pitched a shutout.  I missed all four children’s birthdays, Laurel’s birthday, our anniversary, and my birthday.  I was out of town for every special moment, and that doesn’t count all of the games, concerts, Halloween or whatever else I missed along the way.

Of course, you can’t get those back.  I tell my students, don’t be like me.  Live your life, have a balanced life, enjoy your life.  Don’t wait until it’s too late.  

You’re Never Too Old to Learn.  And Change.

When I finally figured out that I bled Barco red, but that really didn’t ultimately matter in the big scheme of life, I changed.  Sure, I still worked hard, but I worked on balancing my life.  I spent time on the important things in my life, not just trying to outwork anyone and everyone.  I’ll bring Felix back into this, once I told Felix, “I can outwork anyone!”, and Felix replied, “That’s really not a good thing.”

And after watching Laurel practice yoga for many years, I finally took it up about seven years ago, and it has been one of the greatest life-changers I could experience.  And finally, about two years ago, I learned to breathe.  For those of you who know how to breathe, you get it, and for those who don’t, it is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.  You’re never too old to learn.

I’ll stop at 10, for those who know me, you know I have many stories of screw-ups where I learned a very valuable lesson, but I figure 10 is enough.  And as noted, we typically have to learn these on our own.  I can tell you what it’s like to try to introduce a Purchase Order Policy to your spouse, but you may have to learn that one on your own.  Seriously, don’t do it, it’s a bad, bad idea.  Trust me on that one.

Fifty Shades of Fraud

One of the teaching methods I’ve used for several years is called “50 Shades of Fraud”.  For those who have seen the movie “50 Shades of Grey” (to be honest, I haven’t), I plagiarized the title for my purposes, but we’re talking accounting, so obviously, this isn’t nearly as exciting. 

On a certain level though, it is exciting.  I’ve grown to really enjoy the topic of fraud and ethics in my courses, and there’s a wealth of great material out there about people finding ways to steal and justifying it for whatever reason they come up with.  One of the foundations of fraud theory comes from Donald Cressey’s Fraud Triangle.  According to Cressey, fraud results from the convergence of three factors: pressure, opportunity and rationalization.  Basically, if for some reason, someone feels pressure to steal because they need money, if they have the opportunity where they work, and they can somehow rationalize it, they will do it.  Simple example would be I have medical bills mounting up that I can’t afford to pay, I’m in a position at work where I have access to the company’s bank accounts, and I feel like the company owes me because I’m a really good employee.  If you read the fraud cases, there are a number of situations that somehow fit this pattern.

It is estimated that 85% of the population would commit fraud given the right stimulus or tipping point, and 5% would do so regardless of the conditions.  This leaves only 10% who would not commit fraud under any circumstances.  Really, pretty sobering statistics, no idea how accurate, but this is based on fraud studies, so I would tend to believe they aren’t that far off.

Now many of us have heard about Enron, WorldCom, Tyco and Bernie Madoff, situations where people in power stole billions of dollars, but there are an incredible number of cases in places near and dear to us: churches, local government, non-profit entities.  These types of organizations are ripe for the taking, mainly because people are so trusting, and it’s usually perpetrated by someone who has been working there for years and has the trust of everyone.

For my classes, I present a scenario from my work career, one where I crossed an ethical line, and ask them, “On a scale of 0-50, how would you rate this on the Fraud Scale?”  Before anyone gets too excited, for the most part, the situations typically aren’t that exotic, and I would embellish the stories because I couldn’t come up with enough exciting material for this, but I do have a few moments of questionable ethical choices in my career that I can share with them and give them some learning moments and see what their reaction is.

What’s been great about each of these ethics segments is the interesting answers I get from some of the students.  One of the ones that has been the most enlightening to me has been when I talk about “Sandbagging a Budget” to corporate, a universal practice I’ve seen and used throughout my career.  I describe the process of submitting a budget to corporate and understating anticipated revenues and overstating anticipating expenses to make the budget more reasonable or achievable.  I’ve gotten some incredible reactions, and in many cases, I’ve been told that they would rank what I did as a 40 or even a 50.  I’ve defended myself by saying, “Everyone does it!  If I didn’t sandbag the budget, corporate would think I did, and make me push our numbers even higher!”  They don’t buy it.  And they shouldn’t.  The best analogy I can come up with is when athletes use performance enhancing drugs, and they justify it by saying “Everyone does it!  I have to take PED’s so that I can compete!”  Do we buy that?  No, we don’t and shouldn’t.

I had a few more that were less serious, and I really ran out of great examples of questionable ethics that I committed, and I eventually had to introduce another segment, “What Would You Do?”, where I would describe personnel situations I’ve dealt with and I get their feedback on how they would have handled the situation.  In some cases, I get a hardline response, “I would have fired them!”, and then sometimes, I get some great responses that make me think, “I wish I would have taken that approach.” 

This whole process has taught me a lot, I’ve grown to really value my students’ opinions, they make me re-evaluate each situation in a different light.  I keep trying to come up with more, different scenarios, and I’ve remembered a few more from my past, some are a bit weak, some I have to embellish a little more, but I still think it’s good learning material for students who will be entering the work world very soon.

But there is one “50 Shades of Fraud” that I use for every class.  It is by far the most egregious act I’ve ever committed, it happened over 20 years ago, and I still suffer from the memory of it. 

I was a General Manager, and we had a major customer/partner that we worked with.  They were incredibly arrogant, and they treated my personnel like shit, but we did a lot of business with them.  They tended to believe they were much smarter and better business people than we were.  The one time, somehow, someone made a mistake on their part, and they overpaid us on a project.  When my accounting group brought it to my attention, I said, “OK, if they’re so smart, let’s see if they figure it out.”

They didn’t.  And we kept the money.  Now, it wasn’t a huge amount of money, but it wasn’t our money.  Why did I do this?  Great question, and I wish I had a great answer.  Pride?  Ego?  Anger at how they treated us?  Could be many things, but it just doesn’t matter, what I did was wrong. 

I’ve shared this story with my therapist, and she vehemently tells me that I shouldn’t share this story with my students.  Every time I raise it each semester, I get the shit kicked out of me by my students and told what an awful person I am.  She obviously doesn’t feel this is a wise decision on my part. 

Here’s a sample from one of the students I respected the most from one of my MBA classes, she really nailed it:

“O.Em.G. My mouth dropped on this one when I got to the part of over payment "let's see how smart THEY really are" and did not give it back. Devil’s advocate here, totally get it. NOT your fault, that is on them. Wouldn't that be like someone dropping money on the ground who "just" so happened to be walking in front of you, YOU did not say anything after picking it up to pocket it for yourself. Wonder when they will find out they lost it, let's see.   50 shades of FRAUD 100/50. Lol”

It’s kind of funny, the part about someone dropping money in front of me really hit me.  Of course I’d give their money back!  Oh….

I still share this situation every class, every semester.  And do you know why I do it?  It’s not to get the shit kicked out of me, I’m already really good at that, it’s for them to see what it does to me.  I committed this act over 20 years ago, and it still haunts me.  At the end of the semester, I bring this situation up again, and I tell them, “This happened over 20 years ago, and see what it’s done to me.  If you ever get into a situation where you have to choose the right path, or violating your ethical principles, I want you to think about me.  I want you to think, do I want to suffer for a moment of bad judgment for the rest of my life?” 

I hope none of them ever face a situation where they have to make an ethical decision like this, but based on my experience, I’m sure they will.  I hope that if I’ve taught them nothing else in my classes, I’ve taught them the value of ethics and the value of doing the right thing.  And of course the consequences of not doing the right thing.

Fonzie Jumped the Shark!

 Editor’s Note: Many years ago, before most of you were born, there was a family sitcom called “Happy Days”.  Great show, great family values, funny, but it stayed on the air much too long.  The moment where it became really evident the show needed to die was when one of the main characters, Fonzie, literally jumped a shark on water skis.  That seemed to signal, it’s time for Happy Days to die a timely death.  The phrase “Fonzie Jumped the Shark” became a metaphor for it’s time to move on.

While I’m not a fan of him, or would ever vote for him, we’ve reached a point where something has to be done.

He’s gone off the rails in so many different directions, even the most rapid of the MAGA cult are growing tired of his shtick, they’re walking out on his rallies, and it’s not good for anyone.  Whether it’s talking about Hannibal Lecter, the size of Arnold Palmer’s penis, windmills, or sharks, his ramblings are nonsensical.  What gets worse is when he talks about real issues like tariffs, global warming or grocery prices, he just isn’t very bright, and he really doesn’t have much of a clue of how these things work.  To try to keep his cult happy, he’s gone off on hate-filled racist lies about immigrants, which may fire up the base, but it’s really not good for the country. 

While all of this has been entertaining on a certain level, except for the racist rants, Fonzie finally jumped the shark.  He played music for 40 minutes or so at a rally recently, rather than answering questions, and danced and mouthed words to keep people entertained.  Does anyone really want to watch an old white guy in horrible physical condition dance around the stage for 40 minutes to his favorite tunes, especially YMCA? 

While this has been really, really entertaining to many of us, he’s become the Clown Prince of Comedy, this is serious stuff.  He may be the next president of this country, and we really need to get him on track. 

I’ve come up with a solution, and for the good of our country, I’m going to offer up what I believe will keep him focused, on track, and hopefully not spewing racists lies at his rallies.

I’ve developed some crisp talking points, they’re short, and even with his apparent dementia, he should be able to get through them without digressing, as long as we keep the teleprompter in front of him.  Plus, they are focused very much on him, which is by far what he likes talking about the most, so he should be able to stay on course.  I’ve developed four, I can come up with plenty more, but I homed in on some of the most important topics that he can address and at least make him sound somewhat presidential.

The first one is to highlight his great respect for those who served our country and the sacrifices that were made to protect our country:

Back when I was in ‘Nam, I was flying in a helicopter with Bob Duvall and Marty Sheen, and I could tell they were scared, they were white as ghosts.  There were missiles flying all around us, I got it, I could understand why they were scared.  Me?  Hell, no, I’m not a loser, I knew the VC’s could never shoot us down.  I tried to lighten them up, so I said, “Don’t you love the smell of napalm in the morning?”  Bob looked at me, and said, “Donnie (Bob always called me Donnie), that’s a great line, can I use it?”  I said, of course, just give me credit for it.  He never did, but that’s OK, everyone knows it’s my line.  It was a great day, we destroyed the VC’s and made Vietnam a much safer place.

The second focuses on catch phrases, key talking points that people can remember.  Think, “We’re going to build a wall, and Mexico is going to pay for it”:

Back when Martin Luther King was going to give his big speech in Washington, I could tell he was really nervous.  It was a pretty big crowd, nowhere near the size of my crowds, but still, for him a big crowd.  I said Doc, you got to grab them from the beginning.  Get them excited.  He said, “Donnie (he always called me Donnie) what would you do?”  I said you need to come up with a tag line, something that everyone will get excited about.  Doesn’t need to mean anything, doesn’t matter, just a line.  Out of the blue, I thought, “I have a dream!”  Came to me just like that.  I told Doc, say I have a dream!  Immediately, people will start dreaming, some about a juicy Big Mac, some about having sex with Ivanka, doesn’t matter, they won’t hear another thing you say.  They loved it, crowd went wild, nothing like one of my crowds, but it was a great day.

The next one is really strategic, it’s about golf, and everyone knows, old white guys love to talk about golf, evidenced by the first Presidential debate:

Back when Tiger Woods was the captain of the Ryder Cup team, he came to me and said, “Donnie (Tiger always called me Donnie), I know we could win the Ryder Cup if we had you on the team, but there are so many whiny babies on the PGA tour, they would complain if I put an amateur on the team, even though you’re a better golfer than any of us”.  I said, “Tiger, I understand, it really wouldn’t be fair for me to do it, it would just create too much controversy.”  Did they win?  Hell, no, I knew they couldn’t win without me.  But, I gave Tiger some advice, and he used it.  I told him, if you lose, just say the match was rigged.  And keep on saying it over and over and over again.  Doesn’t matter if you have any evidence, the more you say something, the more people believe it.  And they did, everyone said that America got screwed in that Ryder Cup match.  It was a great day to be an American.

The last is the most important, it speaks to his love of God and his close and deep relationship with God:

I was lying in bed the one night, all alone, and I was starting to doze off, when I heard a voice, “Donnie, it’s me, God”.  Well of course I knew it was God, He always calls me Donnie.  He said, this country is going to Hell in a handbasket, and we need to do something.  I tried sending a couple hurricanes to destroy a bunch of liberals, but they diverted them, and it only hit a bunch of good, Christian Nationalists.  I’m thinking about sending down some she-bears to rip some people apart.  I said, “God, I know what you mean, but I think I have a better solution.  How about I put together a Bible.  But not just any Bible, a Bible that has my name on it.  I’ll call it the “God Bless the USA Bible”.  With your words, and my name on it, we can get people reading the Bible again.  The best part is I’ll have it made in China, so I’ll make a small fortune on it!”  God loved the idea, He said, “Donnie, you are amazing.  Don’t you ever worry, if anyone ever tries to assassinate you, I’ll always be there to redirect those bullets.  You’ll always be just like a son to me.”

OK, I may have taken a few liberties with the truth, but really, nowhere near the liberties that he takes.  Plus, it’s really quite entertaining, and no one gets hurt.  No more discussions on real issues that he knows nothing about, and no more hate-filled racist rants.  Very simple stories, easy for him to repeat over and over, and the cult will love them and eat them up. 

As noted, if this works, I can come up with many more of these, I just want to make him sound presidential rather than like a babbling lunatic, since it appears he may become our next president no matter what spews out of his mouth, so it would be good for him to sound at least semi-intelligent.  If that’s possible of course.

What Leadership Looks Like

 For the Strategic Management course I’m teaching at Ohio Dominican University, I recently presented the topic of “Conscious Leadership”.  One of the learning outcomes was “exhibiting an appreciation for the importance of integrating ethical concerns with business objectives and strategy”.  There was a lot of great reading material, information about various leadership styles, examples of great leaders, really, a wealth of good information.

As I often do, I took my own road. I thought back and found some great speeches illuminating leadership that culminated movies I loved.  Some examples:

• Kurt Russell giving his motivational speech to the Team USA hockey team right before they stepped on the ice to play the unbeatable (well, maybe not!) Russian team in the 1980 Olympics memorialized in “Miracle”.
• Keanu Reeves in the huddle for the last play of “The Replacements” giving his teammates that last bit of inspiration they needed to win the game.  I love this movie, and one of my favorite all-time movie lines, “Winners want the ball, when the game is on the line”.
• Robin Williams breaking all of the rules and teaching his students what they really needed to know in “Dead Poet’s Society”.  “Rip It Out!”
• Al Pacino in his epic rant at the end of “Scent of a Woman”, allowing Charlie to stay in school rather than get expelled.  “When the shit hits the fan, some guys run and some guys stay!”

OK, maybe I got more out of this part than my students, I tend to believe great cinema is lost on the youth, they have too much information bombarding them all day to appreciate great drama.  As usual, I digress.

What I thought might be more useful for them and might impact them more was to hear some of my experiences regarding great leadership.  I worked in the business world for about 40 years, and I saw my share of great leaders, and not so great.  I think each of us has our own perception of great leadership. There are many types of leaders, and not all of us view a leader the same way, but I gave them examples of what I believed great leadership looks like.  I started with someone famous, I’m sure not familiar for them, but still a famous person from our country, who personified great leadership:

Dwight Eisenhower

I’ve read about Mr. Eisenhower before, but his story is compelling for several reasons.  He started out growing up very poor in a small town in Kansas, where most of the children never made it through high school.  His early military career wasn’t much better, and no one would have ever imagined where he would end up in life.  He ranked 125^th out of 164 men at West Point and was constantly in trouble for misbehaving.  One of his most important lessons was to smile even at adversity.  After a knockdown from a boxing coach, the coach said, “If you can’t smile when you get up from a knockdown, you’re never going to lick an opponent.”

This comment resonated with me, I often had situations at work where I was deep in thought or worried about something, and my personnel would see me looking this way.  Within a short period of time, rumors were flying about what was going wrong in the business.  People watch you; people see how you are acting.  As Mr. Eisenhower said:

“I firmly determined that my mannerisms and speech in public would always reflect the cheerful certainty of victory – that any pessimism and discouragement I might ever feel would be reserved for my pillow.  To translate this conviction into tangible results, I adopted a policy of circulating through the whole force to the full limit imposed by physical considerations.  I did my best to meet everyone from general to private with a smile, a pat on the back and a definite interest in his problems.”

 

After his inauspicious beginnings, Eisenhower went on to the Command and General Staff School where he finished first in a class of 245.  He became the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II, a Five Star General in the US Army, and the 34^th President of the United States from 1953-1961.  One of his key attributes was that he always gave credit to his people when things went well, and he always took the blame when things didn’t go well.  He fully supported those who worked for him.

 

I think I found Mr. Eisenhower’s leadership style so compelling because it so closely matched the leadership style of the greatest leader I worked for: 

Jim Crane

Jim did more for my career than anyone else, even me.  He saw something in me, that others probably didn’t see, and I also didn’t see.  Early in my career at Barco, I served in various divisions as a Controller.  I would have probably spent my life as a Controller, but Jim kept encouraging me to look higher, grow my career into something more.  While there is nothing wrong with being “just” a Controller, I was excited, and scared, to strive for something more.  Jim put me into a role at Barco Simulation as an Operations Manager.  Eventually, I was elevated to the position of Site Manager, and eventually General Manager.  None of this would have ever happened if Jim hadn’t seen something in me.

 

Jim was undoubtedly a “Servant Leader”.  Jim had so many traits similar to Mr. Eisenhower, but some key ones that made him such an incredible leader were: 

• Similar to Mr. Eisenhower, he passed out credit to his personnel when things went well, and he absorbed the blame when they didn’t.
• He had a great deal of patience and allowed people to work their way to a solution rather than dictating how to get there.
• He emphasized celebrating success; he wanted people to feel good about our accomplishments
• He would allow personnel (me) to vent their concerns, express their displeasure about decisions, and would hear them out, but you also knew when the conversation was over.  It still felt good to at least get to air your feelings.
• He was very forgiving of mistakes, even when they were monumental mistakes.  You knew what you did was wrong, but once it was done, it was done.

 As I said, my career would have been very different if it weren’t for Jim Crane.

 

The other great leader I had the pleasure to work for was completely different, but great just the same, he was larger than life:

 

Michael Gerster

As noted, Michael was larger than life, in so many ways.  Michael is relatively tall, and he has this presence about him.  He would briskly walk through the building, stopping everywhere to talk to anyone and everyone, he always wanted to hear what people had to say.  He talks in a deep, booming voice, and to be honest, when I first started working for him, I didn’t think I could do it.  He was always yelling at me, and I couldn’t figure out why he was always yelling.  It wasn’t until we had a meeting with our auditor, Jan Fischer from Roedl, that I understood.  We were leaving the meeting, and Jan was laughing, and I asked why.  He said, “typical guy from Cologne (Germany).  They always yell when they talk”.  I finally figured out Michael wasn’t yelling at me, it’s just how he communicated.

 

For those a bit older like me, we had this phrase, mostly related to sports.  We’d say, “I’d run through a wall for him.”  Michael was one I would run through a wall for.  He was a great leader, and our people would do anything for him.  Some key traits Michael possessed: 

• Michael is probably a Transformational Leader, he is always looking to do whatever he can to improve the processes and the business.  We would complete a week-long Kaizen event, we’d be exhausted, and Michael would say, “What can we do better?”  He never was satisfied, but it was really in a good way, he just wanted us to be as good as we could be.
• He is comfortable with business leaders, but he is also very comfortable with people on the factory floor or anywhere within the business.  Michael would walk the factory floor, talk to the people, find out what was going right or wrong, and then he would come to our Senior Management meetings and tell Klaus and Erich, our Operations leaders, what he found out by talking to the people on the shop floor.  Our people loved Michael, with good reason, he cared about them and cared about what they had to say.

 As noted, Jim and Michael are no doubt the best leaders I’ve ever worked for.  I’ve worked for many leaders, most are in the middle of the road, and then:

 

If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say ….

OK, I have worked for two poor leaders, but I won’t mention names, that wouldn’t be appropriate.  But I will note some of the behavior that I found distasteful in their leadership styles: 

• They were habitual liars.  In one of the cases, I really believe he was a pathological liar, he would lie to me about the financial statements that I prepared.
• They treated employees like indentured servants.  They really showed very little value for the people that worked for them.
• They spent the company’s money like there was no tomorrow, at least spending it on themselves.
• They ran the business individually, rarely involved senior leadership in any important decisions.
• Neither of them had any regard for women, particularly in any type of leadership position.
• They were both unethical, no moral compass whatsoever.

As I went through this process, teaching my class about what leadership looks like, I came to a conclusion or feeling about it, at least for me.  I think you can see, Jim Crane and Michael Gerster were completely different in their leadership styles, but in their own way, they were great leaders.  In the case of two poor leaders, I’m not sure if it’s my value system that is guiding me or that poor leaders have common traits, really not sure.

 

From my perspective, I really struggle when people are dishonest.  I had a difficult time working with, or even talking to, either of these individuals, they had such a propensity to lie.  The other for me is how you treat those around you.  My Dad was a truck driver, and he always taught me, no matter what someone does in an organization, you value them.  Everyone is important.  I didn’t appreciate the way they treated others, putting them in a caste system or ranking based on where they fit in the organization. 

 

I’m really not sure there is a formula for being a great leader, it comes in many sizes and shapes, and besides the two great ones I’ve noted, I’ve seen some really good ones, throughout the organizations I worked for.  Maybe at the core is the antithesis of the poor leaders I identified.  Honesty, valuing personnel, no matter where they are in the organization or what they look like, those are the critical aspects, and how you display your leadership is a matter of personality or style.

 

The good news is, I learned so much from all the leaders I’ve encountered, but specifically, these four.  I learned what great leadership looks like, and I’m so grateful I had the opportunity to work for Jim Crane and Michael Gerster.  In the case of the other two, I learned some valuable information also.  I learned how I don’t want to be treated, and how I won’t treat people who work with me.  All in all, great lessons. 

 

Living a Dream

 What did you want to be when you grew up?  I wanted to be a baseball player!  I wanted to be a pitcher like Bob Gibson, or more like Vida Blue, because he was left-handed like me, and he pitched for the Oakland A’s, my favorite baseball team, next to the Pirates.

OK, that dream died quickly because I really wasn’t that good of a baseball pitcher.  As I grew up, as I prepared for college and throughout college, I wanted to be a sportswriter.  I would eat and breathe anything related to sports or writing, I devoted myself to honing my skills to become the best sportswriter I could possibly be.

A funny thing happened along the way.  Apparently, the dream of writing for a newspaper became virtually everyone’s dream, because at one point, statistics said that if every journalist died today, there would be two coming out of college to replace them.  If I were lucky, I could find a job at a small, local paper, starting off writing obituaries and announcements, and maybe, I could eventually work my way up to writing real news stories.  While I’m sure some or many were willing to pay those dues, I wasn’t, I gave up that dream, and lived the dream of most young people, I became an accountant.

Because of my love of literature and writing, I also had a dream to write a book.  To a certain extent, that dream was even bigger.  I don’t know if any of you have tried, but writing a book is incredibly hard work.  It takes a great deal of thought, planning, imagination, perseverance, pain, suffering, and, oh yeah, talent.  At one point, many years ago, I wrote a short novel, but I can safely say, it really wasn’t very good.  I have no idea what I ever did with it, I just didn’t see any real value in what I had produced.

A new dream crept in recently, and this one really came out of nowhere.  About two years ago, I completed my Yoga Teacher Training and became a Registered Yoga Teacher.  Now, the main reason I did this was purely to learn more about yoga, I had no aspirations to teach or do anything with the certification.  Out of the blue, I want to own a yoga studio! Spoiler alert, I don’t own a yoga studio.  I did research it though, I read how to start one, looked at properties, considered getting some consulting from studio owners, but I never took it past the thought stages.

Do you ever wonder, what separates those who live their dream and those who just, well, dream?  Specifically, I’m referring to the old saying or challenge you would get growing up, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”  For whatever reason, some of us nail it, and some of us don’t.  What separates those who succeed from those who still dream about success or gave up on that dream long ago?

As you can possibly tell, I’ve put a lot of thought into this one.  I’m fascinated by the difference, the edge, the drive that some people have that others don’t.  I’m going to share three stories with you, people I’ve had the opportunity to live vicariously through.  It will become obvious why I picked them, but they lived their dreams, and they lived dreams that in essence parallel mine, but they made it happen.  I’ll share their stories, and I’ll share my thoughts on how or why they succeeded, by knowing them or simply watching them.

Are you out of your fucking mind?

Dejan Kovacevic just passed the 10^th anniversary of launching his online sports journalism outlet, DK Pittsburgh Sports.  He has created an incredible website that provides outstanding coverage for all the sports teams in Pittsburgh.  The success of this site is amazing, and really, is incomparable.  

I’ve followed Mr. Kovacevic’s writing for many years, back when he was a writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and then with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.  When he created his own forum, I abandoned all the other news outlets and moved to his site.

There are good reporters or sportswriters out there, but Mr. Kovacevic is not just that.  He is an incredible writer, who can create a beautiful story, who just happens to write about sports.  I’ve read good sports writers in my lifetime, but there are few, very few, who can bring such life, such humanity to a sports story, and I love to read whatever he writes.  As I noted in a previous blog, he could write about bocci ball, badminton, curling, whatever, I’d read it, even though I’ve quit watching sports.  He is just that good.  And probably the best piece I’ve ever read from him is the story of how he launched this site 10 years ago, it was a work of art, detailing the reaction from a friend (noted above), the discussions with his incredibly supportive wife, Dali, and just the whole process of how this came to be.

I had the privilege of visiting his headquarters/shop recently, and I got to meet and talk to Mr. Kovacevic for the first time ever, and it didn’t disappoint at all.  What I loved the most was hearing him talk about the writing process, I had just commented on his piece from the previous night’s Pirate game, and how much I loved it.  He explained to me that he missed an opportunity and didn’t quite capture the story as he would have liked to have.  That is why he is so good, even when he produced a great story, he felt it could have been better. 

Blood, sweat and tears

Many years ago, when I worked at Barco, I had a colleague at our headquarters in Belgium, Ann Galland, who worked in marketing.  I knew Ann, we had a professional relationship, but honestly, not a strong one, simply because she was in marketing, and I was a Chief Financial Officer, our paths didn’t often cross.  We had a good professional relationship, but that was about it.

We became Facebook friends, and over the last few years, I had noticed Ann wrote a novel, titled “Aroma”, I think back in 2022.  I was fascinated how in the world she did this, as noted, it’s an incredible amount of work.  I would read her posts on Facebook, and I’d see book signings, information on how well her book was doing, book reviews, whatever Ann posted about her book.

Much to my surprise, this year Ann published another novel, “Bitter”, which also has done incredibly well.  I must confess, I haven’t read them, when I looked on Amazon, it only had a Dutch version, so I can’t comment on how good they are.  But it’s safe for me to say, based on some of the reviews I’ve seen, she’s done quite a good job.  Some examples:

• "Bitter" is an immersive reading experience that exceeds expectations
• For fans of subtly written stories full of emotions and depth, this book is an absolute must-read
• Ann Galland proves her talent once again, and "Bitter" stands proudly alongside her predecessor as a strong novel full of intriguing characters and unexpected twists

After seeing all the reviews and success of her second novel, I reached out to Ann, and simply asked, what is the secret of her success?  Her response was relatively simple:

“There is no secret….it is just blood, sweat and tears.  Hard work.  I think, and being lucky that the market notices you have written something that is a lot better than average?

I get the first part, I’m sure she worked incredibly hard on this.  Not sure she gives herself enough credit for the second part, she obviously has written some very good novels, and while there could always be a certain level of luck involved, I think it probably pales in comparison to the quality of what she has written.

You will do great things

Have you ever met someone, and quickly you realize you are in the presence of someone special?  That’s the way I felt when I met Carley DeMarco. 

About two years ago, I did my Yoga Teacher Training with Carley and eight other young ladies, and while all of them possessed certain gifts, Carley had something special about her.  She was incredibly bright, knowledgeable about many topics, very articulate, a vociferous worker, she seemed to be involved in so many endeavors, I had no idea how she was able to do so much.

After a period, as we were walking through the woods at our YTT training center, I made that comment to Carley, I started it off with “You are doing great things, and you will do great things”.  She is one of those people who you know will be incredibly successful at something, or whatever, they set their mind to.

As we all left our yoga training, some of us, many of us, felt we probably wouldn’t teach yoga, we just wanted the experience.  Carley did plan to teach, but she took it to a whole new level.  Carley opened a yoga studio in Clayton, Georgia.  Keep in mind, I think at the time, Carley was 28.  She had the courage, the business sense, the vision to open a yoga studio.  While on a certain level, I was shocked and amazed, then again, I wasn’t.  As I said, I just knew Carley was destined for doing what many of us only dream of.  While she had to deal with “messy schedules, a never-ending to-do list, and sometimes, loneliness”, she also was able to experience a “heart beating out of chest kind of excitement and a sense of purpose that comes with it”.

Which brings me to the reason or root of this post, how or why do some live a dream, and why do some just dream?  I don’t think there are any simple answers, but from my small sample size, based on people who have done or accomplished what I would have liked to have accomplished, I have a few ideas.  I don’t believe there is any secret formula, but I think there’s a mixture, and a higher dose of one rather than the other in some of the cases, but here goes:

·       You must be very talented at whatever it is.  That is clearly true for the three profiled above.

·       You must be willing to work incredibly hard.  I don’t mean just hard, I mean dedicating massive amounts of time and effort into the endeavor, and essentially living it.

·       You must be driven, insanely driven, you must have such passion for whatever that dream is, and you aren’t willing to let that dream go.  There will be times where self-doubt comes in, when you, or those close to you, believe you are insane, but that passion will override any of those doubts, and you will believe that you will succeed. 

Am I jealous?  Oh Heavens, no!  I am so happy and excited for each of them, and to be honest, it’s been fun to watch.  I love to see Ann’s posts of her books’ successes; I look forward to them and enjoy her success.  Carley is one of the most incredible people I’ve had the honor of spending time with, and I can’t wait to see what she does and how successful she becomes.  When I had the chance to finally meet Dejan Kovacevic in person, I was giddy.  For me, he is an icon of writing, and I could have listened to him talk about writing all day.  Not one bit of jealousy, I love to see how each of them has succeeded so tremendously.

Where did I fall short?  Probably on a certain level, talent.  I was a good writer, but probably not great.  When it comes to hard work, I used to say at WIKA, no one can outwork me, not necessarily something to be proud of, but I never shied away from work.  I would have to say the biggest area where I fell short was just not quite enough passion to make it happen.  I think there were too many other things, or really, too many other people that I loved too much to take any more time away from them than I already was.

And all is not lost.  Laurel and I have created a yoga space in our home, and we offer free yoga one night a week, so far.  We’re trying to provide yoga to those who can’t afford studio fees.  No, I don’t own a studio, but I’m happy with what we’ve created.

As for my writing, I’ve decided to write a children’s book.  I’m in the early stages, I have the premise, the storyline, I have a plan for the illustration, and I’ve done quite a bit of research on what makes a children’s book successful.  I have no grand plans to be an ongoing writer, but I want to at least give one book a shot. 

Alas, I think my sports writing career is well behind me, but that’s OK.  And I just don’t see myself pitching in the Major Leagues someday, but I think I can live with that.  I’ll have to let those two dreams die a much-needed death….