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Dedicated
I enjoyed reading Dedicated by Pete Davis about a year ago. I loved the idea of choosing depth over breadth and absorbed the message, and felt like Davis was preaching to the choir. I read it, enjoyed it, then put the book away and moved on. Recently, I stumbled across this eight minute commencement speech the author gave when graduating Harvard Law School. This speech, apparently, became the impetus for the book. The speech is wonderful and it’s refreshing to see
Good Food Takes Time to Prepare
Our go to restaurant as a family for culinary celebrations was a spot called Nick’s located in Calgary just to the East of McMahon Stadium. I was always struck by a line listed at the bottom of the back of the menu. It read “Good Food Takes Time to Prepare.” Even as a self-interested teenager, I appreciated those words. The food was absolutely worth the wait. Waiting to get served somehow seemed easier when the outcome was going to be good.
Spe Melioris
Some of us may have more of an affinity for tracing our family lineage back in time than others. Now, with the help of companies like Ancestry or even 23 and me, we’re able to do this with a little less effort than in the past. Or, we may be lucky enough to have others in the family that have taken care to curate photographs and other information which help us connect where we find ourselves within the history of
Assigning Accountability
A great poem was written by Charles Osgood some years ago about accountability. It involved four SANE individuals and an important task to get done. The four people were Somebody, Anybody, Nobody, and Everybody. Everybody knew there was a key task to complete which could be done by Anybody. Everybody thought Somebody would do it. Nobody did it. Somebody got mad because they thought Everybody would do it. But Nobody did. Osgood’s poem is similar to the idea that the
The OPRAH Method
Oprah Winfrey seems to have done ok for herself over the years. She’s clawed her way from humble beginnings to the heights of fortune and fame. She’s provided value to millions for decades. She’s done so by both entertaining and comforting her fans. She is considered by many to be the most successful person in the history of US media. That’s quite something. She built her career and became one of the richest women in the world. This link is to
The Stockdale Paradox
James Stockdale was a highly decorated soldier that ended his career in the Navy with the rank of Vice Admiral. During a more than thirty-five year career with the military, Stockdale served as a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War. During one mission his plane was shot, crashing as a result, yet Stockdale was able to eject and parachute down. Unfortunately, he was captured shortly after landing by local villagers. Before being passed to a POW camp he was brutally
Two Titan Takeaways
Our middle son is an aspiring mechanic. It’s like he wandered out of the womb wielding a wrench. He has consistently explored how things work for as long as he could move. Along the way to becoming pretty good at fixing things, a lot of things have been broken. A couple of years ago we purchased a used truck. It was purchased with some insurance proceeds received as a result of an accident he and I were in. The truck
Education from Endurocross
The last 30 years has resulted in an explosion of emerging sports entering our lives. The choices for kids sport are far broader than the seasonal selection with which many of us grew up. As Canadians, past generations had a choice of hockey or skiing in the winter and soccer or baseball in the summer. Nowadays, the choices per season are almost limitless independent of where we live. Within a sport itself, the options abound. In skiing, for example, there’s
What’s a Great Job: Passion or Contribution?
Around ten years ago, Cal Newport was completing his post-graduate studies and achieving a doctorate in computer science. He, like Karl Pillemer’s work introduced in our last article, was also interested in what makes one’s job fulfilling. In the annual cycle of graduations whether high school or university, career advice is being doled out all over the place. Maybe Newport’s approach may be helpful to share with those you may know. It is also useful not just for graduates but
Work Advice from Wise Americans
Karl Pillemer is a US sociologist who specializes in gerontology. He led an ambitious study over five years where over 1,000 older Americans were interviewed about various aspects of their life experiences. Participants ranged from early seventies to over one hundred years old. Pillemer had an inclination that with age came wisdom and this group of interviewees did not disappoint. The amount of information collected was substantial. Pillemer distilled his findings into a book, 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and
