Dig Deeper.
Articles, book reviews and thoughts on executive coaching, communications and the world of business.
Ratan Tata: Leading at the Speed of Life
I got an email last week from Kevin Freiberg that an old friend of ours had passed away in India. I say "old friend" even though I never met him. But when you spend three [...]
The Value of “An Appropriate Response”
There’s an old Zen story about a young monk starting out on the path of enlightenment. From time to time, he notices an older monk, the oldest in the monastery, working quietly in the gardens [...]
Journaling for Life Fitness
Memorial Day 2022 (also posted on Reservoir.llc) It's a holiday morning and I'm sitting outside just after dawn writing in my journal, which I've titled, "Life Fitness." It's an important and valuable transition from my [...]
Why This Book and Why Now?
The Birth of Being Essential Being Essential is a book that wanted to happen, and it wanted to happen in a powerful way that was not entirely visible to me until I was well into [...]
Why You Drink (or Don’t Drink) Coffee
I noticed this on my third cup this morning: Andrew Giambrone writing in The Atlantic says new research seems to suggest that coffee drinking isn't as much a personal choice as a genetic choice. A [...]
On the Beach, While the World Burns
Eden, Australia – December 31, 2019: Tourists, a father and daughter at the beach in Eden by the evacuation center. (Joachim Zens) In the winter of 1961, my family moved to Frankston, a [...]
Shooting Past Woodstock — A Conversation with Two Legends
John Sebastian (c) Baron Wolman On August 10th, I'm hosting a conversation on stage in Santa Fe featuring two legends of Woodstock: John Morris, who was the festival's Head of Production and Baron [...]
A Walker’s Christmas in Wales
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horse walking warm Out of the whinnying green stable On to the fields of praise. Dylan [...]
Thinking About Zombies on a Rooftop in Rome
In the light of a July morning, I crossed a bridge over the Tiber that was built in the year 62 BCE and wondered if, in all the Earth, there is an older bridge still [...]
Everybody Should Leave America Immediately
No, not forever. What did you think I meant? Just for a vacation. Remember those, when you went somewhere amazing with your family for two weeks because, well, obviously, you could? And because you wanted [...]
This may be my favorite picture.
My old friend, author and photographer Frank Spinelli, really takes great pictures. He just got my book and wanted to let me know how he feels about it.
The Day I Went to the Nazi Rally
I didn’t go to praise Nazis. I went to bury them. I didn’t know much. I was a naive college sophomore who could talk about Euripides and the Beatles but not much else. But I [...]
Why “Enfant Terrible” is Not a Viable Leadership Model
The Chief Executive got on the phone and, while his conversation was being broadcast to the public, started sounding a little crazy. When he tried to explain his successes, he got confused on the numbers [...]
On the Role of Leadership in a Shape-Shifting World
The communicator’s dilemma: leading the leaders. The communication of leadership is the most important thing you can work on in a company, because everything else depends on getting that right. This is critical, because we [...]
You Can Build a Secret Army. Or You Can Be a Dodo. Choose Carefully.
Once, at a dinner party in Dallas, I met a man who had grown up in Yorkshire in the 50s. He told me about a Friday night in 1962, when he was a 16-year-old working [...]