A Small Person, A Quiet Voice of Hope As we picked our way down the narrow wood path in the gloom between buildings, Linda turned back, pointing, “Watch that step!” When I visited, the slum she lived in was a vast warren of shacks built on unclaimed swamp land behind the noisy streets of Bangkok. Everyone we passed greeted her. The street sellers, prostitutes and drug users slowed us down with questions about what she was doing, who I was. Sweating in the humidity for an uncomfortably long...
14 days ago • 2 min read
Wide-Eyed Wonder This week, my body resents me. I’m frustrated it’s not healing on day ten of the flu. My body shakes and makes me groan as I try to make sense of my ongoing malaise. Along the way there’s the tiresomeness of living — a single day, played on repeat. I peer out through the morning mist over the Fraser River, and it seems as if a tangible entropy eats at me. Then I see my little grandkids play, and chide myself, “Can’t I stretch out and grasp this day with their wide-eyed...
21 days ago • 2 min read
The Autumn Question I've been wondering, “Are some of the things I fear losing the very things I eventually need to let go of?” I’m moving deeper into the Autumn season of my life. The other evening, up in Jeff and Laura's PEI loft, I listened to the nippy nor’wester shushing through the trees. My east coast son-in-law, considers how his trees somehow seal off their branches to preserve sap to survive the freezing PEI winds. A chilly rain is streaking the window. It's quiet in this house in...
28 days ago • 1 min read
When the Work Diminishes, What Do I Cultivate? I’ve spent my life growing my garden. Or you could say, I’ve been landscaping to display my purpose. I’ve wanted to flourish physically, socially, financially, and emotionally. To cultivate an acceptable identity. Now I’m tentatively examining my soil, “What's causing this growth?” For five decades I’ve carefully tended an identity, filled with new start-ups, new careers, new relationships, new adventures. I wanted to show people the wonderful...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
The Gift I Share With You; As a Mzee*. I've only met a handful of elders (Mzee) who seem completely at rest in themselves. When a true Mzee walks into a room, she has no need to become the centre of it. Instead, she has a quiet way of drawing other people into the light she carries. She may have been successful in her career, but success isn’t what radiates from her. I was in the city of Karen, on the outskirts of Nairobi. Another white guy, attempting business in Kenya, seeking someone that...
2 months ago • 2 min read
“Tito, I Can See the Skin on Top of Your Head!” I was brought up short. Embarrassed by the truth. I recovered, laughed, and said; “Yes, you go bald as you get old.” My youngest nephew stared at me for a moment. “Will it happen to me?” “Yup. Then you'll finally be old. And hopefully you'll be wise!” He considered this. “I hear when you’re old, you forget things.” “Yeah. That’s right. But now it's my questions that are more important than answers.” “Huh? What do you mean?” “When I was young, I...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Maybe I've Got No Bad Parts. Parts of me felt flawed, I was a failure. I was grieving my damaged identity, imagined future. I’d disappointed an investor, employees and customers. Sitting at the cafe, feeling completely abandoned. I was depressed. Angry at myself for making such a mess of the company I owned. But little did I know I was learning about my relationship to suffering. Lessons that would enrich me decades later. “Just let me change places with you. I’ll take your apron and your...
3 months ago • 2 min read
A Syncopated Rhythm of Joy and Pain I once believed the pain of business failures was something to conquer, not listen to. I had learned to be strong, to keep a tight tempo, and override any failure. I felt an acute tightness in my chest, and my gut roiled in discomfort in my determination to keep my life in balance and to shut out the discord of stressful days. Maybe it's the imbalance of stress and pain that feels to me like the dissonance of jazz. Peace isn't always found in perfect...
3 months ago • 2 min read
Old Men Ought to be Explorers Throughout my career, I collected skills that helped me build businesses. Last week, watching The Odyssey, I realized I've had my career with risks and rewards, but now I’m wondering what to do. After Odysseus won the battle at Troy, he travelled through numerous memorable adventures before finally reaching home twenty years later. It wasn't the battles that caused me to think about the movie’s plot, it was the ending. After surviving war, monsters and losing his...
4 months ago • 2 min read