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...
20 days 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...
about 1 month 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...
about 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...
2 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...
2 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...
3 months ago • 2 min read
From Business ….. to Beginner Again In my early twenties, I entered a world that I was told would reward me for hard work, competence, and initiative. At seventy-two, I seem to be entering a world that asks me to grow beyond what I’ve learned, and step into each day as a beginner. Lately, I've been wondering what being a senior is really meant to look like. And I fondly remember the fresh feeling of being in my first bike shop in the late ‘70s. The front door was finally locked. Dennis, Tim,...
3 months ago • 2 min read
Quiet Courageous Acts That Saved Lives “It wasn’t just the Nazis,” Mieke said. “It was the people you knew. That’s what made it terrifying.” My friends, Durk and Mieke Schaap, now in their mid-90s, lived through the Second World War not as soldiers or resistance leaders, but as children in a small Dutch village. Resistors and Sympathizers “My own father was a good man; quiet and hardworking. But during the war he was doing more than I realized.” Mieke knows that in her home there were...
4 months ago • 2 min read
Durk & Mieke; “Doing What Had To Be Done” Bread Delivery Boy In 1944, Durk was only thirteen when he said goodbye to his parents and worked as an apprentice baker in the village, Echtenerbrug Netherlands.. At 4:30 AM, he stumbled out of his warm bed to gather the wood for the oven. There was no electricity, so all the mixing and kneading for 300 loaves was done by hand. The baker would sometimes tell him, “Take an extra five loaves on your bicycle to that house. They will need it this week.”...
4 months ago • 2 min read