Category: Idea Sharing Adventure Blog Posts
“Anyone writing a creative work knows that you open, you yield yourself, and the book talks to you and builds itself. To a certain extent, you become the carrier of something that has been given to you from what we call the Muses—or, in biblical language, ‘God.’ This is not fancy, it is fact. Since…
READ ARTICLE“Everything you can imagine is real.” —Pablo Picasso We were driving through rural, agricultural Florida just north of Lake Okeechobee when I saw it. “What is that?” I said, removing my sunglasses for a second look. Several vehicles ahead, on a four-way section of downtown road, was an old yellow school bus with the…
READ ARTICLE“The most dangerous moment comes with victory.” —Napoleon Bonaparte Thursday, April 13, 1978 I’m twelve years old, in my bed on a school night. The only light in the room is coming from the illuminated station finder on my alarm clock radio. It’s Ned Martin’s last year calling the Red Sox, play by play, and…
READ ARTICLE“Liberty means responsibility. That’s why most men dread it.” —George Bernard Shaw It was six a.m. when I left Route 44 and passed through the veritable ghost town of Scenic, South Dakota, onto Bombing Range Road. I was on my way to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to have breakfast with my friend Rosie…
READ ARTICLE“Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it.” —Buddha Earlier this year I shared the following short message with everyone at Hancock Lumber: Hello! I was doing some work with another company in another industry yesterday. The subject of their “mission statement” was on the agenda….
READ ARTICLE“The problem with homelessness is not houselessness.” —Matt Haig Eugene, Oregon, is a city like no other. Nestled on the western edge of the Cascade Mountains, it’s surrounded by a valley of agricultural bounty. Sheep graze at the edge of the airport runway. The rivers flow and the flowers grow across a Disneyesque kingdom-like…
READ ARTICLE“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” —Soren Kierkegaard Catherine, speaking only in Lakota, conversed with the buffalo scattered across the high grasslands of what is today Wind Cave National Park in present-day South Dakota. The wind blew as it always does…
READ ARTICLE“All humans are entrepreneurs not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in the human DNA.” —Reid Hoffman Entrepreneur is one of the least-understood words in business, and possibly the entire English language. We tend to equate it with an elite and short list of icons. Bill Gates, Elon…
READ ARTICLE“Everyone talks about building a relationship with your customer. I think you build one with your employees first.” —Angela Ahrendts The first mission of a modern company should be to advance and enhance the lives of the people who work there. All other corporate value creation is derived from this central priority. Companies that do…
READ ARTICLE“I am a wild, wandering nomad, I belong everywhere and nowhere all at the same time, and in that gap between worlds, I am free.” —Ritta Klint I’m fascinated by the nomadic past of the Sioux tribes on the northern plains. Before the reservation era, the Sioux moved freely across a vast territory stretching from…
READ ARTICLE“A lion sleeps in the heart of every man.” —Old Turkish Proverb At the corner of a serene collection of shops and restaurants in the Park Shore neighborhood of Naples, Florida, stand two twenty-four-foot curved stainless-steel columns. At first glance this giant piece of minimalist art reveals little specific meaning. But upon closer inspection one…
READ ARTICLE“The collective unconscious contains the whole spiritual heritage of mankind’s evolution born anew in the brain structure of every individual.” —Carl Jung Speaking mostly in Lakota, Medicine Man begins to talk, then chant, then pray, then sing. Others, circled in darkness, echo in response. The heat within the hut quickly intensifies and the sweat comes…
READ ARTICLE“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom.” —Mahatma Gandhi The potential blessing of this essay series is that I am writing from experience. The potential problem with this essay series is that I am writing from experience. * * * When I decided to write this yearlong series about shared…
READ ARTICLE“Strange what being slowed down could do to a person.” —Nicholas Sparks Even though the gymnasium was filled with whistles, shouting, and squeaking sneakers, I can still hear the coach’s wisdom nearly forty years later. I was at SWISH basketball camp at the University of Southern Maine, a junior in high school preparing for…
READ ARTICLE“Do not wait for the green light. You are the green light.” —Dr. Jacinta Mpalyenkana Shortly after participating in the Leadership Learning Exchange for Equity sponsored by the Maine Community Foundation, I received a poignant question from one of my favorite global citizens within our company: What are we doing to bring more underrepresented groups…
READ ARTICLE“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” —Ernest Hemingway On December 13, 2020, former secretary of state George Shultz turned one hundred years old. On that day he published an essay musing over what he had learned across a century of living, and a career that included…
READ ARTICLE“Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” —Dalai Lama Several months ago I was sitting with the vice chair of our board of directors, Jim Buchanan, at the Hancock Lumber home office in Casco. Across the street logging trucks were arriving, the sawmill was churning, and the smell of sawdust was…
READ ARTICLE“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” —Martin Luther King This is essay #24, the halfway mark of my 2021 writing project. Two dozen essays have been shared and two dozen are yet to be created. Thank you for engaging and participating….
READ ARTICLE“The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.” —John Green I have trepidations about taking on this topic but even more about letting it go, so I’m diving in. Does civility in human dialogue and interaction matter? If it does matter, what causes it to disintegrate? How might it be elevated?…
READ ARTICLE“Every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration.” —Margaret Chase Smith It can feel overwhelming to take on the subject of advancing social harmony in a delicate and divided world. So I went looking for a simple place to start . . . * * * The Circle K convenience store sits at the…
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