Roommates to the End
I was in high school before I realized Betty Bowman had a name other than Roommate. That was how my mother and her college roommate addressed each other their whole adult lives. They met their freshman year at the old campus of Wake Forest College, became immediate friends, and switched out their assigned roommates to […]
Walking Inside My Story
“You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.”–Brene Brown I’ll never forget the day I stood in the archives at the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University when an historian friend of mine showed me the bill of sale from the […]
What Am I Doing in Grad School?
I suspect this is a question I will ask myself from time to time over the next several years. What am I doing, with my undergraduate degree over thirty years behind me, trying to learn how to be a student again? Why am I adding the stress of reading assignments, tests, and lengthy papers to […]
It’s Nothing Personal. It’s Just Business.
Otto Berman was, by all accounts, a brilliant mathematician. His early work as an accountant catapulted him to unprecedented success when he took a job with an up-and-coming company run by New York businessman Arthur Flegenheimer. Dissatisfied with standard earnings, Flegenheimer challenged Berman to create a new profit formula, a task for which he was […]
Write When the Spirit Moves You
It was a night when sleep eluded me, when the continental divide between my deepest life questions and the trivial worries of the day narrowed into a sliver of fear. So I was already awake when I heard a loud thud from inside my apartment. I reached for the nearest weapon, a baseball-sized river rock that decorates my […]
You Can’t Ride Two Bikes
My favorite image of Charlotte is Tryon Street during the 2012 Democratic National Convention at CarolinaFest, the public celebration that was the capstone to Charlotte’s shining moment. I remember looking up and down the street filled with 50,000 revelers—people of all colors, ages and backgrounds—and thinking, yes, this is my town. Despite our occasional lurchings, Charlotte […]
What if the Hokey Pokey Really Is What It’s All About?
I’ve performed the hokey pokey in about half a dozen countries, with Mongolian guides in the Gobi desert and indigenous people in the high Andean mountains. While the locals don’t know the words, there seems to be a universal language in the connections we make when we “shake it all about.” Recently, the hokey pokey […]
The Sociopath at the Top
Some salacious news hit my hometown a few days ago. Our relatively new and presumably high-performing public school superintendent abruptly resigned. For a skinny minute, he cited the ubiquitous “more time with the family” explanation, which put everyone on high alert. No way that was the whole story. And, it wasn’t. As it turns out, […]
What Bali Taught Me About Going to the Dentist
Because it’s related to the topic of my book and my work with Wake Forest University, I’ve been reading a lot about meaningful work lately. And in Bali, I met examples of it everywhere—people who have what they call “taksu.” Taksu can be interpreted on the surface as “talent” or “passion,” but its meaning goes […]
Ganesh is Fresh
Ever since I became aware of the Hindu deities, I’ve had a bit of an elephant-god crush on Ganesh. I like that he is the remover of obstacles—he’s the go-to guy when you’re stuck in a situation that you don’t think you can move out of. About five years ago, I was in Tallahassee for […]
Pushing My Buttons
I’ve been traveling with Cross Cultural Journeys for over 15 years now. It started with a life-changing walk across the Sahara Desert, and continued on with Tibet, Mongolia, Botswana and Cuba. CCJ is owned by my friend Carole Angermeir, who has been dreaming up inspirational trips for 23 years. These trips aren’t typical tours to […]
Love In Action
Like me, Zanzan has spent his career in the hospitality industry. As manager of ARMA in Ubud, Bali for eight years, he ran one of the most beautiful and successful hotels in the city. He met Desmond Tutu and other luminaries when he helped my friend Carole Angermeir plan a major conference in 2006. By […]
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