The company for which I was hired to be CEO played an important role in the advertising industry, so I was surprised when I actually arrived and learned how lean the staff really was. In my first week the office manager was diagnosed with an advanced cancer and went out on sick leave, never to return. Adding insult to injury the head of sales quit during my second week. We had no head of sales, no strategic plan and no marketing department, let alone any bench strength. If someone came down with a bad cold an entire area could grind to a halt. I still didn’t know where to find the pencils. But I knew that there many things that needed…

Many years ago I took my two sons up to the Omega Institute for Family Week and enrolled them in an experiential workshop called “Little Forest People.” They played in mud and snuck up on the adults and identified plants and generally were supposed to have a terrific time being kids in the woods, shepherded by enthusiastic teens.  Except one son – the one who currently has a subscription to Outside – hated every minute of being outdoors and was miserable every stinking minute of the entire week, leading me to miss most of my workshop, “Wanting What You Have Instead of Having What You Want.”  Blame him for my next decade of materialism! But I have always been intrigued and…