One Day

The lawnmower was humming. I had just enough time to finish cutting the grass and take a quick shower before heading into Columbus to see dear friends for food and fellowship. The collection bag was full, so I cut off the engine and removed the bag, shaking its contents into the other leaves that I had gathered and set out at the road for municipal collection.

An older man in a red pickup truck had pulled in to my neighbor’s driveway, clearly wanting to speak with me. I walked up to his truck, and he asked me for directions. The location he was seeking was on the west side of Columbus, some 45 minutes away. When I told him this, he was surprised, flustered, and looked to be disappointed at the news that he was so far from his destination. As we talked, it became clear to me that he was confused.

He didn’t have a phone, or a map. And I didn’t have any faith that he would remember my verbal directions to get him home. So I invited him to park his car, come in and meet Lori and we would figure out a way to help him navigate home. As he was parking his truck, I popped into the house, giving Lori a heads-up that we may have a person with dementia who needs our help.

I quickly finished mowing the grass and returned to the house. Lori and I agreed that the best approach to getting him home safely was for me to accompany him in his truck, while we followed her as she drove our car. That way if we got separated, I would still be on hand to navigate to our destination. When I explained this plan to the man, he balked. He didn’t think it was warranted for me to accompany him. He felt fully capable of staying on our tail and following us home.

Concerned that his self-assessment may be far from reality, Lori and I decided that speaking with the police about our concerns was the best next step. We didn’t want him or anyone to be injured if he returned to roadways, following us. I spoke with the dispatcher, and she sent an officer over right away. He was a very professional young man. Patient, a good listener. He asked the man some questions, and it became clear that the officer shared my concerns about the man’s competency.

This led to lengthy conversation, additional police and EMT personnel, and a fair amount of stress and nervousness for the poor man. Everyone worked together really well, asked great questions, conferred with their more senior personnel, and collectively landed on the outcome: the gentlemen needed to go to the hospital for further examination. This was the surest way to keep him safe. I suspect that if I had stuck with our initial plan and somehow got him home, he might have functioned just fine in that familiar environment. Outside of this safe bubble, all bets would be off for him, I believe.

When he woke up Saturday morning, he considered himself to be a fully functional adult human being. By sundown, he was sleeping in a hospital, because more than a half dozen people determined otherwise.

If we live long enough, some version of this day is coming. The last day you fly on an airplane. The last time you drive a car. The last time you see a friend or loved one. The last day you can be trusted to move about the world independently.

Twenty years ago, I might have written out some directions for him and gone on to meet my friends. I’m glad I was there to help, but I’m not that far from being elderly myself. If I can stay fit and avoid the Big C, I figure I have 10-15 years of robust adventure. It’s time to start elevating my adventure time, because my day is coming, too.

Sunday Supper

With rain and cooler temperatures moving in, it is finally time for some comforting soups and stews. This Butternut Squash Congee w/ Chili Oil looks great. So does this Tortellini Soup. And how about this Quick Chicken & Dumplings?

Sunday Music

I simply love Madison Cunningham’s music. Here she performs My Full Name live. This song is on her latest album, which just dropped last week or so. Here Brad Mehldau performs Elliott Smith’s “Better Be Quiet Now.” Let this nearly 30-minute set featuring Nate Smith, Lalah Hathaway, James Francies and Derrick Hodge from the Montreal Jazz Fest make your Sunday morning. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

LIttle Totems

An effective estate planning tip: Line up the people who are going to serve as your financial and health care powers of attorney well in advance - so far in advance that their service is merely theoretical. So far into the future that they have no idea what they’re signing up for.

Myra was smart this way, roping me onto her team more than twenty years ago. Honoring that promise began in earnest almost a year ago. Last year she hit the cancer trifecta - coming down with a bad case of breast cancer, followed by melanoma, followed by a weird blood cancer that nearly ruined her kidneys.

She was remarkably upbeat and positive in the months that followed, very accepting that her time was coming to a close - but happy to manage these conditions and enjoy as much time as she could. Two Sundays ago she was re-admitted to The James for her final visit. The call came just before 2am Tuesday morning informing me that she had passed.

I had a meeting in Columbus on Wednesday, and swung by Westminster-Thurber to take a few pictures of her belongings, to begin the process of inviting friends and family to claim objects for remembrance, or utility. Her possessions are mercifully few. The big scale-down happened when we moved her from her independent living apartment into the skilled nursing unit. That is when we inherited her cat, Jasmine. Jasmine is a lovely 13-year old girl. I will think of Myra often as I interact with her cat in the days ahead.

She was my father’s first cousin - her father and my dad’s mom were siblings. But I always called her Aunt Myra. A lover of the arts, she took my sister and I to see the Nutcracker at Christmas time, and to many other musical and theater performances. I remember a trip to the Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum in Wapakoneta. I also remember her taking me and the Secrest twins to see Eddie Murphy perform standup comedy at the old Veterans Memorial. As it turns out, Dwight Secrest is the funeral director overseeing her cremation.

She held a Master’s of Religious Education degree from Oberlin, and was a lover of travel and all global cultures. She would frequently bring foreign guests to family gatherings, which was always so lovely. Myra is easily one of the most positive people I’ve ever known. And she lived life to the fullest - always on the go and engaged with many different organizations. She made many positive impacts on people, and will be greatly missed.

So there I was on Wednesday afternoon, looking through her belongings. Feeling sad, feeling her absence from that space. Feeling a sense of urgency to get her stuff moved out so that someone else could move in to the room. This is the time when many people might cling to the “stuff,” hoping to stay connected to the loved one who has left it all behind. Having some experience with this urge, I was able to resist it. I took just one small item, made in Puerto Rico. It will hang from our Christmas tree as an ornament. With the exception of last year when she was hospitalized, I believe that Myra spent every single Christmas with my family. So this little totem will carry that forward.

Sunday Supper

Myra once made this Greek Lemon Chicken Soup for me and my sister. This Palestinian Sheet Pan Chicken Dinner would be right up her alley too. Why not these Crunchy Queso Wraps, while we’re at it?

Sunday Music

Any time Tom Waits releases a new performance, we all need to take a few minutes to check it out. The British band, Wet Leg, recently performed at the KEXP studio. This performance by the trio of Bela Fleck, Edmar Castaneda, and Antonio Sanchez is well worth a listen, too. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

A Long Conversation

This Fall weather has been surreal. Sunny, blue skies with highs in the low 80s/high 70s, rinse and repeat. Leaf collection occupies a higher percentage of my mental attention than it deserves - the real work of Fall leaf collection hasn’t quite begun. It will escalate exponentially for the next 4-5 weeks, before tapering off around Thanksgiving. We have yet to see anything remotely resembling sweater weather this Fall.

I found my mind returning to Maamos Kitchen this week. Some of the warmest memories that I have of that era comes from when customers would buy gift cards from us, giving them to friends who were going through some challenge. Grief, a new baby, medical convalescence, Meal Train-type stuff. Our food was sufficiently high in quality and variety that we really were the perfect solution in those situations. Nourishing people through whatever struggle they may be going through is one of the highest honors someone could have. A dear friend had knee replacement surgery this past week, and requested a batch of the Asian Beef Basil from meal kit version of the Maamos Kitchen adventure. Remember meal kits? Yeah, we don’t hear much out of Blue Apron or Hello Fresh these days, do we? They’re still out there, plugging along.

Something came through my social media feed this week that has stuck with me - a quote from the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche: "Marriage as a long conversation. When entering a marriage, one should ask the question: do you think you will be able to have good conversations with this woman right into old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory, but most of the time in interaction is spent in conversation.” I think this really hits the nail on the head. Elvis may beg to differ, but buddy, if you don’t enjoy long talks with your spouse, it ain’t gonna last.

Whether it be a significant other, or just a close friend, our enduring relationships have great conversation as the connective tissue. How does it feel to talk with this person? Do they expand your thinking, make you laugh, elevate your self-esteem? Do they energize you, or leave you feeling flat? Do they help you make sense of the world? The ability to listen, and thoughtfully respond, back-and-forth is an essential human skill.

In new relationships, you need a little patience. We don’t always get to the good stuff right away. The real stuff, the raw stuff - not everyone can go there immediately. And sometimes it takes some shared experiences, like late-night strolls through Las Vegas casinos, coastal golf in a 4-club wind, or a stroll across the Oval before a big football game before you can build the library of call-backs that will enliven your conversations until you are both a ripe old age.

So, don’t sleep on the importance of conversation - look for those who light you up, and cultivate the skill to do the same for others.

Sunday Supper

This is not the same as the Maamos Kitchen recipe, but this Thai Beef Basil comes close enough. I’m making this Coconut & Lime Rice Pudding as a dessert, substituting pineapple for the mango. This Skillet Chicken w/ Mushrooms & Caramelized Onions looks amazing.

Sunday Music

In honor of Jeff Tweedy’s recent released triple album, Twilight Override, here is his visit to the NPR Tiny Desk. Tweedy has risen to Leonard Cohen-level status as a lyricist in my eyes. Madison Cunningham has a new album titled Ace coming out Friday - here is a live performance of Wake, from that upcoming album. Lastly, I offer this live performance by Nina Simone in Antibes back in 1965. What a talented artist.

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

What We Permit

I found myself reflecting on the concept “What you permit, you promote” this week. A nagging issue in my professional life feels like it is coming to a head. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t…I’m mulling it over. But there are lots of common examples in life where this concept plays out.

When there are employees who habitually arrive late to work without consequence, other employees take the same liberty. Then you have a real problem. College roommate issues, like who does the dishes, personal hygiene, having guests in a shared space, etc. all can stack up to create some real tension between people.

Moral and ethical things - like someone who reneges on a bet, or tells a racist joke. Every once in a while, maybe you let such things slide. But if it repeats and you continue to allow it…now you’re complicit with the conduct.

Experience teaches us this hard lesson of permit/promote, and informs our future behavior. While I have always had dogs, and loved them, they have never been as well-behaved as I would have liked. To hopefully promote different standards with our new dog Rosie, we have enrolled her in a three-week training program that includes three days of training for Lori and I. Rosie will be our best-behaved pet ever, and I will be a better dog owner.

Our federal government, designed by it’s founders to have three co-equal branches of government, have recently failed to play their historical role as a check and balance on each other. I wonder how this might affect voting trends in next year’s mid-term elections.

It’s hard to think that every decision we make is setting a precedent that we must honor forever. Sometimes it feels this way. At my age, I rarely have a problem telling someone when I am making a one-time exception, and sticking to my guns if they try to repeat the occurrence. That’s basically all we can do when someone takes liberties that bother us.

Experience is the best teacher. Make accommodations sometimes, and see how they play out. You will regret some of them! That’s part of the journey. That’s how you figure out your non-negotiables.

Sunday Supper

This Cola-Braised Beef w/ Chili-Lime Onions is good. So is this Spicy Honey Chicken w/ Broccoli. Oh, so is this Skillet Salmon w/ Quinoa, Feta and Arugula. Get cooking.

Sunday Music

This Sunday morning, enjoy this set from Maxwell at the NPR Tiny Desk. Sierra Hull recently performed there as well. And here is a full 2-hour performance by Tedeschi Trucks Band w/ Warren Haynes from earlier this month. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 

Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Great Meals

This weekend I shifted from bagging the leaves in the yard, to raking them onto a tarp and dragging them out to the road. We are now at the “tapping the leaves” stage of Fall, but the tree canopy still has plenty of leaves to give back to the earth. The 86-degree heat partially made the decision for me.

The air was considerably cooler at the Culinary Vegetable Institute, up near Lake Erie in Milan, Ohio yesterday. Members of EO Columbus traveled there to enjoy to enjoy an evening together. The CVI is essentially the R&D lab of the Chef’s Garden, a niche wholesale vegetable distributor led by the Farmer Lee Jones. At some point (in the mid-1980s, I think), the Jones family farm was on the brink of bankruptcy and foreclosure. They decided to try a different approach that was something of a “Hail Mary” attempt at turning the enterprise around. Instead of producing commodity crops for low margins, they decided to explore a wide range of niche crops, selling them at high margins to Michelin-starred fine dining establishments around the world.

Elite chefs from around the world travel to Huron county to play in the CVI kitchen and sample new varieties of interesting fruits and vegetables. Farmer Lee spoke to our group last night, and one thing stood out more than anything else: flavorful vegetables tend to be more nutritious. When your customer base is made up of the world’s best restaurants, flavor is everything. It turns out that replenishing the soil with a wide range of cover crops and other regenerative farming techniques ensures there will be more micronutrients in the vegetables, and more flavor.

Chef Jamie Simpson delivered an outstanding meal to our group. I have no professional culinary training, and I’m not a food critic. But it is hard to imagine a higher standard of cooking technique applied to a meal. And the ingredients were off-the-charts outstanding (including the beef for the Beef Wellington - yes, they serve proteins, even though their focus is on the vegetables). The highlight for me was the dessert - a Black Sesame Cake, paired with Grilled Eggplant Ice Cream, Basil, Potato and Red Pepper. When I saw this item on the printed menu, I immediately thought “This is an homage to Baba Ganoush,” one of my favorite summer dishes. Tiny sprigs of basil were placed on the eggplant ice cream (eggplant puree was combined with a creme anglaise ice cream base, so it had some sweetness). The potato was an ultra-thin waffle-cut potato chip, with dark chocolate brushed on one side of the chip. Lastly, the red bell pepper was somehow (no idea the technique) incorporated into a caramel sauce that complemented the cake and ice cream.

This meal will certainly stand as one of my favorite dining experiences. I’ve been fortunate to have enough of these special nights that I recognized it as it was happening. The most special meals are not solely about the food. They are very much about the people with whom you are experiencing it, the atmosphere, and even the circumstances of the days leading up to that moment. In this case I was at the end of a very packed 4-week stretch on my calendar, where each day felt like every hour was committed to a specific task. Last night was the first time in quite a while where I felt I could relax - and I was able to do so with people I have known and admired for a long time. The air was cool, the night sounds magnificent.

Like comedy, for a meal to be extra special, there often needs to be an element of surprise. In this case, I drove to Milan with minimal expectations. I knew that I liked Farmer Lee Jones, but had never heard of the CVI or Jamie Simpson. Cruising up the nondescript gravel driveway, I was not expecting the beautiful building, or any of the food that would be served.

The CVI is just two hours from Granville. Put together a group and book a seating. You will not be disappointed.

Sunday Supper

This week I continue to celebrate eggplant. The Spiced Roasted Eggplant is simple, and wonderful. This White Chicken Chili is something to explore as the air gets cooler in the week ahead. These Black Sesame Rice Krispie Treats are a perfect homage to last night’s dessert.

Sunday Music

This week’s music recommendations are inspired by the playlist I enjoyed on the drive home from Milan last night. Here’s a vintage video of Martin Sexton performing Glory Bound. Here’s The Police doing their thing just 43 short years ago in England. And here are the Talking Heads back in their heyday. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Different Outcomes

The killing of Charlie Kirk this week has dominated much of peoples’ focus. Those among us who share Kirk’s worldview had to confront the brutal reality of gun violence in a way that is seldom required. Such events rarely hit so close to home, but this week they did.

As an American, I am grounded in the belief that all people have a fundamental right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Someone robbed Charlie of his ability to enjoy these things, and did so with relative ease. If the suspect now in custody is convicted of this crime, our system of criminal justice will impose a severe penalty. But that won’t bring Charlie back.

It is no mystery that gun violence kills more people in the United States than anywhere else - both in the aggregate and adjusted on a per-capita basis. The gun homicide rate in the U.S. is 25x that of other high-income countries. This has been true for many years, with no meaningful change in the rules for how we are allowed to own and operate these deadly devices.

This reality is a collective choice. If changing our relationship with guns ever becomes a sufficiently high priority, we will elect people that will propose legislation to change the way that we access and use guns in our society. It is our responsibility to do this, if we truly want such change to happen. Our system is far from perfect, but I still believe that if We The People are serious about changing our society, we can do this through the ballot box.

I understand the dynamic tension between our different rights. I think we should explore striking a different balance between the right to bear arms, and the right to breathe. That other societies enjoy a much safer day-to-day reality is undeniable - what can we learn from them?

If we wish to lose weight, we must change our diet and exercise. If we want to earn better grades at school, we must change our study habits. If we want to increase our collective safety from gun violence, something needs to change.

Since we have not yet insisted on this change, we must accept the harsh fact that this is the world we have chosen.

Sunday Supper

I made this Chicken Salad this week (substituting dill pickle relish for the capers). I also made this Minty Fruit Salad. Let’s use the last bit of summer sweet corn to make this salad with Sweet Corn, Tomatoes, Feta and Mint.

Sunday Music

Here is a recent performance by John Mayer. Here is Norah Jones performing the Cannonball Adderly classic Why Am I Treated So Bad with Questlove and Christian McBride. And John Batiste performing What A Wonderful World. Lastly, here is a song that Jesse Welles wrote in response to this week’s tragedy.

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Dancing With The Universe

I can’t believe that I was able to fill two yard waste bags with leaves yesterday. The silver maples are dropping them fast. It feels early, but it’s really not. This year is damn-near over. By Christmas, our youngest will have earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Neuroscience (and, fingers crossed, landed his first post-college job).

It’s deep enough into the year to know that some of the goals I set at the start of the year are unlikely to be achieved. This doesn’t bother me, really - because outcomes are never guaranteed, and things take the time that they take. I feel very good about my focus, effort and energy this year - and will maintain it for the rest of the year.

Falling short of ambitious goals used to create a lot of inner turmoil for me. My inner critic can be fierce. It paralyzed me at times in the past. That hasn’t been the case this year, and I’m committed to keeping that chattering monkey as quiet as possible for the rest of my life.

The most effective way to silence that monkey for me has been simply to take consistent daily action. James Clear and his book Atomic Habits has been instrumental in me getting my mind right about this stuff.

What I am building cannot be built in a day. But if I stack enough good days together, it will come together. I like the path that I’m on. I believe it will take me where I am trying to go. And I have all the patience, focus and flexibility that I need to adjust to the changing world and keep making progress.

There have been a couple of instances recently where good things seemingly fell into my lap. Some people might interpret these things as the universe (or God, or karma) rewarding me for my efforts. My sense of it is different. In each instance, the goodness of the thing was not obvious at first. It would be have been easy to miss both opportunities by overlooking their potential.

But I maintained an openness and a curiosity that stimulated deeper conversation, which eventually revealed the mutual benefits of collaborating with some other people. So we’re going to be working together in various ways, and I’m excited about where this work might take us.

Lori will tell you, I have a rich inner life. I can think, and think, and think myself into circles. This year I have had a much higher bias towards action - trying things, assessing how they worked, adjusting and taking a new round of actions. Actual engagement with the universe (rather than thinking) is the most effective and efficient way to learn.

Last week I learned the term “Zone of Proximal Development” - this is the sweet spot of learning and growing, where something is challenging enough to be engaging while avoiding either boredom from being too easy or frustration due to being too difficult. I like this term. It rhymes with “Productive Discomfort.” This is where I have spent a high percentage of my time this year - “In The Zone,” so to speak. This is where I will try to spend even more time in the future.

Sunday Supper

Bird’s Haven Farms had the cutest little Fairy Tale Eggplant at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday. Lori found this Sticky Tofu & Fairytale Eggplant recipe, which was both easy and delicious. This Crispy Chicken w/ Lime Butter looks amazing. So does this Beef Fried Rice. Of course, I liberally add fresh summer vegetables to everything - you should too. Think of these recipes as guidelines rather than doctrine.

Sunday Music

I love Ben Folds. This concert from a couple of years ago in St. Paul, Minnesota is great. Speaking of piano-based crooners this week - here is Billy Joel’s full concert to close out Shea Stadium a couple of years ago. And lastly, here is piano gal Norah Jones with Margaret Glaspy singing Get Back (one of my favorite songs in the past few years. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Private Tutor

This interview by Patrick O’Schaughnessy of Joe Liemandt on Invest Like The Best (video version here) was so captivating that I listened to it twice so that I could take notes. Liemandt is Principal of Alpha School, a private school that is leaning heavily into generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to support student learning.

Researchers have long known that one-on-one tutoring is pretty much the best way to teach students. The best homeschoolers among us validate this, I believe. This insight has been kind of meaningless, given that there has been no practical way to achieve this one-to-one student ratio at society-level scale.

But what if a GenAI can accurately assess any student’s knowledge, and help them to efficiently build on that knowledge over time? The scalability of this technology opens up the real possibility of every student having their own private AI-based tutor.

Some benefits of a GenAI tutoring to consider:

No Skipped Lessons: The student catches a cold, has an orthodontist appointment, or simply plays hooky? No problem, the AI simply picks up teaching them right where they left off previously. In the current model, students can fail to absorb key lessons, which makes learning future lessons more difficult.

Staying In “The Zone”: Like any good video game, a well-designed GenAI will keep the student engaged in the “Zone of Proximal Development” - where it is never so easy that it becomes boring, nor so difficult that the student feels overwhelmed. So, student engagement in the process is higher.

Pacing & Outcomes: The AI will allow students to progress through lessons at whatever pace is right for them. And regardless of a student’s pace, every student can achieve the same learning outcomes. (The phrase “No Child Left Behind” comes to mind here.)

Configured properly, this AI-based approach to instruction has a lot of potential.

At Alpha School, students currently only have two hours of AI-based instruction each day, and their standardized test scores are through the roof. This high performance of the students does not appear to be due to coming from privileged backgrounds. Yes, this cutting-edge alternative approach to education has attracted lots of wealthy households, which could skew their results. But Alpha School has plenty of examples of students who come to the school behind their age-based peers, and the GenAI instruction efficiently gets these students caught up to them.

The efficiency and effectiveness of the instruction creates time for the students to engage in lots of other activities. This typically takes the form of content that students love. Examples include Alpha Animation Studio (teaching public speaking and storytelling skills), How To Buy Stuff (personal finance), and Alpha Mad Scientists (emphasis on the meta skill of learning to learn).

The Alpha Model shifts the role of the teacher significantly. Instead of grading papers and writing lesson plans, Alpha’s teachers become more like guides, offering motivational and emotional support to each student. They find what makes their students tick, and create enrichment experiences accordingly. By reclaiming time that students historically have spent sitting at desks, the Alpha School model gives them the time and space to explore things of specific interest to them, fostering a growth mindset and a higher degree of self-directed learning.

I have no doubt that the Alpha School approach is imperfect. But it seems to have the potential to disrupt what I call the “Starting Line” problem that we have historically observed - Children that are born into households that are unwilling or unable to support their early development are left behind the proverbial “8 Ball,” always playing catch-up to learn at the pace of their grade-level peers, typically falling further and further behind.

If GenAI-based tutoring could both allow our brightest children to flourish, while at the same time lifting up the performance floor for students on the other end of the performance spectrum, this would be a massive step forward for humanity.

Sunday Supper

This Labor Day weekend, this Grilled Za’atar Chicken w/ Garlic Yogurt and Cilantro would be great. Or these Hot Dogs w/ Pico de Gallo. Nothing says summer like Zucchini & Corn Fritters.

Sunday Music

This set by Nate Smith + KINFOLK a the NPR Tiny Desk will make your toe tap. This concert by City & Colour is beautiful. This jam session by Toshiki Soejima at POMPOSO will put a smile on your face. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Forum

I must have referenced Forum in past essays, but I don’t recall ever fully explaining it. The concept of Forum was introduced to me by Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO). I joined the Columbus chapter of EO in the Fall of 2004, and have participated in Forum on a monthly basis ever since.

Forum is a confidential monthly gathering in which 6-10 EO members, led by a trained peer Moderator, share their experiences with each other. It's essentially like having your own personal board of directors, comprised of remarkable leaders who are there to support you through the toughest business challenges and celebrating your victories.

Its structure and format include the following:

• Monthly meetings employing special protocols to support a trusting environment.

• Groups typically consist of 6-10 entrepreneurs from non-competitive industries.

• Led by moderator-trained EO members, not paid facilitators.

• Provides a highly structured and safe environment for members to discuss deeply personal and professional challenges.

Forum is a fundamentally different way of interacting. Sharing experiences rather than giving advice, practicing humility and a beginner's mind, and listening with head and heart. The key principle is that members don't give advice; they speak from first-hand experience, letting you draw your own conclusions on the best manner to proceed.

The Forum practice is central to EO's mission of supporting entrepreneurs not just in business, but as whole individuals, recognizing that entrepreneurship affects every aspect of one's life. It follows a prescribed agenda, which includes everyone sharing a monthly update of their “Top or Bottom 5%” events, and closely examining some combination of the most important and most urgent items in their lives. Life’s most notable events are saved for examination in Forum. We typically can share the other 90% pretty easily with just about anyone.

This monthly practice of reviewing our lives, sharing them with Forum, and being present for my Forum mates to share their experiences has absolutely made me a better person. I have a deeper understanding of myself, I’m a better listener and a better communicator.

I don’t see any reason why this approach to learning and growing can’t work for just about anyone. We all experience the ups and downs of life. Tapping into the experience base of a trusted inner circle greatly magnifies our perspective, allowing us to navigate things more effectively. The willingness of all participants to be open, honest and vulnerable creates trust, which enables depth. I’m happy to share more about the mechanics of Forum if you’d like to explore this concept yourself.

Sunday Dinner

This Swiss Chard, Leek and Goat Cheese Tart looks amazing. It feels a little early for this, but Turkey Chili is starting to sound good to me. This Corn Salad is another great way to bask in the glory of summer sweet corn. And this Blueberry Crumble would make for a wonderful dessert.

Sunday Music

Here is Deep Sea Diver in a recent performance at KEXP. Adam Miller with some Sunday grooves at Studio 606. And here is Gillian Welch & David Rawlings at the NPR Tiny Desk. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Building Something

This week was so full, so engaging on every front. It didn’t exhaust me, because I managed my sleep well - but the entire 5-day workweek felt like a non-stop gauntlet taking me from one thing to the next…straight into a weekend gauntlet of moving our oldest son back to school in North Carolina.

He and I agreed that “Hotel Bell” has been downgraded to “Motel Bell” - the amenities have slipped since the last time he was a full-time resident here. Rather than fresh-squeezed orange juice and Eggs Benedict for breakfast, guests at our establishment now receive the dregs of the morning coffee pot and some Eggos. This is intentional on the part of the hosts. Why would any little birdie fly out of the nest, if the nest was the Four Seasons? He’ll be glad to return to a domain over which he has complete control, and his parents look forward to the same.

The concept of chaos has been on my mind this week. One reason for this is that I am constantly questioning how I am using my time as I build my EOS practice. I’ve been saying “yes” to a lot of things, using the rationale “This will help me grow my practice.” Of course, the path to my intended future isn’t completely well-paved with clear signage keeping me exactly on-track. As with anything new, we try things, learn and adjust as we build. Our experience with Rosie is exactly the same. Training this sweet little pup the ins and outs of being a Bell takes time, and not all tactics are effective.

On a macroeconomic level, I think we are seeing this with the Trump administration’s massive revamping of our our country’s approach to levying tariffs on imported goods. This is a substantial renovation of the U.S. government’s revenue model, and is hotly debated in terms of whether it will create net benefit for our society.

Starting anything new and meaningful means mucking about. At first, you will never be sure if you are doing enough of the right things. In fact, a great many of them will be the wrong things. But the only way to learn is to take action, then process the feedback. So I’m taking action and adjusting on both the business front and the pet training front. Only time will reveal what is working, and what isn’t.

Creating a “new normal” isn’t a passive exercise. Take action, accept the chaos, learn, adjust - and, eventually, simplify into something that works. I don’t know any other way to go about it.

Sunday Supper

We made these Stuffed Peppers for dinner last night. This Chicken & Zucchini w/ Charred Scallion Salsa looks really good. Cowboy Caviar is a great way to take advantage of the summer’s bounty.

Sunday Music

Andrew Bird, live in Amsterdam twenty years ago. Sturgill Simpson at the NPR Tiny Desk. I’m With Her, live earlier this year. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Late Summer

The boys are both home. The bounty at the farmers’ market is amazing. The puppy is minding her pees and poos. My personal productivity dropped this week, but these and other factors all merged, prompting me to downshift a bit.

I made this Peach Tart Tartine yesterday. Those Red Haven peaches that John got from up near Lake Erie were as phenomenal as ever. Such an easy recipe - I can’t wait to make it with apples, probably around Thanksgiving.

School starts for the Granville kids on August 20th - just ten days of summer left. Henry is heading back to Durham soon. The transition from Summer to Fall is sneaking up fast. The days are still hot, the evening pavement warm to my bare feet. But the rhythm of life is about to return to “normal.”

Snapping fresh green beans brings my mom back into the kitchen for a moment. The squeak of a porch swing conjures melancholy. So much undone this season. So much that I still intend to do. Staying mostly in the moment, but sense memories sometimes remind me of the past.

Next week I will lay more bricks to build the future. This week was for living in the here and now.

Sunday Supper

This week I share three recipes that lean in to all those cherry tomatoes that are so perfect and available right now. The first is this Slow Cooker Gochujang Chicken & Tomatoes. The next is Dijon Chicken w/ Tomatoes & Scallions. Finally I offer Crispy Halloumi w/ Tomatoes & White Beans for your consideration.

Sunday Music

Big Thief at the NPR Tiny Desk. The War On Drugs, live on KEXP. Death Cab For Cutie, back at the Tiny Desk. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Summer Fruit

I had forgotten how intense training a puppy can be. That sneaky little Rosie can soil the floor in two seconds if you aren’t paying attention. After a couple initial days of frustration, Lori and I locked into a better operating mode that significantly reduced the number of of “oopsies.” But there is a Rosie Tax - everything that we do right now requires extra energy as we ponder this little poop/pee grenade that can explode at any moment. This sincere focus is how we bond with the dog. I’m not sure the bonding mechanism was ever this clear before.

I recently enjoyed the best nectarine of the year - perfectly sweet and juicy. All the stone fruit are at their peak right now. Tomatoes, too. My friend John is making his annual run up toward Lake Erie to buy Red Haven peaches next week, and is kind enough to pick some up for us. When they arrive I try to drop everything and start baking pies, or at least prep and freeze them for later dessert-making. They’re that good.

In this time of summer bounty, I’m reminded of how fruits are often at their peak just before going bad. This is true for certain other foods, too. But it’s this time of summer when the pattern is most apparent.

Human life might follow a similar arc, at least for some of us. Improving a little each day until life gets really sweet, and then some major health function fails, taking us out. If I could choose, I would choose this pattern for my finite life. So far, so good. Dr. Peter Attia differentiates between “health span” and “life span.” The goal is to enjoy really high function and robustness through most of our life, followed by a brief but definitive loss of function. Perhaps this is where the phrase “ripe old age” comes from - living until we achieve peak sweetness, then quickly devolving to the point where we’re ready for the compost heap. If our decline is the last portion on the Circle of Life, the goal would be to have it be the shortest part of the circumference.

Right now I’m enjoying this really “green” new dog, and all of the perfect summer fruit. Hakuna Matata.

Sunday Supper

With sweet corn coming on, we should definitely consider making some fresh Corn Chowder, or these Fresh Corn Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce. This Cucumber Avocado Salad is always a favorite. These Grilled Pork Sandwiches with Grilled Plum Chutney and Cabbage Slaw seem perfectly timed.

Sunday Music

This live set from more than decade ago features Diane Birch, an artist I only recently discovered. Bruce Hornsby sits in with Goose to jam. The great Keith Jarrett playing Somewhere Over The Rainbow never will get old. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Back To Basics

Well, you knew it and I knew it. Once I returned to the “doggie dating pool,” it wouldn’t take long for a new dog to make it’s way into our home. Lori found her on Petfinder. She was being fostered by New Albany Pet Rescue. They were calling her Gigi. Part Terrier, part Mastiff, she is a long, slim, brindle-coated girl with a white stripe running down her snout and chest, and four white little socks on her feet.

When we visited her at the foster home, she was a bit tentative, especially with me. She warmed up though, and shared a few tail wags and kisses. On Friday, she visited us, and was more curious and friendly. When Karen offered to let us keep her right then and there, we figured “why draw this out?” She’s a good girl, so now she’s part of our family.

This takes us back to the beginning - the early part of pet ownership. The part where we train her, and she trains us. The part where she is watched by us, every second, so that we can catch and correct any behaviors that need correcting. It is a version of time travel. We are reviewing all past dog training decisions and outcomes, deciding which to repeat and any new methods that we want to employ. Lori and I are collaborating closely, to ensure coverage and consistency. Every dog makes us better at having a dog.

So a fair amount of focus and energy are going to go into this little girl for a while. A return to basics - and not just on the dog training front. We’re going back to basics in many ways. I’ve been running hot, saying “yes” to lots of things which have added complexity to my life. These are good things, but no more additions like this for a while.

We’ll be walking more, to give our girl every opportunity to do her business outside, where we will throw a party every time she does so. (There have been only two weeks in the past year where my average daily step count fell below 10,000, and they have happened since Nova passed away.). I’ll probably have an earlier bed time for a while. When the “baby” sleeps, you better sleep too. Lord knows I’ll be getting up earlier.

While we’re in “puppy training mode,” we’ll keep things simple. Eventually, a new normal will materialize, new routines will firm up. It was quite a week - I shot a personal low 36 on the front nine at Denison Golf Club - the second week in a row of good play (I shot a 40 on the back nine the week prior). It’s been quite a year, actually. Work, play, sadness, joy. Life keeps rolling.

Welcome to Hotel Bell, Rosie. We’ll do our best to give you a good life, and this effort will make our lives better, too.

Sunday Supper

Goodness gracious it has been hot and muggy! After a few more days of rain, the weather forecast is for temperature to drop. In the interim, my focus is on chilled foods. These Green Goddess Chicken Salad sandwiches look amazing. Grilling this Flank Steak w/ Worcestershire Butter will at least keep the heat of cooking outside. This Panzanella Salad would be good, with or without the Lamb Chops (I would grill the lamb chops, again to move the heat outdoors).

Sunday Music

We can’t return to basics without reviewing our ABCs. The guitar playing of Toshiki Soejima is not a bad soundtrack to enjoy while sipping coffee and solving Wordle this morning. These jazz covers of Beatles tunes are another relaxing option this Sunday morning. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Doggie Paddle

Two weeks ago, in Bergen, Norway, we noticed that all of the dogs being walked by people were especially well-mannered. On our way to the airport to fly to Helsinki, we commented on this to our taxi driver. He said that dog owners were required by law to to get their dogs training, and that this was the reason that all of the dogs are well-behaved. This kind of blew my mind. I don’t know whether this rule was constrained to Bergen, or whether it is something they do throughout Norway, but the end result is wonderful.

When I saw this report from The Reporting Project on Granville’s recently-passed ordinance requiring that all dogs in the village be leashed, it reminded me of what we observed in Bergen. (There is one smart exception to this new rule in Granville - dogs may be off-leash when playing in the front lawn of the Bryn Du Mansion.) No doubt we are all better off when the dogs in our community are well-controlled. Come to think of it, I don’t recall seeing any dog off-leash in Bergen…

It’s been a little more than two months since our dog Nova passed away - the only stretch of time that our household has been dog-free, ever. The day Lori and I moved in to our first home was the same day that we picked up our first dog, a beautiful Yellow Lab named Ella. Soon after, we added a Black Lab mix named Coltrane. Since then, we always had two dogs. So when one passed away, we still had one remaining. When our Chocolate Lab mix Margot passed away July 10, 2019, Nova remained, but we didn’t get her a canine companion.

The day that Nova passed was a whirlwind. I had a number of meetings that day. Doug Wagner’s office was kind enough to get us in first thing that morning. We humanely said goodbye to our girl, and then I went on through my busy day, returning home exhausted that evening. When I got home that night, Lori shared that she found a drop of Nova’s blood on her foot when she returned home from the clinic that day (she had been wearing sandals). Just yesterday she memorialized that little drop by having a small, subtle tattoo inked onto her foot in the place where that drop of blood landed.

So here we are, dogless. Not the normal state of things for us. With the trip to Europe behind us, I’m ready to start meeting dogs that need a home. I’m not sure of the exact traits that we will land on for our new family member. Lori has been lobbying for a smaller animal, but I’m not ready for that yet. We loved the fact that Nova didn’t shed her fur - a trait that we didn’t realize she had when we adopted her. We tend to prefer females, but I’ve met a lot of fun, dopey boys over the years that I know I could love. There are so many dogs that need homes, it kind of cuts both ways. On one hand, with a little patience we should be able to adopt a dog that matches whatever criteria we have, within reason. On the other, there are good, sweet creatures ready to come home with me today.

I’m sure it won’t take long. Soon, we’ll have another dog in our family. I’ll make sure to have a leash, and to schedule some obedience training sessions.

Sunday Supper

We might as well stick with the dog theme this week. These Mexican Hot Dogs, with fresh Pico de Gallo look fun. (The tomatoes at the farmer’s market are really peaking right now - and the sweet corn is starting to come in.). You can never go wrong with a good Chicago Dog. I bet you’ve never had Salchipapa, Peru’s version of tube steak glory, served over French fries. With peaches now in season, finish the meal with a classic Peach Cobbler.

Sunday Music

Let’s start this Sunday with a live performance by Canada’s greatest gift to rock-and-roll - here is Rush performing “Ghost Of A Chance” in Atlanta back in 2008. And here is Khatia Buniatishvili performing Rhapsody in Blue with the National Orchestra of Lyon. Lastly, this performance by Chris Stapleton at the NPR Tiny Desk is wonderful. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Bergen & Helsinki

We went on a family vacation to Norway and Finland this past week. We flew first to Bergen, Norway and enjoyed three days there before flying to Helsinki and spending time with our former foreign exchange student and her growing family.

There were multiple catalysts for this trip. One is that our firstborn studied Norwegian in college. Another is that our former foreign exchange student had her first child last year, and we needed to meet the little girl. A third is that any chance to have our offspring mostly to ourselves on a globetrotting adventure is always a precious opportunity. So off we went.

This won’t be a Rick Stevesesque triptik detailing our every activity. Despite the fact that I transitioned rather smoothly to the Nordic timezone, somehow I found myself wide awake at 3:30am Thursday evening. Given that we were returning to Ohio on Saturday, I thought I would crank out an early draft of an essay Thursday, in case I became too braindead to write anything coherent by my self-imposed weekly deadline, Sunday, 8:30am. These are in-the-moment broad brush impressions of our adventure.

First, Lori is a master of AirBnB, and navigating air travel. Both apartments that she secured for us were perfectly situated and well-appointed. We were able to cook some meals for ourselves, and experience living in each city, albeit briefly. And when American Airlines abandoned us in Chicago yesterday, she booked us on a Southwest flight that got us home (after an Uber ride from O’Hare to Midway).

Second, trips like this have become the new, adult version of “windshield time” with our children. Back in the day, the car rides to soccer games and robotics tournaments were some of the best times to download how our kids were doing in life. Now it’s on airplanes and in AirBnBs.

Bergen is a natural beauty. Nestled at the foot of seven different mountains, the climate there is considered tropical due to the microclimate created by the surrounding mountains and the warm air from the Gulf of Mexico that flows into the region. It rains more than 200 days each year there. The rain we experienced was mostly a mist - like a heavy marine layer in the morning, that burned off as the sun rose. We walked and walked the hilly cobblestone streets, and enjoyed a boat cruise of the surrounding fjords.

Helsinki’s beauty is different than Bergen’s. It’s more human, more solid. Its architecture communicates strength. It is larger, and more vibrant. I also have to give the nod to Finnish restaurants for how they season their dishes. Our friends treated us to an amazing meal at Natura, which focuses on locally and sustainably produced ingredients. So good. Even better, we got to spoil the new baby of Fanny’s. She is the exchange student who lived with us for the 2011-2012 academic year at Granville High School. She and her partner are great parents, and her own parents joined us for all of our activities. We saw Fanny in New York a couple of years ago, but this was our first time in Finland with her family in 11 years. It was a super-special reunion.

Traveling is so good. It gets us out of our day-to-day world and pushes the mind to think differently, to appreciate how other communities organize themselves, to put the whole world into a broader, richer context. There were so many little design features, from brushes mounted outside of apartment buildings for people to clean their shoes, to unexpected parking rules that make total sense. Other people solve problems differently. Traveling is a great way to remind yourself that there are always alternative ways of doing things.

Schlepping through airports can be a drag, but it is completely worth it. It is productive discomfort. I don’t know what the exact right balance is, but I feel like I need more of it.

Sunday Supper

The salmon in both Norway and Finland was ridiculously good. This simple Lemon Butter Salmon w/ Dill is emblematic of what we ate. This baked Fish & Chips can only be a shadow of what we enjoyed this week, but it will still be delicious. Pairing either of these fish dishes with this Tomato-Watermelon Salad would add a summary accent to the meal. And washing everything down with a Finnish Long Drink will transport me back underneath a big umbrella at Birgitta Hernesaari, protecting our food from the seagulls, watching the boats coming and going across the Gulf of Finland, and just soaking up life.

Sunday Music

The first compact disc I ever bought was actually a 2-disc set, Pat Metheny Group’s 1983 live double album titled Travels. Almost any time that I travel, the title song eventually arises in my mind. This is a distinctive cover of that song. Here is a popular Swedish song (#4 on Eurovision) to listen and dance to when you are taking your next sauna. This cover of Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man at the Polar Music Prize celebration for Mr. Hancock is wonderful. And let’s end this week’s musical journey with a performance of the Boy from Bergen, Edvard Grieg - here is a live performance of his piano concerto in A minor, opus 16 by Julia Fischer. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Rich & Richer

I caught the first few minutes of this conversation that Joe Rogan had with Bernie Sanders recently. In it, Sanders states that it would take the sum total of the net worth of 52% of America’s least wealthy to match the wealth of Elon Musk. So the wealth of the most wealthy man matches the cumulative wealth of the bottom 52% in America, in terms of net financial worth. Bernie sees this as evidence that there is a problem in our society.

Do I think it is “good” that Elon’s relative net worth matches that of the lowest 52% of our society, combined? No. But I don’t think it is automatically bad. I hold this view for two reasons.

First, I believe that the primary driver of wealth disparity is time. The longer that we maintain a relatively peaceful, secure society where capitalists can flourish, the more the “haves” can grow their wealth. I understand that Musk’s wealth was mostly accumulated in his lifetime, which is more an indication of the booming tech industry and his uniqueness as a businessperson.

Second, even though Musk has accumulated more dollars than anyone in history, he is not as wealthy as some of his Gilded Age peers in terms of wealth as a percent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product. With a net worth of $900 million in 1913, John D. Rockefeller’s wealth rose to nearly 3% of GDP in that year. The U.S. GDP for this year is projected to come in around $29.3 trillion dollars, putting Musk’s current net worth of $363 million at just 1.24% of GDP. So, on a relative scale, Musk does not command as big a slice of the economy as some of his predecessors.

The question on my mind is: How does the least wealthy 52% of America live? What is their quality of life? There will always be outliers on the performance curve. I’m comfortable with our society producing high-achievers, but not at the expense of average Americans living a reasonably good life. At this moment, I can’t say that I’ve done my homework well enough to know how well this lower 52% is living, I’m sorry to say.

There are about 10,835 people in America with a net worth of $100,000,000 or greater - 902 of whom are billionaires. As odd as it may sound, someone who has amassed “just” $100,000,000 in their lifetime will typically have done so in what most of us would consider to be the “right” way, in the sense that they’ve paid taxes on that wealth as it accumulated.

It’s the weird edge cases like Musk, whose wealth is mostly on paper and growing so fast, that present a unique challenge, in terms of Musk paying anything resembling his “fair share” of taxes. So long as he keeps his wealth encased in the companies he founded, there will be no “taxable event” that would allow Musks’s wealth accumulation achievements to benefit society at large. Before my libertarian friends point out that any money given to government is money squandered, I’ll simply say that there are lots of things that all of us rely on daily that is best built and maintained collectively through some form of government.

But I can’t help but think about people like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Henry Ford. While each had their own philosophy of philanthropy, they seemed to share a greater concern with lifting up people on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder than the concerns of their present day counterparts. They seemed to understand that if society doesn’t work for most of us, it may not work for any of us.

I worked a shift at Always Forward Crossfit’s booth on the midway at Granville’s July 4th celebration this week. The unifying factor that kept a few people coming back multiple times to swing the sledgehammer and make the bell ring was this: They believed they could do it. They came close on their first attempts, so they wanted to keep trying. We all need to believe that we can make the bell ring in life. And I hope that those high on the economic performance curve take reasonable steps to ensure that more people can make the bell ring because of their successes.

Sunday Supper

This Sunday how about this Lemon & Garlic Chicken w/ Cherry Tomatoes, or this Coconut Miso Salmon Curry? For dessert, I recommend this Peach Cobbler that is accented with saffron and honey.

Sunday Music

This Sunday check out this year-old performance by Thee Sacred Souls at the NPR Tiny Desk. Khruangbin is always a good listen, too. This Reggae Mix is fun as well. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

I’m Bored (With Food)

Cooking has changed for me since the boys have moved out. It’s only by having some time to live in this new reality that something has become clear: When I was feeding my family on a nightly basis, cooking was more than just cooking. It was nurturing. It was actively trying to bring the family joy, to nourish them and make them strong. It was a nightly attempt at serving them just the right food - food appropriate for that day, and those circumstances.

In the transition to cooking for just Lori and myself, I appreciated that my cadence could shift. Instead of being a daily ritual, it has become something done every other, or every third day. And our primary requirement being that the food serve as good, healthy “fuel” - which, for us, means mostly meat and vegetables. This has netted out to me roasting a lot of chicken thighs and vegetables, and making a lot of salads.

These dishes can and should be delicious. But it’s impossible for them to not have some degree of monotony. It was only this past Friday, when we attended a potluck dinner that my enjoyment of cooking perked up. I committed to bringing the proteins (chicken and beef/lamb), and because I was feeling frisky, I also made a batch of hummus as a bonus contribution. Thinking through the logistics of cooking these things, working backward from 6:30pm Friday night and planning when I would make the marinade, form the meat loaves, cook the chickpeas, etc. - this all engaged me in ways I hadn’t experienced in quite a while.

Seeing people positively react to food that I made offers a little hit of dopamine. That’s what I’ve been missing. It’s hard to find that “high” when I’ve been keeping my cooking so bloody simple.

To be fair, I want to keep things simple most of the time - both for my health and for my schedule. I have shifted my use of time away from the kitchen for the time being. So, I’m not moping. But cooking for the most part has become a more tedious, basic chore. This is fine for now. I don’t expect this mode to last forever. In the meantime, just know that if you invite us to a potluck, the answer will be a quick “yes” if we don’t have other commitments on the calendar.

Sunday Supper

The Friday potluck was centered around a Mediterranean theme. This Kefta recipe is not exactly how I made it on Friday, but it’s close. This Shish Tawook Chicken Kebab recipe yields the platonic ideal of the dish, in my opinion. This hummus recipe was a major breakthrough for me in a number of ways: Making the tahini-garlic sauce separate from pureeing the cooked chickpeas, then whisking them together allowed me to really control the flavor balance. Cooking the chickpeas for a long time, and with some baking soda in the water made this the smoothest texture I had ever achieved with this dish. And lastly, this particular brand of tahini was also a game changer. Ingredients matter! If you are serious about your hummus, I strongly encourage you to give this a try.

Sunday Music

Before we get to the music, first you should check out Mo Amer’s comedy bit about making hummus. Man, do I love listening to Lianne La Havas. This Morning Jazz Vinyl set will get your Sunday off and rolling quite nicely as well. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Seven Generations

I probably shouldn’t write about racism. I’m a white man who grew up in a semi-rural suburb of a Midwestern city, and have never lived in very diverse communities. Someone like me writing about race runs the very real risk of saying something stupid out of ignorance. What are the odds that I can make a meaningful contribution to the reduction of race-based bias and intolerance?

Visiting the National Civil Rights Museum a few weeks ago made a real impression on me. It reminded me of a view I had previously held, but honestly it had drifted due to lack of use. That view has been resurrected, and it is this: It is insufficient to be a non-racist. If we are to move society in the direction of greater fairness and equal opportunity, all of us need to be actively anti-racist. We have to challenge even the most subtle racist acts and let those who propagate them know that it is not acceptable. Living in a suburban Ohio town with little diversity has provided very few opportunities to demonstrate this value.

I can’t fully appreciate what the lived experience of a black person is in today’s America. But I do know that just 200 years ago, White Americans owned Black West Africans as slaves. I know that slavery was abolished by the 13th amendment in 1865, but it was ninety-five years later that young Ruby Bridges needed adult escorts in order to attend an elementary school that up until that point had been exclusively for white students. I have some sense of the blindspot that I possess, because I can read, and think, and empathize with the circumstances in which other people find themselves.

A thought experiment: If we could wave a magic wand and expel all racist thoughts in America, and ensure equal access to good education and job opportunities to every citizen, how long would it take for previously oppressed communities in America to reach socio-economic parity with the rest of our society? I put this question into Claude.ai, and it estimated it would take 3-5 generations.

Of course, we don’t have such a magic wand (and what does Claude know, anyway?). Disadvantaged communities will still be at a relative disadvantage for the foreseeable future. There are still segments of our society that are more than happy to keep piling on such adversity.

From 1865 until today about seven generations of humanity have played out. The current state of affairs must be about as good as it has ever been in America. But the issue is far from resolved.

Even though the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery was ratified in December of 1865, it wasn’t until June 19th, 1866, that the news of slavery’s abolishment reached some corners of Texas. America’s recognition of Juneteenth as a national holiday is considered by some to be America’s “Second Independence Day.” It certainly was a step in the right direction, in terms of honoring the truth expressed in our Declaration of Independence, stating that “All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” A straightforward pronouncement, finally applied to every human being on our soil.

It has taken us seven generations to get to this point. It could easily take seven more before such essays never need to be written again. Please join me in this anti-racist posture. Let’s keep things moving in the right direction.

Sunday Supper

It is officially summer, so let’s light the grill and cook these Dijonnaise Grilled Chicken Breasts along with Grilled Summer Vegetables w/ Tahini Dressing. This cool American Flag Fruit Salad provides a strong finish.

Sunday Music

This Stanley Clarke performance at NPR’s Tiny Desk flat-out cooks. So to does this set by Ezra Collective. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

We Rhyme

We are different. But sometimes when you look in the mirror, you’re going to see me. You’re going to make different choices than I did, and that is proper. We are different people, living in different times.

Some of your wiring, your “mental map” as I call it, got connected incorrectly, through no fault of anyone. The fact is that some mis-wired connections are made during childhood because children can’t process things very well. We all learn “lessons” that are just plain wrong. So you will have some work to do, to scan your wiring and correct for these things.

I made mistakes, too. Despite my best efforts, I probably taught you some things that are wrong, or at least unhelpful. Hopefully this didn’t stick. But you should look out to correct for these mistakes as well.

Though your central core is beautiful and constant, much of the rest of your “firmware” can be updated. You can update yourself. The work of getting to know yourself, and consciously making changes is ongoing. Through fifty-six years so far, I see no end to it.

Who you are is not who you will be. Life changes us. Always for the better, if you choose. Resentment is dead weight. Blaming others, pointless. Owning every cubic inch of your self and your experiences will ensure that you keep getting better.

Of this I am certain: You are capable of far more than you will probably ever ask of yourself. We all are. The vast majority of us dream smaller than our capacity. This is fine. Only stretch for the things that light you up. Just know that everything you will ever need is inside of you already. Accessing it is fun. Trust yourself. You win, or you learn. Don’t beat yourself up. It takes a while to figure things out and get them right.

You are you, and I am me. But every apple falls close to the tree. Your genes will rustle up some ghosts. Let your light shine, everything will be fine. The past won’t repeat itself, but it will rhyme.

Sunday Supper

This year, I’m thinking of the Father’s Day meals I enjoyed when my dad was alive. Simple Grilled Steak, with the Ultimate Baked Potato and a Massive Italian salad. These Homemade Fudgsicles make for a sweet finish.

Sunday Music

The Doobie Brothers’ 50th Anniversary performance at Radio City Music is worth a listen. This John Scofield-led trio from 2023 is wonderful as well. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,

Get To Memphis

The past nine days have been a whirlwind of various planning workshops, air travel, car travel, carrying furniture down stairs, and celebrating a long-time friend’s retirement. All of this, while also layering in a head cold in the middle of the week. After posting today’s essay, my Sunday will truly be a much-needed day of rest.

Two Fridays ago, Lori and I flew down to Memphis so that we could attend a day-long personal planning session at the home of Andy Bailey, a fellow EO member who did an excellent, though abbreviated, workshop in Columbus earlier this year. The program is called Boundless, and it honors all of the same principles of EOS, just applying them more to individuals rather than organizations. When I suggested to Lori that we attend, I saw it as an easy way to dedicate some focused time to thinking about our future, in a nice setting (Andy’s farm property is beautiful). And it very much delivered on that vision.

The workshop happened all-day Saturday. Our flight back to Columbus on Sunday didn’t board until around 3pm, so we had a fair amount of time to explore Memphis. We cruised around Beale Street, and took a peak at the recently-closed Comeback Cafe. I discovered Comeback’s coffee sodas in the cooler at Copia Farm a year or two ago, and was instantly smitten. So I started following them on Instagram. They are scrappy, creative entrepreneurs with a great product. Although they did close their café, their canned beverage business goes on. I’m hopeful that by simplifying their business, it will more easily grow. You can order their unique sodas online, so give them a try.

“What about the National Civil Rights Museum?” Lori asked me as we were poking around the internet, looking for things to do before heading to the airport. My first instinct was to resist this idea - it felt too much like doing my homework in grade school rather than enjoying my brief window of time on a Sunday. The reviews of the museum are stellar, which convinced us to check it out, and I’m so glad that we did.

My first instinct was right, in that visiting the museum did require something “extra” of me. It was not just a Sunday in a new town, bopping around. It was heavy. Located in the building formerly known as the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated April 4th, 1968, the tone of the visit was appropriately somber. Touring this museum meant re-absorbing things I had previously learned about the civil rights struggle, and adding so much new information on top of that. For every Rosa Parks, Dred Scott and Thurgood Marshall, there were ten new names for me to learn, of people making similar sacrifices in the effort to fully claim their rights as citizens of this country.

I cannot do the experience justice with my words, but I will say this: Every single American should tour this museum. No matter how much education you have received, visiting the National Civil Rights Museum will take your understanding to a much higher level.

Sharing the emotions that I felt last Sunday are a better way to get at why everyone should visit this hallowed ground. The first emotion was sadness - sadness at the misery experienced by West Africans - kidnapped, forced to row across the ocean so that their entire lives could be spent farming crops and being treated like livestock. The second emotion I felt was shame - shame for every time I chuckled at a racist joke, shame for not calling out the joke-tellers, shame for allowing people to reinforce bullshit stereotypes. I felt immense gratitude for all of the people who have leaned in to the Civil Rights effort, and the way in which they went about their efforts. As an oppressed people, to embrace Ghandi’s nonviolent approach to resistance, working within the U.S. legal system to secure rights that were already codified in our Constitution is nothing short of amazing. Lastly, I felt a fair amount of anger - anger that people had to spend decades working through a legal system to verify that yes, indeed, these rights do apply to everyone. Anger at how our fellow citizens refused to acknowledge these legal rulings even after they were adjudicated.

This experience put the present moment into clearer perspective. It’s easier for me to see how racism still exists in our society, and is working to regain leverage within the legal power structures of America. Get to Memphis. See for yourself.

Sunday Supper

The head cold that both Lori and I have had this week will be graciously escorted to the curb thanks to this Chicken Pho recipe. I’m substituting some fresh veggies from the farmer’s market, as well as some Cajun sausage and homemade beef stock to give it an extra healing kick. This Buttermilk Corn Pasta recipe looks nice, too.

Sunday Music

Memphis is the theme this week, so the Blues is on tap for our music recommendations. This 2011 performance by B.B. King at Royal Albert Hall is definitely a good listen. This 2023 performance by Gary Clark Jr. at the Beale Street Music Festival is really something too. Enjoy!

If you know anyone who might like this essay, please share it with them. 



Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,