What do you do and where do you go when you leave a high-stress career that nearly kills you?
If your name is Tom Dunn and you spent 20 years, first as a defense counsel in the Army Trial Defense Service, then stints in Florida, New York State and most recently as head of the nonprofit Georgia Resource Center, you find a less stressful environment in which to indulge your passion.
You teach in a tough middle school in Atlanta, Georgia where “ninety-three percent of students are black and 5 percent Hispanic; some 97 percent qualify for free or reduced …read more

Much will be done today to commemorate the lives lost on September 11, 2001. The story I’m going to share has a different focus than most and one I believe is worth your time.
Among those who died that day was the husband of a woman I knew casually and because our acquaintance was casual I was surprised when she called nearly six months later.
I’ll call her “Kerry” and we talked for hours, but the kernel I want to share is this.
She needed support to move; not just move on, it was too early for that, but to physically move.
Kerry said …read more

Whether you laud Ted Kennedy or despise him you can’t deny that there are things he said that resonate with any person, in any country and any circumstances.
Here are some of my favorites.
“I recognize my own shortcomings — the faults in the conduct of my private life. I realize that I alone am responsible for them, and I am the one who must confront them. I believe that each of us as individuals must not only struggle to make a better world, but to make ourselves better, too.”
“There is no safety in hiding.”
“Yes, we are all Americans. This is what …read more

Friday was not a good day.
Friday we lost one of the few people left in the world that people trusted without question.
Friday Walter Cronkite died.
I became a thinking adult watching him deliver the news starting in 1962 and when he stepped down in 1981 I stopped watching TV news—I wanted intelligence and objectivity, not image and opinions.
How can those of us who are familiar with Cronkite convey what he did for us? How do we explain to a generation that thinks bloggers, Howard Stern and morning TV are viable news sources what Walter Cronkite gave us?
Walter Cronkite understood the meaning …read more

Do you think that segregation is an anachronism? A mindset and action we put behind us with the rise of the Civil Rights movement? Think again.
Segregated activities are alive and well in many small towns.

But these days, instead of turning on and dropping out like the Boomers, or turning on and apathetic like Gen X, kids get involved, even when it makes their lives more difficult.
“In 1997, Academy Award winning actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for the senior prom at Charleston High School in Mississippi under one condition: the prom had to be racially integrated. His offer was ignored. …read more

As regular readers know, I don’t believe that leadership is reserved to the few, the chosen, the anointed. I do believe that it can and should be practiced by all, every day and in all aspects of their lives.
That said, now and then there comes someone who truly leads in all senses of the word.
Mahatma Gandhi was such a person.
He was murdered on January 30, 1948, by a Hindu extremist.
61 years after his death, while fanatics of all stripes continue to wreak their own brand of havoc on the world, his ideas and actions remain a shining beacon.
Thank you, Mahatma …read more

‘Leader’ is one of the most maligned, abused and misused words in any language, but now and then it’s aptly applied.On July 9, 2007, the world lost a real leader, someone who truly deserved that appellation, Alexander Vladimir d’Arbeloff.
Co-founder of high-tech company Teradyne, philanthropist and MIT patriarch, he was a unique individual.
Unsuited to the corporate culture of the Fifties, he was fired three times in his first ten years.
Here’s what others thought of him.
A personal interaction with Alex was an event not soon forgotten.
Alex d’Arbeloff was a force of nature. We all experienced his laser-like intellect, his wry wit, his …read more

It’s a sad Saturday night as I write this. I don’t watch the news so I wasn’t aware that Paul Newman died Friday.I grew up watching his movies and reading about his life beyond them. Newman was a great actor and director, but he was a brilliant human being—a much more important role, although you wouldn’t know it in today’s celebrity-hyped world.
His amazing 50 year marriage to Joanne Woodward is proof that marriage is dependent on the people involved, not outside circumstances.
But it was his political stands and philanthropic efforts that always resonated most with me.
Newman’s Own donates all profits …read more

Post from Leadership Turn Image credit:  soldiersmediacenter    CC license
Whatever you think of the war—I happen to be vehemently against it—has nothing to do with our troops. The war is about politicians and politics—the troops are about the men and women who serve and all too often die.
I wonder what our government spends $700 million dollars a day on, but apparently it’s not for necessities such as sox, boots, feminine products, razors, body wash, etc., let alone “luxuries” like Ramen noodles that our troops need.
I just learned about a website called Any Soldier and it’s a way you can help for …read more

I have to confess that I’m as far from a pop culture vulture as you can get and movies aren’t my thing, so normally I don’t watch the Academy Awards. But tonight I was working and left the TV on for background noise. There wasn’t much choice so I had on the Academy Awards and they segued into an hour of Barbara Walters’ interviews when I wasn’t looking.
The interview with Vanessa Williams caught my interest.
Hard to believe that 20 years have past since she was forced to give up her Miss America crown because of nude pictures taken several years …read more