I would like to share with you a story about my mom, a woman who was very insecure about her background. She grew up in a blue collar family where neither her mother or father finished eighth grade. Mom completed high school, but only with tutoring by my father. She would frequently say to me, “I was born on the wrong side of the tracks.” At age 19, she married my father, the handsome...

Until I was thirty years old, I wasn’t much of a fisherman. I’d take a rod and reel along on a camping trip, but I never expected to catch much of anything. In my mind, fishing was a relaxing past time you enjoyed with friends and beer. Then my buddy Brian asked me to go fishing. I took him to a lake I knew that was hidden in the woods; and he taught me how to fish for bass. He...

During the 1996 Summer Olympics, I saw a young athlete with his brand new silver medal around his neck and a massive smile on his face. He was so thrilled with his achievement that he was celebrating with everyone he met on the sidewalk. Perfect strangers were shaking his hand, slapping him on the back, and having their picture taken with him. I did not know who he was, but it was clear that...

With the morning mist still on the Hudson River, and the sun just kissing the cliff tops of the New Jersey Palisade, Aaron Burr, Vice President of the United States shot and killed former Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. Political opponents for years, the duelists faced each other after Burr sent these words to Hamilton: “Political opposition can never absolve gentlemen from...

Seventeen years ago, I became the president of my community association. It was a lively organization with scores of activist members who were busy gentrifying an inner city neighbourhood. One of my responsibilities was to deliver a monthly speech and conduct a formal meeting with a loud and raucous crowd. Over the course of my two- year stint, I always spoke from behind the lectern with my...