Posts Tagged ‘quintessential leader’

Dr. Ned Moses Ross, DVMThe first quintessential leader I ever knew and the one I knew best was my father. A man of integrity, intelligence, and wisdom, my dad was also one of the most humble, caring, and generous people who ever walked the earth. 

Daddy was a family man. Although he worked hard – “whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might – his devotion to God and to his family always came first.

Daddy was a deep man, a thinker. I suppose all those years growing up on a large family farm in Burlington, NC, spending hours alone, with just a mule and a plow, working the fields from February or March to October or November (after school during the school year and then 12-14 hours a day during the summer) gave Daddy a lot of time to think. And because he was a reader, he always had plenty to think about.
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This video I’m including here is called The Millennial Question, but, in fact, some of the deeper issues raised here may have infiltrated all of lives because of our ubiquitous access to technology. (more…)

John McCain quintessential leader

John McCain, United States Senator from Arizona, died on August 25, 2018, a little more than a year after being diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive, and always fatal, type of brain cancer.

Senator McCain’s life could have been much different then it turned out to be. He grew up in a very elite and privileged world, and one that afforded him the opportunity, if he chose, to live for himself. Senator McCain didn’t do that.

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You Are Not a GadgetYou Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“If we chose to pry culture away from capitalism while the rest of life is still capitalistic, culture will become a slum. In fact, online culture increasingly resembles a slum in disturbing ways. Slums have more advertising than wealthy neighborhoods, for instance. People are meaner in slums; mob rule and vigilantism are commonplace. If there is a trace of “slumming” in the way that many privileged young people embrace current online culture, it is perhaps an echo of 1960s counterculture.” (more…)

The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to SuccessThe Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success by Megan McArdle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Overall, this was a pretty good book. McArdle makes a good case for all the reasons why learning to fail well makes us more successful in the long run (a big reason is all those lessons we should – and if we don’t, then we’ve failed at failing – learn from falling flat on our faces). (more…)

Daddy as a little boyMy dad was the first quintessential leader I encountered in life. He wasn’t perfect – none of us are – but who he was and how he lived his life was anchored to the principles of quintessential leadership.

In the years since Daddy’s death in 1998, I’ve met and or reconnected with many people who knew my dad well and one of the things I’ve consistently heard about him was that he was a good man, a kind man, and a gentle man with an open heart ready to serve and open ears and time ready to listen. (more…)