Some years ago we were on vacation and riding home after a dinner out at the beach when my daughter Clara looked at her phone and exclaimed, “Robin Williams has died. He apparently committed suicide.” Such news sparked a spirited family conversation, all of us...

Years ago, the writer Ernest Hemmingway came across a newspaper ad that in his opinion formed a perfect, if piercingly sad, six-word short-story. The notice read: “Free baby shoes. Never been used.” There is a similarly sad short story in the New Testament concerning...

September 11, 2001 seared the American soul. Images once reserved for big-budget Hollywood epics leaped from disaster film fantasy into horrific reality before our eyes, as commercial jets were misemployed as missiles to smash into twin towers that represented the...

Years ago. I received a note from a close friend that said, “When I’ve been around you lately you seem remote, distracted and so weary.” “Of course,” he added, “this could just be my reading of things. I could be wrong. But let’s grab a lunch and talk, so I can check...

I once was invited to address some of the rising stars of the legal profession in Charlotte, some of the best and brightest young attorneys recognized by their peers as poised for city leadership. I was challenged to identify the quality that would empower these...