Without Reservation

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“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” – Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone)

Visit YouTube to hear an audio version of this article: https://youtu.be/NJGJEgOUujw

After closing another recent travel adventure, several things came to mind. First, how incredibly blessed I am. Followed closely by the realization that between trips like these and everyday life, I may never exhaust the leadership lessons and anecdotes gained from crazy escapades, comedic miscues, dumb mistakes, and humans being human useful for filling space here. I could write volumes just from the last few months. In fact, so much new material has come in since starting this article, I’ve lost focus. To relate it in computer terms, my disk drive is corrupted. The download speed of new data is overwhelming my outdated processor. I’m a dialup connection in a broadband world; tin cans and string on a satellite network.

For instance, I had no intention of writing about this, but watching some of the recent Masters Tournament reminded me that you can really learn a lot about someone on a golf course. Airports, airplanes, parking lots, restaurants, board meetings, ticket counters, waiting lines, registration desks, and travel in general similarly tend to reveal one’s true colors. While the pros tend to keep things largely in-bounds, temperament, attitude, disposition, character, propensity to shave strokes, take shortcuts, jump to conclusions, or make assumptions without knowing or checking the facts are readily exposed in most other players. Ego, which is a powerful behavioral motivator, often drives us to maintain some invisible (and unnecessary) upper hand, use manipulation to get our own way, win at all costs, or simply appear (again unnecessarily) better than we really are.

The only people who care about that stuff are other people like them.

Perhaps more revealing, and disappointing, is the inability for many of them to admit when they’re wrong, apologize, or accept responsibility for their actions or the way they treat people. Those traits are sad commentary for a people created to love God and one another. Worse yet, their hubris probably blinds them to the fact this conversation is actually about…them.

Still, I find human behavior fascinating. Rather amusing, in fact. And prime material for articles, leadership lessons, speeches, and dinner conversations.

I’ll save the pretentiousness lesson for another article. But if you’re reading this as someone with tendencies to be unkind, demeaning, demanding, unapologetic, or condescending toward coworkers, clerks, wait staff, servers, ticket agents, baggage handlers, TSA agents, or others you feel beneath you, we’ll wait here while you go look in the mirror and ask yourself how treating people poorly became your top multiple-choice option on the ‘interacting with other humans’ quiz.

A better answer might be thinking less of yourself and spending more time building others up. Speak with care and kindness to everyone, without reservation. Be united in gentleness and love. Humbly extend grace and mercy even when it’s difficult. Especially when it’s difficult.

And never leave encouragement unspoken.

Do you know what else should never be left unspoken? Observations, life lessons, and important questions inspired by interacting with other humans. Here’s a sampling gleaned mostly from the recent data dump I mentioned.

For starters, how many times should you really need to push the lavatory door unsuccessfully before realizing it pulls open? Were you really in there so long you forgot how you got in? Maybe you were just too busy holding your breath. Or peeling your shoes off that disgusting floor, checking for streamers of toilet paper before returning to your seat while wondering how someone’s aim could possibly be that bad.

And that lock. Not a complicated device, complete with illumination and ‘occupied’ warning, yet a curiously high number of inadvertent intrusions, made embarrassingly worse by the cramped, compromised position of one of the parties involved.

This, of course, a much different circumstance than the scuba diver openly relieving himself in a crowded parking lot after his dive. Clearly unconcerned with spectators, I’d rather he was unconcerned about urinating in his rented wetsuit.

Speaking of embarrassing and compromising positions. It was at a favorite Clearwater Beach hotel where the unfortunate timing of a coffee run to the lobby, meeting with a man about a wallaby, and a resounding knock on the door nearly conspired to end my record of only being caught with my pants down in front of those I choose to be caught with my pants down in front of.

What happened next can only be described as Divine intervention. So as not to leave my wife outside juggling an armload of hot coffee, I scampered off my porcelain office chair to open the door, bottomless as the fries at Red Robin. Opening the door, I quickly and quite shockingly discovered it wasn’t her at the door at all. It was some kid knocking at the door next door! Mercifully, the lad was looking the opposite direction. He never even noticed mine cracked open, thus sparing himself a hereafter unseeable image burned into his memory. And perhaps sparing me from embarrassment, being screamed at, punched, arrested, or all of the above.

Did you really answer the door without pants? It depends. (See what I did there?) But yes. Sort of. Not exactly. They were around my ankles. To be fair, the door wasn’t far from the commode and I was hunched over, limiting unwanted exposure.

Other worthy questions:

Will the plane really leave without them if they don’t block the entire terminal walkway before their boarding zone is called? Is anyone surprised those same masters of their domain are first to bolt out of their seat into the aisle on arrival with quicker reaction time than a sprinter at the gun? Are they only to be outdone by themselves ripping their carryon (which should have been gate-checked anyway) from the overhead bin with such speed and grace that no-one would dare question their authority as grand potentate of economy class?

I expect you can relate. Honestly, I’ve probably done much of the same or worse in my lifetime. But I’m less impetuous now. Older. And kinder. I consciously choose to do better now; to grow in faithfulness and do the best I can with what I have, right where God has me today.

And because no one really knows how many todays they have, I cherish the blessing of every moment.

In the last few months I’ve watched rockets launch from Cape Canaveral; ice skated on board a ship in the Bahamas, and saw my wife knee-slide a contest-winning air guitar performance aboard the same ship; grilled fresh Spanish Mackerel in the Florida Keys and became dive-certified in the southern Caribbean, where I swam with sea turtles, eels, an octopus, and through a bait ball.

It was also there, in a not-so-rare moment of poor decision making, I found a so-called waterproof bag, 12-pro-max, and 60-foot-depth are a bad combination. And while I hoped for the recovery of at least one underwater photo and perhaps an impressive iPhone resurrection story, my rice-bag lifesaving efforts were unsuccessful. However, one of many consolations was watching a best friend deliver the most impressive, enjoyable seaside air-chainsaw-guitar solo ever, to Jackyl’s The Lumberjack.

There were monster trucks, sporting events, church functions, and conferences, in Michigan, Florida, Bahamas, Bonaire, Texas, and places between; a San Antonio Irish pub visited as a young GI 40-years ago found right where I remember. There was line-dancing, great food, $1 tequila, and $10 wine. And even a television interview.

Priceless time with family and friends, mourning losses and celebrating success. There was laughter, tears, mentoring, speaking, teaching, listening, and silence. I met people who’ve suffered unimaginable loss, and fellowshipped with others dedicated to helping them find justice. I even witnessed a woman, pure of heart and motive, sincerely try to raise her friend back to life.

Every morning started with coffee, God’s word, prayer, and gratitude. And while I still mess up plenty, I work hard to be better than I was yesterday, and live a lifetime every day.

How might your life be different if you lived a lifetime each day?

Finally, how might the lives of others be different if you were less problem and more solution? If you weren’t too proud to apologize? If you made it your mission to extend grace, encouragement, hope, and healing every day, without reservation?

“True humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less.” – C.S. Lewis

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.

7th Annual Year in Review

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Smile. Serve. Love. Forgive.

The year that just ended was by far the busiest of the three that have passed since retiring from full-time work. And while not without heartache, challenge, and my typical array of questionable decisions, among the most blest.

I don’t know whether to blame my own restlessness, inability to say “No”, “If not you, then who?” intentionality, the desire to keep giving back, or a combination of things. Yet despite the busyness of business taking time away from other things I enjoy – like blathering on here – I can’t deny how absolutely blessed and grateful I am for the opportunities I’ve been given.

But I must admit that quarterly articles were never my goal. When I started this venture, I envisioned writing at least twice a month. A conservative goal, I thought, for someone with as much rattling around in my head at any given moment. When that proved challenging to maintain, I convinced myself once a month would suffice. Now this…a meager four articles in 2025. Nonetheless, I’ll complete 2025’s review confident it will still be, as I’m prone to say in other contexts, simple yet satisfying.

Notwithstanding the world travel and incredible adventures last year, it was a smashing development at home I’ll mention first. From a scrawny teenager idolizing Arnold Schwarzenegger, strength, fitness, and overall wellness have been important parts of my life. But as prophets aren’t without honor except in their hometown, I never cracked the code on convincing my family to go all-in with me. The kids, all gifted athletes, especially in track and field, only sporadically appeased me by joining in the gym or on runs; and my wife has spent decades perfecting the art of resisting my advances…um, suggestions. Especially as to workouts. Yet, neither of us spring chickens, she found a new passion for working out in 2025 to her credit and influenced by a program she’d seen successful for a friend. The stars of aging and husband-borne insecurities precisely aligned, perhaps not inaccurately reflected in these Casting Crowns’ House of Their Dreams lyrics: She’s at the gym fighting off the years, to be young again and calm her fears, that she’ll never be enough for him. The truth is, selfish humans for generations have proven no one aside from God is really enough for anyone. And despite my repeated tendency to torpedo everything, we marked 35 years of marriage last month. An absolute impossibility but for the grace, love, forgiveness, and mercy of God. And my wife.

Who is now trying to kill me in the gym.

So, before she succeeds, let me share the four articles that made up that simple yet satisfying year of BeyondStrength’s motivational ministry.

The Problem with Procrastination

The world lost a wonderfully unique and generous human in January, who was also my very good friend, Bill. Affectionately known to each other as Billy Buffett and Wonder Boy, our friendship exceeded 25 years. And while we seldom saw each other in person for most of those, we stayed in touch regularly. Most meaningfully, we saw each other several times and communicated almost daily the last several years of his life.

In October 2023, doctors discovered it was a brain tumor, rather than a mini stroke, that caused Bill’s health scare. He underwent brain surgery and radiation. He came through the same old Billy, joking and sending pictures of his beautiful wife saying things like, “Feel good. Low grade pain. But WHO is this chick in my hospital room?” 

March 21, 2024 was the last time I would see him in person.

On January 12, 2025, my dear friend Billy Buffett passed away. Communication had ceased several months before that, which was unusual. His wife eventually informed me that his cancer had returned. I intended to visit him when I got back to Florida, but he entered hospice and was gone before I made that happen. You don’t find time for the important things, you make time. Procrastination, it seems, prevented me from seeing one of my best friends again before it was too late.

Poop in the Clubhouse & Joy in Your Heart

If you see a need, do what is within your power to meet it. There are many ways to demonstrate humility and a willingness to serve others. One is to do what is within your power to meet a need when you see it, which may involve sacrificing your own comfort, interests, or time. This was a long article, the gist of which was retelling the opportunity I had to clean up a trail of poo smeared across the length of the clubhouse floor at the RV park where we stayed. Someone there, as Judith Viorst might say, was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad gastrointestinal day. 

Okay, she probably wouldn’t have written about gastro problems in her book by a similar name. But it gave me the chance to share an important message about service. And tease a possible sequel to Judith’s entertaining children’s book involving adult Alexander.

I’ll admit it wasn’t the most pleasant experience of 2025.  But if I hadn’t cleaned up that mess, who would have?  It’s totally worth checking out this entertaining article at the link in the title above if you missed it.

Magnificent Restlessness

“To give room for wandering is it that the world was made so wide.” – John Muir

Magnificent Restlessness essentially chronicled my summer non-vacation. So much happened! From our daughter’s wedding to business trips, a France mission trip to an epic Northern Ontario fly-in fishing camp. A lifetime of adventures were packed into the summer of 2025.

Nothing to Prove

My final essay of 2025 dipped into a recent battle of comparison waged in my war with insecurity. While I thoroughly enjoyed an incredibly busy few months, the insidious creep of self-doubt weaseled its way in following a speaking engagement. It seems fear of failure and letting people down are still tethered to me. But I believe wholeheartedly that God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. And I’m certainly ordinary. Extra-ordinary, you might even say. Not to be confused with extraordinary.

The reminder for me was that I don’t need to be all things to all people. And neither do you. We just need to do the best we can, where we are, with what we have.  And as much as I’d sometimes like to, I can’t be someone or something I’m not. I’ve wasted a lot of time resisting that notion. I just want to mess up less and honor God more.   

Honestly, 2025 was a breakout year in busyness and service since retiring three years ago. I’m way busier than expected, but I know this is what God has for me right now.

Less of me, more of him.

Keep doing great things, and thanks for following along!

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.

House of Their Dreams lyrics sourced from Casting Crowns: Thrive on Apple Music. Written by Mark Hall

Viorst, Judith (1972). Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. New York, NY: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

Nothing to Prove

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Visit YouTube to hear an audio version of this article: https://youtu.be/v1h1am2FXak

Invest your personality, at whatever sacrifice, for the good of others and the glory of God. ~ Frederick Erdmann Smith

Have you ever been really excited about an opportunity, felt good about how it went, then later began to doubt yourself or question the job you’d done?  Not like when you wish you’d made this point or that, or feel you could have said things differently to make your talk, position, or argument more complete or persuasive. That’s just nitpicking your delivery.  

I’m referring to the more insidious creep of self-doubt.  

The last three months have been both incredibly busy and profoundly rewarding.  Spanning two countries, several states, six time zones, and traveling over 15,000 miles, it was a blend of contract work, consulting, and speaking engagements.  I had the privilege of delivering opening remarks at a conference for one of those speaking engagements.  

I was both excited and humbled to have been considered for such an honor.  The assignment itself wasn’t something new; I’ve delivered keynotes, lectures, taught, and presented in various settings and audience sizes all over the world.  In fact, this was one of several other appearances and presentations over these three months. But much of the time my public speaking has been married to existing responsibilities, position held at the time, or instructing, lecturing, and teaching.  This one was a bit of an anomaly; it originated through my website.

Prior acquaintance with the requestor may have pointed him my way, but very few requests originate through this blog. Appearances outside those listed above tend to arise via word of mouth or referrals of friends and business associates.  So infrequent are legitimate, non-marketing related emails to my blog that I largely began to ignore that account, carelessly overlooking that the ‘Speaking Requests’ link gathering virtual cobwebs might actually be used to make a speaking request! Thankfully, after having it brought to my attention by a friend in common aware of the request (and my lack of response), the engagement came to fruition.  

I took it very seriously, and not just because I felt terrible about missing the original request. Because regardless of assignment, I feel it’s important to give my best. The last thing I want to do is let anyone down. In fact, years ago during one of those leadership/team-building/self-reflection exercises involving karate-chopping a board in two, my motivating afflictions in need of the Bruce Lee treatment were fear of failure and letting people down. That, and youthful aversion to embarrassment, were pretty good motivators to keep a slight lean toward perfectionism…and perhaps a bit of neuroticism.

As a side note, while I do still struggle with fears of failure and letting people down, it’s liberating to be at a point in life that not much embarrasses me anymore.

Anyway, I poured myself into tailoring a talk that would be meaningful, inspiring, relevant, and mildly entertaining. I was ready and felt great before, during, and after. It was an awesome event that I was proud to be a part of, and it felt good to be surrounded by wonderful and encouraging people committed to their work and improving themselves.

Enter Captain Darkness. 

I’m not one to do what they now call doom-scrolling social media, but I do check notifications and end up seeing a few surrounding posts that are product of engineered algorithms.  Shortly after the two-day event concluded, I happened across an abundance of very complimentary reactions to the event’s final presenter; an author and professional speaker who delivered the closing keynote.  And while I’m confident what I kicked off with the day prior was in line with the conference theme, well-received, and an appropriate bookend to the closing keynote, insecurity crept in. My mind carelessly drifted into the contemplation station and boarded the train of self-doubt.  Next stop: the canyon of comparison. Why?  Because I’m a self-conscious nit who sometimes foolishly (and unnecessarily) interprets people’s reactions with emotion and faulty logic. I don’t want to let people down, and I began thinking maybe I had.

I wasn’t good enough. I could have done better. I should have done better!

The thing is, I received great feedback.  But the demon of doubt and ogre of insecurity resting quietly for some time was awakened, fed, and standing at the door.    

This isn’t the first time I’ve struggled with insecurity, compared myself to others, or ruminated unnecessarily.  In fact, I’ve shared about all those things before. One of the last times I did, many of you reminded me there’s no need to compare myself to anyone. I’m grateful for the encouragement of friends who say things like that’s why they love me, that’s what inspires them, that they love me being me, that I’m solid, or that God made me special.

Oh, I’m special alright…

Sure, I’m not tall, dark, or handsome, a Knight in Shining Armor, a polished statesman, or a talented musician. I know where my identity ultimately comes from, and that identity is none of those. Nor is it pro hockey player, actor, radio broadcaster, engineer, scientist, or celebrity chef. Or professional speaker.

Each of those professionals become experts in their craft by honing their skills through hard work and years of practice. At least 10,000 hours, according to Malcolm Gladwell. It’s the same for you and me; just the calling and areas of expertise are different.

At the end of it all, I’m just an average-at-best goofball trying relentlessly to improve who enjoys serving others and giving back some of what I’ve seen, done, and experienced; and who feels obligated to share from the abundance of blessings I’ve received. I also happen to look and sound remarkably like Howdy Doody, which is most certainly why radio broadcasting and movie stardom didn’t work out.  If only I were a marionette.

But I can’t be someone I’m not, and neither can you.

A friend wisely concluded after decades of frustration and resentment toward his father that he would never be able to change him. He couldn’t expect his dad to be someone or something he isn’t.  Only then did he experience a sense of peace about their relationship he’d been searching for.

Wisdom involves knowledge, experience, and maturity.

I used to watch accomplished public or motivational speakers with awe and envy. I wanted to be like them; to captivate audiences and leave them moved, inspired, and wanting more. That still appeals to me, and I try my best (with questionable success) to make it so whenever I speak. But I have to realize that may not be my primary purpose in life. It certainly wasn’t when I was younger, as it would have been for purely selfish reasons like attention or adoration. If I’m being honest, those still appeal at some level below the surface of my psyche. But I’m older and (only slightly) wiser now. I know I’m blessed beyond what I deserve, and I know now it’s my responsibility to use those blessings to show the world how awesome God is, not to feel better about myself or show how great I am.

See, I believe God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things so others will see and believe. So as much as I secretly wish I was wittier, more handsome, famous, engaging, dignified and refined, or taken more seriously, the fact is I’m ordinary. Dare I say extra-ordinary. Definitely not extraordinary. And while I still battle occasional insecurity (article in point), God knows my heart, and is the only one I should be concerned about letting down.  He can and will use me just the way I am if I’ll just pay attention and get out of the way.

I don’t even get that right most of the time, by the way. People tend to do foolish things because of insecurity. I’m chief among them. Just ask, and budget plenty of time.

So, about this speaking gig. I don’t know if I did great or totally bombed. But I know I did my best.

I don’t need to be all things to all people. I just need to do the best I can, where I am, with what I have.  And I need not compare myself to anyone, especially the super-awesome closing speaker. I just want to mess up less and honor God more. I want the story of my life to show others his grace and love.

So, I’ll keep doing my best and forget the rest, as fitness guru Tony Horton says. My identity is from God, and he’s not done with me yet.

He’s not done with you, either. So let’s stop comparing and start doing.   

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.

Magnificent Restlessness

“To give room for wandering is it that the world was made so wide.” – John Muir1

A lot has happened since we last met here. My aim was to tell you about all that in a series of short, light-hearted stories and entitle it ‘How I Spent My Summer Vacation’. But recent events have admittedly given me pause to being excessively jovial in this moment. On the other hand, what is this Beyond Strength endeavor if not intended to uplift, inspire, encourage, and motivate despite tribulation, challenge, or heartache in the event of such things?

So here goes. How I spent my summer vacation.

The Perfect Wedding

I didn’t intend to be quite as busy as I am at this point in my life, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. I just don’t sit still very well. I like to stay busy. I like traveling and treating each experience as a new adventure. And I also enjoy giving back. I find purpose and meaning in sharing my experiences with others who don’t have the same opportunities; maybe allowing them to live vicariously through me in some way. And perhaps helping still others through difficult circumstances by inspiring or motivating them. Or if nothing else, reminding them what not to do by sharing from the abundance of my mistakes. This summer has been no different.

I’ve traveled over 17,000 miles, made endless memories, and lived a lifetime of adventures the last three months. My little girl’s wedding kicked off a very busy June. Months of planning, praying, organizing, and attending to every detail resulted in what was quite literally a near-perfect wedding. From rehearsal to reception, wedding gown to weather, nothing went wrong. Even a series of unfortunate events that caused our daughter and son-in-law unnecessary grief and uncertainty just weeks before the wedding ended up being an incalculable blessing…one that resulted in perhaps the most God-honoring wedding ceremony I have ever witnessed. God is good. But I’m going to be honest…I was a mess.

It’s perplexing to me that even though years of experiencing the worst of humanity has numbed me to a point not much phases me, the first reveal of my baby girl in her wedding dress on her special day nearly ended me. I was a wreck! I thought I was ready. I had rehearsed events of the day; I had done everything I was told to do; I made sure nothing I was responsible for went haywire; I planned my attire, got a haircut, trimmed my beard, paid the bill, helped set up, got everyone I was responsible for there who was supposed to be, and I labored over my father-of-the-bride toast. I even thought ahead to print and leave four photos with special significance at each table that would be explained during my toast. Everything was ready and perfect. Except my emotions.

His young man’s body is gone, but he’s an expert at using what’s left…2

A work trip, fundraiser speaking engagement, music festival, Father’s Day, birthday, and a mission trip to France account for the rest of June’s highlight reel. In all, a pretty amazing month for Ancient Dave, Vintage Dave, Jurassic Dave, Retro Dave, and Ancient of Daves as I came to be known in France thanks to another Dave on the team who happened to be a couple measly decades younger. More on that trip later, perhaps.

Bodies, Beans, Bourbon, and Boston

Ryan Leak says, “Giving shifts your focus from what’s missing to what matters.” A give more than you take mindset results not only in blessing, improving, helping others, and making the world a better place, but you might find you receive the biggest blessing yourself.

A little downtime after France merged quickly into another trip to Northern Michigan University (NMU) in Marquette to help deliver a training course. This investigative course is one of my favorites and is coordinated annually through NMU’s Forensic Research Outdoor Station (FROST). FROST is one of only a few outdoor forensic anthropology facilities dedicated to human taphonomy research (the study of processes affecting the human body after death) using bodies donated by individuals themselves or by their next-of-kin for this type of research.

July wasn’t all work, as a fly-in fishing trip to Northern Ontario came next. I was admittedly dubious about spending an entire week miles from civilization in a rundown cabin at the sole resort on an enormous remote lake only accessible by float plane. In fact, my daughter said “This is the beginning of a scary movie. Key words: small plane, remote island, no service…I’ve watched a movie like this before.” Yet despite all that, mice cohabitating with us, and even a visiting snake in the cabin, having no other choice but to slow down, relax, learn new skills, and completely take in the experience resulted in a most memorable adventure. It didn’t hurt that the side-dish game enjoyed for years by perennial fishing greats was leveled up considerably from beans and ketchup to things like spinach Florentine; the result of the simple and recent development of inviting wives along on the trip. Genius!

It was quickly back to business for an annual conference in Louisville, Kentucky, followed by family, friends, home projects, and an abundance of admin preparing for what will be a very busy Fall travel schedule.

First stop: Boston.

The good news is, I’m learning to better appreciate and value how retirement lends itself to balancing business with pleasure. So why not take the RV to New England? It’s been in the shop more than the woods this season, so it seemed like a good idea. Mental note to build in extra time on each end to experience more of the ‘pleasure’ part of that equation. But overall it was a great experience and test run at living out of an RV compared to a hotel room when it lends itself to doing so throughout the work week.

“Only he loved roaming too much…” – Martha (in Goethe’s Faust) 3

There is a section in Chapter 21 of 2 Samuel that retells of war (again) between the Philistines and Israel. David was King of Israel this time, unlike earlier when he felled Goliath as a young shepherd. During said account, this sentence is found at the end of verse 15: “And David grew weary.” Do tell.

Fortunately, one of his men stepped in and dropped the Philistine who thought to kill David in that moment. Then his men said to him, “You shall no longer go out with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel.” (v. 17)

Great leaders listen to their people.

There will come a time when this David grows weary, too. Honestly, I sometimes feel that way now. But nothing you go through is wasted. As long as I’m able I’ll continue fighting the good fight of service to others, ever seeking to make up for wasted time and trying to atone for some of the dumb things I’ve done.

Until then, Lord willing, I aim to continue all this magnificent restlessness. What about you?

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.

1 John Muir: our national parks (2009, June). Journal of American History. Retrieved September 17, 2025, from https://archive.oah.org/special-issues/teaching/2009_06/sources/ex1doc3_nationalparks_trans.html

2 McDougall, C. (2015). Natural born heroes. Alfred A. Knopf. (Talking of Odysseus from Homer’s Iliad)

3 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Faust part I: scenes VII to XV (2003). Poetry in Translation. Retrieved September 17, 2025, from https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/FaustIScenesVIItoXV.php

Poop in the Clubhouse & Joy in Your Heart

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“Never focus so much on who you’re becoming that you miss who God saw you would be from the beginning.” – LaBryant Friend

Great leaders demonstrate humility and a willingness to serve others. Serving with humility doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be confident in your God given abilities, but neither should you see yourself greater than you are nor more important than others. There are many ways that might look in practice.  One is that if you see a need, do what is within your power to meet it. That may involve sacrificing your own comfort, interests, or time. Time is perhaps the monster I most often wrestle with on this, so I speak from experience: don’t be in such a hurry as to miss an opportunity to help someone in need. 

“Don’t raise your fence and hide; lengthen your table and serve.” – Jerry Flowers

Several things have happened this year that excite me. Cleaning up poop from the floor isn’t one of them. At least I don’t think it is. But the fact that I did at least encourages me. Okay, excite was a strong word…scratch that.  Several things have happened this year that encourage me. 

From body hair to athletic prowess, postsecondary education to behaving like an adult (overrated by the way), I’ve always been a bit of a late bloomer.  So better late than never, my life is experiencing somewhat of a late-harvest internal makeover stew that only God could cook up. 

Let me take this unnecessarily abstract metaphor uncomfortably further. 

Combine ingredients of meaningful retirement work, world travel, renewed daily devotions, and more purposeful prayer time with heaping measures of heartbreak, frustrations, challenges, and difficulties. The result is an amalgamation of personal growth that seems to be fault-testing questionable circuits and softening still-rough edges of this defective and exceedingly average human still under construction.  And let’s be clear…I get in the way a lot. Especially when I try to handle this building project myself, erecting walls of self-sufficiency, strong opinions, dubious viewpoints, and questionable decisions that often leave those close to me one eye twitch away from completely losing it. 

It’s not lost on me that started out as a cooking analogy.  

Baking or building, I’m not so naïve to think I have it all figured out or that I won’t keep taking one step forward and two back. But I’ve tried to be distinctively more cheerful, better at maintaining a positive attitude, and consistently experiencing more joy as I go about life.  Lately, living peaceably has come more naturally in this world of selfishness, anger, antagonism, and divisiveness. And while I’ve always tried (not always successfully) to put others first, serve well, and lead with humility, I now purposefully challenge myself to speak and act with gentleness and kindness. Am I always successful?  No.  Am I finally growing up?  I hope not.    

Side note: does celebrating humility seem contradictory to you?  

Love will deny itself to look out for others.

I remember two things very distinctly about our first stay in Florida with a new-to-us RV a few months ago. 1) The first week was much colder and rainier than expected; 2) Someone there, as Judith Viorst might say, was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad gastrointestinal day. 

Okay, she probably wouldn’t have written about the gastro problem in her children’s book by a similar name. But it could happen. Perhaps a sequel: Alexander and the Giant Gift of Gastrointestinal Gobbledygook.  

Sunbathing opportunities were few due to the weather. But once it cleared, we enjoyed walks around the park, pickleball, and a couple days poolside, which was a nice change from movies, cards, Scrabble, and getting on each other’s last nerve stuck inside the camper. 

It was during one of my trips from pool to restroom to clubhouse (for more coffee) that I whiffed a strong, foul, and familiar odor that was NOT coffee. A quick scene survey identified the source: a substantial glob of partially smeared feces on the clubhouse floor. From the look of surprise and disgust on her face, it was simultaneously noticed by a woman passing through at the same time.  Naturally she asked, “Is that what I think it is?” 

What am I, a doodoo recognition expert? 

“Yes, I believe it is.” I replied, glancing at her shoes for evidence of transfer smear.  

As we speculated cause and origin, it became apparent from another glop on direct azimuth to the men’s room it was human excrement, not that of a stray animal making its way into the clubhouse. 

The bewildered woman began muttering adjectives while threatening to call the office. Meanwhile…swim-suited, flip-flopped, shirtless, and cowboy-hatted (you’re welcome), I armed myself with some damp paper towels and went about cleaning up the mess. She was incredulous, looking at me as if I were about to reach into a vat of radioactive waste.  

“Oh…wow. Are you going to clean it up?” 

Um, yes. I am. 

She was baffled. Wait, didn’t I just say she was bewildered and incredulous? Can you be bewildered, baffled, and incredulous at the same time?  I think the answer is maybe. Probably literary cousins…just not the kissing kind.   

I’ll admit for a moment I, too, thought to myself, “Who would clean up someone else’s poo from a floor where clearly the establishment has jurisdiction?”  

I also admit thinking, “What kind of jerk would poop on the floor and just leave it there?” Then, “Ok, maybe it was an accident. But what kind of jerk wouldn’t clean up after himself?”  

It turns out the kind of jerk who probably wasn’t one at all but was still parked on the commode in the men’s room. Feet visible beneath the stall and the unmistakable smell gave him away.

As I began to clean up what I thought was the last spot it became clear the poor man, by this time probably just hiding in the stall out of embarrassment, had clearly experienced an intestinal emergency. Perhaps while out for a walk. 

How would I know this, you ask?  Besides neither confirming nor denying personal experience (VA calls it IBS; I call it SOS – sudden onset s****), checking the rest of the area revealed several other deposits throughout. The mess appeared to start just inside the north entrance, continued with increasing scale and frequency down the hallway, through the main banquet area, finally taking an obvious turn into the men’s room at the opposite end of the clubhouse. 

It pays to have been an investigator.  Crime scene doody.  See what I did there?  

I went through a lot of paper towel, and it took a long time. So long, in fact, my wife thought I fell in.  I know because she asked me that.   

I’ll admit it wasn’t the most pleasant experience of my stay, or of the new year thus far.  But if I hadn’t cleaned up that mess, who would have?  If I had a similar experience, wouldn’t I want someone to help?  So why not me?  Like I said at the outset…

If you see a need, do what is within your power to meet it.

Turns out the poo story demanded more words than expected, but I hope didn’t overshadow the intended message. It was never about cleaning up feces. It’s about showing love, kindness, and service to others – especially when there’s nothing in it for me. I just want God to use my story to show others about his grace and love. 

Perhaps everyone becomes closer to God and more emotional as they age…as mortality becomes more real to us. But Paul admonished his readers in 2 Corinthians 4.16 not to become discouraged about this.  “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”  I know my body wants to slow down, which is why I must fight that much harder to maintain it.  But my emotions, my inner self, is being renewed, like the kinetic energy in a flywheel.  Unlike my aging body, which requires more effort than before to keep it going, my heart, mind, and soul now spin more freely.  My inner self has been building and storing energy through faith, so now that it’s finally ‘spinning faster’ like the flywheel, it requires less energy.  Just some inputs along the way to keep it moving smoothly. Love taps, I’ll call them.  

Like giving thanks in all circumstances; helping your aging parents if your fortunate enough to still have them; or your neighbor, who doesn’t get around so well, with yard work; or taking time to talk to the homeless or marginalized.  These are but a few.

“To serve people is make yourself vulnerable.”  – Brant Hansen

I expect many of us don’t know how to interact with the homeless.  It’s hard to know who’s genuinely in need or whether you’re being scammed, so what do you do? I don’t have a good answer, other than to be loving and kind regardless of who you encounter or what you do or don’t do for them.  Being pleasant costs nothing.    

A few months ago, I met a homeless veteran named Dapo.  To respect his privacy, I won’t say where I met him, but he made me smile the moment I saw him walking by in the opposite direction. He was cheerful, pleasant, made direct eye contact, and smiled at me. Rather than ignore him or pretend he wasn’t there, which I’ve done in similar situations, I made myself vulnerable, you could say. I stopped and talked with Dapo as my group continued along their way.  

He told me how nice it was that I stopped to talk, because most people won’t talk to him – or any of the homeless.  I truly enjoyed talking with Dapo.  He told me about his friends, other homeless veterans, many of whom don’t come out in the open much because they are treated poorly. Dapo was polite and kind, genuine and friendly.  He eventually asked if I would help him buy some food that he could share with his friends.  He seemed almost embarrassed to ask and looked surprised when I told him I was happy to help. Of course, I know it could have all been an act, and that’s fine if it was. I handed him $20 and told him I wanted him to use it however he chose, but hoped he would share some with the others he told me about.  

Then something happened I didn’t expect.  Dapo began to cry, right there on the street.  He tried not to, but the way his lips curled under, tears streamed down his face, and his glance turned away betrayed him.  He was genuinely emotional at this small gesture.  

It was hard for him to speak, but he thanked me over and over.  “God bless you”, he kept saying. 

“He has blessed me, Dapo. More than I deserve.  How could I not share some of that blessing with you?”  

“You don’t know how much it means that you would even talk to me, let alone this.”  

I hugged him…I couldn’t help myself.  God loves this man as much as he loves you, me, and everyone else on the planet. Why shouldn’t I? 

The world is pretty messed up.  But God is in control and will set things right in his time.  My job right now, and maybe yours too, is simply to have the courage and humility to live by faith, be joyful, love people well today, and help make the world a better place by doing good.

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.

Flowers and Friend quotes noted via YouVersion Bible App: YouVersion and OneHope, Inc. / Winters Publishing Group

Hansen, Brant (2024). Life is hard. God is good. Let’s dance. Nashville, TN: W Publishing. 

Viorst, Judith (1972). Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. New York, NY: Atheneum Books for Young Readers. 


The Problem with Procrastination

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If you got a chance, take it, take it while you got a chance
If you got a dream, chase it, ’cause a dream won’t chase you back
If you’re gonna love somebody
Hold ’em as long and as strong and as close as you can
‘Til you can’t 1

Billy’s tribute to a special friendship. Note the Swiss Army knife to the left: he sent me a duplicate.

No less than a half dozen times since my last article I’ve scribbled notes on subject matter, opened my laptop to start writing, or thought to myself, “Stop procrastinating. You need to get another article done ASAP!” Yet here it is more than halfway through February, with nothing to show for it except a couple lame social media posts of little interest to anyone.

Among an abundance of other reasons for my literary absence, only a small part is honestly related to procrastination. Busyness with other business has been the real reason. But procrastination is precisely what has become the focus of this essay, because were it not for procrastination and excuse making, I would likely have seen my good friend once more before his untimely passing.

I’ve held it no secret that sitting still isn’t a strong suit of mine. That I persist, in my own words, at being “busier than a retired guy should be”. But a strong sense of purpose to share from the abundance of opportunity and experiences I’ve had and feeling likewise called to more than simply ride off into the sunset, the pages of Dave’s Little Lexicon of Rationalizations are well-filled.

That busyness I mentioned above is honestly more of a problem for me than procrastination. Always has been. Providing for a family and being a semi-responsible adult is hard! Add in the compound interest of some Type-A tendencies, a desire to please, limited ability to say “no”, and a drive to be the best, and the arithmetic checks out. And even though I’ve always worked hard to be present and find appropriate balance, there are plenty times I don’t get it right.

Unfortunately, things like my friend’s recent death and other missed opportunities become painful reminders of this. And reinforce what songwriters across time have consistently warned us about.

In October 2023, doctors discovered it was a brain tumor, rather than a mini stroke, that caused my friend Bill’s health scare. He quickly underwent brain surgery and radiation treatment. Ever light-hearted, he joked to me just before the procedure, “So like the old saying goes: It’s not brain surgery (until it is brain surgery)”.

He came through the same old Billy, joking and sending pictures of his beautiful wife saying things like, “Feel good. Low grade pain. But WHO is this chick in my hospital room?” He sent photo updates of the scar on his head, family, grandsons, and confessed he had become a serial napper. I was caught emotionally off guard by the pictures he sent wearing his radiation mask prepped for treatment, and video of the procedure: Frank Sinatra’s The Christmas Waltz hauntingly filled the room as he lay masked and motionless, video camera panning as the giant machine swung around him doing its work.

Billy was back to being Billy in no time. It seemed almost too good to be true, but I rejoiced at the answers to prayer and that he had such good reports. He seemed his old self in no time, even driving again by February. Locally only, he pointed out.

March 21, 2024 was the last time I would see Billy Buffett in person. My wife and I met him, his wife, and one of their grandsons for lunch at the Landshark at Margaritaville in Hollywood. As devout a Jimmy Buffett fan as I’d ever known, the nickname and meeting place fit.

March 21, 2024

Weekly, often daily communication was our norm. He was always the first to comment on my LinkedIn posts and articles, encouraging and addressing me by the nickname he gave me when we met over 25 years earlier: Wonder Boy.

Miami, circa 1998: Wonder Boy meets Billy Buffett

Within six months of that lunch together, it all stopped. No more comments. No calls. No replies to text messages. In poetic irony, the last message he had replied to was the one notifying him of our daughter’s engagement. You’ll understand more if you read the linked article below.

I eventually contacted his wife, who informed me that the cancer had returned. He was being treated, but couldn’t communicate much at the time. He was eventually sent home to continue physical and occupational therapy, but we would never communicate personally again. I told his wife of our plans to visit while we were in Florida, either November or January, if he and the family were feeling up to it. November didn’t work, so we would definitely be down following my business trip to Tampa in January, I said.

While she reported some improvement along the way, his wife contacted me early January to tell me Bill had been moved to hospice care. I made plans to drive down and see them immediately following the business in Tampa, but I would come to regret and grieve my decision not to find a way to go directly to south Florida first.

On January 12, 2025 at 7:25 p.m. I received the following text: “Hello Dave, I wanted to let you know that Bill passed away early today.”

My heart aches for his family. It aches for his friends and other loved ones. It aches as a reminder to me how wrong I was to think there was still plenty of time. I procrastinated…and missed the opportunity to see my friend again. To look him in the eyes and tell him how much our friendship meant to me.

One of the most frustrating parts for me is that I am NOT a procrastinator. I hate letting things languish. Putting things off just means more to do later. So why now?

I’m grateful to have been within a few hours drive to attend his visitation, hug his family, pay respects. So I did get to see my old friend again, but not the way the way I should have.

Please take time to read what this wonderful man was all about in the article Friends Without Coffee posted March 3, 2019. It chronicles my daughter’s senior trip and a most memorable reunion with my good friend Bill. Unlike me, he had retirement figured out.

Above all, beware the problems with procrastination. Maybe there was something to that Cat’s in the Cradle song after all.

Near Seven Mile Bridge, Florida Keys 2021
Surprise retirement guest, Michigan 2022
“Chico & Chica”, Marco Island 2023

I miss you, Billy Buffett. ~ With love, Wonder Boy

Note: Out of respect for his family, I intentionally excluded their names and photos. I trust each of you knows how much we love you.

1 From the Cody Johnson song ‘Til You Can’t, written by Benjamin Stennis & Matthew Rogers (Source: LyricFind) ‘Til You Can’t lyrics © Anthem Entertainment, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

6th Annual Year in Review

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“Life is a series of choices. Every yes is a thousand nos. Every activity we give our time to is a thousand other activities we can’t give our time to.” – John Mark Comer

There are several reasons I started what has become what I now call a motivational life, leadership, and fitness ministry nearly seven years ago. Among them was the catharsis of writing through some of my many issues; to educate, inspire, challenge, and entertain; and to help others while sharing from an abundance of accumulated experiences, successes, and failures. Another reason was to preemptively fill the impending time and space in my calendar I feared could become a stumbling block for someone with a restlessness problem. The funny thing is, after retiring fully from both careers two years ago, I never imagined time management or prioritizing activities would be an area of concern again. But an honest look at my activity here compared to the rest of my ventures over the last 12 months brings Comer’s opening truth-bomb starkly into focus. Every activity has been important, valuable, and meaningful in their own way. But I must admit that more often than I prefer, engaging here was too often among those ‘thousand other activities’ I couldn’t give my time to.

Nonetheless, I owe you a year in review…and a year in review is what you’ll get!

To freshen things up and fill some of the in-between time with shorter literary victuals, I tried something different with Transformation Tuesdays. The concept was to highlight each one of four life pillars on different Tuesdays: Heart, Mind, Body, Spirit. Much to my own chagrin, I only got through the heart and mind before pushing the others to the back burner in favor of meatier morsels. But let’s be honest…the biggest reason was alluded to above: I may have allowed myself to become busier than a so-called retiree should be. And while it’s taken somewhat longer than expected to re-acclimate myself to that type of operations tempo, I’m getting better at it. Besides, even bad days are good days when every day is a weekend, you love what you do, you’re doing the work God’s given you, and you’re helping make the world a better place.

I digress, which fits with that first installment of Transformation Tuesday: The Mind.

Many of my own problems are thinking problems: defective thinking, overthinking, not thinking, or thinking about the wrong things. Improving and maintaining mental wellness starts with transforming the mind.  

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, The Heart was the focus of the next Transformation Tuesday. In the figurative sense, hearts get broken.  In the literal sense, hearts are also broken by congenital disease. They can also become broken or defective because of infection, high blood pressure, high LDL cholesterol, diabetes, smoking, simple age-related degeneration, obesity, unhealthy diet, and physical inactivity.  Sometimes heartbreak and heart problems are unavoidable.  However, as poor decisions and bad relationships are to broken hearts, many physical heart problems are likewise preventable, the result of simple abuse or neglect. “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” (Luke 6.45). Make sure yours is healthy, happy, and full of the right stuff.

Holy Week and recently returning from a trip to Costa Rica provided the perfect opportunity to lament about our asinine human condition and highlight that not much has changed in 2000 years. Inspired by a preacher’s point once that ‘even the donkey’ knew fanfare at the triumphal entry wasn’t for him, but rather the one riding on his back, Even the Donkey Knows highlighted how careless, impetuous, fickle, and consumed with our own self-interests humans are. Animals, despite having no capacity for reason, remain extraordinarily perceptive. Humans, despite having great capacity to reason, remain extraordinarily self-absorbed and persist in a perpetual stupidity and a rebellion-repentance-restoration relationship with God. All those points were on full display in Costa Rica. This article, worthy of linking back to read in full, was ripe with firsthand observations, pictures, and ridiculous reminders from people behaving badly that not everything needs to be about us.  

The Parable of the Carafe was a leadership lesson in service and humility courtesy of Ms. Imelda, the master instructor. This unassuming Kansas City Marriott breakfast buffet hostess’s kindness and unselfish actions epitomized extraordinary service, singlehandedly preventing 100 caffeine dependent investigators from pummeling their course director. “Every organization in the world today should be teaching employees how to be extraordinary.” – Mark Sanborn.

Author with the extraordinary Ms. Imelda

A number of insightful comments and thought-provoking discussions while delivering training events in South America prompted me to write Changing the Gap Between Good and Evil next. Little has changed since the start of human history, evil in particular. As acquaintance, historian, author, and good friend of my dad, Michael Delaware, wrote in the introduction to his fascinating book Victorian Southwest Michigan True Crime, “…it is not the instrument of murder that holds any consistency, but the sinister impulse behind the criminal act wherein lies the true evil.” It takes a special person to stand in the gap betwen good and evil. I’m proud to have answered that call, and grateful for those peacemakers who continue fighting the good fight to restrain evil in the world.

As Far As the Eye Can See, rooted in the reliability of witness recollection and based on personally unreliable recall, it was just plain fun to write an reminisce. If you want a light read with a few good laughs at my expense, link back to it and give it a read.

The final essay of 2024, Go Sit on the Pot, both humorously and somewhat painfully illustrates the importance of dealing with constipation. Specifically emotional constipation. Failing to process emotions leads nowhere good and often involves off-ramping relationships by deflecting responsibility. But happiness, disposition, outlook, emotional, and physical well-being are individual responsibilities. So, if you’re constipated, emotionally or otherwise, take personal responsibility and action to fix it.  In other words, go sit on the pot. 

In summary, 2024 was a somewhat unexpected year of transition. A new role as training director coupled with increased private teaching and consulting resulted in over 90 days of business travel. As such, managing my schedule and finding balance again became a challenge. Thankfully, the blessing of leisure travel was largely unaffected, but the combined result was an unfortunate and unplanned decline in writing. However, I do sincerely hope the content that did make it to page the last 12 months was worthwhile.

Besides, all those experiences generated many ‘future article ideas’ for the coming year!

Nick Lavery wrote, “We cannot take our lives, our time, for granted. We must make every minute count…” He speaks with authority on that. Despite all odds against it, Nick not only survived being mortally wounded by machine gun fire, but he also successfully returned to full duty as the only above-the-knee amputee US Military Special Forces Operator. He chronicled the process of his success in the book Objective Secure, where he also advised to “persist despite achievement, stay determined in the face of success, move with a sense of purpose.” In other words, success or failure, never give up.

If it has to be one or the other, I will describe 2024 as a success. And I’m moving into 2025 with purpose, persistence, and determination. I hope you’ll stay with me along the way.

Happy New Year!

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.

Comer, John (2021). The ruthless elimination of hurry. Colorado Springs, CO: WaterBrook.

Delaware, M. (2024). Victorian southwest Michigan true crime. The History Press.

Lavery, N. (2022). Objective secure: the battle tested guide to goal achievement. Precision Components. 

Sanborn, Mark (2004). The Fred factor. New York, NY: Currency Doubleday. 

GO SIT ON THE POT

“You need to go sit on the pot.” – Tim Hawkins

Christian comedian Tim Hawkins is hands-down one of the funniest and most entertaining comedians I’ve seen. If you ever get the chance, I encourage you to rent one of his videos, Google ‘Tim Hawkins Yoga Pants’ or ‘marriage GPS’, or watch some of his stuff on YouTube. One of his many relatable bits involves Mom’s answer to many of life’s problems: you probably just need to go sit on the pot. Funny? Absolutely. And relevant. After all, laughter is good medicine. The conversations of adolescent boys everywhere confirm, regularly, the subjects of farts and poop are hilarious. And there’s certainly a case to be made about the relationship between regularity and wellness.

Not just physical wellness.

Constipation: a condition in which there is difficulty emptying the bowels, usually associated with hardened feces.

Emotional Constipation: a buildup of unprocessed emotions, or an inability or unwillingness to express such, *often associated with hardened feelings (*added by author).

I first heard the term emotional constipation in Tantor and Terk’s firey interchange watching Disney’s classic animated film Tarzan with my kids.

Tantor: That sounded like Tarzan. It sounded like – like he was in trouble.

Terk: Yeah? Well, why doesn’t he get his new friends to help him? I don’t care.

Tantor: Thaaaaat’s IT! I’ve had it with you and your emotional constipation! Tarzan needs us, and we’re gonna help him! You got that? 1

Twenty-five years later, emotional hangups are still ubiquitous to daily life and relationships, yet I was surprised just how much information there is available to help explain this concept of emotional constipation.

One counseling center’s website explains that people suffer from emotional constipation when experiencing “many more feelings than he or she has the skills to express or identify.” 2

Another describes that it may involve one “…unconsciously using self-protection as a way to limit yourself, your growth, and your happiness.”

Do tell.

I most like one of her answers on dealing with it, though: get over yourself (author’s interpretation). The counselor actually presented it as a challenge: “Get over your need to be comfortable all the time. When you feel something come up, feel it, label it, decode it, and let it go.” 3

Let. It. Go.

I recently had lunch with a friend. This friend has been through some stuff. If anyone is entitled to hardened feelings or should be given some grace concerning emotions, it’s her. Besides some very difficult subject matter, some of our conversation drifted to what keeps us busy in retirement and hobbies we enjoy. Music for example. My friend recently resumed playing after a long break and is quite enjoying it. Conversely, while I quite enjoy playing, I seldom do anymore. Predictably, the conversation went right to why I seldom play.

Being busier than a retired person should be is only part of the reason, I explained. After all, as mentioned in a previous article…you don’t find time to do the things that are important, you make time. It was more a result of conflicting loyalties and differing priorities.

My friend listened thoughtfully to lamentations about the circumstances of my musical hiatus, as well as about the subsequent ‘ghosting’ by a very good friend who convinced me to play in the first place. She then quite confidently exclaimed, “Wow. Someone clearly has some unprocessed emotions.”

I’m still not sure if she was talking about me, my invisible friend, or both.

Either way, interest in playing together, other shared activities and projects, and our friendship had vanished. Sadly, I don’t believe it was just unprocessed emotions of a very difficult and unexpected loss, but also some significant unresolved feelings from an earlier, completely unrelated, situation that coalesced to bring about the end of not only playing music, but a great friendship.

But wait, there’s more!

Webster included the word stultification in its definition of constipation, e.g. Stultification: cause to lose enthusiasm and initiative; cause (someone) to appear foolish or absurd. I believe unprocessed emotions, avoidance, and just plain selfishness brought about a lack of enthusiasm for continuing to play music together, and eventually the friendship. I mean, who needs all that emotional constipation? It’s much easier to just check out.

“I will never leave an Airman behind.” – USAF Airman’s Creed

I have been reading through Objective Secure, Nick Lavery’s compelling book about goal achievement based on his military service. Lavery is a US Army Green Beret who was critically wounded in 2013 while serving in Afghanistan. He is the first above-the-knee amputee Special Forces Operator to return to combat. In a chapter similarly entitled I WILL NEVER LEAVE A FALLEN COMRADE, Lavery extends its principle, typically reserved for warfighters, to anyone. Commit to doing “whatever it takes” in a given situation. He writes, “The warrior mindset is not exclusive to those who are warriors by profession.” 4

But Nick Lavery is a warrior. One colleague said during his quest to requalify as a special operator that he “carried himself as though he had never been injured.” He didn’t blame the system or look for a free pass. He was “just another one of the guys with a job to do.” He took responsibility for his rehabilitation, qualification, and everything else it would take to become fully operational again.

Do whatever it takes.

Tom Brokaw wrote in his 1998 book The Greatest Generation, “A common lament of the World War II generation is the absence today of personal responsibility.” At a time when people were more inclined to sue gun manufacturers than accept personal responsibility for failing to secure a loaded weapon, Tom Broderick, who lived the rest of his life blind after being shot in the head during his WWII service, says, “It was my fault for getting too high in the foxhole. That happens sometimes.” 5

There was no blaming the enemy or the manufacturer of the weapon for what happened. He wasn’t bitter or depending on others to make him feel worthy or supported. He didn’t blame someone else for making him ‘feel’ a certain way. Broderick accepted personal responsibility and refused to play the victim.

I’m not saying our experiences don’t count for something nor contribute to some of our (many) issues today. In fact, I’ve written about a number of my own experiences that have contributed to some of my hangups. But in the end, whose responsibility is my happiness, disposition, outlook, and emotional well-being? Mine, and mine alone.

If you’re constipated, emotionally or otherwise, take personal responsibility and action to fix it. Make an effort to make it right.

In other words, go sit on the pot.

Good friends, true friends, don’t come easy. Blessed is the one who can count but a few as such.

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.

Not actual pot.

Not actual poo.

1. Tarzan Wayne Night: Tantor. (1999). IMDb. Retrieved October 29, 2024, from  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120855/characters/nm0001431

2. Overcoming emotional constipation and internal anger. (2015, October 21). Heart to heart counseling center. Retrieved October 29, 2024, from https://www.drdougweiss.com/overcoming-emotional-constipation-and-internal-anger/

3. How to avoid emotional consitpation. (n.d.). Aligned holistics. Retrieved October 29, 2024, from https://www.alignedholistics.com/blog/how-to-avoid-emotional-constipation

4. Lavery, N. (2022). Objective secure: the battle tested guide to goal achievement.  Precision Components. 

5. Brokaw, T. (1998). The greatest generation.Random House. 

As Far As The Eye Can See

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Over the course of my career, I found witness recall to be at times remarkably accurate, and at others incredibly unreliable. Recollection can depend on a number of factors, including the object, person, or type of incident being witnessed; other activities ongoing at the time; the state of mind, mental acuity, physical or mental capacity of the witness; or outside influence (confabulation). As with other subjects, I’ll typically draw on personal experience when providing examples during lectures. It just happens that a recent speaking engagement in the same part of the state as a case consultation nearly 20 years earlier provided a timely and humorous opportunity to do just that.   

For about 15 years, I was assigned to a statewide team that specialized in the investigation and analysis of violent crimes.  There were many times over those years that my colleagues and I traveled across the state in the course of our duties. A number of those trips were to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with my partner, Terry.  

Known for its hunting, fishing, hiking, boating, long winters, and expansive wilderness, the UP (you-pee) as it’s referred to, is made up largely of wilderness, waterways, state and national forests, and hundreds of miles of Great Lakes shoreline. Equal parts picturesque and isolated, the UP is linked to Michigan’s lower peninsula by the historic Mackinac Bridge and bordered by Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Canada. On one hand, think Daniels’ Escanaba in Da Moonlight or Reeve’s Somewhere in Time; or further back, perhaps Anatomy of a Murder – set, filmed, and inspired by an actual 1952 murder in the desolate northern UP settlement of Big Bay.

On the other hand, consider three small but noteworthy universities (Northern Michigan, Michigan Tech, Lake Superior State); billion dollar iron mining and logging industries; massive freighters like the doomed Edmund Fitzgerald moving cargo from Lake Superior to the lower Great Lakes through the impressive Soo Locks; the hometown of famed coaching friends Tom Izzo and Steve Mariucci; a whole lot of great hockey; and even a couple U.S. Olympic training centers. The UP has a bit of everything.  

Credit: Apple Maps (screenshot)

Except an abundance of gas pumps, it turns out. 

Perhaps the link between time passage and sentimentality is at work here, but those UP trips with Terry back in the day are among some of my fondest work memories…largely because of him.

First of all, Terry is one of the finest human beings I’ve ever known. An ‘old soul’ in the greatest sense, there aren’t many like him anymore. He remembers literally everything. He’s a kind, caring, methodical, contemplative, put-others-first-even-if-it-kills-him, humble to a fault rarity. If selflessness, humility, and unassuming intellect were a radical group, he’d be his own sleeper cell. 

And did he take a lot of pictures!  

Everyone gave him a hard time about this, including himself, but whenever I find myself going through old photos, I’m reminded how grateful I am that well before cell phones, he was always ready with a camera, both at work and at my kids’ sporting events. Perhaps it’s no coincidence, then, that his photos immortalized several of those UP trips; the most memorable of which was a single trip involving an unforgettable night clerk, an overconfident boat captain, a questionable walk on the beach, and those gas pumps I mentioned.

Perhaps the beach photos would have been better left alone.  

It all started some months earlier during a vacation when my family and I traveled through a small UP town called Engadine.  I should note that once outside towns and villages, desolation quickly makes driving most parts of the UP dicey if you’re in need of facilities or fuel.

Inattention during the work trip with Terry that followed resulted in desperate need of both. 

To make matters worse, it was getting late.  Thankfully, the reflective glow of a sign pointing to Engadine appeared in our headlights. Relief swept over me as explained to Terry there was no need to worry, as I had recently passed through that very town and as luck would have it, there was a service station with “pumps as far as the eye can see!” 

Yep, I used those very words as I confidently assured him that not only could we refuel, but maybe even get some ice cream, too.  It was a few miles out of the way, but we were already on fumes and was our only option at this late hour. We made the turn north. 

A couple miles later we rolled into a darkened, deserted Engadine. Population 897.  In the same town I was certain I’d recently visited a petroleum superstore the likes of Buc-ees and Pilot, we instead found a couple of pumps next to a delapidated bait shop, at best.    

Actual station in more recent years. Photo credit: Google Street View

Therein lies my point about witness reliability.   

After absorbing some of Terry’s well-deserved harassment, we retraced our route south and continued on, hoping to find a motel for the night before an empty tank made our car a sleeper sofa on the shoulder of US-2.    

Thankfully, we found a place not too far down the road.  A quaint roadside motel along the northern shore of Lake Michigan. Not sure they were receiving guests, we stepped into the tiny lobby. The glow of a television in the back room betrayed the clerk’s opportunity to ignore us, and he reluctantly took his post behind the desk without bothering to slip pants on over his tighty whities of questionable age, functionality, and cleanliness. It’s an image forever burned into our memories.

I can assure you there is no witness recollection issue with this one.

The same goes for the boating incident later in the trip.

Having finished visiting part of a crime scene accessible only by water, we screamed across a bay near Pictured Rocks in a vessel piloted by our guide. The combination of an icy jump into Lake Superior’s frigid waters to dislodge our craft from a sandbar and the words still audible in my mind of our captain’s confident utterance only moments before in response to concerns we expressed about how shallow the water looked reinforce the accuracy of my recollection: “I know these waters like the back of my hand.”

Do tell.

No problem, it’s not that cold. We’ll just get out and push….

I don’t have an empirical answer to witness recollection. And I’ll never understand who thought that beach picture was a good idea. But I can say that photos, experiences, and the people I travel with help me remember things.

Thanks for the memories, Terry.

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.

Changing The Gap Between Good And Evil

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“There must be evil for there to be good.” – Course Attendee, Bogota, June 2024

I heard someone say at a recent training event that there are two things we all hate: change, and the way things are. Not only did I literally laugh out loud when I heard it, that statement is perhaps one of the all-time greatest representations of the human condition throughout history.

Here’s another one: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

At nearly every training event I now emcee, facilitate, or lecture at, I anecdotally refer to the human condition during my opening or closing remarks to illustrate how little things have really changed throughout history. It usually goes something like this:

1600s French artist Eustache Le Sueur’s painting The Rape of Tamar

I describe or project the above image and ask if anyone knows what painting it is. When no one responds, I explain it is an image of the painting The Rape of Tamar by 1600s French painter, Eustache Le Sueur. It likely represents the Old Testament biblical account from 2 Samuel 13 wherein one of King David’s sons, Amnon, raped his half sister, Tamar. Two years later, her brother, Absalom, exacts revenge on Tamar’s behalf by conspiring to murder Amnon.

At that point, I rhetorically ask whether anyone has ever read the Old Testament, and go on to point out that from the first recorded murder (Cain’s murder of his brother Abel out of jealousy), humans have consistently and unceasingly done terrible things to one another. Moses killed an Egyptian and buried him in the sand, and even King David, described as a man after God’s own heart, had Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, killed to conceal their affair. In the Old Testament alone are recorded countless instances of rape, murder, adultery, incest, conspiracy, assassination, execution, and a host of other issues that yet persist.

What we face today, I summarize, is nothing new. Perhaps greater in prevalence and creativity, yes. And certainly we can now bring to bear greater tools, techniques, procedures, and scientific advancements with which to find truth. Yet in spite of all that, little has changed since the start of human history. As acquaintance, historian, author, and good friend of my dad, Michael Delaware, wrote in the introduction to his fascinating new book Victorian Southwest Michigan True Crime, “…it is not the instrument of murder that holds any consistency, but the sinister impulse behind the criminal act wherein lies the true evil.”1

Indeed, Michael.

As I return from my third trip to Bogota, Colombia, where I’ve been honored and blessed with the opportunity to teach alongside incredibly talented presenters and help deliver training to dedicated, professional investigators from Central and South America, all the above hits a little closer to home. For while I don’t consider myself resistant to change, neither can I say it’s not occasionally uncomfortable or that I always think it’s necessary. Sometimes change is good, but sometimes things work the way things are. As fellow USAF Chief Master Sergeant Kevin Slater’s leadership book by the same title suggests, sometimes ‘Old School is Good School.’ And while seldom is ‘Because we’ve always done it that way‘ the right answer to a leadership challenge, this out of control social experiment of a world could occasionally benefit from a bit more of the ‘old way’ of doing things. But if change is necessary, let’s change things for the better!

Change is inevitable; growth is optional.

If I’m being honest, I didn’t completely know where all this was going when I started writing it. Maybe you can tell. But comments during a panel discussion at the course in Bogota, which coincidentally involved a change in the agenda, got me thinking. The panel was a departure from previous events, and I took a chance by including is in the final agenda. I’ve seen it work during many military training events I’ve attended, and envisioned the programmed Q&A methodology encouraging more interaction. But I really had no idea how it would go over in this type of course.

Reaction was fantastic! The other panel members and I were delighted with the response. Attendees asked an impressive number of questions and provided insightful responses of their own with unexpected candor. It went so well, in fact, that we adjusted the schedule to accommodate a second panel the following day.

Perhaps somewhat providentially, it was the response to one of the questions I posed back to the group that prompted this essay.

It was a simple question: Why do you do what you do?

I framed it in the context of known and suspected dangers and challenges they face in carrying out their duties in that region. Some responded that it was a logical choice, coming from a family of public servants; others described it simply as their calling. I believe them; no matter the reason, everyone I’ve encountered throughout these courses voluntarily, professionally, and proudly serves with purpose, honor, and distinction. They persevere.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Rom 12.21)

But as a man of faith, one answer struck me to the core: “There is much evil in the world. Yet there must be evil for there to be good. I (we) must be the good that overcomes the evil.”

I don’t know that I could add much more to that here, nor should I try. It was profound, heartfelt, and seemed to resonate with everyone in the room. So I’ll simply end as I started…with a quote.

Typically attributed to Edmund Burke, its true origin appears largely in question. Nonetheless, the message endures: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

I’m proud to have answered that call, and grateful for those who continue standing in the gap restraining evil in this world.

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.

1Delaware, M. (2024). Victorian southwest Michigan true crime. The History Press.