My mother loves white beaches, rolling waves, and warm water, so each summer we joined the ranks of most of The South, packed up our car, and headed to Florida. Of course we always traveled by car, and, coming from personal experience, Texas is a large state, so these annual road trips meant some ten-plus hours nonstop that my brother, sister and I had to endure in the car together. Sharing a confined space, such as a car, requires a great deal of self-control, specifically body control. And so, on one of these voyages, when my younger brother, probably 5 years old at the time, had some digestive issues that caused him to become gassy, it pretty much caused general olfactory discomfort for the whole family. Instead of stopping the car for a bathroom break, hating to lose-out on the good time that we were making on the road, my father’s response was what is now one of his classic fatherly lines, “Now, son, you can control that.” After her outburst of laughter, my moth...
my ideas about learning and leading, contributing and questioning, my family and my work.