And the impact it had on my outlook and life path
When Hillary Clinton titled her book, It Takes a Village, published in 2006, I remember pausing to let the title sink in, and then smiled and nodded, as it made so very much sense. The clear reference that many influences are involved in building one’s life had also been the locomotion of my life, and the older I got, that philosophy became clearer. It became such a mainstay that later—when I became a father—I embraced it continuously:
- When the football coach came to dinner and reminded my son that he needed to display leadership skills along with being talented.
- When my daughter’s sixth-grade teacher took her to lunch and suggested she might accomplish more by challenging herself with tougher classes.
- When a cousin, who was becoming a successful insurance adjuster, took my daughters to her office on a Saturday to show them her prestigious office and 10th-story view of the park. That and then a hot dog from a street-vendor made all three of them sure they wanted careers before husbands.
