FIRESIDE No. 4 with Louis D. Romero

FIRESIDE No. 3 with Mary Ober

FIRESIDE No. 2 with Bob Pennington

FIRESIDE No. 1 with Joe Brouillette

&nbsp;
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://res.cloudinary.com/leath-group/image/upload/v1504651021/xvhlgigltohzzs1pokzm.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="240" />
&nbsp;
Please join us&nbsp;<a href="../blog/post/introducing-fireside" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FIRESIDE</a>&nbsp;tomorrow, September&nbsp;5<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">th, for the first installment in our new written/longform blog series.&nbsp;
In this troubled world, I guarantee our first guest's spark will pierce the dark and warm your hands and heart.
Find a new message of worky/life-hope <a href="../blog">right here</a>, every week through December 26<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">th&nbsp;2017. &nbsp;
The guise will be management, yes, and lots of it, but the essence will be life itself.
I'm a huge believer that "leaders are readers," and as someone always on the hunt for good, fresh information while sitting in a plane or on the road at a restaurant after a long day's work, my face drops when I find article after article on LinkedIn, Facebook, or wherever that is 2,000 words or less. FIRESIDE entries begin at 5,000 words, and some will run 10,000 words each. That's 15-20 single-spaced pages every week of 90-minute one-on-one interviews with some of the finest Executives and Managers and Leaders I've ever had the privilege to meet.
They are written so that you may share them, print them out, underline them, pin them to a bulletin board, or save them and return to them in coming months.
Most interviewees are not household names, but they should be, and several of them have served in pivotal roles in some of the most influential organizations in the world, or have gone unseen whilst making life-changing contributions behind the scenes.
A person responsible for voicemail. A person responsible for ticketless travel. A person responsible for daily operations in one of the finest glass companies in the world. A person responsible for educating/positively impacting thousands of children annually. A person responsible for one of the finest real estate companies in the region. A successful six-time author. One of the country's most sought-after mastery coaches. One of the nation's most influential natural resource advisors. An executive at a precious metals company that has weathered storm after storm, and still stands, head held high. A highly ethical/awarded investment and financial advisor. Two executives who have survived the worst losses one can imagine, come out the other side, and found new ways to contribute and make a difference. And on and on it goes: great people, often behind the scenes, with largely unheard stories that may sound familiar, and now you can put a name to a notion.
In our four months together, we visit Washington state, Colorado, California, Ohio, Arizona, New Mexico, Michigan, Texas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Florida, Minnesota, Ontario province, and many more locations TBD. We'll light bonfires all over the freakin' place, and I'll deliver the transcript of each straight to this blog mid-week for your eyeballs to consume.
There will be some fun surprises in there, and I think you'll be rewarded for faithful readership.
If you enjoy them, or are educated by them, or are encouraged by them, please share them.
For all its beauty, ours is a dark and fallen world, and I'm convinced we need every ray of light we can locate, and every warm glow we can muster.
Only time will tell whether you find either here, but I shall endeavor mightily to bring them to you...one pixel, one page, one interview, one week, one blog at a time.
Now that you've grabbed your marshmallows, blankie, and boots, all that remains is you.
Keep your eyes open. It's acomin' tomorrow.
Hope to see you fireside.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;###

FIRESIDE, Coming Tomorrow—

Got your s'mores? CHECK.
Got your blankie? CHECK.
Grab your boots and let's go!
Just two more days!
Please join us&nbsp;<a href="../../blog/post/introducing-fireside" target="_blank">FIRESIDE</a>&nbsp;on&nbsp;September&nbsp;6th, where our first guest's spark pierces the dark and warms the hands and heart. &nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;###

Tick-tock, 2 more days 'til FIRESIDE!

Please join me with your marshmallows&nbsp;<a href="../../blog/post/introducing-fireside" target="_blank">FIRESIDE</a>&nbsp;on&nbsp;September&nbsp;6th, where our first guest's spark pierces the dark and warms the hands and heart. &nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;###

Get those marshmallows ready, only 3 more days!

Please join me <a href="../../blog/post/introducing-fireside" target="_blank">FIRESIDE</a>&nbsp;on&nbsp;September&nbsp;6th, where our first guest's spark pierces the dark and warms the hands and heart. &nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;###

Igniting in 8 more days: FIRESIDE

Introducing FIRESIDE

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; line-height: 15pt; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">June 9, 2016&mdash;
To everything I wrote last year&nbsp;<a href="http://bit.ly/1ZBAK04">http://bit.ly/1ZBAK04</a><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;which still holds true&mdash;I would add "what a whirlwind your 13th year has been." Each June comes and goes more quickly than levels on a treadmill. Since the dawn of time, people have warned, "Enjoy every minute of it; before you know it, they're grown and gone." We listened, and we do, but nothing stops time, least of all the observance of each grain slipping through the hourglass.
God willing (every day being a gift), I guesstimate we have perhaps 214 Opening Night Movies together, then you'll kick us to the curb or fly our crazy coop and be gone to the winds.
In the meantime, I relish being passed by, for it means you are growing up, and that is good, necessary, and inevitable.
I notice now that you tromp me regularly in our conversations about movie trivia, answering at the buzzer when my mind drifts off toward, "What was that actor's name...you know...the one from...."
And you know all "the lingo," teaching me yesterday that BAE is not quite British Aerospace Electronic, as I thought it was, but is, in fact, something altogether different.
You're faster, sometimes forty steps ahead; you're taller, though not quite taller than me (yet!); you're quicker<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;almost always getting to the punchline or answer before your old man.
I love it. We've come a long way, kiddo, a very long way indeed.
As your 14th year begins, I pray it's the best yet.
Though often I'm right beside you, and sometimes farther behind, I am always here.
Now let's go see a show.&nbsp;

Happy Fourteenth, Lauren!

<div id="id_55721d576333b0056849918" class="text_exposed_root text_exposed">"Happy Anniversary!" &gt;8,395 dawns Spring 1989&mdash; Every Tuesday/Thursday at precisely eight o&rsquo;clock in the morning for thirteen weeks, I find myself in a sea of more than one hundred beleaguered Baylor freshmen. I sit in the center of the classroom for &ldquo;Earthquakes &amp; Natural Disasters,&rdquo; halfway in and halfway up. Three rows ahead&mdash;between me and the professor&rsquo;s obnoxiously bright overhead projector&mdash;I see the back of your haloed head, perfectly lit when he flips the switch and casts transparencies describing lava, Charles Richter and tectonic plates. You are ponytailed, routinely late, and always in sweats. You look like Courtney Thorne-Smith&rsquo;s sister and, naturally, I&rsquo;m smitten. October 1989&mdash; Alone, as has been my pattern, I go to a cinema one Friday night to see Look Who&rsquo;s Talking starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. I sit in the center here, too, halfway in and halfway up. Moments later, I notice you enter, accompanied by three or four girlfriends. I make a mental note, &ldquo;Find that girl.&rdquo; Days later, after some ferreting, grapevining, scouting and recon, I divine your name. In my dorm, I find a yearbook of sorts, scan to the D&rsquo;s and, jackpot, there you are. One nervous and awkward phone call later, we find ourselves on a first date. It is Monday, October 16th. Starting at the suspension bridge overlooking the Brazos, we walk, make our way to the grassy bank, toss a football, and eat and laugh at Wendy&rsquo;s for the better part of two hours. I have perhaps nine dollars to my name, worry that you&rsquo;ll order more than I can afford, but eventually think to myself, &ldquo;A girl who loves movies, runs post patterns in Levi&rsquo;s without batting an eye, and scarfs down a burger and Frosty instead of a salad...where do I sign?!?&rdquo; A few dizzying weeks later, I describe you to my dad by saying, &ldquo;With her, every day feels like Christmas.&rdquo; (We shall later use that as an excuse for leaving our Christmas tree up year-round.) For the next two decades, we&rsquo;ll experience our fair share of April fools, but it remains a lifetime of thanksgiving. May 30, 1993&mdash; You make me the proverbial &ldquo;happiest man alive.&rdquo; 1992-2015 We live in the desert. We live in an apartment the size of a shoebox with two sheddy cats. You endure my &ldquo;exercise&rdquo; phase, during which Weider home gym equipment cannibalizes precious bedroom space in three consecutive residences. You support me when I teach taekwondo in the evenings for extra cash. You wait patiently for years while I continue school, ceaselessly reading and writing and studying and striving to become a more able and stable provider. We win some, lose lots, tread water, and move a few times. You hold the fort, pay the bills, and subsist on 5-minute nightly phone calls courtesy of my worn and faded MCI card while I travel more than 2,500 days in the first half of my career and our marriage. In time, God willing, you bring two beloved children into this world, the first whom remains the light of our lives and the second whom we consecrate to memory and commemorate with steadfast friends and a laurel tree that now stands twenty feet high in the backyard of one of your girlfriends whom accompanied you to Look Who's Talking twenty-seven years ago. In all things&mdash;travel, business, residency, relationships, hopes realized and dreams periodically dashed, you trust me. You follow, accompany, lead, stand behind, stand beside, or carry. Despite my panoply of oddities and eccentricities, you&mdash;as in &ldquo;Earthquakes &amp; Natural Disasters&rdquo;&mdash;perennially stand before me and, now, for me, too. Often ponytailed, frequently in sweats, sometimes late, but forever there. Faithful, true, kind, gracious, grounded, funny, whip-smart, encouraging, warm, competitive, mischievous. In sickness and health, always loving and cherishing and leading and serving and supporting me and countless others. On those unfortunate but inevitable occasions when life, the economy, health, or people spat in my face and kicked me in the groin and burned my world to the ground and I found myself spent and rent and reeling and kneeling in ash and covered in soot, I have inevitably looked up and ahead to see that you remain, every time, my constant lighthouse in the storm. When the winds die and the smoke clears, you abide with a palmful of soil and seed as if to say, &ldquo;It&rsquo;ll be okay. God has a plan. Here, let&rsquo;s plant this, pray, be patient, and see what is re-imagined or restored.&rdquo; Time marches on; seasons come and go. And then one morning, up through the black arises a spritely shoot, then a meadow, then a forest. It reliably works this way. &ldquo;It will work out. It always does.&rdquo; *** 2016&mdash; Though I accept we cannot predict the future, I remain optimistic about it. We are guaranteed no tomorrows, but as we lie in bed at night, I run my fingers through your hair until you fall asleep, gently remove your glasses from your warm face, place them quietly on my bedside table, lock up, turn off the lights, ready our home for rest, and give thanks to the good Lord above for one more day. Perhaps tomorrow I will awake again, extravagantly blessed another time to be and do with you and buoyed by the hope that arrives with dawn.</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed">&nbsp;</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed">&nbsp;</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed">&nbsp;</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed"><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://res.cloudinary.com/leath-group/image/upload/v1464587893/vlq46lrpw8irngxzllah.png" alt="" width="300" /></div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed">&nbsp;</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed">&nbsp;</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed">&nbsp;</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" style="text-align: center;">&nbsp;</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" style="text-align: center;">&nbsp;</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" style="text-align: center;">&nbsp;</div>

Happy 23rd Anniversary to My Beloved Bride

Today a client asked for some possible images to express a recent idea he had. "Can you show me some 'ferocious' movie men, maybe?"
"Ferocity? Yessir, we can do that."
"And tenacious, determined."&nbsp;Right. Got it.
Fun assignment, up the proverbial alley.
In fact, I had just been talking with someone the other day about a few of these. Childhood memories, many of them.
There are some cool, nostalgic items here.&nbsp;
I only wish we'd had more than an hour (there are so many gems!), but he did say these succeeded at getting the incubatory idea across the ol' finish line.
Ooh Rah!
&nbsp;
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://res.cloudinary.com/leath-group/image/upload/v1462949379/atvy8qsxw2lwxufx4hsx.gif" alt="" width="292" height="548" />
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m gonna take this right foot, and I&rsquo;m gonna whop you on that side of your face, and you wanna know something? There&rsquo;s not a damn thing you&rsquo;re gonna be able to do about it.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Quickly as you can, snatch the pebble from my hand.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t mess with the bull, young man; you&rsquo;ll get the horns!&rdquo;
&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you can take us all.&rdquo; &ldquo;No, but I&rsquo;ll get an &lsquo;A&rsquo; for effort.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I want you to be nice, until it&rsquo;s time to not be nice.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Nothing like a good piece of hickory.&rdquo;
&ldquo;On the bloody morning after, one tin soldier rides away.&rdquo;