A view from The Gam.

"Those Old !@%#'s Were Pretty Smart, Weren’t They?”

Next up for You Can’t Take it With You are my own legacy hopes and dreams. And I will start with a six-acre piece of wooded paradise along the south shore of Lake Superior we call The Gam. We’ll get to the meaning of a “gam” in a moment by way of a little historical detour.

My wife Theresa’s identical twin sister Maria married a guy named Dave who chose the northwestern Wisconsin harbor town of Ashland to do his pediatric residency. He being a lifelong sailor, the big lake they call Gitchi Gummi held special meaning for him. Somewhere along the way, they were looking for a little lakeshore property and stumbled upon a spot six miles from Ashland on Lake Superior’s Chequamegon Bay that boasted dozens of soaring old-growth pines and 400 spectacular feet of sandy beach, boulders and crystal-clear blue water.

It was love at first breath, so they bought the land hoping to build a house and settle down there some day. But as fate would have it, Dave was offered a can’t-miss business opportunity 90 miles south of Ashland and the future of paradise was in limbo. One night, as legend has it, Dave and yours truly were sitting around a big campfire discussing – you guessed it – legacy. Or at least a little slice of legacy pie we wanted for our children and children’s children.

Gazing out between the pines on that moonlit bay, we were overcome with emotion (or was it good single malt scotch?) and formed a blood pact. Our families would join together in co-ownership of the property and form a trust that would preserve moments just like this one for generations to come. Our dream then and now: Dave’s great granddaughters or grandsons will be sitting around that same fire pit someday with my great granddaughters or grandsons, and one will say to the other, “Those old
!@%#'s were pretty smart, weren’t they?”

So we dubbed the new family compound The Gam, which is a seafaring term originally used by whalers to describe a social meeting or informal conversation at sea. The Gam – a perfect name for paradise, don’t you think?

Hey Coach, What Now?

Much of what I know about managing the ebb and flow of life I have learned managing youth baseball. For more than a decade, I served my teams, parents and community as facilitator, communicator, confidant, teacher, spiritual adviser, strategist, motivator, disciplinarian, comedian and a lot more, all between the left- and right-field chalk lines of a little league baseball field. Nothing I’ve faced in the pressure cooker, high stakes confines of a boardroom compares to the expectant, sometimes cynical, always vulnerable eyes of a 10-year-old.

My son Dane, left, and pal Michael,
exemplifying the best of youth sports.

What came as a real turning point for me – and catapulted what I was learning on the field to the rest of my life – was a kickoff speech by a legendary college coach at one of the dozens of clinics we attended each spring in preparation for the upcoming season. Coach’s presentation had nothing to do with hitting stance or throwing mechanics. Instead, his talk boiled down to one word: respect.

He then told stories of great games and players he’d coached in the past (some of them big leaguers), and that everyone knew when his team walked onto the field, they had to bring their “A” game. We were conveniently huddled near the school trophy case so he could dramatically gesture toward past team photos or banners emblazoned with the distinctive team logo. “Those guys were winners, gentlemen,” he said, “and you can be a winner too.”

He then lowered his voice to a whisper and told us he was about to share the greatest secret of his team’s success. Well, by this time most of the kids (and the coaches I might add) would have followed Coach into a lion’s den. “Respect,” he said, “our secret is R-E-S-P-E-C-T.” Looks of confusion started to spread through the group, and one of the more outspoken players said, “But, ah, coach, you already talked about respect.”

I’m Changing, Arranging, I’m Changing Everything

The early-spring weather here in Des Moines was so incredibly perfect today that I decided to blow off my afternoon schedule and go for a long jog through Waterworks Park. I’m not clued in on all the local fauna, but the blooming lilacs, magnolias and cherry trees just won’t be ignored. Run … stop and admire … run … stop and inhale … run … fall down under a blooming bough and gaze upward … you get the idea.

So at one point in this lovely cycle, my trusty genius playlist cued up the song Reflections of My Life by the band Marmalade, a Scottish rock group that achieved critical acclaim in the late 1960s. I’ll forgive you if are too young to have ever heard of Marmalade, but I suggest you take just a few minutes to run the video performance above from back in the day. And if you want extra credit, click through to YouTube and read some of the nearly 5,000 comments the 4 million-plus viewers have posted about this video. I’ll give you 10 minutes!

Okay, so now that you are back, how did you feel when you listened to this song? Thoughtful? Reflective? Melancholy? Well, that’s exactly how I felt when I first heard it blaring from the speaker of my uncle Bobby’s souped-up 1957 Chevy at the tender age of 13.  I thought, what will be the “reflections of my life?” Will they “fill my eyes” with good times, or will they reflect “sad tomorrows?” And what about crying and dying and “changing, arranging, I’m changing everything?” Pretty deep stuff for 13, but there was, and still is, something about this song that elicits these deep contemplations.

So snap back to the present for a moment, and consider what all of this means today. For me at least, it’s all about what I want my life to stand for when I’ve “shuffled off this mortal coil,” as Shakespeare via Hamlet so artfully describes death. Will anything I have done inspire a future generation to a greater understanding of themselves or the world around them? Anyone who aspires to be a leader must answer this question.

Big Legacies, Yes or No?

If you can't take it with you, yet you want to leave something meaningful behind, how do you decide just what that something should be? One way I've tried to answer that question is to look at people I know and consider their legacies.

My client Dick Lyles falls into the BIG LEGACIES category. If you called down to the proverbial "Central Casting" for the all-American success story, they would likely have sent you the charismatic and good-looking Dick Lyles: highly prosperous businessman and entrepreneur, author of nine books, rock-star media personality with a nationally syndicated radio show, honors graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and decorated Vietnam war veteran, and husband for 43 years to his high school sweetheart Martha, a former model and accomplished person in her own right.

Yet, when Dick was struck down by a rare infection eight years ago and almost died, he and Martha dedicated themselves to a new mission they hope will inspire 65 million American Catholics to a deeper appreciation and pride in their faith. And to one-up the ante, they and their supporters hope by doing so, they will have a transformative effect on American culture. That's what I call legacy, or as Jerry Porras and James Collins write in Built to Last, BHAGS (Big Hairy Audacious Goals).

Now let me tell you about Rod Wirtjes, a young man who grew up in Elmore, Minn., one of those classic small towns that might have captured the artistic imagination of Norman Rockwell. Rod was taught to treat everyone with thoughtfulness and respect, to be honest and work hard, and to take care of the people he loved and his community. He took these lessons to heart and by every measure succeeded as a loyal friend, co-worker and volunteer, and as a loving son, brother, husband and father. Rod's BHAGS were to actually be the kind of man that earns comments like the "backbone of the community" and "what makes America great."

On June 3, 1988, Rod Wirtjes, 30, was killed in a work accident, leaving behind a pregnant wife and a one-and-a-half-year-old boy, grieving parents, and a very large hole in a small community.