That is a line from Rachel Field, an author who fell in love with Sutton Island, in the Cranberry Islands of Downeast Maine. She didn’t grow up there, but her heart found its home there.

I feel that way about Deer Isle. I discovered it as a little boy, when my parents decided that their usual summer getaways (Cape Cod, etc) were getting just a little too crowded. Well there were no crowds this far up. We stayed that first summer at a gorgeous place called the Eggemoggin Inn. That was it. They booked different rental places for a couple of weeks at a time each summer, until they finally decided to buy. They bought some land on the water and built a house and retired to it. Mom and Dad lived year round in Stonington, Maine for about 14 years until Dad ‘s Alzheimer’s suggested the need for more health care and we moved them off the island. It was one of the saddest days of my life and I will never forget driving him out.

Stonington is a little fishing village.

Lobstermen live here. In the summer it attracts artists and some tourists, but this is not like southern maine. We don’t have beaches and tourist attractions. It is classic ‘real Maine’ with a rocky coast, an archipelago of over 70 islands and some of the most beautiful scenery you will ever see. The people are warm and straight forward. We will always be from ‘away’ and we know that, but it’s still a place where we feel we have roots.

My kids are now 3rd generation with ‘roots’ in Stonington and Deer Isle. We have since built our own house, on a wonderful cove on the ocean, and my kids love to visit which pleases me to no end. My youngest even started a kayaking business here.

Rachel was right – you don’t have to have been born in a place to feel like you have roots. This is where I feel good about life.

This might sound odd – how can something be both science and art? My many years of selling and sales leadership tell me that both are important, however.

Cultivating relationships, developing compelling proposals and presentations, these things are artful. Some people are just wonderful at developing relationships and earning trust from customers and clients. Their personality shines through during interactions and the old saw of “people buy from people” is not entirely wrong.

However, the science of sales calls upon process and data. This is true for the sales manager but also for the sales person. A good salesperson is excellent at relationships. An excellent salesperson is also excellent at managing the territory, understanding where he/she is in the sales cycle, using the tools at hand (CRM system etc.)

The sales manager relies on this data. The sales manager needs to understand yield (how many deals actually close from the pipeline), coverage (how many deals do we NEED in order to make target given expected yield), velocity (how fast do our deals of a certain size close) and all the varieties of the above in different geographies and territories.

Sales is a science…and an art. That’s what makes it so much fun!

Most of me thinks of this as a silly holiday, invented by Hallmark and the other companies that just want to sell cards and gifts. I don’t need a holiday to remind me that I’m a Father.

But then I hear from my kids…and I remember that I’m not just a father. Anybody can be a father, but I’m a Dad, and a Daddy. That’s different.

I have had a lot of jobs in my 40 years of working, since I got out of college in 1981. Most of them – probably all of them – have been rewarding to a large extent, even the ones that ended poorly (never my fault, of course). The one job I have had for 32+ years now is being a Dad. It is the best job I ever had. I think back on those 32 years and I know there were some tough times (ever had teenagers?) but all I really remember is the wonderful times. And – thanks largely to my ‘never give up’ wife, they all turned out well. Not just well, but actually great, on every level. They are all industrious and hard-working (from marketing to banking to medicine to entrepreneurship) but that’s just the tip of it, the indicator that they turned out well as humans. They all grew up wiser than I was at their age, more worldly and better global citizens. Some of that is due to the advantages we gave them – living and traveling around the world is not something everyone is lucky enough to be exposed to at a young age. But a lot of it is values. They care about the right things – some of those things are human rights, #blm, and the human condition…but again you have to scratch below the surface to see where it all comes from. They care about other people, not just themselves.

Every once in a while one of my kids will accuse another of being selfish. But you know what? It hardly ever happened, and that’s because none of them are actually very selfish. They try hard to see the world through others’ eyes, to recognize their own built-in biases and overcome them. That is truly great stuff, and it’s about values. I wish I could say that their mother and I taught them all that – and of course we do give ourselves credit for establishing that foundation when they were young enough to sit on my lap or ride on my shoulders – but they developed on their own. They developed at their own pace, in different directions in some ways, but always stayed together.

That’s one thing I am more thankful for than anything else as I pause to think about father’s day. We are all still together. We are still a family. We still love each other. We go out of our way to hang out – and that’s hard work now with them living and traveling all over the world.

They will all be here in Maine for July 4th, 2021. I can’t wait. As I look at them, watch them interact, share a beer with them and build a fire in the firepit, I will think just how goddamn lucky I am to be a dad.

Sometimes I like to write about a book I am reading. This is one of those times. I am living up in Maine, probably through the summer (it is 2021) and while I am working most of the day on zoom, when I have a break or on weekends, I am out in the fresh air, forest, pine trees, or on the water in a kayak. All of those things I do with our dogs (except the kayaks – they are not very cooperative in that regard). I’ve always known that this place makes me feel good. Since I was a little boy, there was something about arriving on Deer Isle, over the bridge and then across the causeway, that changed my mood. We put the windows down on the causeway (always) let the sea air in, breathe it in and let it do its magic. I can almost feel my blood pressure go down.

So I started reading The Nature Fix, by Florence Williams, mostly because my son recommended it. He worked at LL Bean in the winter and the book was sold there. I started reading and it jarred me, as the author recounts study after study about how nature indeed fixes us. The first chapter spoke about a study in Japan that claims that evergreen scents are almost like a miracle drug. They measure something called NK cells (whatever those are) and how the body gives off more of these (presumably this is a good thing) when around the scent of evergreens trees. Many japanese now ever use a humidifier with cypress oil each night in the winter. The scientist, when interviewed at his university lab in Tokyo, was asked “what else do you recommend.” His answer?

“If you have time for a vacation, don’t go to a city. Go to a natural area. Try to go one weekend a month. Visit a park at least once a week. Gardening is good. On urban walks, try to walk under trees, not across fields. Go to a quiet place. Near water is also good.”

I feel so lucky.

I recently decided to go back to work. It’s worth reminding all of my loyal readers out there (hello???) that I took pretty much the whole pandemic off from (for profit) work. I had finished working for a london-based fintech, the company was sold to Visa, I did about 6 months at a startup until it ran out of funding and then decided to just focus on non-profit work. I chair the board of Junior Achievement of Greater Fairfield County (JAGFC) and took up some pro bono consulting for other non-profits in the area, such as the Catholic Diocese and a couple of Community Colleges based in the area.

So, when an old friend called me, I was up in Maine, pandemicking with the family last fall. “What are you doing?” he asked. I was digging holes, planting stuff my wife told me to insert into those holes, hiking with the dogs, and enjoying periodic work episodes with the non-profits I was dealing with. My old friend had just taken a role as CEO of a mid-sized software company and needed a Chief Revenue Officer. It never hurts to talk to people, so I engaged with him and got interested. It took a while, but I was in no rush, and it was good to get to know the people involved….and then I joined!

I have been back at it for a month now – long days, dealing with clients, personnel issues, process issues, teamwork with colleagues, the whole nine yards. Some friends ask me why I went back to work, like it was the craziest thing they could think of.

After reflection, I have to admit – I like working! That’s the simple answer.

Yes, I was relaxed during this past year, able to read the paper each day, go for long walks with the dogs and my wife, read a TON of books (over 60 books last year) which I loved. However, the stimulation of work is a turn on. I like building teams, especially global teams. I like dealing with clients and cutting deals.

So there – that’s the reason; thats the answer. Take it or leave it..for now.

My kids grew up and left home. This is as it should be and of course we make extraordinary efforts to see them whenever and wherever we can. The also took our cars, which are now their own. Then they took our dogs (except my first, who got her own dog), so we figure it’s time to start restocking. First I bought a new car…needed it for the new job, since we only had one car between the two of us. Then we got this little dwarf shown in the photo above, sinking drunken songs (“wasting away again in Margaritaville” comes to mind) with his new older sister. His name of course is Gimle, named after the lead dwarf in Lord of the Rings. My wife wanted a small dog. My wife usually gets what my wife wants. (This took me many years to get used to)