Placing Stones

By Christopher Hodges

A young professional and family man is conflicted and unhappy. Though away on a reward business retreat he is distracted by thoughts of home. A celebrated guest speaker then awakens his sleeping ambition. Frustrated and excited he escapes to a coffee shop to think. Befriending an eccentric mentor he begins a fulfilling journey, and learns to “Achieve without regret and sacrifice without envy".

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christopher Hodges
• Release date: Aug 26, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452470856

Christopher Hodges

Christopher Hodges was raised in San Diego, California. He is a graduate of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and the London Business School, UK. Professionally he has served as a Naval Officer in the US, Japan and the United Kingdom. He has worked internationally as a business executive and management consultant across multiple industries. He advises both government and commercial organizations on operational excellence and performance improvement. Chris is also a successful entrepreneur, public speaker and fitness enthusiast. He lives with his wife and son outside Washington, D.C.

Book preview

Placing Stones

Doing and Having What Matters Most

By

Christopher W. Hodges

Copyright 2010 Christopher W. Hodges

All Rights Reserved.

ISBN-10: 0-9844012-1-0 ISBN-13: 978-0-9844012-1-5

Smashwords edition first published 2010.

Except as permitted by the Copyright act of 1976, no part of this publication may be used or reproduced or distributed in any manner or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher.

Lyrics of Cat’s in the Cradle used by permission – Alfred Publishing Company Inc.

Cover artwork done by Darren Wheeling of Black Egg Syndicate, www.BlackEgg.com. Rear cover photo Jin An.

Smashwords Edition License Notes:

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Time and Tide LLC

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my wife and children with whom I hope I have so far invested, and promise to continue to invest, the time and energy they deserve.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the many people who have been willing to contribute to this book, some of whom I am certain to have missed. The story is about life and the challenges of achieving what we individually believe to be success. While we go about this differently and make different decisions in the process, the path has many similarities and common lessons for all.

Specifically, I want to thank Joyce Peters for her steadfast support and tireless edits in the early stages of the writing and Sue Reynard for providing the professional edits and story ordering in the later stages. Also, Walt Mores who provided several reality checks and perspectives along the way.

For conversations I can’t exactly remember and the many contributions and insights which became part of the story, I thank Evan Oliver, Phil Kilgore, Rob Sharples, MGEN Craig Bambrough, Kathy Richardson, Karl Lee, Colin Wooldridge, Mark and Nicki Delacroix, Heidi Harris, Anne and Dana McKinney, Steve Walsh, Rohan Prabhu, Jin An, Richard Zimitz, Tom Shine and Dr. Jim Chamberlain.

For providing life inspiration and lessons I want to thank Bonnie and Dallas Clites, Floyd and Graham Walters, Lance Armstrong, Evan Oliver, Scott Roth, Gil Price, Lori Weiman, Jack Welch, Chris Mann, Anne and Dana McKinney, Harry Chapin and John Lennon.

For all that it takes to be married to me, I thank my wife and best friend Chihiro Nishida Hodges.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 – Is This All There Is?

Chapter 2 – Fun Runs And Ego Contests

Chapter 3 – The Olympic Torch

Chapter 4 – An Accidental Confession

Chapter 5 – I’m Already Gone

Chapter 6 – Preparing To Meet The King

Chapter 7 – The Rise To Power

Chapter 8 – Putting The Formula To Work

Chapter 9 – So You Want To Be Mr. Rogers?

Chapter 10 – Bringing Success Home

Chapter 11 – Superman Is In Great Shape

Chapter 12 – Only Gods Get Personal Trailers

Chapter 13 – Faster, Better, Stronger

Chapter 14 – Throw It In The Pot And Stir

Chapter 15 – It’s Harder Than It Looks

Chapter 16 – The Lady, The Admiral And Their Stories

Chapter 17 – It Looked Better On TV

Chapter 18 – Master, Where Did I Go Wrong?

Chapter 19 – Selective Blindness Carefully Applied

Chapter 20 – Personal Best

Chapter 21 – Creating Your Own Recipe

Chapter 22 – Acing Your Own Final Exam

Conclusion – When The Student Is Ready…

About The Author

Prologue

The man watched his steps dissolve in the surf.

What were once clear sand-casts of his toes were now only shapeless ghosts of footprints. As the impressions melted away he reflected on the haunting anxieties and chronic frustrations, which had only recently faded from his life.

Choice and luck had fundamentally changed both how he viewed the world and how he lived within it. His spirit was renewed.

A clear purpose, specific goals and a new definition of personal success now replaced all the doubt, conflict and frustration that once filled his mind. He’d learned the ancient wisdom of Placing Stones.

He now felt free to achieve without regret and sacrifice without envy.

It hadn’t always been this way.

Chapter 1 – Is This All There Is?

Colin Burke entered the hotel room at a swank golf resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, heaved his black roll-aboard onto the luggage stand, dropped the meeting package on the bureau, and plopped down on the bed.

Reward Trip, that’s what his company called this attendance-required annual business meeting. What an oxymoron, thought Colin. A reward would be spending time away from office politics, competition, and stress—not three nearly round the clock days of it, yet another three days away from his family. At least during his military days Rest & Relaxation meant time away from the ship.

What made the feeling even worse was that Colin knew this reward trip was in recognition of successful annual results; results he knew were barely achieved and only with the help of creative, albeit legal, accounting moves.

Colin worked for an international professional services company headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland. After spending the early part of his career in the military, he’d been with the company nearly 10 years. Now in his late-30s, his hard work had contributed to a rapid rise from analyst to one of several Vice Presidents in the operations department. Along the way he’d held a coveted foreign assignment and landed promotions through several divisions.

Looking back Colin remembered a time when he would have looked forward to this kind of meeting, a time when he was eager to learn more about the company and get further ahead in his job. In the military he felt a passion for the mission and, since leaving the service and for most of the past decade, he’d worked long and hard to earn more responsibility and authority in his company. But now, his career and the company were shrinking parts of his self identify. In fact, rather than energizing him, work regularly left him drained and three days of the office politics mambo wasn’t going to help his mood.

He shook himself mentally, reminded that this business meeting was essential to his career and, therefore, to his family’s well being. The ever-present voice of his parents echoed in his head:

Live big! You have what it takes to achieve the complete American dream—family, wealth, health, power.

If you’re going to make those dreams come true you can’t do anything half-assed. Go for the top, or don’t go at all.

He looked at his watch. Ten minutes past four. Only 50 minutes until the kick-off reception. He wanted to call his wife, but there was another voice in his head, that of a famous executive he’d once met and greatly admired: Never pass up a chance to get ahead. You have to use every moment to your advantage. In Colin’s place, that executive would surely have spent the time reviewing the background reading and sketching out a schmooze plan of attack, mentally reviewing all the people whose hands he wanted to shake or ears he wanted to bend at the reception.

Ignoring both inner voices, Colin reached for the phone.

Bad luck, he got the answering machine. His now-10-year-old son Kyle made the recorded message two years ago. The voice sounded much younger than the growing boy sitting on the living room couch last night. Colin wished he could talk to his son in person, but settled with leaving a message.

Still reluctant to focus on the business meeting, given that he was about to spend three days unable to escape the topic, he thought briefly about other options for spending the time. He had his gym clothes with him and could go to the weight room for a quick workout. He could go for a jog and listen to one of the business audio books loaded on his iPod. He could use his laptop to surf the Net and get caught up on the day’s business news or he could read the copy of The Economist.

He had subscribed to this particular weekly newspaper for 15 years, after meeting a Foreign Service diplomat at a cookout. Colin had been deeply impressed by and somewhat envious of the diplomat’s depth and breadth of knowledge. The young man had claimed that reading The Economist every week was how he stayed up to date on the world.

Finding the man to be a worthy role model, Colin had started a subscription immediately. He carried a copy with him wherever he went, but somehow never got around to finishing one week’s articles before the next copy arrived. Another good intention he struggled to live up to.

Good intentions didn’t carry the day now, either. He put aside the magazine and the iPod, thought guiltily about the piles of work papers in the briefcase and the running shoes in his suitcase, ignored the laptop… and reached for the TV remote.

Ten minutes before the reception was to start, Colin decided it was time to clean up and go. He splashed some water on his face, tucked in his shirt, picked up his plastic nametag, and walked out into a nondescript, but still all-too-familiar, hotel corridor.

As he walked to the elevator, Colin absently thought about the plastic name badge on his lapel, a tag that let people act as if they remembered your name when, of course, they likely had forgotten it, didn’t know it to begin with, or would soon forget it. Nametags, he thought, were the icon of an impersonal event. The fact that the president and several of his top lieutenants managed to never wear their tags was not lost on Colin. After all, everyone recognized the top leaders. Colin wanted to be a No Nametag guy. It’s what his dad would have included as being on top. Sometimes, Colin agreed; other times, he wondered if it was a pitiful aspiration.

Colin arrived in the designated reception location, clearly marked by splashy posters welcoming the valued leaders of his firm and displaying this year’s sales slogan: We take care of business for companies in the business of care. He was now among 150-plus fellow employees comprised mostly of the company’s top managers with several tag-along, self-promoting wannabe top managers.

Colin was grateful to see a group of familiar friendly faces, people he knew and liked from the Buffalo office. He walked over to join their discussion. The conversation was polite and superficial, only briefly touching on office gossip and clearly avoiding politics, sex and religion. Predictably, the talk turned to sports, usually a safe subject at work.

Ironically, Colin suspected that most of his colleagues, like himself, didn’t have the time or perhaps even the genuine inclination to watch all the sports they claimed to see. They likely scanned the sports pages or watched a wrap-up show to be conversant when politically helpful. When these superficial details were exhausted, the topic quickly faded.

Mostly, Colin and the group from Buffalo just stood on the fringe and spoke about nothing in particular—family news, movies, celebrity gossip. In situations like this, there were too many opportunities to damage your reputation, offend someone by being politically incorrect, or expose yourself to personal criticism. Colin was, however, sometimes amazed at how petty some of his other colleagues could be, often hearing their comments on people’s clothing choices, shoe styles or some other superficial point.

Scanning the room, Colin was reminded of those pictures of herds of animals gathered on the plains of Africa. Maybe when antelopes stood majestically on Kenya’s Masai Mara, they were really thinking something like Hey, don’t get too close to the others, or tell them too much. You never know which of these guys wants your turf, far away from the lions and closest to the choice grass. Or maybe, Did you see the way that guy parts his fur; what was he thinking?

Colin wondered how many of his colleagues felt like antelopes. How many would really prefer to be somewhere else, anywhere else, free?

With an abrupt tap, tap, tap on the microphone, the division president took the stage—without a nametag. The executive stood center stage and proceeded to deliver the obligatory welcome address. "First, I