Over the course of my career, I have served actively on more than ten nonprofit boards. Some of those organizations have had a pretty high profile, which enabled me to make some professional connections that helped strengthen my own business and expand my client base. But that's not why I served. When people ask how I have grown my businesses, I often credit in part the community work I have done in the various cities I've lived. The follow-up question is sometimes predictab

On a walk one morning, my husband and I came across a deer that had been struck by a vehicle and lay on the side of the road. It was mortally wounded but still alive, terrified and suffering greatly. Having no control over its back legs, it thrashed with the front of its body, trying desperately to get up. It was within a foot or two of the side of Northshore Drive, at a bend in the road, where cars could not see it until they were upon it. We approached a stopped car on the

“Put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others.” It’s such a counter-intuitive statement, especially when I look over to my daughter seated next to me on the plane. As if I could bear to see her gasp even one time as I put my interests ahead of hers! And yet I know that if I reached first to her mask, in my fear and panic, my own breathing would increase as I scrambled to help her and keep her calm. And, of course, if I fall unconscious, I cannot help her at all. If y

A new semester began this week at Johnson University, where I resumed my role as the professor for a Marketing and PR class. I went into the class fully prepared, syllabus in hand, ready to bestow great knowledge and insight. But it was I who left changed last night by a simple truth spoken by a guest speaker, Stanley Taylor, a beloved friend of mine from Knoxville Leadership Foundation. It is a truth that I know, a truth that I hold dear, a truth that I have taught. But when