Acknowledgments

It's here that I face my limits. This thank you looks inadequate as I reflect on your help with this book. So, my deep thanks and admiration for your skill and discipline.

Thank you to my mentor Alan Weiss, whose insights helped frame this book and support my writing it; my editor, Nina Taylor, a remarkable safety blanket that Linus would envy; and copy thinker–marketing whiz Jerry Fletcher.

Thanks also to the five generous leaders who shared some of their stories with me, and with this book. They picked up the pace and colored the picture: Nautilus CEO Bruce Cazenave, Restaurant guru Robert Maclellan, Oregon Symphony CEO Scott Showalter, Adelsheim Winery CEO Joth Ricci, and Triad Speakers founder Larry Pexton. Each has delivered creatively remarkable results in the businesses they have led and worked in. Their insights are authentic.

Special thanks to my clients, whose willingness to work with me has taught me much of what you'll find in this book. They relentlessly seek what works.

I especially want to thank my wife (and night psychiatrist) Leslie Neilson, MD, for hundreds of pithy insights that make me look wiser than I am and for the kind of marriage and support that books are written about.

Finally, thanks to friends and mentors including Rick Pay, Phil Symchych, Manoj Garg, Heidi Pozzo, Jerry Vieira, Bruce Hazen, and Norm Duffett, among many. This joint effort is the better for all of them.