Look and Listen

Biography

I was a high school teacher for 9 years, from 1970 to 1979. In 1979, I left public education and got a job as a training manager in a major health care corporation and discovered that I was able to teach business topics because I had already mastered the hardest part...learning how to teach. I left the corporation in 1984 and became a business consultant after having advanced to be one of the top trainers at the corporate offices. Since 1984, I have taught leadership skills, presentation skills, team work, and interpersonal skills to business people. I have traveled extensively, working successfully in over one hundred different businesses ranging from the service industry to health care companies, accounting firms, greeting card companies, banks,technology companies and more. I wrote my first book because I saw how problems fester due to an unwillingness to talk frankly and listen openly. "Everyone Wins! Playing the Game of Conflict Resolution In All Your Relationships" is my contribution to a kinder, gentler, more peaceful world. Once people realize that the one common denominator to every conflict in which they are involved is themselves, they come to see how much power they have to resolve the conflicts in their lives.

Inspiration

I have always loved my imagined life of a writer. What could be better than creating a world that doesn't yet exist, but could? Early in my career, I was inspired by Ayn Rand. Not her economics or even her philosophy, but her characters and their willingness to stick to their ideals in the face of resistance and hostility. Robert Pirsig and his "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" showed me a world in which art and technology need not be at war. As a person who doesn't understand technology (and struggles to understand art), I found this idea exciting. As a young man, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and James Dean were profound influences. They stuck to their personal visions as they waited for the world to catch up to them. I am a child of the 60s. I still believe in a world where poverty is annihilated and equality is a reality. I am inspired by Mandela, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.I cry with joy when I see human beings triumph over their past limitations.