Doug McMillon knows stuff.

"[I] learned more in the first six months at Wal-Mart than I learned in 5-1/2 years of post-secondary education."

--Newly-named Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon in a 2008 interview (Source: NRF SmartBrief, 11/26/2013)

Observations like this usually come from those who encounter a cognitive dissonance between the classroom and the board room. There is, however, no qualities in street smarts that are inherently more valuable than those in book smarts. We only hear more about the former because there are more people that make their living using them. And I'm sure he didn't learn more, but rather something different than he expected. Hence the dissonance, right?

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Captain Dandy

I had a friend who shared this with me via email some time back. He has since died but was especially prescient and insightful and I may mine his emails for more topics. I’ll call him Captain Dandy.

The captain asked:

“What brings a person to the point where the only thing he worries about each day is getting from here to the grave whilst upsetting as few others as possible?”

I presume he meant “instead of doing something personally rewarding.” I didn’t have an answer for him then.

But as much as I try to make this life count, it’s what’s coming next that a Christian anticipates, and getting there as painlessly as possible is a reasonable hope.

Maybe that’s all there is to it, and even if there is nothing at the end of “it,” why hurt others along the way?

I think Captain Dandy suffered some private pain, but he didn’t share it, and I never asked.

[2013-11-16]

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