Have you ever stopped to consider who you really are?  When nobody else is looking - when friends and family are not present, who are you?  What guides your thoughts, actions, and decisions?  What influences have impacted your life to make you the person that stares back at you in the mirror.  Some of those influences and events may have caused you to react while other moments caressed and molded your thinking and doing.  Some of these things are stinging and hurtful while others are gentle and deepen our understanding of who we really are and what we aspire to be.  On November 23 Sony Pictures is set to release the movie Devotion which is set against the backdrop of 1950 America, the Cold War, and the beginning of the Korean Conflict.  The movie focuses on the story of Jesse Brown (played by Jonathan Majors), the United States Navy’s first African-American aviator to complete the basic flight training program and recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross. But here is the catch -

 Friends, co-workers, relatives, and acquaintances - some of the many relationships we have along life’s journey. Some of these people are genuine, authentic, and sincere.  And others…well, others are not.  Some of these people will use, abuse, and drain every bit of energy out of you - and then discard you to the curb like yesterday’s trash.  Maybe this is why it so difficult to trust and develop life-long friendships and relationships.  And to make matters even more complicated, there are times in life that we make such friendships but, in the process, we become blind to the shady behaviors those people actually exhibit to everyone else around them.   Enter the 2016 film War Dogs - a true story based on the opportunistic childhood friendship of Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz.  Efraim is an opportunist at best and a back-stabbing liar at worst.  Efraim has figured out a way to garner government contracts for small arms and ammunition that the Federal Government posts on a clearing-

 A simple truth about people who are gifted with the skills of leadership - they lead.  I know that sounds obvious - and to some degree rather trite - but the truth of the matter is that people who have the gifts of leadership can’t help themselves but to lead others.  It is what they are wired to do.  It defines “who” they are and “what” they are gifted to do in this life.  We see it in athletics, organizations, business, government, and on the battlefield.  As I write this post it is Veterans Day - a day set apart to honor those who have served over the decades in one of the branches of the United States Military - Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard.  Not everyone who serves in the military happens to be a leader - just like not everyone who plays a sport or works in business leads.   Leaders need followers - people who will carry out the orders or directives of the leader.  Some of those orders will be simple while others will be difficult and life threatening.  For exa

 Life is filled with choices, decisions, and pathways to travel.  One choice may close the door on others; one decision may open the door to different opportunities and cause you to travel down roads you never thought you would be on.  With each choice or decision you make something is being sacrificed - an opportunity or maybe a relationship.  Saying “yes” to one thing involves saying “no” to something else.  In 1997 executive producer Steven Spielberg brought to the big screen the sci-fi comedy thriller, Men in Black - a movie about a secret agency tasked with keeping a watchful eye on the comings and goings of the aliens on the planet earth.  Their work is carried out in anonymity.  While the Men in Black labor to keep the earth safe, the rest of the population has no idea that aliens are in their midst or that the Men in Black exist. What does this mean for those who serve in the agency?  Well, sacrifice.  Their identities are wiped from the conscious memory of society - no social