Last night I had a dream about Tom Peters.
Tom and I go back to 1994 when I joined his company. I ended up becoming a Vice President and putting my heart and soul into the venture for six years. I loved every minute of it, and developed deep, significant, and life-long friendships with many of my colleagues.
And Tom, of course, became a major influence on my thinking about business and leadership. (As he has for many–if not most–of you, too). Oh, we had our ups and downs over those years. It wasn’t always rosy, and we certainly didn’t see eye to eye on everything.
That would have been boring.
I went out on my own in November of 2000, and Tom gave me great words of encouragement and support. He said I was “headed for the marquee,” or some such thing. It meant a great deal to me, too, when, four years later, he wrote the cover endorsement for The Radical Leap.
I haven’t seen or talked to Tom for quite a while–not since his Re-Imagine summit in Vermont a couple of years back–so it was really out of nowhere that suddenly, last night, I dreamed that Tom and I were conducting a client event together (something we’ve never done) and having a great time connecting, commiserating and bantering.
I woke up this morning thinking very nice thoughts about my old friend/colleague/mentor.
Then, just a few minutes ago, I went to his website and saw this.
There must be a lot of very smooth geese in the world today, because I think I’ve got all their bumps.
And maybe even eerier, Steve:
I think this is like “.5 degrees of separation.”
On January 3 of 1983 I was brought in to help orchestrate the changes at AT&T following divestiture. We decided to have a small luncheon of about a dozen executives and wanted a speaker to sit down at the table and help people look at things differently. Tom Peters was that person, although I don’t recall him remaining seated very long!
Fast forward to September of last year. Took a client to a workshop to help clarify some of his thoughts about effective communication: there was another Tom Peters organization alumnus, Ron Crossland. A few months later I found myself having a good chat with Gregg Thompson.
Does this somehow mean we are actually related?
Fun post, Steve.
And maybe even eerier, Steve:
I think this is like “.5 degrees of separation.”
On January 3 of 1983 I was brought in to help orchestrate the changes at AT&T following divestiture. We decided to have a small luncheon of about a dozen executives and wanted a speaker to sit down at the table and help people look at things differently. Tom Peters was that person, although I don’t recall him remaining seated very long!
Fast forward to September of last year. Took a client to a workshop to help clarify some of his thoughts about effective communication: there was another Tom Peters organization alumnus, Ron Crossland. A few months later I found myself having a good chat with Gregg Thompson.
Does this somehow mean we are actually related?
Fun post, Steve.
That’s pretty amazing — coming totally out of the blue. I’d seen his post and figured that you two were working on something today. But out of the blue, wow.
Good luck!
That’s pretty amazing — coming totally out of the blue. I’d seen his post and figured that you two were working on something today. But out of the blue, wow.
Good luck!