Speaking in Rhode Island on 5 September

How personal connections and small moments, over time, define your career

I have never been good at getting my picture taken with people. Some people in this business are brilliant at it, and I’ve always been a bit jealous of the skill.

Why?

It’s proof of the story you invariably end up telling, otherwise it can sound like you’re just making things up or — worse — you yourself begin to doubt whether or not it ever happened. The latter situation can happen not because you’re particularly weak of mind but because, when you give as many talks as I have over the years, it all gets pretty blurry on details, sometimes so much so that you yourself begin to doubt whether or not you really did something.

I recently connected with a guy on Linked In. He had worked for Henry Kissinger in the latter’s post-government years, and had remembered sitting with him in the audience at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in 2006, when I gave a presentation on the Cold War and America’s “special relationship” with the UK. I remember the day well: big screen, tall stage, and Kissinger front and center in row one. Brief handshake and compliment following, so a neat day and memory. And yet, until this guy connected with me yesterday and mentioned it, I had completely forgotten most of that experience. I definitely blanked out on the black-tie social that went along with the conference. I honestly don’t know if I attended that.

Interesting line-up, huh?

Another example: in the dark days following Senator John Kerry’s agonizing (just 60k votes short in OHIO!) loss to George W. Bush in 2004, I was brought in by his foreign policy guy, Jim Ludes, to give him the then-Pentagon’s New Map presentation in his Senate office building (can’t remember which but I remember the room). He sat across from me on a conference table and I gave him the brief just off my laptop, with Jim off to the side (having seen it previously in a living room presentation I gave to a bunch of Kerry campaign foreign-policy players at James Blaker’s place in DC in early 2004 [Jim and I go all the way back to my original days at the Center for Naval Analyses {CNA} starting in 1990]).

Anyway, talking to Jim Ludes yesterday on a conference call about this upcoming event he’s hosting at the Pell Center at Salve Regina U (Jim is now the director of the Pell Center), he reminded me of both talks (meaning we two go back exactly two decades) and noted that my several hours with Kerry had been engineered by his staff to get him thinking about what came next for him (a huge question at the time).

I knew none of that at the time; I was just thrilled to spend some quality time with a man I deeply respected and had actually voted for in a presidential election! [How many times you do you get to say that?] Kerry did seem subdued at first, but we went at it, one-on-one, for 2-3 hours and I was seriously blown away by his intellect. I mean, I knew he was smart and everything. It’s just different to have the actual conversation and feel it up close and personal.

Kerry, of course, goes on to be Secretary of State under Obama and then serves as Biden’s climate-change czar of sorts — you know, the kind of stuff that great leaders just casually do at those turning points in life. I take zero credit for any of that and yet feel positive about my cameo in the entire proceedings. Why? Because I’m still that small-town (then 2,100 souls) kid from Boscobel Wisconsin who long ago dreamed of having moments like that and who still finds them thrilling in their way.

What I do is a sad and lonely business (I know, boo-hoo!): you run around trying to light people’s imaginations and, the vast majority of the time, you get a nice pat on the head and you’re complimented for being “so entertaining!” Your batting average is … pretty darn low, and yet, when you connect, it can be your version of a home run — a tiny seed planted in the great work of others. That’s why I’ve always felt kinship with John the Baptist: you’re not the guy but, if you’re really lucky, you’re sometimes the fellow setting the table for the guy. And who knows, maybe you place that fork just so!

I’m not complaining whatsoever. I have chosen this life and this modality of work and these sorts of experiences — time and again across my decades. It is who I am and I really like being me … right on the edge of history, nudging events and people here and there and trying to do no harm.

So, to provide a heads-up on a rare open-to-the-public presentation by me, here are the details now online for the event in Newport in early September (click anywhere to register).

So … I’m sharing the stage (sequentially) with Secretary Kerry, who will keynote. Also speaking will be Sherri Goodman, with whom I likewise go back roughly three decades (she was general counsel to CNA back then).

Sherri herself is an amazing case in point, having forged a unique career I would gladly claim as my own: essentially seeding and bringing to serious fruition throughout the U.S. national security establishment the recognition of climate change as a supreme security issue. There is no job title for what she has accomplished over the years. She just went out and did it, and within days she has a book coming out explaining exactly that.

I have an advance copy and will be reviewing it here later this month once it’s out and immediately available. Having just peeked at the book, I will tell you it reminds me a great deal of The Pentagon’s New Map in that Sherri takes the reader inside rooms — something I love in a policy-minded book.

Sherri is, right now, pretty much having a Taylor Swift-like career year where she seems to be picking up a lifetime achievement award every Tuesday — seriously! I couldn’t be happier for her or more admiring of what she has achieved, and it will be very cool to share the stage with her and Kerry next month.

All this is just to say, that’s how this business works: you wander around in your career and you keep intersecting with others wandering around in theirs (most, more purposefully than me — obviously, because I’m just the ideas guy).

Another example before I go today: I spent a couple of hours with one Karen Fleckner yesterday. She’s the CEO and Founder of Artesion, “a product and services company offering breakthrough technologies to meet industrial, commercial, residential and municipal customer’s water treatment needs.” Karen got turned onto me by some retired flag naval officer and is now reading both The Pentagon’s New Map and America’s New Map at the same time!

Anyway, this retired flag, with a key assist from my CEO Brandon Jones (fmr Department of Navy major-facility CIO) thought Karen and I needed to met. So, yesterday we did for those fabled two hours of mind-melding that continues to define my career. I came away stunned by her intelligence and vision and business smarts. Where does it go next? All sorts of possibilities.

But me? I’m just thrilled for the moment, the connection, and whatever ensues.

Because that’s my career in a nutshell.

---