Moving the Needle: Get Clear, Get Free, and Get Going in Your Career, Business, and Life!

IntroductionWhy This Book?

It matters not whether we live up to the expectations of our fathers, but rather, we as fathers, live up to the expectations of our children.

—SAMUEL C. JOHNSON, author of Reflections of Lake Owen

Is there a moment in time you can look back on and recognize that fate, Divine Providence—or whatever you want to call it—steered you in a certain direction and changed your life?

That happened to me. Four years ago, I was in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota, hanging out in a spacious condo atop the Saint Paul Hotel. The residence belonged to my good friend Craig Leipold, the owner of the Minnesota Wild National Hockey League team.

We were killing time before walking to the Xcel Energy Center for the start of the Minnesota Wild game. A green leather-bound book on the coffee table caught my eye. The title was Reflections of Lake Owen, and the author was Samuel C. Johnson, who was Craig's father-in-law and the patriarch of a family company that bore his name and made consumer products, including Johnson Wax, Windex glass cleaner, and Ziploc bags. The book was some type of memoir.

I sat down on the couch and flipped open to the first few pages. Johnson's words from the prologue hit me like a dump load of snow from a full Zamboni.

“My dear grandchildren” is how the prologue began. What followed were the words he hoped his grandchildren would read some day. After wishing he could protect them from the pains and hurts that would surely happen in life, he said that unfortunately, ...