First of all, I want to wish everyone a very Happy Mother’s Day!!! (celebrated in the US yesterday, Sunday, May 14)

I realize how busy everyone is, but if you didn’t get a chance to do it yesterday, I hope you take the time to let your Mother know how important she is in your life. If she is no longer with us, I would recommend a little “self reflection” or prayer regarding the influence she had on your life.

My mother, Patricia Kraemer, passed away in 2012, and there is never a day that I don’t think of her and the impact she had on my life and the lives of my brothers and sister.

Mom and me when I was about 1.5 years old
Mom and me when I was a couple years older 😀

It is hard to put in my own words the positive influence my mother had on so many people, so, as I often do, I will use the words of others. The first is from Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States:

“All that I am and or hope to be I owe to my angel mother.”

(Abe sums it up well!!)

And another of my favorites from the author Rudyard Kipling:

“God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.”

(How true it is!!!)

Okay, I better move on to my second topic before I get too emotional.

I had another busy week teaching the Kellogg evening and weekend students as well as the EMBA students in both Chicago and Miami. After every class I try to take a few moments and reflect on how truly fortunate I am to teach “values-based leadership” and “executive perspectives on leadership” to future leaders in business, government, and not-for-profit institutions. I find it amazing that I always learn as much from the students as they learn from me. I realize that until I can clearly explain concepts to others, I really don’t understand the concepts as much as I think I do. Also, I learn a lot based on the questions that the students and executives ask me and one another.

Two of the Kellogg classes are getting ready to graduate in May. Here’s the EMBA 128 class based in Evanston:

And here’s the EMBA 129 class based in Miami (Kellogg has a campus in the Hyatt Regency Coral Gables, a few miles from the MIA airport):

Here’s wishing everyone a great week!

Balance | Blog | Self Reflection