HNY 2023

I know. My annual update is late. I missed the transition from 2022 - 2023. I missed the switch from the year of the Tiger to the year of the Rabbit.

Some people know that I had a basement-to-boardroom career at a company that didn’t want to hire me. I’m now proud to say I’ve had a basement-to-boardroom-to-classroom career! Last September, I started as a term professor teaching tourism and hospitality at the Okanagan School of Business, in Kelowna, BC, Canada.

Despite relaxed restrictions and rebounding recreational travel, 2022 was a year like years often are after a prolonged, profound crisis. Trends we didn’t want to look too closely at previously now fill every feed and every timeline.

Conflict in Europe, tensions across the Pacific, and the rising temperatures of diplomatic debate are exceeded by the rising temperatures of our planet.

I’ve always said that combatting climate change is not about saving the planet, it’s about saving our species, saving humanity, and saving our ways of life. Whatever our differences and disagreements, they pale in comparison to the challenges that now lie before us.

When I was awarded a Carlson Fellow in 2014, Diana Nelson, Chair of the Carlson Board, introduced me with a line from a poem I had written.

Sometimes we’re faced with an impossible task, 
We think, where can we turn and who can we ask? 
Instead, we are quiet, we stand still and stare, 
“I didn’t cause, this so why should I care?”

Sometimes we watch the most terrible news, 
Of people who die while defending their views. 
We sit and we watch all the death and despair, 
“I didn’t cause this so why should I care?”

Sometimes we’re blind to the problems of others, 
And forget they could be our sisters or brothers. 
We pretend we can’t see or are just unaware, 
“It only hurts them so why should I care?”

Give it some thought and it’s quite plain to see, 
Those troubles out there, affect you and me. 
If we want to stay safe then we must be aware, 
The solutions begin with our willing to care.

Problems aren’t solved by heads stuck in sand. 
We need to engage and to reach out a hand. 
For we live in a world that we all have to share,
And that my dear friend is why we must care.

We need to replace conflict with communication. We need to combat crisis through collaboration. We all need to contribute. We all need to care.

Communicate, Collaborate, Contribute.

Stay safe,
Always Care