Moments of Passage

In life there are pivot points (see previous essay) and there are moments of significant change, and rarely do we get the chance to mark/recognize or celebrate these “moments” appropriately. Well last week was just that situation for yours truly, and I am proud to say that the event or “moment” was highlighted in very appropriate fashion.

After an amazing experience at Bolthouse Farms, last week I announced my plans to “retire” after having had the chance to work on the business and brand over the past five years. In many ways the time has absolutely flown by, learning so much, having so many new experiences, gaining great respect and affection for the agriculture element of our business, to name a few key highlights. Just the experience two years go of selling the company, ultimately to Campbell’s, was one that I will savor and cherish for years to come. I put “retirement” in quotes to highlight that while that is how we have announced my planned departure, I am not planning on retiring professionally. I have loved my time at Bolthouse, but having flown one million+ miles over the past 3-4 years, I needed and wanted more time with my family, thus the announcement last week.

Now with all of that said, transitions are never easy, and I am not especially good at them personally, so I wanted and needed to do something special to highlight this significant event. Thus a plan started to brew some months ago. I had my eye on an old, restored, Mercedes diesel sedan that was in Los Angeles. While no show car, it had been restored nicely and was in great shape and I went to see the car when I was in LA and started falling in love. Coincidentally, my dear son Bryson talked this past spring about wanting to do a big road trip, just him and me, and the spark of a plan was started.

Well last week that plan came together in a big way. Sunday, August 2nd, was the end of our fiscal year and we announced my departure plans on Friday July 31st. Bryson and I flew to LA on Sunday August 2nd, and after a few hours making calls and wrapping up a few things in our Santa Monica office on Monday, we found our way over to Glendale California (check out, www.mercedesmotoring.com, an awesome place that really know and love these cars), picked up our car and drove back home to Atlanta. Five days on the road, what a perfect way to digest this big event, spend some amazing hours and adventures with my 16 year old son, break in and completely fall in love with a new “old” car, etc. What a way to mark this “moment of passage!” Bryson wrote a blog during the trip, so if you want more of those adventures, checkout www.oneweekontheroad.blogspot.com.

For me, the nexus of the adventure occurred Tuesday afternoon, outside of the Petrified Forest in western New Mexico. Over the past four plus years, I have held a weekly (every Tuesday) conference call for a broad portion of our company at Bolthouse Farms. I would cover weekly/monthly/quarterly performance metrics, key customer/brand issues & opportunities, and close with the focus points for the week/weeks ahead. Every Tuesday, one hour, varied locations, rain or shine. Well last week, from outside the Petrified Forest, I was going to lead my last “weekly call.” I had prepared my numbers and reports as usual, and was prepared for an emotional “moment.” As I sat in the car, Bryson took his guitar, left me to my conference call, and went to sit in the shade in front of a convenience store and strum away. As I sat there, reviewing my last set of numbers while watching my dear son playing his guitar in the shade, I had tears in my eyes BOTH from the company and team that I will desperately miss, and the family that I am so anxious to spend more time with; both “moments” and profound truths exemplified in the parking lot in western New Mexico.

When you have ‘moments” of significant change in your life, and we all have and will, try to find your own way to mark, or celebrate them so they can have the right significance and place in your personal stories. While they may not contain a sixteen year old playing a guitar near the Petrified Forest in rural New Mexico, try to find your own authentic way to literally create memories for a lifetime!

Life's Pivot Points

It is a rare treat to share part of your past with those you love. Earlier this summer, I had the pleasure to take my family back to Edinburgh Scotland, where I spent part of my junior year of college. Like many students, my time abroad was exciting, challenging, a time for growth and exploration and for me a time of one of my life’s “pivot points.”

As I look back across my life, now spanning five decades and counting, there have been a few moments, or as I like to say “pivot points,” that have been dramatic “crossroads” moments of my life. As I said, there have been a few, and candidly just a few, dramatic “pivot points” as I look back over the years that have significantly affected the trajectory of my life. While I will expand on the “pivot point” that occurred so many years ago in Scotland, there have been a few other significant pivots over the years. Two of the most significant moments were my decision to propose to Jennie (and for us to get married now twenty seven years ago) and our decision ten years later to have children. Both of these decisions significantly altered the path of my life at that moment (and clearly the lives of others,) and has lead my life down paths that would not have been explored if other decisions had been made at those “pivot points.”

My moment in Scotland was no different. As I mentioned, I was a college junior, a religion major, who had the chance to study at the Divinity School at The University of Edinburgh. New College (the name of the school) was a wonderful academic environment with students from all over the globe, studying for their masters or doctoral degrees in divinity, and here I was an undergraduate student in this “rarified air.” The academics were wonderful, the professors challenging, the other students engaging, the University filled with things to explore, and other than struggling to learn the taste for Haggis and Black Pudding, my time in Edinburgh was thoroughly enjoyable; that is to say with one MAJOR exception!

I had lost my mother when I was 13, and since her early passing, I had become more and more involved in our local church. Leading Sunday school classes, preaching kid’s sermons, attending summer church camp, etc. I was “certain” that my future was destined to be in a church environment and as I headed to college, I was again “certain” that I was going to be a religion major and that I would head after college to a seminary or divinity school to study for my M.Div.( Masters in Divinity) and then be ordained. I was “certain” of my path candidly until I arrived in Scotland.

It was there, in the snowy cold months of late fall, that I approached a “pivot point.” I loved the academics, and I was flourishing in all the classes, my professors were tremendous, engaging and challenging, the other students fascinating, but as the weeks went along, I started to realize that while I was “vocationally” interested in a professional life in the church, I certainly wasn’t “called” in any spiritual sense to that life. As that became clear, it also was apparent that the folks I was engaged with all around me in that setting who I really admired (faculty, other students, staff members) were the ones who DID feel some sort of “calling” to this path of life. Well to make a long story short, after significant soul searching (more on that below), I left New College after one semester, came back to college, changed majors (from religion to economics) and proceeded to head to Vanderbilt University for my MBA , and the business career that I am in the midst of today.

As I stood in the courtyard of New College this summer, with the statue of John Knox towering above me gathered with Jennie, Bryson and Marie, that decision of thirty three years ago seemed amazingly life changing in hindsight. It was in some ways overwhelming to think about how my life would have been different if I had chosen a different path in Scotland. Would Jennie and I be together? Would Bryson and Marie be alive? Would I have been happy? Would I have had a bigger impact in life??? The questions just seemed to expand. After a few deep breaths I gathered myself and truly reflected on how fortunate I feel in life; with such a good marriage, such wonderful children, such a productive and successful career, etc. I am truly fortunate and I sincerely live life without much regret. What I did reflect on though was that “pivot point” and the elements of “how” I made that decision. As I thought more deeply on those moments in Scotland, I realized that they had a lot in common with the moments surround some of my other “pivot points” of life.

Here are a few reflections on the common “elements” of those “pivot point” decisions:


Get some time to yourself, give yourself room: It sounds so simple, so straight forward, but candidly it’s probable the most difficult of these three ideas. How to do find time away from the pressures of the day to day, made so much harder today by the incessant cacophony of email, texts, tweets, social media. Etc. I found it critical in these big decision moments to “steal away” and find the space or the “room” to dive into the decision at hand. In Edinburgh, it was easy to find time alone for walks across that beautiful city, thinking about the matters at hand, pondering the options and possible implications.



Seek advice but not too much: In a time of formal mentor relationships and an unbelievable amount of on-line advice, it may seem counter intuitive for me to say to not see too much advice. . Seek input from a very close group of trusted associates who know you VERY well, then hunker down and do some “soul searching.” Getting input too broadly will certainly end in a confusion of voices, opinions, perspectives all with good and sensible points and counterpoints. In these big “pivot points” of life, it really is up to you to sort it out for yourself. It is only YOU who will own the outcome!


Listen to your heart/gut more than your head: Once you get all of the input you need, with a bit of time and space away from the “rat race” of life, my advice is to work hard on “listening” to your heart/gut. In these big “pivot points” of life, it is very important to quiet the mind a bit and really listen to your heart and what seems to feel the most “right” to you. I know this doesn’t sound very analytical or imperial, but in my experience it holds very true. The biggest and best decisions of my past were not the ones that I “thought “were best, but those that I “felt” were right.



Well, hopefully these ideas will trigger some reflection on your own. Whether you look back on the “pivot point” decisions of your life, or you are facing one of those moments presently, see if these three ideas ring true, or can be helpful in the moments ahead. Remember the deep truth is that life is meant to be “lived”; completely UNABLE to affect yesterday but infinitely ABLE to affect the road of life and the “pivot points” ahead!

Keep Your Feet Moving Through The Hole

It’s unusual for me to use a football metaphor (that’s American Football I should say as I write this during the World Cup Final) as the theme of one of my essays. My little stories are typically tied to unique business moments from my past or family stories from my past. This theme is one that I refer to often and actually did with a dear friend last week.

I was back and forth via email with a good friend that I have known now for more than ten years. He and I were working to coordinate travel calendars, and I checked in on his travel plans in the midst of a hectic day. While busy as usual on my end, I had no idea of the challenges that my friend was handling that day. He was working through a very challenging business deal, handling the multitude of family priorities, and had just found out that his newly purchased truck was not what he had expected (previously existing title, engine not matching the truck’s serial number, etc.) As I caught up to him that evening he was feeling the challenges of the week mounting and I quickly encouraged him to “stay on your feet, don’t stop, and keep your feet moving through the hole.”

For those unfamiliar with this image from football, the idea comes from advice for a running back as he hits the line. While there may be an intended ”hole” in the line of the designed running play, it’s typical that the running back, after the handoff, hits a lot of linemen (defense and offense alike) and it seems that the “hole” has collapsed to nothing. If the running back slows down or stops at that point, he is dead in his tracks and is almost always immediately tackled. If he keeps his feet moving, driving forward, you never know what might happen. Little breaks may open up, intended or even unintended, holes may open up. From a seemingly dead stop, a big gain mya be achieved if and only if the running back “keeps his feet moving.”

This idea is direclty transferrable to the business landscape! It is very typical to hit an obstacle or an unexpected challenge that seems to stop us in our tracks. Rather than slowing down or letting the challenge of the moment stop your efforts, keep working, keep iterating, keep executing, keep trying and you never know what opportunities “might” still arise. By “keeping your feet moving through the hole,” you give yourself the chance to have good things happen. Nothing “good” will happen if you stop trying!

This idea, while it is deeply true professionally, is equally true in your personal life. We all have faced, and will face, unexpected challenges in our lives. Whether the loss of a loved one, an unexpected setback in your family, or some other challenge/issue (inclusive of a truck’s serial number not matching the chassis,) we will all face challenges and setbacks in our lives. When those moments come, as they will, don’t let them stop you completely. Keep living, keep trying, keep working to try to make tomorrow a little better than yesterday; if you can remember to “keep your feet moving through the hole,” you give yourself the best chance to make something good or great out of a tough situation.

A Heartwarming "Selfie"!

I have to admit that the “selfie” in this essay is most definitively my first. Not trying to compete with the famous “selfies” of Pope Francis, or President Obama, or even Ellen DeGeneres & Bradley Cooper, I thought it was high time that I joined into this most modern trend; and who better to partner with than my dear Aunt Lorraine!

Now Aunt Lorraine will be embarrassed when she sees this essay, she has become “famous” across our company, and across a number of other organizations, for her very powerful concept, “Aunt Lorraine’s Law.” In an early essay by that same name, I shared a story of how as a boy I was quite a picky eater and Lorraine tried to get me to eat my vegetables with the admonition… “William, take small bites and chew thoroughly, and you can swallow anything!” Over the years, those simple words kept coming to mind, not as a model to “eat my vegetables,” but as a simple and powerful lesson on how to handle the challenges of life.

This week I had the need to be at our parent company’s Headquarters in Camden, NJ and one evening after work I drove over to visit Aunt Lorraine who lives an hour or so away. Lorraine had recently been having some knee troubles, so I particularly wanted to see how she was getting along. We visited for a while, catching up on family news, and after a bit we went out to dinner with her two closest friends, Herbie and Audrey. The dinner was terrific (especially the Chicken Saltimbocca!) and we raised a glass of wine and toasted to the “three canes and four smiles” around our dinner table. Herbie treated us to dinner (thanks again Herbie) and we headed back to Lorraine’s so I could drive back to my hotel in Philadelphia before it got dark that night. While only a few hours, it was a wonderful visit!

As I drove home, I thought about seeing Lorraine and all the people from our past now gone, whom I would love to have a chance to visit with again and sit around a dinner table and enjoy a meal. Of course I thought about my mom Arline Wark Levisay, Lorraine’s sister, now almost forty years past. I thought about my Dad, his mother Mama, her sister Marge and husband Adley, my mother-in-law Jane and her daughter Carrie, my friend Bruce …. and as I drove west towards Philly, the list continued to grow. What would I give for just one more visit, one more dinner, and one more chance to sit for a few hours and catch up??

As I made it back to my hotel with a beautiful sunset in sight, it was clear to me that the lesson from my visit with Lorraine was simple; see the people you love NOW, while you can! If you have a chance for a few hour visit, do it NOW, no excuses! Life is lived with no rewind feature. We only have NOW and hopefully tomorrow, but you never know. Sure life is busy and work priorities, and outside obligations often get in the way, but work hard to fight those seemingly “urgent” obligations and focus in on what is truly “important” in life, sharing time with those you love! Take a few hours and visit “your Aunt Lorraine” and take a “Heartwarming Selfie” of your own to remember help you remember the moment for years to come!

Watch the Feet!

Over the past few months I have found myself coming back to a theme that continues to ring true broadly in my life. In numerous professional situations, personal discussions, or political realities I am struck by how many times I keep finding myself saying to not get distracted by the talking points/discussions or “the words”, but to “watch the feet,” and let the actions of the situation betray the truth.


I was in a recent private discussion with an old friend who had introduced me to a new professional colleague. I had just met this person as we sat down to lunch to discuss a challenge she was dealing with professionally, and my role was to be “the outside guy”, not encumbered by ANY knowledge of the specifics of the situation. She described numerous meetings, and pronouncements by the different parties involved the posturing back and forth and the debates on various key issues. After a few minutes of quietly listening she looked over to me as asked, “Bill, what does this all sound like to you???” Maybe it was lack of sleep or too much travel, but I blurted out in almost a “rain manlike” tone, “well, it sounds like a bunch of chatter, just a bunch of monkeys in the trees!” Well the conversation stopped and I apologized for being so abrupt but I asked her to describe NOT what people were saying or talking about, but what they were DOING or NOT DOING. While there had been a lot of “chatter,” it became clear from her answers there was very little action of any kind.


I shared the story from the movie “The Reader” that I have quoted in earlier essays where the student in the movie approaches his professor, asking his opinion about a challenging situation he was facing. The professor after listening politely responds sharply that the student’s feelings and intentions were “utterly unimportant” and all that truly matters is what the student “chooses to DO!” It’s the actions, not the words/intentions/feelings that are important to assess.


Shakespeare in his tragedy Coriolanus has a marvelous quote that amplifies this same concept:


“In such business action is eloquence, and the eyes of th’ ignorant more learned than the ears.”


This idea that “action is eloquence” is the center of my point. Even in this lesser known of Shakespeare’s plays, he advises the audience to watch the actions of the characters, more than listen to their speeches, enabling even the most ignorant to become truly learned.


Recently I was on the phone with an old friend who was once again missing a college reunion activity. He expressed his frustration on the date of the get-together and it’s conflict with his teaching schedule and while I listened for a moment, I did interrupt his commentary; reminding him that since he had missed our 5 , 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 year reunions, I wasn’t surprised that he was missing this recent activity. Flustered and a bit defensive by my comment, I just said that we would miss him and we would continue to invite him in the future, (clearly with no expectations for his participation.) Watch the Feet!


We often see this dynamic in the political arena worldwide. How many times have you seen some world leader give an eloquent speech that is a description or more likely an obfuscation of the actual facts on the ground? It is not bounded by country, party, or ideology, this habit of using “spin” (another word for “chatter”) to “reposition or clarify” the actions are unfortunately common across the globe.


Whether in business, personal affairs, or in politics, the more we can “watch the feet” and not be distracted by “the chatter in the trees”, the better we are all off to truly understand the environments where we operate. We need to work hard in our media dense world to not get distracted by the “monkeys in the trees” that bombard us every day, but to keep our eyes on the “eloquence of actions” across the landscape.

Talent: Four "Precious" Traits

Over my almost thirty year career, I have really evolved on the subject of talent. When I had my first leadership assignment at Kraft Foods in the late 1980’s, I had no appreciation for the precious nature of talent. I certainly didn’t understand just how rare it was to have a team of bright, motivated, talented people waking up every day trying to do their best for you (their leader) and the company. Over the decades I have had the pleasure to lead some amazing teams, from those early days at Kraft, across the assignments at Coke and my real honor to lead my current team at Bolthouse Farms. I choose the word “honor” intentionally, feeling truly privileged to have had the chance over the past four years to work alongside such an amazing group of people. Truly honored!

As I reflect on the precious nature of talent, I am struck by a number of “traits” or characteristics that I have found precious over the past three decades, and how rare they are to find in organizations. I have not figured out how to modify current interviewing techniques to better screen for these four “traits” (maybe an idea for future opportunities), I am confident that if WE can recruit talent with more of these characteristics, our organizations will certainly benefit. After discussions with my good friend Cathy who I truly have the pleasure to work with once again, I have boiled these musings into four “precious “ traits:

Appreciative Inquiry


This rare “trait” is where an individual is not just a good questioner, but is open and excited to learn from all around them. So often, people are surrounded by tremendous resources and act like they already “know it all” and not only do they not ask many questions, they certainly aren’t excited about what they might learn. I highlighted this idea in a previous essay (“Selling: The art of the Question”) but it spans all organizational roles or functions. How many times have you come to the end of an interview and opened it up to the candidate to ask any questions on their mind? It’s amazing to me how many of those moments over the years the questions asked are limited (or nonexistent) and certainly not deeply insightful, challenging, or provocative. I often assess candidates more on the quality of their questions versus their answers in an interview. If an individual doesn’t use an interview to ask important questions, it is likely they won’t do so in a hectic, demanding work environment.

Constructive Problem Solver


Every business, every team (and in fact every nation, every family, etc.) will encounter problems over the course of time. Problems are coming, that’s a given! What isn’t certain is how an individual or a team “handles” the challenges when they do hit. Too often individuals freak out, complain, and shut down, certainly a trio of dangerous responses. In the face of challenges, having people that calmly “work the problem”, driving to understand core issues/root causes (see “Appreciative Inquiry” above) then diving into action to make things better is deeply important. While rarely driving to “perfect” answers, having a team of folks driving to solutions to make a problem “better” rather than freaking out and shutting down is often the difference between organizational success or failure.

Advocates and Agents for Growth


Growth is one of those little words that we have used since we were kids, but in the business context it is a powerful, subtle, and often misunderstood concept. My reference here is the “trait” of individuals who are not only looking for and identifying avenues for growth, but are personally diving in and making “growth” happen! How many times have you been in a meeting with really smart indivuals with a ton of ideas on how to “change the trajectory “(i.e., “drive growth”) of a brand or a business but are surprisingly scarce when the real work of making “growth” happen begins. This combination of “Advocate and Agent” is so rare and again precious, that when you find an individual or two who can embody both of these ideas simultaneously, amazing results often follow.

Humbly Optimistic


Here is another combination that is rare to find, but is such a driver of progress in an organization. Having the ability to operate every day, every month, every quarter, …. that we can always make tomorrow better than yesterday; fundamentally waking up every morning looking forward to making the future a bit better than the past is a contagious “trait” in an organization. When you combine it with a strong dose of humility rather than arrogance, tremendous things occur. When you recruit for key leadership roles, especially senior roles of “leaders of leaders”, remember this combination. Organizations today are hugely populated by millennials and the old days of successful command and control leaders are a thing of the past. The younger the organization is, the more I would encourage you to think about this combination “trait” in your leaders, and look for the leaders of tomorrow among your most humble and optimistic strong performers today!


Well I am certain there are many more ideas that I should highlight here today, but these four precious “traits” ring true to me and my experience not only over the past three decades but the last three months. Keep these four ideas in mind as you recruit for talent, or as you do your succession planning inside of your organizations in the future. Try to remember that your organization and your team are fundamentally “precious” in their own right, and that it is an honor for us to have the chance to be leaders in the first place!

A Nifty Invention from a Thrifty Dad

My dad, who passed away last fall, was many things across his life. He was a great engineering student, an avid fisherman, a dedicated scout and scoutmaster, a hunter of “indian relics”, and a dedicated gardener to name but a few of his avocations. One thing he was always “famous” for was tinkering in his workshop/garage/basement and coming up with ingenious inventions. When I was a boy, my dad actually built our color TV in our basement from a box of parts and instructions that he had ordered from a company called “Heathkit.” We knew as kids to give the basement a wide berth when his soldering iron was on and he was doing detailed circuit board work!

Over the years his inventions spanned the gamut, from electronic ignitions that he made for our family cars (one of which conked out on a family trip, ha!) to the TV mentioned above, and many creations in between. Whether rigging up a radio to keep the deer out of our garden, or building a car roof rack to carry our family canoe, his creations over the years were always ingenious and practical.

Late in my dad’s life, he suffered with Parkinson’s disease. He endured that menace for over fifteen years, again using his creativity and ingenuity to work through the problems he was challenged with every day. Six or seven years ago my dad underwent the Medtronic “Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS)” surgery; a procedure that includes having a number of implants placed into the brain and a “monitor” placed under the skin. While quite an invasive procedure, my dad was fascinated by the technology, and was always “tweeking” it and working with the Medtronic folks on ways to optimize the therapy. I remember a conversation with him a year or two ago when he wanted to hook himself up to one of his osciliscopes (how many dad’s have two osciliscopes??) so he could “self adjust” the electronic settings to his bodies “natural wavelength.” Thankfully the folks in the Neurologists office passed on his suggestion!

A much simpler invention that he was proud of was his “pocket hanging” cane. Because of his disease, my dad used a walking stick/cane for stability over his last few years. He was always looking for a place to put it as he opened doors, went to the bathroom, etc., and thus he came up with another ingenious solution. He built onto the cane, using common hardware, a small wire appendage that he would hook into his pocket, thus holding the cane at his side when he needed to use his hands for other work. He was so proud of this little invention and was wondering about patenting it just weeks before he passed.

I came upon another one of his inventions the other day which I have pictured below. My dad always loved a good cup of coffee and he was well known for being cheap, clearly a son of the depression! Once he discovered that he could buy good coffee in bulk at Sam’s club, he was sold but perplexed on how to keep it fresh once he had opened the package. Using the little vacuum stoppers made for wine bottles, he cut a hole in the lid of a mason jar (more on coffee and mason jars in a future essay) , sealed the stopper into the lid with epoxy, and abracadabra, you have an invention that lets you keep your ground coffee fresh by removing the air from the jar. Simple, clever, and practical! I use it now in my home to hold freshly ground coffee and it works like a charm!!

I often think back on my Dad, remembering little experiences and little stories, and on the whole I remember him very fondly. I miss my dad and I miss his little inventions. He was a regular reader of this blog before he passed, and I think he would be proud and amazed that his little mason jar coffee invention made it into one of the essays!