Editor’s note: Among the best books I’ve ever read was Wilkerson’s “Warmth of Other Suns” a non-fiction account of the south to north and west migration of black Americans.  When I saw she wrote a new one, I gladly pre-ordered it.  This article allows an early peek into the book and makes me only more eager to receive it.  My own life often feels like the struggle of one who is both a beneficiary and a fighter of the system. 

“Up to a point a person’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and changes in the world about them. Then there comes a time when it lies within their grasp to shape the clay of their life into the sort of thing they wish it to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune or the quirks of fate. Everyone has the power to say, "This I am today. That I shall be tomorrow.”

Events in the lives of each of our three children are becoming opportunities for their personal reinvention. Each are facing major life changes and so they must decide who they want to become.

Editor’s note:  I’ve read ten books on business and philanthropy over the least few months.  None were worth sharing so I’ve been stuck on historical fiction but now it’s back to business.  Bill Gates and Warren Buffet’s recommended it so I tried it.  It was first published in the late 1960s so it took me a while to adjust to style and numbers and policies from the mid-20^th century.  Who remembers “Cornering” or the flash crash of 1962?   As I adjusted, I realized that is what must have appealed to my business heroes.  That in business, as in life, that never changes is that no matter the numbers, practices and policies, we are emotional and irrational beings.