January 22nd marks yet another birthday for my big brother, Chip Perkey. I am dedicating this section of “Three Things” to Chip, and will give it to him as a present. Once I get my printer at the office to work, I will print out this version of “Three Things”, stick it in a box, wrap it with two other copies of “Three Things”, and mail it to Chip. How thoughtful and kind am I?

Very thoughtful and kind!

I was born when my mother and father realized they could improve upon their quality of children if they just kept practicing having them.

In chapter 2 of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Leadership: In Turbulent Times, Goodwin asks the question “what attracted this abundantly privileged, sheltered young man to the alien and contemptible world of local politics?”

This question has great relevance for all of us who are reading and writing this “Three Things” post. I venture to say that most of us live quite comfortably, isolated geographically, physically, mentally, and emotionally from people who occupy society's lowest socioeconomic rungs. What can we learn from a wealthy “aristocrat” such as Theodore Roosevelt, and his motivation to serve others? The highlights of Goodwin’s findings include the following:

Happy New Year! It is great to be back! I sincerely hope that your 2023 is off to a fun, interesting, fulfilling, rewarding start – mine is!

We are kicking off a new series, tapping into the work of the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and her book, Leadership: In Turbulent Times. In her book, written in 2018, Goodwin looks into the lives of leadership led by those presidents who she has studied, written about, and in one case, worked for – Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson.

Of these men, Goodwin asks these questions: