Poetry

Hello, everybody. I thought I would share about an hour of my journey through West Virginia the other day. As I was driving back to Washington DC, the farms and the mountains were so beautiful. I decided to be spontaneous and just turn off onto a small country road. For over an hour I marveled…

I would like to share part of my visit to Washington DC. Having spent 11 1/2 years as the Chief of Brooklyn South I have come to know and become close with a number of Jewish people who have had personal experience with the horrors of the Holocaust. Those cherished connections have always reminded me…

Some thoughts on gratitude. Please check out this video that I did on my 63rd birthday. And for that alone, I am appreciative. Live in a state of gratitude, and you’ll never want. Live in a state of want, and you’ll never have enough.

About my Uncle Louie. He is not a blood relative, but my sisters and I grew up calling him “Uncle Louie.” Louie was an NYPD sergeant and he retired in 1961. My father, a 71 Precinct cop from 1943 to 1966, often had his other cop friends over on weekends. When they were in the…

(Photo taken by Liz, when she visited Ireland in 2012) My daughter Liz loved her time in the University of Delaware. On campus they actually have an ice cream store that the students run, making the ice cream from the milk of the cows on the campus farm, which is right next to the store.…

What was standard, was gone. No two memorial services were the same. Very few bodies had been recovered. Some families had memorial services only. Many families had wake services in funeral homes, but without a body. My sister and brother-in-law decided to do that for Michael. My nephew Michael’s “wake” snuck up on me. Days…

Today is the 6th anniversary of the passing of a little buddy of mine, Uri Benefeld. As a little boy he was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a rare form of the disease that leads to the degeneration of muscles. On his 8th birthday, May 8, 2008, which was also my 8th anniversary as the…

A funeral for a police officer killed in the line of duty is like no other funeral I will ever experience.  Unfortunately, in my 37-year career in the NYPD I have been to many of them. Hours before the funeral, in every station house – every police facility – police officers gather and change into…

TEDxToronto – Drew Dudley “Leading with Lollipops” – YouTube Greetings everyone. Please see the video above. I probably saw it 1,000 times, and I hope to see it many more. I open every seminar I do with this. I believe it speaks not only to leadership, but to life. And leadership is about life. It’s…