The Secret Map My Father Left Me: A Guide for Life Through a Business Journey

My father chose three words for his gravestone. Words he selected himself. Words he never explained to anyone.I found them at age 42. By then I had already been living them for seventeen years without knowing it.That is the secret map. Not a document. Not a set of instructions. A way of conducting yourself — in business, in family, in the moments when everything is working and in the moments when nothing is. He never sat me down and taught me these words. He lived them. Quietly. Completely. And without realizing it, so did I.What he carved into that stone was not an epitaph. It was his last act of guidance — and his longest lasting one.This is the story of fifty years of building, losing, and rebuilding — four companies, one family, four generations — held up to those three words. It is not a self-help book. It is not a biography. It is a guide for life told through a business journey.The kind of book a father wishes he could hand his son. The kind a son wishes he had received sooner.The map works in good times. It works in bad ones. It works whether you are building something from nothing, trying to hold something together, or just keeping your head above water.For readers of Shoe Dog, Tuesdays with Morrie, and When Breath Becomes Air — this book does all three.One family. Four generations. Three words on a gravestone. And a map that works. Read more