WHY GO TO ALASKA? What a great state! I have visited Alaska twice briefly – once on a military exercise on Kodiak Island in 1979, and once on a cruise ship, up the SE Panhandle. I’ve read quite a number of books about Alaska and when I saw that Ends of the Earth Cycling with…
WHAT IS A RAGBRAI? It was started by the Des Moines Register, and stands for Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. It has been variously described as “A Celebration of Americana,” “A Rolling Party,” “An Eating Adventure for People with a Cycling Disorder,” “A Crazy Party for Cycopaths.” This year was the 49th running…
I traveled to Scotland 20 May – 1 June to join a National Outdoor Leadership School alumni hike in the Northeast of Scotland. This post is a my version of “what I did on my summer vacation” – what I got out of it, and some of what I thought others might find interesting, or…
A couple of weeks ago, I joined my friend Chuck for a week during his thru-hiking of the Appalachian Trail (AT) , from Georgia to Maine. He was about 375 miles into his 2200 mile hike when I joined him near Johnson City, Tennessee and we hiked together for a week through the mountains of…
The title of this short piece is a tip of the hat to Vice Admiral Jim Stockdale’s Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot, a book with which some of you may be familiar. Vadm Jim Stockdale was a career Naval Aviator who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his courage and leadership as a…
PREAMBLE: I have been doing and co-leading Executive and All American Leadership expeditions for the National Outdoor Leadership (NOLS) for a decade. This year, several alums from these expeditions over the years decided to do a reunion expedition, and though many had been on different expeditions in different years, we loved the idea of connecting…
I recently learned about a comprehensive total immersion health/wellness/fitness program, made available by the Navy SEAL Foundation to active duty and retired Navy SEALS and Special Boat operators. Their assumption is that many Navy SEALs and Special Boat operators are frequently suffering the residual effects of years of physical and mental stress, of having been…
My wife Mary Anne and I recently visited the Little Big Horn Battlefield in Montana, about 60 miles SE of Billings. In preparation, we both had read Custer’s Fall – the Native American Side of the Story, and I read most of the two other books below. It was a powerful and moving experience for…
I was recently invited to provide a Navy SEAL’s perspective to a conference on risk management. As I was preparing my remarks, I realized that throughout my career in the Navy, “risk management” had been inherent in my duties as an officer and leader of audacious men in high risk operations, but I had never…
Ok, what’s the “Fifth Factor?” That is the question I frequently get when I tell people I named my company “Fifth Factor Leadership.” This simple question seems to deserve a simple answer, but I don’t have a simple answer, except my standard wise-guy response: It comes right after the fourth factor. Which of course leads…
Bob Schoultz's Corner 