Be there on time dressed to play…

30 years ago this summer I attended the Aetna employee benefit division training school along with some of the best people I’ve met in my business career and my life. We spent all summer long learning about dynamic asset management for pension plans and on the weekends [and sometimes during the week] we partied hard…

For the end of the summer the vice president of sales — a gentleman named Sam Keyes [thanks, Spanky!] — descended from on high to impart some words of wisdom to us before we went off to our respective assignments. 30 years later I can still see him sitting at the edge of the desk and telling us that that the most important thing he learned in his business career was the simple adage “be there on time dressed to play”…

I remember feeling, well, really ripped off! This guy is a major vice president with the major insurance company and the only thing that he has to tell us after his long career is be there on time dressed to play? Well 30 years of living and working has taught me how valuable the wisdom in this aphorism is! And, it is a unique phrase to Sam; in all the wide world of Google, that phrase only appears on one web beside mine.

Tonight as I begin a new phase of my career as an adjunct professor at Northeast Wisconsin technical College I will repeat Sam Keyes immortal words to my class. Sam, wherever you are your spirit lives on…