Is it my imagination, or is there a hint of apple cider floating in this crisp fall air?

Yesterday’s drive from Chicago to Door County, Wisconsin, transported me back to a childhood paradise. The harvested cornfields, roadside pumpkin stands, and orchards heavy with autumn fruit stirred something deep within me. Fall has always been my favorite season, and Wisconsin — with its sprawling farms — feels like the landscape of my childhood, where every breath carried the promise of possibility.

But here’s what struck me most: That apple cider scent didn’t just smell good. It triggered a flood of memories, taking me instantly back to childhood orchard visits, sticky fingers wrapped around warm cider cups, and the safety of family traditions.

Mental Time Travel

We all carry these invisible triggers. The taste of black grapes transports me to my grandmother’s garden arbor. The opening notes of “Have You Seen Her” by the Chi-Lites still choke me up, instantly returning me to that intersection as 17-year-old me drove my dad’s ’67 GTO, tears streaming, after my girlfriend Corky broke my heart.

These flashbacks can be beautiful gifts — or invisible prisons.

For decades, I let one devastating moment define my choices. Getting fired from the company I founded hurt so deeply that I stopped taking the very risks that had built my success. One traumatic experience became a cage I carried everywhere, limiting what I believed possible.

Here’s what I’ve learned: Our childhood brains couldn’t process what our adult minds can easily handle, and pain can be revisited to let go.

Rewriting Our Stories

That joke my father made at my expense during a family camping trip? It haunted me for years. But when I revisited it with my adult perspective, I realized it was harmless teasing between a father and son. The wound I’d been nursing was entirely of my own creation.

Sometimes our “truths” are just old stories we’ve never questioned.

I recently watched a friend discover this firsthand. For 30 years, he’d avoided a particular food, convinced he was allergic and would “break out in hives.” When I gently suggested he try it again, he looked at me like I’d suggested skydiving without a parachute. But he did it — and loved it. “I can’t believe I missed eating this all these years,” he said.

How many opportunities are we missing because we’re still operating from old, unexamined beliefs?

From Limitation to Liberation

As one of the two heaviest kids in elementary school, gym class became my nightmare. The humiliation of not being able to climb the rope or keep up with exercises made me physically sick. I started skipping school entirely rather than face that shame.

That trauma kept me heavy most of my life. The thought of exercise triggered those old feelings of inadequacy and embarrassment, though I did not realize it. But once I reframed exercise as a celebration of what my body could achieve rather than a reminder of what it couldn’t, everything changed.

As author S.M. Brain Coach writes in Subconscious Mind Reprogramming: “Making a pivotal decision, dedication to the new path is crucial. Commitment isn’t just about intention, it’s about action.”

The Frequency of Possibility

Ron, Corky’s father, gave me a gift that changed my trajectory. “She’s worried about you because you’re so negative all the time,” he told me, then taught me the power of positive thinking. That conversation became so transformational that I dedicated my first book to him.

Research now confirms what Ron intuitively knew: Positive thoughts operate on a different frequency and attract positive experiences. When we consciously shift from limiting to uplifting beliefs, we literally reprogram our minds.

Your Personal Inventory

Here’s my challenge to you: What moments are still holding you back? Where do you carry wounds that your adult brain could easily heal?

Start building your list:

• What experiences still make you avoid certain situations?
• What voices from the past still whisper limitations in your ear?
• What opportunities are you not seeing because old stories are blocking your vision?

Then create affirmations that are the exact opposite of those limiting beliefs. Read them when you wake up and before you sleep. As Brain Coach suggests: “Regularly count your blessings; this positive reinforcement can overwrite negative subconscious patterns.”

The Practice of Gratitude

When I learned to pray, I was taught to begin every prayer with gratitude for what I already have. Thousands of years later, neuroscience confirms this ancient wisdom: gratitude literally rewires our brains for possibility.

Your scars don’t define you — they can become your strength. When you transform pain into wisdom, every wound becomes a launch pad for freedom.

You have everything to gain and nothing to lose. What story are you ready to rewrite?

Eric Rhoads

The morning light catches the lake, gleaming like liquid gold. Summer’s last breath warms the air while autumn whispers through the maples, their leaves just beginning to blush orange and crimson. Here in the Adirondacks, the baby loons have shed their fuzzy innocence, transforming into sleek young adults testing their wings. Soon their parents will abandon them to fly south, leaving the youngsters to master independence through trial and solitude. It’s nature’s way of saying: You’re ready, even if you don’t feel it.

In a few hours, I’ll reluctantly pack my car and drive north to Burlington, then fly back to the demands of boardrooms and studios. My extended summer here — interrupted by that magical month in China — feels like it ended before it truly began. The fiberoptic cable running along the lake bottom has been my lifeline, letting me broadcast from this sanctuary instead of rushing back and spending time on airplanes. Technology gave me the gift of not having to choose between work and wonder.

But reality calls. Board meetings await in Austin, followed by the next chapter of what I’m calling my “world art tour.” I’m excited about what’s ahead, yet leaving this place always feels like tearing away a piece of my soul. The air here doesn’t just fill your lungs — it cleanses them. The woods behind my house hold secrets and stories that only emerge during long, wandering hikes. This lake? It’s not just water — it’s liquid meditation.

The Art of Letting Go

Our two recent college graduates spent this summer with us, knowing it was likely their last before careers claim their time. We all needed it — them for the security of home, us for the joy of dishes left strategically in the sink instead of the dishwasher (some things never change). Now they’re in full job-hunt mode, sending resumes into the digital void while complaining about the “rest of their lives” stretching ahead like an endless Monday morning.

I remember that feeling. The simultaneous pull of wanting freedom and fearing it. The confidence of youth battling the terror of the unknown.

At 14, radio fever hit me like lightning. I talked my way into a volunteer spot at the local college station, which led to a part-time gig at a commercial station. The summer after high school, I carpet-bombed the country with resumes and demo tapes. Then the call came: “We like your tape. Be here in three days.”

Three days.

I threw a goodbye party (half those friends I never saw again), loaded my tan VW Bug, and drove straight to Fort Lauderdale to help launch Y100. August 3, 1973 — a date burned into my memory. They quickly realized my tape was better than my live performance and banished me to the graveyard shift. But here’s what I didn’t know: I’d just landed at one of the most influential radio stations in America. That halo effect followed me for decades.

The lesson? Sometimes your “failure” is actually your golden ticket. Sometimes getting knocked down is life’s way of positioning you for something bigger.

What I’d Tell My Younger Self (and You)

Here’s what strikes me: My son who skipped college has been independent for years now. He’s struggled — rent payments, food on the table, difficult people to manage — but those struggles forged something college couldn’t: true resilience. While his college-graduate siblings navigate job applications, he’s already been promoted, managing teams, learning the brutal art of human nature through necessity, not theory.

If you’re standing at that threshold between dependence and independence, hear this:

You are more capable than you know. The fact that you haven’t done something doesn’t mean you can’t. Your comfort zone isn’t protecting you — it’s imprisoning you.

Every generation gets dismissed. They called us lazy and entitled too. Every generation thinks the next one is doomed. Ignore the noise. Find your true north.

Beat the system by refusing to be systematic. Online applications are digital cattle calls designed to sort the desperate from the determined. When I hire, I intentionally don’t respond immediately — I want to see who gives up and who gets creative. The ones who send presentations with their follow-ups? The ones who find my address and send something memorable? The ones who contact me three different ways? Those are the ones who understand that exceptional requires more than ordinary effort.

Adapt your operating system. Your generation texts; my generation calls. Your future boss might operate differently than you do. Be willing to speak their language, not just your own.

The Long Game

Do what you love, but if you don’t know what that is yet, try anything that doesn’t make you physically ill. I’ve met countless people who took jobs they thought they’d hate and discovered unexpected passion.

Nothing is permanent except your willingness to settle for mediocre.

Start at the bottom without shame. We all did. The view from the summit is earned, not given.

Always do more than expected. When I was 17, my father drew two lines on paper: “This is what most people do. This is what employers expect. If you want to succeed, operate up here” — and he drew a third line above both. That philosophy got me every promotion I ever received.

Independence isn’t just about paying your own bills — it’s about betting on yourself when no one else will.

Eric Rhoads

Cool morning air kisses the warm lake water, birthing a mist that rises twenty feet into the sky, veiling distant pines and mountains in ethereal softness. The sky glows the color of childhood Creamsicles—that particular orange-cream hue that instantly transports me to summer afternoons when the ice cream truck’s melody meant freedom, a dollar from mom, and the simple perfection of a frozen treat melting in the heat.

I lived what might be called a Leave It to Beaver childhood—safe, secure, unmarked by significant drama or want. My father engineered this deliberately. He’d lived through the Great Depression, watched his family have to leave their secure little white home on Webster Street to economic necessity, and found himself at six years old doing pre-dawn farm chores on his grandfather’s land before walking miles to a one-room schoolhouse. “I never wanted you kids to experience what I did,” he once told me, and he succeeded magnificently.

Yet here lies the paradox: It was precisely that hardship that forged my father into the man I admired. And while I’m profoundly grateful for the security he provided, I sometimes wonder if a measured dose of struggle might have served us better. Like my parents before me, I’ve tried to give my children that same idyllic childhood—probably solving too many problems that should have been theirs to wrestle with.

The Alchemy of Adversity

Last week at a party, I spent hours talking with a young man barely older than my own children. When he mentioned his “tough upbringing,” something in his eyes invited deeper inquiry. His story unfolded like a map of resilience: father dead from addiction when he was eight, mother an addict unable to care for him, years in foster care, a false reunion with his still-addicted mother, and finally salvation in the arms of a grandmother who refused to let him fall.

Earlier that same week, a friend’s eyes revealed similar pain when advising me about estate planning. “Whatever you do, make sure it’s all equal,” he said, his voice heavy with memory. A single phone call—his mother demanding he drop everything to visit—had sparked her narcissistic rage. She rewrote her will that very day, cutting him out entirely. She died soon after, leaving not just an unequal inheritance but a wound that transcends money. “It’s not about the wealth,” he assured me. “It’s the message she sent—one final act of bullying from beyond the grave.”

What strikes me about both men is their extraordinary success. The young man has a soaring career fueled by something to prove. My friend reached the pinnacle of his industry. Both emerged from their crucibles not bitter but humble, balanced, and deeply loving. Their pain became their teacher, not their master.

The Edge Between Love and Cruelty

There’s a critical distinction we must make: Inflicting pain through bullying, meanness, absence, or abandonment is never productive. It’s destruction without purpose. But pain that comes from growth, from necessary boundaries, from tough love rooted in genuine care—that’s the kiln that fires our character.

Tough love has its place, unwelcome as it may be in the moment. The difference lies in its source: authentic tough love springs from love itself, while cruelty emerges from narcissistic instability and the need to control.

In my own family, we’ve faced moments requiring severe tough love—those agonizing decisions to let someone hit bottom so they might finally look up and see the light. It’s excruciating but sometimes necessary. My father’s tough love toward me once put me in one of the most difficult situations of my life. I met it with fury and resistance. Yet it was the moment I truly grew up, and years later, I thanked him for having the courage to be tough when gentle wouldn’t suffice. Even in his toughness, his love never wavered—that was the difference.

The Long Game of Love

Most of my friends carry similar stories—family members who struggle, moments demanding tough choices. Some avoid the difficulty and carry the burden their entire lives. I’ve watched friends bury children lost to addiction, some wondering if more tough love might have saved them, others questioning if their hardline stance pushed too hard. There are no easy answers, no universal formulas.

A dear friend cares for his wife with severe dementia. When I asked why he doesn’t seek institutional care, his answer was simple: “I can’t imagine life without her. I’ll be here no matter what.” Another friend, facing the same situation, recently placed his wife in a facility after she began wandering the streets, endangering herself. Both decisions are acts of love, tailored to different realities.

I wonder how I would handle such trials. Would I have the strength to stay, to honor “in sickness and in health” when health becomes a distant memory? I hope I would choose loyalty and presence, but we never truly know our capacity until we’re tested.

The Lifeline Principle

A friend who reads these reflections was estranged from her daughter and granddaughter for years. My advice to her was simple, the same I offer now: Never give up. Never give in. Though precious years were lost, they’ve found their way back to each other, wounds healing, life resuming its flow.

This is perhaps the most crucial lesson: We all need a lifeline. Sometimes love means letting someone swim on their own, letting them struggle and find their own strength. But even then, we watch from the shore, ready to throw that line when they need it most. We may need to step back, but we never step away entirely.

Conclusions: The Art of Persistent Love

The mist continues to rise from the lake as I write this, and I’m struck by how it mirrors our human experience—warm and cold meeting, creating something beautiful in their collision. Our struggles and our securities, our pain and our comfort, our tough love and our tenderness—they all swirl together to create who we become.

The lessons are clear, if not always easy:

1. Struggle shapes us, but shouldn’t break us. A childhood without any adversity may leave us unprepared, but trauma without support creates wounds that may never heal. The key is to balance challenges with unconditional love as the foundation.

2. Pain with purpose differs from cruelty. Tough love, when genuine, comes from a desire to help someone grow. Cruelty comes from a need to control or punish. Know the difference in your own actions.

3. Success often springs from adversity—but at what cost? Many highly accomplished people are driven by early pain. We should ask ourselves: Is worldly success worth the childhood wounds that sometimes create it?

4. Love takes many forms, all valid. Whether caring for someone at home or choosing professional care, whether maintaining contact or establishing boundaries—love manifests differently for different situations.

5. Never give up on people, but know when to adjust your approach. Being a lifeline doesn’t mean enabling. Sometimes it means watching from a distance, ready, but not interfering.

6. Time heals, but only if we leave the door open. Relationships can be restored, but not if we slam doors permanently shut in moments of pain or anger.

Perhaps my father was right to shield us from the hardships he knew. Perhaps I was right to do the same for my children. Or perhaps we all need just enough struggle to build strength, just enough security to build confidence, and always—always—enough love to know that whatever happens, someone refuses to give up on us.

That’s the real gift we give each other: not a life without pain, but the promise that through whatever pain comes, we won’t face it alone. We may sometimes need to swim through rough waters on our own, but knowing someone watches from shore, ready with that lifeline—that makes all the difference.

The mist is lifting now, revealing the mountains in sharp relief against that Creamsicle sky. Some things only become clear when the fog clears, when enough time passes, when we’ve lived enough life to understand that our struggles and our strengths are not opposite forces but dance partners, creating the complex, beautiful, difficult miracle of a life fully lived.

Never give up. Never give in. But always, always love.

Eric Rhoads

The steam from my coffee mingles with the morning mist rising from the lake, both carrying the scent of pine and the faint diesel exhaust from boats already heading out for their final summer adventures.

My uncovered legs prickle with goosebumps — a faithful companion during these last days in shorts before autumn stakes its claim. The metallic taste of cool air hints at change, while the sweet aroma of lake water and sunscreen still clings to the dock chairs around me.

The joy-filled screams of children on tubes behind speedboats pierce the morning quiet, their laughter echoing off the water as the wakes break the mirror-like surface. They’re grabbing one more ride, maybe two, before this holiday weekend draws summer to its inevitable close. This is the sound of a perfect summer. 

Later today, friends we’ve known for decades — some for every summer of their lives since they were children — will gather for our traditional lake-wide farewell ceremony, awarding sailing trophies and sharing hugs that must sustain us until next June, knowing some embraces may be our last after all these years together.

The Rhythm of Tradition

While the holiday weekend signals departure for most — back to schools and jobs and the urgent pull of ordinary life — we’ll linger a bit longer, held by responsibilities that call us away slowly rather than all at once. But there’s something profoundly moving about being part of a lake tradition that spans 120 years and multiple generations, like adding another ring to an ancient tree.

A Rite of Passage

My father didn’t just create family memories, he built a rite of passage that flows through me to my children, and perhaps someday to theirs. It’s a legacy measured not in dollars but in compass readings, not in certificates but in the steady hands that learn to dock in any weather.

Storm-Forged Lessons

From my earliest memories, we learned the sacred knowledge: how to untie ropes in a brisk wind, proper boating techniques, how to read water and weather. Each of us had roles when Dad took us on adventures, starting with that small OMC tri-hull — about 15 feet of fiberglass optimism whose innovative hull promised stability in rough seas (a tall order for such a modest vessel). I remember Dad’s pride when we got it, likely used but never diminished in our eyes.

The Worst Day of My Life at Age 10

One stormy day stands etched in memory. Dad, my brothers, and I set out from Port Huron, Ohio, into what seemed like hurricane-force winds. The boat rocked like a carnival ride designed by someone with a cruel sense of humor, while swells towered taller than our small craft. Foolish? Perhaps. But it was training disguised as terror.

We followed a charted course set by the Power Squadron, navigating by compass and charts while rain slammed the canvas top and stressed its aluminum struts. Water hammered the windshield in sheets as the boat pitched violently. “Stay on course,” Dad commanded. “Keep the compass on that spot no matter what.” Each of us took turns at the helm during what ranks among the most terrifying experiences of my life.

The fury of the Great Lakes is the same force that claimed the Edmund Fitzgerald, immortalized in song and maritime legend. Our adventure stretched from morning till evening — an eternity of soaked clothes, chattering teeth, and the profound relief that comes when you finally reach stable ground.

Compass Philosophy

But Dad had given us training for life: Keep your eye on the compass. Set your course, and stay on course no matter what storms arise. When giant waves push you off track, get back on course. Head straight into the waves and navigate through them with balance and purpose.

As Violet Fane wrote, “All things come to those who wait,” though the complete quote offers deeper wisdom: “All things come to those who wait … they come, but often come too late.” Dad understood timing. He knew that patience paired with persistence creates the perfect moment for growth.

Measured Success

Dad’s success was indeed measured in boats — a progression that told the story of hard work and dreams fulfilled. From canoe to rowboat with motor, from the tri-hull to a small cabin cruiser dubbed the Dusty Five — an all-aluminum 28-footer that graduated us from sleeping in the Airstream to cramped but magical quarters aboard the boat itself. (The name? People always referred to us as “Dusty Rhoads” … and there were five of us.)

Those tight quarters housed some of the richest memories of my life. Years led to a 32-foot version, then a 38-foot trawler, eventually a 56-footer, and finally, when we discovered the mountain lakes of the Adirondacks, a classic wooden boat — polished like floating furniture and treated with the reverence it deserved.

The Sacred Vessel

The wooden boat represented the ultimate rite of passage. We could drive any boat solo — except that one. Its high-polish finish and classical lines demanded respect that bordered on worship. Dad would let us drive it with him beside us, even help us dock it (a delicate operation requiring surgical precision), but solo voyages remained forbidden.

The wisdom of this restriction became clear when someone eventually took it out alone, returning with a docking gash that required complete restoration. They don’t patch these vessels; they strip twelve coats of varnish, sand to bare wood, replace damaged sections, and rebuild before applying fresh finish. This explains Dad’s reluctance to grant independence too soon.

Legacy in Motion

Dad wasn’t being stingy — he was cultivating something precious. Before he died, I bought that wooden boat from him, and now the rite of passage continues. I train my adult children in the ancient arts of handling and docking, preparing them for the day they’ll take her out alone and, hopefully, train future generations in turn.

I treasure this tradition he created: having something to anticipate, something special to earn. He reserved the privilege of the proper passing of the baton — not automatically granted at adulthood, but when wisdom and skill had properly matured.

The Value of Waiting

In our age of instant everything, there’s profound value in delayed gratification and earned privilege. Good things truly do come to those who wait, as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow expanded: “All things come to him who waits — provided he knows what he is waiting for.” Dad knew. He understood that keeping our eyes fixed on chosen goals, maintaining course through unpleasant storms, leads us through turbulence to calm seas and eventually to bigger, better opportunities that enrich our earthly experience.

Patience combined with persistence, steadfastness, and focus — these bring the treasures that matter most.

In a world drunk on TikTok’s 20-second promises, we’re seduced into believing treasures should arrive instantly — as if decades of dreams could be delivered through the magic of a marketing funnel. Yet I watched my father’s dreams unfold, one earned treasure at a time, through storms that tested both character and the patience that in turn forged wisdom. Each upgrade wasn’t just a bigger boat; it was proof that weathering life’s tempests makes success taste infinitely sweeter than anything handed to us on a silver platter.

The Bigger Boat

I remember Dad’s words as we passed giant yachts in our tiny fiberglass boat, marveling at their grandeur: “Son, no matter what you achieve in life, someone always has a bigger boat.”

At first, I heard only the caution: Be content where you are because someone always has more. But deeper wisdom lived in those words: Keep your eyes on the compass, keep moving forward, and your own bigger boat will come.

The real treasure wasn’t the boat itself — it was the compass Dad gave us, the one that points not north but toward purpose, patience, and the kind of legacy that spans generations.

As summer fades and another season of lessons draws to a close, I’m grateful for storm-tested wisdom and the compass that still guides us home. 

Eric Rhoads

Through the weathered screen of this old Adirondack porch, Lake Spitfire stretches before me like a mirror, its surface broken only by gentle lapping against a fallen pine that’s become part of the shoreline. The silence is so complete that the ringing in my ears becomes the loudest sound, competing only with the steady tick of the hand-wound clock that has marked time in this camp for 120 years.

I’m not the first to sit in this wicker chair with a warm cup of coffee, watching the lake’s morning ritual. Generations have found their way to this same spot, drawn by the magical escape these mountains offer. I’m not really an owner here — just a temporary caretaker until someone else takes their turn in this chair, continuing a tradition that predates me and will outlast me. Perhaps the only proof of my time here will be the painting hanging over the stone fireplace, slowly darkening with soot from countless fires.

I like it here because I can get lost in my thoughts and just disappear. Have you ever felt invisible? Like if you simply vanished, the world would barely register the absence?

I know that feeling intimately. Years ago, I went from being somebody to being nobody — a particularly brutal transition for men who tie their entire identity to their work. I had sold my three radio stations, put a couple bucks in my pocket, and told myself I was going to buy an RV and travel the U.S.A. visiting friends. There was no pressure to work for a couple of years.

Then came the defining moment that revealed the prison I’d unknowingly built for myself.

I remember walking into an industry convention right after the sale, feeling fairly smug because I had just cashed out. But no one knew, no one cared, and no one knew who I was. I may have been a somebody in my local market, but I wasn’t even a blip on the industry radar. I can still recall the lonely feeling of standing in the back of a cocktail party, not knowing anyone, not feeling confident enough to introduce myself, wishing I wasn’t there because back then I hated social situations. The irony wasn’t lost on me — I had a big bank account, yet it bought me no confidence whatsoever.

Do you have moments you remember feeling awkward or out of place? Standing in that room, I made myself a promise: “One year from today, everyone here will know my name and want my attention. One year from today, I’ll be so confident that I’ll be on stage in front of all these people, getting their attention as one of the best speakers they’ve ever seen.”

Being a “nobody” drove me to become a somebody. Again.

Here’s what’s fascinating about powerful motivation: When we have it, the universe seems to conspire to make things happen. I bailed on the RV dream, immediately started a new business, and ended up owning a struggling trade publication. I declared myself publisher, wrote a weekly column and, just like my bold prediction, found myself on stage a year later. Thanks to training and help from my friend Roy Williams, I delivered a fire-and-brimstone speech so strong that failure would have ruined my career. But I nailed it, got a standing ovation, and that became the moment I transformed from nobody back to somebody.

I’m sure any psychologist reading this would have a field day with my psychology. The healthy response would be not needing to be somebody, and just being myself. But that drive to be appreciated, rooted in some deep need for validation, was everything to me. It’s the same drive that makes people build great things, and that defining moment helped me understand what I thought I needed in life.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth I’m only now beginning to understand: That need to be somebody wasn’t really about professional success. It was about something much deeper.

Growing up, my father often pressured us to take over his metals business. It didn’t interest me — I was drawn to creative work, and the thought of a life buried in manufacturing felt like a death sentence. So I chose radio, telling myself I wanted to be my own man, control my own destiny. Yet even as I rejected his business, I spent my entire adult life desperately seeking his approval, measuring my success against his achievements, trying to prove I was worthy of his respect.

I once hired a woman who took a $150,000 pay cut to work for me in a $50,000 position she was passionate about. She’d become a lawyer because her parents expected it, earned her degree, and landed a position at a prestigious firm. Within two years, she was miserable, knowing she couldn’t imagine doing this work for the rest of her life. The job didn’t match who she was, but she told me the hardest part wasn’t leaving the money behind — it was telling her lawyer father she was quitting.

Her story is my story. It’s probably your story too.

The cruel irony is that in refusing to work for my father, I ended up working for his ghost my entire life. Every business decision, every public speaking engagement, every moment I needed to be “somebody” was really me trying to prove to a man who loved me unconditionally that I was worthy of that love.

I now suggest my kids might want to carry our business legacy forward, but I don’t push, because I want them to do what makes them feel genuinely special — not what makes them feel like they’re somebody in others’ eyes. I’ve learned the difference.

The question that haunts me from this old wicker chair, watching the morning light dance on Lake Spitfire, is this: How much of our drive to be somebody is really about being ourselves, and how much is about proving ourselves to people who probably already accepted us exactly as we were? My dad always told me he was proud of me and even told me he thought I had become more successful than he. Perhaps he sensed the competition and wanted to let me know everything was good.

The most successful people I know aren’t driven by the need to be somebody. They’re driven by the joy of being exactly who they are. The rest of us are just performing in a play written by our insecurities, hoping for applause from an audience that may not even be watching.

What play are you performing? And more importantly — who wrote the script?

Eric Rhoads

The morning air carries the sound of an aluminum motorboat that moves slowly across the lake with a slight, muffled hum as it penetrates the remaining fog resting on the water. Steam rises from my coffee cup, resting on the arm of my 100-year-old Adirondack chair on the dock. There’s something about Sunday mornings that makes the world feel full of possibility.

The Dream That Wouldn’t Die

At 14, I fell desperately in love with an impossible dream: becoming a radio DJ. Not just any DJ — a star. I wanted it with the kind of burning intensity that only teenagers can muster. While other kids played Pong, I practiced my craft with religious devotion. When songs came on the radio, I’d talk up the intros like I was broadcasting to millions: “This is Eric Rhoads, your favorite DJ, and here’s a brand new record from the O’Jays.”

My secret weapon was a K-Tel record album — one of those compilations that crammed 20 shortened hit songs onto a single disc. Perfect for practice. I could rehearse talking at the start and end of records, 20 songs in a row, pretending I was the voice that connected people to the music they loved. I did it for hours on end, day after day, week after week.

Breaking Through the “Impossible”

I managed to land a volunteer spot at a college radio station while still in high school. They gave me the Saturday-morning shift — the graveyard slot when college kids wanted to sleep off their Friday-night adventures. I didn’t care. I would have worked any shift, any time, for the chance to be on the air.

But breaking into commercial radio? That was the real mountain to climb. I was young, inexperienced, and competing against 150 other applicants for every job. The industry veterans all said the same thing: “Kid, you’ve got to pay your dues. Don’t expect this to happen fast.”

I refused to accept that timeline. While everyone insisted I had to spend years climbing the ladder, rung by rung, I was determined to find a different way up.

When Your Kids Echo the Old Wisdom

The other day, one of my children said something that stopped me cold: “Dad, I have to pay my dues first.”

Watching my kids navigate the job market has been both fascinating and frustrating. Two have just graduated college, while the third chose the school of hard knocks — and we’re proud that he’s working and surviving. The college graduates constantly remind us that the job market is “different than it was when you were young.” They roll their eyes when we offer advice, convinced we’re digital dinosaurs who couldn’t possibly understand their world of online applications and radio silence.

“Dad, all applications are online and you get ghosted. You don’t even hear from them,” they tell me with the weary resignation of defeated warriors.

The Tests You Don’t Know You’re Taking

Here’s what might surprise my kids: I lay traps for job applicants. Deliberate ones.

I’ll set appointments and then cancel them, just to see who reaches out again. Most never do. During interviews, I give project assignments: “Send me a one-page PDF outlining how you’d excel in this role.” The majority never complete the homework. When there’s mutual interest, I’ll say, “Call me Thursday.” Then I don’t answer. I count the messages they leave, track how many times they call back.

The ones who don’t give up? They get offered the job.

Because persistence almost always wins. Creativity almost always wins. Resourcefulness always wins.

The Unexpected Hearse 

My late friend Rich Marston understood this principle better than anyone. He wanted to land a particular car dealer as an advertiser — a potential goldmine account. His first call ended with a rude assistant hanging up before he could even speak to the owner.

Most people would have moved on. Rich saw it as a year-long project.

Every weekday, on his way home from work, he stopped by the dealership to try to see the owner, leaving a note each time. For an entire year. When that still didn’t work, Rich got creative.

One day, a hearse pulled up to the showroom. Pallbearers carried a coffin inside. The owner ran out, shouting, “You can’t bring that in here!” That’s when they opened the coffin to reveal Rich lying inside with a sign: “I’m dying to get your business!” 

The dealer burst into laughter. He’d been testing Rich’s persistence all along, keeping every single note he’d left. Rich walked away with a massive contract and a friendship that lasted years.

The Myth of the Must-Haves

My kids are trapped by “musts”: You must have a degree, you must follow certain rules, you must apply through proper channels. Yes, if you’re becoming a doctor or lawyer, credentials matter. But even then, they’re not enough when 3,000 other qualified people want the same position.

You have to find a way to stand out, to be remembered, to create an interview experience so exceptional that people can’t stop thinking about you. It starts with finding a way to get noticed, to slip through the door, and to rise above the sea of identical applications.

The Quiet Man Who Knows Everyone

My artist friend Guy Morrow is the most connected person I know. He can reach anyone on earth and seems to know everybody, yet he’s quiet and unassuming — the last person you’d expect to be a networking powerhouse.

When Guy first called me, I was looking for a polite way to end the conversation. Within two minutes, he had charmed me, found our common ground, and somehow turned a cold call into the beginning of a friendship. Before long, I was spending weekends painting with him. We’ve been close friends ever since.

Guy never felt he didn’t deserve someone’s time. He never assumed he couldn’t reach someone. He simply believed that connection was possible and acted accordingly.

The Doors That Never Open Unless You Knock

Most people defeat themselves before they start. They assume they can’t reach someone important, so they don’t try. They tell themselves, “They don’t want to talk to me,” or, “I’m not important enough.” But at the end of the day, we’re all just people.

Believing you can accomplish anything and reach anyone is one of the keys to a rich life. Not every door will open — but none will open if you don’t knock. Following standard procedures is for ordinary outcomes. The people getting extraordinary opportunities are the ones trying creative solutions to tell their story.

The Weight of Chances Not Taken

Is there a time you can recall when you didn’t call, didn’t ask, didn’t take a chance — even though it was something you desperately wanted?

Can you remember a time when you walked through a brick wall because you wanted something so badly you could taste it?

I cringe when I think about the opportunities I let slip away because I was too insecure or shy to pursue them. I used to say, “That’s just who I am,” until I got sick enough of failing that I decided to change that part of who I was.

The Philosophy of the Possible

You deserve the best possible life, the best opportunities, the best job. There may be others more qualified on paper, but you are special — and you need to make sure others know it. Don’t let anything get in the way of that truth.

Think big. Aim high. Never, ever give up.

There is always a way. Always.

The question isn’t whether the path exists — it’s whether you’re willing to find it, create it, or, if necessary, blast your way through solid rock with nothing but determination and a refusal to accept no as a final answer.

What door have you been afraid to knock on? What dream have you been too “realistic” to pursue? Sometimes the biggest barrier between you and everything you want is the word “impossible” — and that’s a word you have the power to erase.

Eric Rhoads

Most spots are already claimed, but there’s still room for a few more kindred spirits. Join me at www.FallColorWeek.com and let’s create something beautiful together while Wisconsin puts on its most spectacular show.

The high-pitched clanging of the flagpole cuts through the morning air like a metallic rooster, beating out a rhythm that echoes off the distant Adirondack shore. I’m wrapped in that perfect combination of pine-scented air and the kind of silence that only exists when you’re far enough from civilization that your phone has given up trying to find a signal.

My morning tea steams in the cool breeze — tea is a habit I picked up in China last week, though I’m pretty sure the monks who taught me didn’t intend for it to be consumed while wearing swim trunks in an Adirondack chair. The sun is already making promises about another scorcher, and I can feel my bare arms getting that familiar tingle that says, “You’re going to be diving into that lake by noon.”

This is where the magic happens — not in boardrooms or conference calls, but in these stolen moments when you’re forced to sit still and let your brain catch up with your life. It’s here, listening to the water lap against the dock, that I always have the same predictable post-vacation revelation: “I want fewer meetings, fewer commitments, and I want to think about my business, not run it.”

My assistant back home probably has this speech memorized by now. She knows that within a week, I’ll be right back on the merry-go-round, gripping those painted horses for dear life, convinced that if I let go, I’ll be flung into professional oblivion.

The Advisor’s Curse

My business advisor keeps telling me, “You do too much. Do less. Go deeper.” He’s absolutely right, of course. I’d probably be more successful if I just laser-focused on one thing. But here’s what he doesn’t understand — I’d rather be a scattered genius than a bored specialist. It might be all about the money for him, but it’s not for me. Adventure is my currency.

The thought of retirement makes me break out in hives. Picture this: All these brilliant ideas keep bubbling up in your brain, but instead of acting on them, you’re supposed to … what? Take up pottery? Learn to play shuffleboard? Watch Netflix until your eyes bleed? That’s not retirement, that’s intellectual purgatory.

I can’t imagine telling my brain, “Hey, thanks for all the creativity and ambition, but we’re done here. Time to focus on perfecting your golf swing and arguing about the weather.” My idea-energy would turn into frustrated energy, and frustrated energy in a retirement home is how you end up being that person who complains about the temperature of the pudding.

Chinese Wisdom Applied

Here’s something fascinating: In China, everyone retires at 60. Yet the elderly are revered as the wise ones. The great artists and professors I met don’t just disappear into some retirement-adjacent void. They become valued advisors, hanging around campus like intellectual emeritus ghosts, finally getting to work on the things they never had time for.

Meanwhile, in America, we’ve somehow convinced ourselves that 65 is the magic number when your brain expires and you’re supposed to hand over the keys to productivity. It’s like we’ve collectively agreed that wisdom and experience are cute but ultimately useless compared to the raw energy of youth.

But here’s the plot twist nobody talks about: While the young workforce has speed and stamina, the seasoned folks have something infinitely more valuable — the ability to spot patterns, avoid landmines, and understand that not every hill is worth dying on. You have to pick your battles. 

The Longevity Game

I know a guy — John Kluge, once the richest man in the world — who told me he didn’t really get rich until he was 70. His secret? “When my friends all retired and got bored playing tennis and golf, then died too young, I kept pitching.”

I kept pitching. Three words that should be tattooed on every eyelid.

Think about it: We spend decades accumulating knowledge, building relationships, and learning from our mistakes, only to voluntarily bench ourselves right when we’re hitting our intellectual prime. It’s like training for a marathon your entire life and then deciding to take a nap at mile 20.

The math is brutal — every decision I make now could result in a decade-long pursuit. I can’t afford to waste time on useless endeavors, but I also can’t afford to waste time sitting still. The window is closing, but it’s not closed yet.

The Retirement Conspiracy

Here’s where I put on my tinfoil hat for a second: What if retirement is just a cleverly disguised way to ensure that experienced, potentially disruptive voices are quietly shuffled off the playing field? Think about it. If you’re bored, disengaged, and focused on your lawn care, you’re not exactly going to be challenging the status quo or competing for resources.

I’m not saying there’s a secret cabal plotting to neutralize senior citizens through forced leisure (though that would make an excellent Netflix series). But I am saying that a society that encourages its most experienced members to become professionally irrelevant might be missing out on some serious wisdom.

To my younger friends: That slower-moving person in your meeting might not have your energy, but they probably have pattern recognition that would make AI jealous. To my older friends: Your rocking chair is not a throne, and your TV remote is not a scepter. Try staying relevant so you can keep up with the 30-year-olds.

The Spectacle Factor

Life is supposed to be spectacular. Not spectacular in the Instagram-worthy, look-at-my-avocado-toast way, but spectacular in the holy-cow-I-can’t-believe-I-get-to-exist-in-this-universe way.

We’ve somehow convinced ourselves that the natural progression is: work hard, achieve some stuff, then gracefully fade into comfortable irrelevance. But what if that’s completely backward? What if the real adventure begins when you finally have enough wisdom to know what’s actually worth pursuing?

I’m not advocating for becoming a workaholic septuagenarian (though if that’s your thing, more power to you). I’m advocating for rejecting the notion that your best days are behind you just because your knees creak a little more than they used to.

The Final Pitch

Too many young lives end too early. The time you waste might be the only time you get. And I refuse to believe that the grand plan involves us slowly transitioning from dynamic humans to furniture that occasionally comments on the weather. When you were young, did you actually dream about growing up, working for a while, then sitting in an overstuffed recliner all day watching the news for 10 years till they carry you out?

So here’s my challenge: Instead of asking, “When can I retire?” ask, “What impossible thing do I want to accomplish next?” Instead of planning your exit strategy, plan your next adventure. Instead of winding down, what if you wound up? Maybe you’re only telling yourself you’re tired because you’re bored and depressed (there, I said it, now I’ll get angry emails).

The flagpole is still clanging as I write this from the dock. It’s a rhythm that echoes off distant shores, a beat that suggests movement, persistence, and the refusal to stand still just because the wind is blowing.

The question isn’t whether you’ll eventually have to let go of the merry-go-round. The question is: What will you do with all that momentum when you finally decide to jump off?

Eric Rhoads

PS #2: Picture this: You’re standing in a grove of golden maples, paintbrush in hand, surrounded by the most spectacular fall colors nature has to offer. The air is crisp, your canvas is alive with autumn’s fire, and you’re sharing this magical moment with fellow artists who quickly become lifelong friends. This isn’t just a dream — it’s my Fall Color Week retreat in the Midwest’s premier autumn destination on Lake Michigan. For one incredible week, we’ll paint together from sunrise to sunset, explore hidden scenic gems, and create art that captures the fleeting beauty of fall. After hosting dozens of these retreats, I can promise you this: The memories, friendships, and artistic growth you’ll experience will last far beyond the changing leaves. Join us at www.FallColorWeek.com

Last night’s crickets performed their deafening concerto outside my window here in Austin — that ancient sound of summer that transports me instantly to childhood. It’s remarkable how the sound of 10,000 crickets’ chirps can unlock an entire vault of memories: my mother calling us in for dinner, telling us to come home when the streetlights come on, screen doors slamming, my brothers and I racing barefoot across grass though the sprinklers, staying up late and sleeping late, and watching it rain from the safety of the garage, sitting in old webbed lawn chairs commenting about how God is bowling. Tonight I’ll hear different crickets as I arrive for the summer at our Adirondack lake home, but they’ll be singing the same timeless song, the rhythm as reliable as my grandmother’s heartbeat when she’d hold me during thunderstorms at her lake, miles from where we go now.

Bronze Warriors

Summers were our family’s sacred season. My cousins and I would transform into bronze warriors, armed with bottles of baby oil that we’d slather on like war paint, laying out on the dock determined to achieve the perfect tan. We’d sprawl across multi-colored terrycloth towels — mine was an orange ’60s design with yellow fringe that tickled — turning ourselves like rotisserie chickens every 15 minutes. The local radio DJ even told us, “Time to turn over.” The real rebellion came with the Sun-In, which we’d spray with abandon on our heads, convinced we’d emerge as blondes like the Beach Boys we were listening to on the radio. Instead, we looked like tigers with our streaky orange hair, but we wore those stripes with pride.

Firework Memories

The Fourth of July meant sticky fingers from watermelon, seeing who could spit the seeds the farthest, the sulfur smell of sparklers, and my dad with his apron and chef’s hat, manning the grill like a backyard hero. We’d stack our plates high with charred hot dogs, overcooked baked beans, and Grandma’s secret recipe potato salad that had definitely been in the sun too long, but somehow never made us sick. As darkness fell, we’d lie on our backs on the boat, watching fireworks paint the sky, my grandmother pointing out which ones looked like chrysanthemums, which ones like weeping willows. Between the booms, you could still hear the crickets.

Silver Spaceship

My grandparents’ silver Airstream trailer was our gateway to paradise. Parked permanently at the lake, it gleamed like a spaceship that had landed in the perfect spot. Inside, everything folded, tucked, or transformed — a bed became a table, a table became a bench. It smelled of coffee and sunscreen and the particular mustiness of lake living. Grandpa kept his fishing lures in an old cigar box that I was allowed to organize but never touch without him.

Patriotic Period

When my parents finally saved enough for their own lake house, I claimed the back upstairs bedroom and immediately set about destroying it with my 13-year-old’s vision of sophistication: dark navy blue walls (three coats to get it dark enough) and fire-engine red shag carpet that shed like a molting bird. My mother’s eye twitched when she saw it, but she just handed me another paintbrush and said, “Well, you’ll be the one living in it.” My father added, “Looks like the inside of a baseball glove,” which I took as a compliment. Twenty years later, when I was home for Christmas, I found a photo of that room tucked in Mom’s album with a note: “Rick’s Patriotic Period.” They never said a word, but they saved the evidence.

Lake Time

Our summer days unfolded with delicious predictability. Wake up whenever. Pull on yesterday’s swimsuit, still damp and smelling of the lake. Grab whatever was in the fridge — usually cold leftover hot dogs. Then down to the dock, where time moved differently, measured not in hours but in successful ski runs, perfect cannonball splashes, and who could sing the loudest as we played “Hot Fun in the Summertime” on the pontoon’s 8-track player.

Yellow Lightning

My father’s pride was a banana-yellow speedboat with metal-flake sparkles that caught the sun like scattered diamonds. He’d bought it new from a dealer who’d thrown in some fuzzy dice, which my mother immediately relocated to the garbage. That boat was genuinely the fastest on the lake — or at least we believed it was, which amounted to the same thing. Dad would open the throttle and we’d scream across the water, the bow lifting until we were practically airborne, my mother white-knuckling the handle while pretending to enjoy herself. Those were such good times. 

Party Barge

The pontoon was our party barge, though our parties consisted mainly of 11 teenagers singing off-key and arguing over who had to ski first in the cold morning water. The green vinyl seats would stick to our thighs, leaving waffle patterns that we’d compare like tattoos. Someone always brought a guitar they couldn’t really play, and we’d butcher Beatles songs while the sun set, feeling profound about life in the way only teenagers can.

Next Generation

Now I watch my triplets creating their lake mythology. They’ve grown up with the same rhythms on a different lake — morning swims, all-day ski runs, sailboat races, evening bonfires where we burn marshmallows into charcoal and call them s’mores. They raid the neighbors’ fridges with the same entitlement I once did, treating the lake community like one extended kitchen. 

History Repeats

My kids learned to sail in the same little Sunfish I did, turtling it the same way I once did. They still make cannonballs from the swimming platform that send tsunamis over the dock, just as my brothers and I did. And a few times a week all the kids and their friends make a trek to the rope swing where, if you time it just right, you can clear the shallow rocks and land in deep water.

The Last Summer?

It was painful when I grew up and could no longer spend all summer at the lake. An occasional day off allowed me to visit sporadically over a couple of decades. I’m sure my parents were heartbroken when we left their lake nest. Now two of my three just walked across graduation stages, diplomas in hand, futures spreading before them like unmarked maps. They’re filling out job applications, practicing interview answers, ironing clothes that don’t have swimsuit strings. We’ve given them this gift: one last endless summer. The whole family. No internships, no summer jobs, no productivity metrics. Just one last full summer at the lake. And then, we’ll be lonely, wishing they were there all summer, every summer with us. We pray for jobs they can do remotely. 

Future Knowledge

I want to tell my kids what I’ve learned — that they’ll blink and be 40, sitting in some office, trying to remember the exact green shade of the lake in July. That they’ll spend decades attempting to schedule their lives around two-week vacations, jealously guarding long weekends, calculating how many more summers they might have. But you can’t explain this to someone who still believes summer is a renewable resource. My son balked when I said, “You typically don’t get any vacation time off your first six months, and then in most jobs you get two weeks a year.” 

Beautiful Prison

Here’s the thing about owning a lake house: It owns you back. Every June, when our friends jet off to Europe or to explore hidden beaches in Thailand, we return to the same dock, the same view, the same neighbors who’ve watched us grow from sunburned kids to sunburned adults with sunburned kids of our own. I’ve declined trips to Paris, missed opportunities in Prague, said no to safaris and cruises and guided tours of anywhere that isn’t here.

Sometimes I wonder what stamps my passport is missing. But then I watch the same sun set over the same water, and it’s completely different from yesterday’s sunset, and I realize I’ve been traveling all along — just vertically instead of horizontally, diving deeper into the same coordinates rather than skimming the surface of new ones. I would not trade it for all the trips in the world. Time at the lake is precious. Every year when we leave, we count the days till we return.

Counting Summers

What if this is my last summer? Not my last summer breathing, necessarily, but my last summer in this configuration — all three kids here, the family constellation complete, nobody yet scattered by jobs or marriages or the million ways life pulls us from our centers. I cherish every moment.

Perfect Chaos

If it is the last, then it’s already perfect. Not Instagram perfect — real perfect. The kind where my son complains about the WiFi speed and my daughter monopolizes the kayak and my other son leaves wet towels everywhere. Where we run out of milk and someone always drinks the last beer and the neighbors’ dog barks at 6 a.m. Where we play the same card games my grandparents taught me, where we grill the same burgers my father perfected, where we tell the same stories until they become incantations.

Devoted Repetition

My kids tease me about being stuck, about choosing the same view year after year. They don’t understand yet that repetition is a form of devotion. Watching the same water lets you see how it’s never the same water. That knowing every board on the dock means feeling when one needs replacing. That the neighbors who’ve watched you grow up become a kind of family you choose by staying. There are 90-year-olds across the lake that have been on the lake every summer since they were born, never missing one. Two of our three have never missed a summer at the lake. To us, it’s a gift like no other.

Future Understanding

They’ll understand someday, when they’re sitting in some far-off city, successful and homesick in equal measure. When they realize that all their traveling was just a long way of coming home. When they book their vacations for the same week in July, bringing their own kids to add new layers to our sediment of summers.

Paying Attention

This summer — this particular alignment of souls and sunshine — won’t come again. By next year, my kids will have jobs that count vacation days like a miser counts coins. The lake will look the same, but things will never be the same.

Memory Banking

So I pay attention. I memorize the sound of all three laughing at once. I snapshot the sight of them piled in a canoe on the dock for their annual canoe picture. I cherish the chaos of a dozen friends raiding our fridge and catching us up on the rest of their year, and watching them grow into adults. These are the deposits I’m making in a bank I’ll draw from in winters to come.

Present Memory

What would make this your best and most memorable summer ever? Maybe it’s not about making it memorable. Maybe it’s about being present for the memory as it forms. About tasting your coffee while it’s hot. About feeling the dock boards under bare feet. About joining the terribly off-key singing on the pontoon. About saying yes to one more ski run even though you’re tired.

Cricket Wisdom

The crickets already know what I’m still learning: that the best song is the one you sing every night. That beauty compounds through repetition. That summer isn’t a season but a state of grace we’re offered again and again until we’re wise enough to accept it.

Inherited Understanding

My grandparents’ parents left me more than the legacy of each summer spent on the water. They left me the understanding that happiness isn’t found — it’s repeated. That the same jokes get funnier with age. That the same stories improve with each telling. That the same place, returned to with intention, becomes sacred ground.

Tonight’s Symphony

Tonight, the crickets will sing their ancient song at the lake when I arrive. I’ll have a few days of peace and quiet before the rest of the family arrives. Projects need to be done. The internet wires were cut by a shovel and need to be restrung. The boat will need gas. There will be lots of projects to fill up the week. The stars will reflect on water that’s been reflecting for generations before us. And I’ll sit on this lake where I’ve been sitting for 30 years, holding my favorite old coffee mug, knowing that I’m living the answer to my own question.

Best Ever

This will be the best summer ever. Not because it’s perfect, but because it’s happening. Because I’m here to see it. Because my kids will be close enough to touch. Because the crickets are keeping time, and time, for now, is keeping us.

Tomorrow’s Coffee

Tomorrow I’ll make coffee again. I’ll sit in this same squeaky 100-year-old wicker chair on the screened porch overlooking the lake. I’ll watch this same water. And it will all be completely new, because I’ll be one day older, one day wiser, one day more grateful for the beautiful trap of staying put, for the perfect prison of a place that’s loved you longer than you’ve loved yourself.

Patient Lake

The lake is patient. It’s been waiting all winter for our return, holding our place, keeping our secrets. And we come back, summer after summer, not because we have to, but because we finally understand that here — this dock, this water, this view — is where we’re most ourselves. The crickets here in Austin have been singing all night, but tonight different crickets will sing the same song, and I’ll be home. Where else could we possibly want to be?

Don’t ignore the mundane, the repeated patterns, the sameness and predictability. Cherish it.

Eric Rhoads

PS: Soon I’ll head to the airport, board a flight, and I’ll be at the lake by bedtime. After a quick stop for groceries, my daughter and I will take a boat across the lake to our little island, and begin our annual summer tradition. I can’t wait.

BIG NEWS: Iconic Moviemaking Artists

For a couple of decades now, I’ve been painting digitally. I love to paint on my iPad when I’m traveling or when I don’t have paints with me. Also, I’m using digital painting to create composition ideas and value studies of my paintings. And though I’m pretty good at it, I want to get better.

We have just signed six of Hollywood’s top digital artists to do a one-day event called Digital Painting Live. Not only will you get to watch people paint, each of them is also a traditional painter, so they will be giving painting advice that applies whether using a brush or a stylus. Imagine watching the men and women who create the backgrounds and characters for movies like Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Marvel movies, Disney movies, and more. These artists are iconic. Check it out at DigitalPaintingLive.com.

Paint Camp in the Adirondacks

On Saturday we’ll have about a hundred artists checking in for my annual Adirondack painting retreat. I’m looking forward to seeing you there. www.paintadirondacks.com

Breaking Tradition

When the triplets were born, I made a pact with myself that I’d do no business travel in the summer. Only twice have I ever violated that pact. But this will be a shorter summer because I’m flying to China on Father’s Day for a three-week speaking and painting tour. Two of my kids and a video crew will be with me, helping create a documentary about this rare trip. I’m not sure if I’ll get Sunday Coffee out or not. So if not, you’ll get a few repeats. 

Last night’s crickets performed their deafening concerto outside my window here in Austin — that ancient sound of summer that transports me instantly to childhood. It’s remarkable how the sound of 10,000 crickets’ chirps can unlock an entire vault of memories: my mother calling us in for dinner, telling us to come home when the streetlights come on, screen doors slamming, my brothers and I racing barefoot across grass though the sprinklers, staying up late and sleeping late, and watching it rain from the safety of the garage, sitting in old webbed lawn chairs commenting about how God is bowling. Tonight I’ll hear different crickets as I arrive for the summer at our Adirondack lake home, but they’ll be singing the same timeless song, the rhythm as reliable as my grandmother’s heartbeat when she’d hold me during thunderstorms at her lake, miles from where we go now.

Bronze Warriors

Summers were our family’s sacred season. My cousins and I would transform into bronze warriors, armed with bottles of baby oil that we’d slather on like war paint, laying out on the dock determined to achieve the perfect tan. We’d sprawl across multi-colored terrycloth towels — mine was an orange ’60s design with yellow fringe that tickled — turning ourselves like rotisserie chickens every 15 minutes. The local radio DJ even told us, “Time to turn over.” The real rebellion came with the Sun-In, which we’d spray with abandon on our heads, convinced we’d emerge as blondes like the Beach Boys we were listening to on the radio. Instead, we looked like tigers with our streaky orange hair, but we wore those stripes with pride.

Firework Memories

The Fourth of July meant sticky fingers from watermelon, seeing who could spit the seeds the farthest, the sulfur smell of sparklers, and my dad with his apron and chef’s hat, manning the grill like a backyard hero. We’d stack our plates high with charred hot dogs, overcooked baked beans, and Grandma’s secret recipe potato salad that had definitely been in the sun too long, but somehow never made us sick. As darkness fell, we’d lie on our backs on the boat, watching fireworks paint the sky, my grandmother pointing out which ones looked like chrysanthemums, which ones like weeping willows. Between the booms, you could still hear the crickets.

Silver Spaceship

My grandparents’ silver Airstream trailer was our gateway to paradise. Parked permanently at the lake, it gleamed like a spaceship that had landed in the perfect spot. Inside, everything folded, tucked, or transformed — a bed became a table, a table became a bench. It smelled of coffee and sunscreen and the particular mustiness of lake living. Grandpa kept his fishing lures in an old cigar box that I was allowed to organize but never touch without him.

Patriotic Period

When my parents finally saved enough for their own lake house, I claimed the back upstairs bedroom and immediately set about destroying it with my 13-year-old’s vision of sophistication: dark navy blue walls (three coats to get it dark enough) and fire-engine red shag carpet that shed like a molting bird. My mother’s eye twitched when she saw it, but she just handed me another paintbrush and said, “Well, you’ll be the one living in it.” My father added, “Looks like the inside of a baseball glove,” which I took as a compliment. Twenty years later, when I was home for Christmas, I found a photo of that room tucked in Mom’s album with a note: “Rick’s Patriotic Period.” They never said a word, but they saved the evidence.

Lake Time

Our summer days unfolded with delicious predictability. Wake up whenever. Pull on yesterday’s swimsuit, still damp and smelling of the lake. Grab whatever was in the fridge — usually cold leftover hot dogs. Then down to the dock, where time moved differently, measured not in hours but in successful ski runs, perfect cannonball splashes, and who could sing the loudest as we played “Hot Fun in the Summertime” on the pontoon’s 8-track player.

Yellow Lightning

My father’s pride was a banana-yellow speedboat with metal-flake sparkles that caught the sun like scattered diamonds. He’d bought it new from a dealer who’d thrown in some fuzzy dice, which my mother immediately relocated to the garbage. That boat was genuinely the fastest on the lake — or at least we believed it was, which amounted to the same thing. Dad would open the throttle and we’d scream across the water, the bow lifting until we were practically airborne, my mother white-knuckling the handle while pretending to enjoy herself. Those were such good times. 

Party Barge

The pontoon was our party barge, though our parties consisted mainly of 11 teenagers singing off-key and arguing over who had to ski first in the cold morning water. The green vinyl seats would stick to our thighs, leaving waffle patterns that we’d compare like tattoos. Someone always brought a guitar they couldn’t really play, and we’d butcher Beatles songs while the sun set, feeling profound about life in the way only teenagers can.

Next Generation

Now I watch my triplets creating their lake mythology. They’ve grown up with the same rhythms on a different lake — morning swims, all-day ski runs, sailboat races, evening bonfires where we burn marshmallows into charcoal and call them s’mores. They raid the neighbors’ fridges with the same entitlement I once did, treating the lake community like one extended kitchen. 

History Repeats

My kids learned to sail in the same little Sunfish I did, turtling it the same way I once did. They still make cannonballs from the swimming platform that send tsunamis over the dock, just as my brothers and I did. And a few times a week all the kids and their friends make a trek to the rope swing where, if you time it just right, you can clear the shallow rocks and land in deep water.

The Last Summer?

It was painful when I grew up and could no longer spend all summer at the lake. An occasional day off allowed me to visit sporadically over a couple of decades. I’m sure my parents were heartbroken when we left their lake nest. Now two of my three just walked across graduation stages, diplomas in hand, futures spreading before them like unmarked maps. They’re filling out job applications, practicing interview answers, ironing clothes that don’t have swimsuit strings. We’ve given them this gift: one last endless summer. The whole family. No internships, no summer jobs, no productivity metrics. Just one last full summer at the lake. And then, we’ll be lonely, wishing they were there all summer, every summer with us. We pray for jobs they can do remotely. 

Future Knowledge

I want to tell my kids what I’ve learned — that they’ll blink and be 40, sitting in some office, trying to remember the exact green shade of the lake in July. That they’ll spend decades attempting to schedule their lives around two-week vacations, jealously guarding long weekends, calculating how many more summers they might have. But you can’t explain this to someone who still believes summer is a renewable resource. My son balked when I said, “You typically don’t get any vacation time off your first six months, and then in most jobs you get two weeks a year.” 

Beautiful Prison

Here’s the thing about owning a lake house: It owns you back. Every June, when our friends jet off to Europe or to explore hidden beaches in Thailand, we return to the same dock, the same view, the same neighbors who’ve watched us grow from sunburned kids to sunburned adults with sunburned kids of our own. I’ve declined trips to Paris, missed opportunities in Prague, said no to safaris and cruises and guided tours of anywhere that isn’t here.

Sometimes I wonder what stamps my passport is missing. But then I watch the same sun set over the same water, and it’s completely different from yesterday’s sunset, and I realize I’ve been traveling all along — just vertically instead of horizontally, diving deeper into the same coordinates rather than skimming the surface of new ones. I would not trade it for all the trips in the world. Time at the lake is precious. Every year when we leave, we count the days till we return.

Counting Summers

What if this is my last summer? Not my last summer breathing, necessarily, but my last summer in this configuration — all three kids here, the family constellation complete, nobody yet scattered by jobs or marriages or the million ways life pulls us from our centers. I cherish every moment.

Perfect Chaos

If it is the last, then it’s already perfect. Not Instagram perfect — real perfect. The kind where my son complains about the WiFi speed and my daughter monopolizes the kayak and my other son leaves wet towels everywhere. Where we run out of milk and someone always drinks the last beer and the neighbors’ dog barks at 6 a.m. Where we play the same card games my grandparents taught me, where we grill the same burgers my father perfected, where we tell the same stories until they become incantations.

Devoted Repetition

My kids tease me about being stuck, about choosing the same view year after year. They don’t understand yet that repetition is a form of devotion. Watching the same water lets you see how it’s never the same water. That knowing every board on the dock means feeling when one needs replacing. That the neighbors who’ve watched you grow up become a kind of family you choose by staying. There are 90-year-olds across the lake that have been on the lake every summer since they were born, never missing one. Two of our three have never missed a summer at the lake. To us, it’s a gift like no other.

Future Understanding

They’ll understand someday, when they’re sitting in some far-off city, successful and homesick in equal measure. When they realize that all their traveling was just a long way of coming home. When they book their vacations for the same week in July, bringing their own kids to add new layers to our sediment of summers.

Paying Attention

This summer — this particular alignment of souls and sunshine — won’t come again. By next year, my kids will have jobs that count vacation days like a miser counts coins. The lake will look the same, but things will never be the same.

Memory Banking

So I pay attention. I memorize the sound of all three laughing at once. I snapshot the sight of them piled in a canoe on the dock for their annual canoe picture. I cherish the chaos of a dozen friends raiding our fridge and catching us up on the rest of their year, and watching them grow into adults. These are the deposits I’m making in a bank I’ll draw from in winters to come.

Present Memory

What would make this your best and most memorable summer ever? Maybe it’s not about making it memorable. Maybe it’s about being present for the memory as it forms. About tasting your coffee while it’s hot. About feeling the dock boards under bare feet. About joining the terribly off-key singing on the pontoon. About saying yes to one more ski run even though you’re tired.

Cricket Wisdom

The crickets already know what I’m still learning: that the best song is the one you sing every night. That beauty compounds through repetition. That summer isn’t a season but a state of grace we’re offered again and again until we’re wise enough to accept it.

Inherited Understanding

My grandparents’ parents left me more than the legacy of each summer spent on the water. They left me the understanding that happiness isn’t found — it’s repeated. That the same jokes get funnier with age. That the same stories improve with each telling. That the same place, returned to with intention, becomes sacred ground.

Tonight’s Symphony

Tonight, the crickets will sing their ancient song at the lake when I arrive. I’ll have a few days of peace and quiet before the rest of the family arrives. Projects need to be done. The internet wires were cut by a shovel and need to be restrung. The boat will need gas. There will be lots of projects to fill up the week. The stars will reflect on water that’s been reflecting for generations before us. And I’ll sit on this lake where I’ve been sitting for 30 years, holding my favorite old coffee mug, knowing that I’m living the answer to my own question.

Best Ever

This will be the best summer ever. Not because it’s perfect, but because it’s happening. Because I’m here to see it. Because my kids will be close enough to touch. Because the crickets are keeping time, and time, for now, is keeping us.

Tomorrow’s Coffee

Tomorrow I’ll make coffee again. I’ll sit in this same squeaky 100-year-old wicker chair on the screened porch overlooking the lake. I’ll watch this same water. And it will all be completely new, because I’ll be one day older, one day wiser, one day more grateful for the beautiful trap of staying put, for the perfect prison of a place that’s loved you longer than you’ve loved yourself.

Patient Lake

The lake is patient. It’s been waiting all winter for our return, holding our place, keeping our secrets. And we come back, summer after summer, not because we have to, but because we finally understand that here — this dock, this water, this view — is where we’re most ourselves. The crickets here in Austin have been singing all night, but tonight different crickets will sing the same song, and I’ll be home. Where else could we possibly want to be?

Don’t ignore the mundane, the repeated patterns, the sameness and predictability. Cherish it.

Eric Rhoads

PS: Soon I’ll head to the airport, board a flight, and I’ll be at the lake by bedtime. After a quick stop for groceries, my daughter and I will take a boat across the lake to our little island, and begin our annual summer tradition. I can’t wait.

BIG NEWS: Iconic Moviemaking Artists

For a couple of decades now, I’ve been painting digitally. I love to paint on my iPad when I’m traveling or when I don’t have paints with me. Also, I’m using digital painting to create composition ideas and value studies of my paintings. And though I’m pretty good at it, I want to get better.

We have just signed six of Hollywood’s top digital artists to do a one-day event called Digital Painting Live. Not only will you get to watch people paint, each of them is also a traditional painter, so they will be giving painting advice that applies whether using a brush or a stylus. Imagine watching the men and women who create the backgrounds and characters for movies like Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Marvel movies, Disney movies, and more. These artists are iconic. Check it out at DigitalPaintingLive.com.

Paint Camp in the Adirondacks

On Saturday we’ll have about a hundred artists checking in for my annual Adirondack painting retreat. I’m looking forward to seeing you there. www.paintadirondacks.com

Breaking Tradition

When the triplets were born, I made a pact with myself that I’d do no business travel in the summer. Only twice have I ever violated that pact. But this will be a shorter summer because I’m flying to China on Father’s Day for a three-week speaking and painting tour. Two of my kids and a video crew will be with me, helping create a documentary about this rare trip. I’m not sure if I’ll get Sunday Coffee out or not. So if not, you’ll get a few repeats.