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

It’s peaceful, sitting lakeside in the Adirondacks, on the dock and staring aimlessly at the morning mist rising off the water and pondering what I’m grateful for as I think about some of the wonderful moments in my life. Today, before the sun started to think about painting the sky pink, the loons acted as my alarm, starting the day with their haunting loooooon call across the lake. It’s not just a sound — it’s a two-way conversation that’s been going on for thousands of years, since long before we humans showed up.

That call echoes off the mountains and settles right into my bones, making me realize that I’m just a guest here, and not even a particularly important one in the grand plan.

Like clockwork, as if someone said, “Cue the birds,” a giant bald eagle comes swooping in overhead like he owns the place — which, let’s be honest, he pretty much does. Wings spread wide as my mother’s old ’55 Buick, riding the thermals with the kind of effortless grace that makes you wonder why we humans work so hard at everything.

All summer long, we’ve been watching two baby loons ride around on their mama’s backs like tiny feathered passengers on the world’s most elegant water taxi. They started out as little puffballs that could barely keep their heads up, and now they’re almost ready to strike out on their own. Soon they’ll be practicing takeoffs and landings, and we pray the eagles don’t intercept them for a morning snack.

Reliving the ’80s
Though I’m not one to live in the past, I often think about some of the great moments in my lifetime, like the years between 1980-86, when I had my first radio station. The excitement was uncontrollable when we finally made the move. Our radio station had outgrown its Provo roots, and Salt Lake City — 45 minutes north — beckoned with its larger market and greater possibilities. Our signal now blanketed the Salt Lake Valley, but the ad agencies wouldn’t bite. To them, we were still outsiders, a Provo station playing dress-up in the big city. The daily commute to meet potential advertisers was becoming unsustainable. Something had to change.

Real estate prices in downtown Salt Lake hit me like a cold mountain wind. The prime locations were laughably out of reach. So I did what desperate entrepreneurs do — I got creative. I found a forgotten corner of the city, a neighborhood where most people quickened their pace and avoided eye contact. The old Crain plumbing warehouse stood there like a monument to better days, its upper 8th floor mostly vacant because tenants felt the area was too dangerous. It was all we could afford.

Being a Pioneer?
We transformed that empty space into vibrant studios, and when construction was complete, we threw a party that shook the rafters. With audacious confidence, we declared this forgotten district would become the city’s new media hub. Amazingly, people believed us. Within months, a celebrated restaurant opened on our ground floor. A major advertising agency relocated down the street. Like dominoes falling in reverse — building up instead of knocking down — the neighborhood transformed. Creative agencies, media companies, and art galleries flourished where decay once reigned. We had unknowingly wielded the cultural influence of a popular radio station to resurrect an entire district. Sometimes being first isn’t about being brave; it’s about having no other choice.

But the greatest treasure wasn’t the real estate transformation — it was the people I discovered in that old warehouse.

Three Guys and a New Tenant
Three guys shared a cramped office down the hall, fellow pioneers in our urban frontier. Henry was bootstrapping a direct mail company with more ambition than capital. Brent worked as a freelance TV and radio engineer, his desk perpetually buried under circuit boards and cable spools. And then there was Jackson, a former television news anchor who’d traded the teleprompter for entrepreneurship.

We became inseparable, our after-work conversations stretching long into the evening. Henry eventually vanished into the entrepreneurial ether — we lost touch years ago. Brent came to work for me, met his future wife at our station, then moved away. He’s since passed on, leaving memories of laughter and late-night technical miracles. But Jackson — Jackson remains a lifelong friend, one of those rare connections where months of silence dissolve instantly into hours of conversation.

The King of Conversation
Everyone who left Jackson’s office said the same thing: “What an incredible conversationalist! I feel so energized after talking with him.” This universal reaction made me pay attention. I studied Jackson like an anthropologist observing a master craftsman. Here’s what I discovered: Jackson wasn’t a conversationalist at all — he was an excavator of stories. He asked questions with genuine curiosity. He listened with his whole being. He reflected back what he heard, making people feel truly seen. In a world full of broadcasters, Jackson was a receiver, and that made all the difference.

The Art We’ve Lost
We all hunger to be heard. It’s a fundamental human need, as basic as shelter or warmth. Yet somewhere along the way, many of us — myself painfully included — become addicted to transmitting instead of receiving. Just last week at Boathouse Yoga, I met a woman and immediately found common ground. But instead of exploring her story, I hijacked the conversation with my own tales. The awareness hit me like cold water: I was so desperate to be understood that I’d forgotten to understand. I could tell by her eyes I’d lost her. But it was too late. 

The Bible speaks to this ancient wisdom: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak” (James 1:19), and “A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing their own opinions” (Proverbs 18:2). These aren’t just religious platitudes — they’re blueprints for human connection.

I’ve catalogued some conversation killers over the years:

The Jumper interrupts mid-sentence, unable to contain their own thoughts. I worked with one who would cut me off 30 times in a single hour, talking 95% of the time while actively not listening the other 5%. They’re so busy formulating their next statement that your words bounce off them like rain off a windshield.

The Droner delivers monologues without pause, without breath, without mercy. One colleague was so committed to his soliloquies that I’d put him on speakerphone, offer an occasional “uh-huh,” and complete entire projects while he talked. The tragedy? He never noticed.

The Judge weaponizes every conversation into a tribunal. “That’s a terrible idea.” “You shouldn’t do that.” “What you’re doing is wrong.” They distribute unsolicited verdicts like a court clerk handing out subpoenas. After encounters with Judges, I find myself taking alternate routes at parties, treating them like social land mines.

The Negative finds fault in everything you say, never encourages, always looks for problems.

Tony Robbins once observed that “We’re all just scared little boys and girls,” and that truth reverberates through every failed conversation. I started life painfully shy, avoiding eye contact out of fear, inadvertently signaling lack of interest when I desperately craved connection. My father’s only communication training came when I was 8: “Firm handshake, look ’em in the eye, say hello with confidence.” Yet he was a master — making instant friends, remembering details from conversations years past, making everyone feel like the most important person in the room.

The Transformation
I’m rewriting my conversational DNA as we speak. Though my ego craves the spotlight, I’m learning to dim my own lights so others can shine. My new practice: Listen fully, regardless of duration. Probe deeper. Resist the urge to redirect toward my favorite subject — myself. Approach each conversation with love, recognizing that if someone needs to speak, I need to listen.

This isn’t about self-denial; it’s about discovering that real connection happens in the space between words, in the questions we ask rather than the stories we tell. When my mind races ahead to solutions, seeing the answer 10 steps before the speaker arrives there, I’m learning to guide rather than rescue, to walk alongside rather than charge ahead.

Can a bird change its markings? We’re about to find out.

My new mantra: Become a gentle spirit — more loving, understanding, supportive. At work, I’m painfully practicing silence, letting others speak first, resisting the gravitational pull toward conversational dominance and the need to solve every problem. What if we all listened more, interrupted less, avoided monologues, and cared more about hearing than being heard? The paradox is beautiful: By creating space for others, we often find ourselves truly heard for the first time.

The Best Speaker I Ever Saw

I once saw a speaker on stage and said, “I want to be like him. Brave, confident, and in control on stage.” I approached him after and asked him how to learn what he knew, which resulted in my spending five life-changing days in New York and writing a very big check I could not afford to write. The end result was remarkable, as I came to understand many of my issues and made directional changes, along with challenging myself and putting myself in situations that made me uncomfortable. I only wish I had discovered it sooner. If only we could be taught these skills in school.

I changed then, and I can change now. But it’s never easy. Being comfortable and not changing is easy.

How are you doing in the listening department? 

Are you listening, jumping to conclusions, judging, dominating the conversation, being negative, or over-talking? 

I’ve been guilty of them all, and I”m going to try to train my brain to be less of what I was and more of what I should be. Won’t you join me?

Sometimes the most profound journeys begin not with speaking, but with finally learning to listen.

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

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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. 

Darkness envelops me like a velvet cloak, not a single photon daring to peek through the bedroom window. The world holds its breath in that magical pre-dawn stillness. After stretching with a yawn so massive it threatens to dislocate my jaw, I remember my secret mission: stealthily brew that life-giving coffee before tiny footsteps and demands for breakfast shatter the silence, giving me these precious moments to share my thoughts before we rush headlong to the airport for my big artist convention.

Pondering Life 

Contemplation visits me uninvited but welcome as I balance on this tightrope between yesterday and tomorrow. This morning’s meditation feels especially poignant because it was on just such a morning that I awoke from one of those dreams so vibrant, so insistent, it felt less like subconscious meandering and more like a heavenly telegram from God delivered directly to my soul.

My Vivid Dream

A massive castle came to me in my dream state, a magnificent stone fortress with soaring 50-foot ceilings, where flags of every nation flapped gently in some unfelt breeze. I find myself centered at an impossibly long table, a feast fit for royalty being laid out by silent servants, while the fireplace — tall enough to stand three of me stacked like cordwood — sends golden light dancing across ancient stones.

Surrounded by the Greats

Legends surround me at this dream-table, their faces somehow familiar though we’ve never met in real life. But I recognize them from their self-portraits. Leonardo da Vinci gestures animatedly across from me, Rembrandt nods thoughtfully beside him, and as my gaze travels the length of this improbable gathering, I recognize each face — women and men whose artistic breakthroughs hang in the world’s most prestigious galleries and museums.

The air is thick with laughter and camaraderie as wine flows freely and conversation dances between tales of masterpieces created and techniques mastered and debates about which medium is the ultimate. We speak of pigments and brushstrokes, of types of clay and marble,  as lovers discuss their beloveds — with passion, reverence, and intimate knowledge born from lifetimes devoted to capturing beauty.

As this feast of great artists continues, I somehow realize that this isn’t our first gathering, but one of many — a tradition where artistic souls reconnect like old friends, the highlight of our collective year.

A Dream That Never Stops

This vivid dream of a gathering of artists continued to haunt me in my waking hours for weeks afterward, replaying in Technicolor detail during vivid discussions about art. Then one morning, after yet another nighttime return to that stone castle, I feel something — a presence, a gentle pressure on my shoulder, and a whisper: “You need to invite everyone to the annual dinner, Eric.” I don’t recognize the voice, but its authority is undeniable. Is this divine guidance? Or just my subconscious playing telephone?

Sudden Clarity

The meaning became clear during another bout of soul-searching — something vital was missing from my life. PleinAir Magazine, my passion project shuttered three years earlier due to financial realities, had left a gaping hole. Galleries had scoffed, “We don’t sell unfinished plein air paintings.” Art supply companies shrugged, “There aren’t enough plein air painters to justify advertising dollars.” Yet former readers still contacted me regularly, their disappointment a mirror of my own. I felt the self-induced pressure for it to return.

My Bold Announcement

Soon after this moment of clarity, I gathered my team of senior advisors to announce my revelation: We must resurrect PleinAir Magazine and simultaneously launch a convention. I explained the dream as eyes rolled, everyone thinking I’d finally gone crazy. My grand plan was to unite the scattered tribe of outdoor painters, with the intention of creating a movement that barely existed at the time.

Serious Discouragement

Without hesitation, my trusted advisors told me it was a bad idea. “Don’t do it, you’ll be ruined,” warned my top lieutenant. “We’re just regaining financial footing — this is suicide,” pronounced my numbers person, spreadsheets practically quivering with fear.

Insistence

I pride myself on listening to my advisors, and it’s rare that I ever pull rank. Yet defiantly, I claimed victory as I rose from my chair, spine straight despite knees knocking beneath the conference table. “We’re doing this one year from today,” I declare, knowing full well I’m gambling with my business, my dwindling savings, and potentially the roof over my family’s heads.

History Writes Itself 

Though bullets were coming out of my pores, knowing the risk was high and my team was against me, it turned out to be a good call. The magazine flourished, the movement exploded, and plein air events multiplied like rabbits across the landscape. Subscribers arrived by the hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands. Advertisers who once scoffed were lining up with checkbooks open. The timing, it seems, was divinely perfect. That was 15 years ago.

On the Runway Soon

In just a few hours from now, my wife, three kids, and me will be joining my dedicated team for a week of organized chaos as we create an unforgettable experience for our plein air family. Dozens of vendors, 80 master instructors, and nearly a thousand attendees will gather to celebrate what Jean Stern calls “the largest movement in the history of art.”

Fear whispered to me about losing everything back then. My gut shouted louder. The risk terrified me, but the dream’s gravitational pull was irresistible. Failure has lurked too close to home in the past, sharpening its claws. I’d lost everything before — the memory of that emptiness still haunts me. But this time I had three small humans and a spouse depending on my judgment. Relaunching the magazine and creating a convention was either brilliant or catastrophically stupid — possibly both simultaneously. My gut insisted this path was necessary, and hopefully, lives have been transformed because of it.

I’ve learned to understand that our gut speaks truth when we’re brave enough to listen. What is your gut telling you right now?

Fear accompanies greatness like a shadow — inseparable but ultimately powerless unless given authority. Every remarkable person who’s built impossible things knows fear intimately. Their differentiation isn’t fearlessness, but action despite trembling hands and racing hearts.

Dreams call loudly, though we often pretend not to hear, turning away from their persistent call. What vision keeps returning despite your logical objections? What do you know deep in your soul needs manifestation, even though you can’t fathom how you’ll accomplish it?

Don’t Let Details Stop You

Details remain hidden until your commitment materializes. You don’t need a complete roadmap — just the courage to take the first step. Even when the math screams “Impossibility!” if your gut vibrates with certainty, if you know that inaction means permanent regret, you must leap. The rest always falls into place. But it starts with commitment.

Our Brains Betray Us

Worst-case scenarios are always exaggerated in our minds. Yes, you might lose material possessions — homes, cars, bank balances. But your essence remains intact, perhaps even energized by a passionate pursuit. Solutions materialize when desperation fuels your creativity and the solutions you need to make your dream give birth. Yes, you’ll work harder than you believed possible. But most importantly, you won’t die wondering, “What if?” You won’t look back with the regret of not pursuing your dream, and you won’t ever have to wonder what might have happened.

Failure teaches lessons impossible to learn elsewhere. I’ve been so broke that ketchup packets became a food group. I survived, and I know if I crash again, I’ll subsist on ramen and determination. But ignoring my purpose? That’s soul-starvation of the worst kind.

The failed dream that almost crushed me

Technology dreams were big in 1999, when I envisioned putting music on this newfangled internet thing. It hadn’t been done. So I marched into Silicon Valley, charmed millions from investors’ wallets, built a company, and invented technology to stream radio and audio online. My team created standards still used today that had been deemed unworkable back then. In fact, most engineers told me what I wanted to do was impossible and defied physics. I interviewed 50 engineers, and 49 told me, “What you want to do is impossible.” I hired the one who said, “Yes, it’s impossible, but I’ll figure out how to do it.”

Soon employees are hired, and we’re doing business with iconic brands, and I’m meeting with the biggest names in Silicon Valley, like the founders of Google. Massive progress is made, and impossible technology is invented. And soon we are the number two consumer of streaming in the world. But one September day ends everything when planes hit the towers and investment money evaporates, and my company collapses into bankruptcy. I lost millions that others had entrusted to me, and my own dreams were shattered. The weight of that failure crushed my spirit, plunging me into years of depression where risk-taking became unthinkable. The wounds festered until I realized how much time I’d wasted nursing them instead of healing.

Behavior models excellence when you embrace the big dreams and necessary risks — but please, don’t emulate my years of paralysis and self-flagellation. That part of my journey was an unnecessary detour and a waste of human breath.

Finding Your Gifts

Gifts remain unopened within each of us — offering unique perspectives and solutions the world desperately needs. Most lie forever dormant, smothered by a blanket of fear. What would happen if you reframed your fear as excitement and took your shot?

Movement requires action, and thankfully I did not listen to the negative voices calling for caution in my head. Without taking a terrifying leap, PleinAir Magazine would not exist today. The convention might never have materialized. The plein air movement might have remained a scattered collection of individual painters rather than a global phenomenon. Perhaps someone else would have stepped forward — maybe even done it better. But I was the one chosen for this task, and when inspiration strikes you with similar force, you must recognize you’ve been selected for a purpose only you can fulfill.

Dreamers change everything when they cast aside risk and fear in pursuit of possibility. Every great woman or man who has built something life-changing has experienced fear. Join our ranks, and watch how your courage transforms not just your life but ripples outward to touch countless others. This is your moment. Hold your breath and jump in. No matter the outcome, you’ll never look back in regret.

Eric Rhoads

PS: A Little Nervous
Despite organizing this big convention many times before, my stomach still performs Olympic-level gymnastics. What if we mess up with a thousand people depending on us? It’s an enormous production. Yet excitement consistently outmuscles anxiety. Looking back, the journey seems impossible — especially for someone who skipped college, started without funding, battles ADHD daily, and finds business calculations more challenging than space flight. Success materialized despite my limitations, suggesting divine intervention for purposes still unfolding. I’m just grateful to have been hired for this unlikely role!  I hope to see you there.😊

PS: Switzerland Beckons
A couple of days ago we closed registrations for our upcoming Switzerland painting adventure, but fate intervened — one couple has cancelled at the last minute, which means two lucky souls can claim these coveted slots. I’ll share details during the convention, unless you grab these final seats before they vanish. Discover more at www.pleinairswitzerland.com.

PS: Hollywood Meets Canvas
I’ve had a 20-year secret love affair with digital painting. It accompanies me during travels, helps me solve compositional puzzles, and occasionally joins me outdoors. My iPad is filled with my digital paintings, sketches, and compositional experiments. On a skill scale of 1-10, I’m barely a 3. Asking around, I discovered everyone’s experimenting with it while feeling similarly inadequate. This made me wonder: Who are the world’s preeminent digital painters? The answer materialized instantly — those wizards crafting Hollywood’s breathtaking matte backgrounds and visual designs. I’ve convinced these industry giants — the artistic geniuses behind Lord of the Rings, Avatar, and countless blockbusters from the most prestigious studios — to teach you digital painting during a special one-day event on June 14. Whether you’re a digital novice or experienced pixel-pusher, you’ll discover new creative freedom. Not to replace traditional methods but to complement them, using devices you already own. More importantly, watching these masters work will elevate your non-digital painting exponentially. Register at www.digitalpaintinglive.com.

The first light of dawn creeps across the Texas sky this morning, a gentle watercolor of pinks and golds that feels both timeless and fleeting. The dew clings stubbornly to the wildflowers, their purple and yellow heads nodding in the whisper of a breeze that carries the mingled scents of fresh coffee, rain-washed earth, and honeysuckle. From somewhere nearby comes the persistent, hopeful chattering of grackles, and their abrasive sound puts me on high alert, awakening me better than coffee.

Suspended Time 

On mornings like this, time seems suspended. The porch swing creaks in gentle rhythm, a metronome marking moments that will never return. The coffee mug is warm between palms that once were held by my mother’s steadying hands. There’s something about these quiet moments that peels back the layers of adulthood, revealing the child within who still longs for the comforting presence of Mom. I’m missing her today.

Love Unbounded

Mother’s love is perhaps the most profound miracle of ordinary life — a love so expansive it seems to defy the laws of nature. It’s like the Texas sky itself — boundless, ever-present, sheltering us through storms and sunshine alike. Even when they’re gone, mothers leave an imprint on our souls as permanent as the lines on our palms.

Empty Chairs 

For those experiencing their first Mother’s Day with an empty chair at the table, an unheard voice on the other end of the phone, I see you. That first year carries a special kind of ache, a bewildering emptiness where celebration once lived. The calendar pages keep turning with cruel indifference to our grief, bringing us to days marked by absence rather than presence.

Enduring Presence

Yet in that absence, we find the enduring power of a mother’s love. It lives in the recipes we’ve inherited, like her amazing beef Stroganoff, which has never been the same in my kitchen. Mom’s influence is eternally passed on unexpectedly as phrases from her lips emerge from our own mouths, in the values that guide our decisions, and in the way we love our own children. I even catch myself saying things I swore I’d never say to my own kids, things that came from my mother. A mother’s love is like the horizon line — even when she disappears from view, her influence continues to shape the landscape of our lives.

Wild Gardens

Today, as we honor mothers everywhere, let’s remember that motherhood is like tending a garden that grows wild and wonderful in unexpected ways. It’s the quiet strength of showing up every day, of bandaging scraped knees and mending broken hearts, of celebrating triumphs both small and significant. It’s like holding water in cupped hands — precious, essential, and impossible to fully contain.

Time’s Gift

For those whose mothers still walk this earth, today is a gentle reminder not to wait. Make the call. Write the letter. Ask the questions. Share your gratitude. And for those whose mothers have passed beyond our reach, perhaps today we can honor them by embodying their best qualities, by telling their stories, by becoming living memorials to the love they poured into us. Let our kids know the legends of our youth and the stories of the mother only we knew.

Stubborn Beauty

The porch will always be here, the coffee will always brew, and the Texas morning will always break with stubborn beauty. But mothers — they are the irreplaceable treasure, the North Star by which we navigate our lives long after they’re gone. Thank God for mothers.

Timeless Wisdom

In honor of the power of motherhood everywhere, I pulled some quotes about motherhood from the book of Proverbs:

“She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.” — Proverbs 31:26

“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old, they will not turn from it.” — Proverbs 22:6

“A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son brings grief to his mother.” — Proverbs 10:1

“May your father and mother rejoice; may she who gave you birth be joyful!” — Proverbs 23:25

“A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish man despises his mother.” — Proverbs 15:20

“Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her.” — Proverbs 31:28

“A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones.” — Proverbs 12:4

“A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.” — Proverbs 31:10

“Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” — Proverbs 31:29-30

“For wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her.” — Proverbs 8:11

Eric Rhoads

Dawn breaks early across the Texas landscape this morning, carrying its own special music — mockingbirds competing for attention, the rustle of new spring green leaves dancing in the warm breeze, and the hoot of a confused owl perched atop our water tower. There’s something magical about these mornings here on the long porch that wraps around this Texas ranch house, where I sit with my coffee reflecting on whatever comes to mind.

This morning, as I watch the intricate dance of nature unfold around me, I’m reminded of how often the most valuable treasures require us to dig beneath the surface. We live in a world of quick fixes and instant solutions, yet the most transformative answers often lie several layers deeper than our initial search. Chances are if I were to dig deep on my own property, there would be a massive cave that would fit the Empire State Building — or at least an aquifer filled with spring water.

The Doctor’s Verdict

Years ago, I faced a non-life-threatening physical issue that left me in constant pain. My doctor delivered what felt like a life sentence: “Nothing can be done. You’ll need to learn to live with it.” While most people trust their doctors without question, I don’t. I respect them, respect their time commitment to medical school and their experience, and I’m willing to listen. But I also know all humans – doctors included – have biases and tend to get set in their ways. So I’m always asking, “What if they’re wrong?” 

Medical Certainties That Weren’t

The reason doctors must keep their licenses current with continuing education is because what are thought to be facts are often proven wrong. What seems safe today becomes tomorrow’s danger. Even medical journals have been proven wrong countless times, yet people believe them as gospel.

Think about what doctors have told us in the past that is no longer valid today. Most still tout cholesterol-busting drugs while recent studies indicate cholesterol is actually good for your brain, and the lack of it may contribute to Alzheimer’s. Some doctors still push low-fat diets, while the latest wisdom embraces good fats. When I was a kid, ads claimed “9 out of 10 doctors recommend Chesterfields” cigarettes — which turned out to be terrible advice. And the food pyramid, pushed for decades to benefit the grain industry, has been largely debunked as we now understand most grains are meant to fatten cattle, not humans.

What we see as standard medical practice today will eventually be challenged, and some current treatments will be shown to destroy lives.

The Persistence of Questions

The question that changed everything for me was simple: “What if my doctor is wrong?” Unwilling to accept a lifetime of pain, I began digging deeper. Second opinions from other doctors yielded the same verdict. Most would have stopped there, but I was not willing to accept the sentence. Alternative medicine practitioners offered hope but no results. Yet I persisted, asking questions, exploring unconventional approaches, and refusing to settle for the accepted wisdom.

Eventually, my search led to an unconventional treatment that even a doctor friend dismissed as “a waste of time and money.” I pursued it anyway. After multiple sessions, the problem medical science had deemed permanent vanished. The pain that was supposed to be my lifetime companion disappeared because I was willing to dig below the surface of conventional wisdom. I could give you three or four examples of medical issues that have been solved by this same persistence.

The Parallel in Your Life

Does this resonate with you? Have you ever solved what others considered unsolvable simply because you refused to accept the first, second, or third answer? What problems in your life right now might benefit from this deeper exploration?

When Life Hangs in the Balance

Now imagine the stakes elevated — your very survival hanging in the balance. When doctors recommend aggressive treatments like chemotherapy and radiation, is that the time to dig deeper or explore alternatives? The question becomes infinitely more complex because the answer might determine life or death, and timing is often tight.

The Cautionary Tale

Apple founder Steve Jobs famously rejected conventional medical treatment in favor of alternative approaches for his pancreatic cancer. His decision ultimately proved fatal — by the time he returned to conventional medicine, it was too late. Even his vast wealth couldn’t change the outcome. Yet we can never know with certainty if earlier conventional treatment would have saved him either. Some diseases defy even our best efforts.

The Contemporary Dilemma

I have a dear friend currently battling aggressive cancer who wisely chose to follow medical advice given the disease’s severity and progression. Yet emerging peer-reviewed research suggests a complementary treatment that wouldn’t interfere with his current protocol. In fact, it’s saving people with his disease, or at least buying them more time. His stance is to take the treatment only if his doctors approve. But what if their rejection stems not from evidence but from professional entrenchment? If the alternative posed no risk to my current treatment, I might choose differently. What would you do?

Beyond the Information Gatekeepers

We exist in an information ecosystem where a select group of experts determine what constitutes legitimate knowledge. Those operating outside established frameworks are often labeled as fringe thinkers or conspiracy theorists. We often get our news from someone who promotes what we already believe. The left thinks the right is crazy, the right thinks the same about the left. Are extremes really a good idea? How can we be certain the gatekeepers are correct? How can we be certain the alternative thinkers are right? We can’t. That’s precisely why we must question our information sources and explore beyond conventional wisdom. True understanding requires depth and never accepting the first or second answer.

The Solution Paradox

A mentor once shared wisdom that transformed my approach to problem-solving: While most of us can generate two or three solutions to any problem, those initial ideas are rarely optimal. The best answers typically emerge only after generating 20 to 50 possibilities — a process that forces us beyond comfortable, conventional thinking into the uncharted territory where innovation thrives. It’s not easy or quick, which is why most people don’t dig deep.

Depth in Relationships

This principle extends beyond problem-solving or accepting medical advice. Are you facing challenges with your children or family or work? How deeply are you willing to dig for meaningful solutions that address root causes rather than symptoms? Recently, I resolved a persistent personal issue only after extensive research led me far beyond mainstream approaches. Because I did not rule out the unconventional, my life was changed. The answer had been waiting, but only at a depth few are willing to reach. Where will you go that is beyond the mainstream?

The Hidden Treasures

Life’s most profound gifts are discovered through depth — in conversations that move beyond pleasantries, in relationships that transcend superficiality, in business connections built on genuine understanding rather than transaction. Surface-level engagement rarely yields significant value. The gold lies beneath layers of effort, discomfort, and persistence — requiring us to sift through considerable “dirt” before discovering the nuggets that transform our lives.

The Investment of Depth

A truly meaningful life consists of meaningful memories and experiences. Depth requires investment — of time, inconvenience, and often financial resources. Yet this investment yields returns others never discover. The question isn’t whether you can afford to go deep. It’s whether you can afford not to.

The Philosophical Core

At its essence, the pursuit of depth reflects humanity’s most noble characteristic — the refusal to accept limitations imposed by conventional wisdom or the appointed “thinkers” or “gatekeepers” of our time. It’s never a bad idea to ask yourself, “What is the reason they are pushing their particular narrative?”  When we dig deeper, we assert that reality is more complex, more nuanced, and more possibility-filled than commonly recognized. We acknowledge that truth often lies not in what’s immediately visible but in what remains hidden until we commit to the search.

The depth-seeker embodies the recognition that what we know is dwarfed by what remains unknown. Yet ironically, this humility becomes the foundation for a more empowered existence, as we free ourselves from the constraints of unexamined assumptions and well-worn paths.

What if you were to explore the depths in your own life today? What if you were to question what those in the high tower in white lab coats or on the TV screens are telling us is true?

Eric Rhoads