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Deep blue waters stretch endlessly before me, framed by snow-capped Alps that pierce the October sky. From my window at Hotel Barchetta on Lake Como, I watch the morning light dance across waters that have inspired artists for centuries. Fall has painted the mountainsides in muted browns, oranges, and reds, while ornamental estates dot the shoreline like elaborate birthday cakes.

The busy summer lake season has quieted now. An occasional classic wooden speedboat cuts through the mirror-like surface, and a few tour boats ferry the last visitors of the season to distant shores. Churchill, who painted these very waters, called Como “the most beautiful lake in the world.” Even Mark Twain, initially partial to Lake Tahoe, eventually confessed that Como deserved “the eternal comparison.”

This week, I’m painting both Como and Lake Garda as I lead a group of people through Switzerland and Italy on my annual international painting trip. Last May, at the Plein Air Convention, it was Tahoe. Three of the world’s most stunning lakes have graced my canvases this year, and somehow, instead of exhaustion, I feel invigorated — not just by the beauty, but by the stories unfolding around me.

Voice at Dawn

Over breakfast, Joyce — a vibrant woman in her 80s with eyes that sparkle with purpose — shared something remarkable. 

“One day, I was awakened at four in the morning,” she began. “A voice, as clear as we’re talking right now, said: ‘Joyce, you need to build a park.’”

She admitted it made no sense. Of all things, why a park? But Joyce has learned something most of us struggle with our entire lives: When heaven whispers, you listen. And more importantly, you act.

Seeds Become Gardens

What unfolded next reads like a modern-day parable. A hurricane and fire had devastated an economically disadvantaged neighborhood in Northern Florida. A vacant lot appeared. Joyce’s lifetime of relationships and contacts mobilized — donating time, discounted materials, volunteers, and, yes, some of her own resources. The park rose from the ashes.

But God’s whispers rarely stop at our first obedience. They unfold like seeds becoming gardens, revealing purposes we couldn’t initially have imagined.

Beyond the Playground

Visiting the park, Joyce noticed a little girl struggling to play, hampered by dirty, ill-fitting clothes. A trip to the dollar store led to meeting the girl’s father — a man drowning while trying to keep four children afloat. Soon, Joyce was clothing all four kids, becoming “Mama Joyce” in their lives, exposing them to possibilities they’d never imagined.

One daughter’s speech impediment revealed itself as an uncorrected cleft palate. Joyce arranged for and funded the surgery. The transformation was profound — the girl went from struggling in school to becoming a cheerleader, popular and confident.

The park had become more than a playground. It became the catalyst for an entire community’s revitalization.

When Everything Changes

Then came the phone call that would test everything. The sheriff’s voice was gentle but urgent: The children’s father had been arrested, and their mother had long been lost to addiction. Could Joyce take the girls for a few nights?

“A few nights” has become four years. Joyce is raising two of the girls — ages 6 and 8 when they arrived. The younger two, a newborn and toddler, were too much for an 80-year-old woman to foster, so they found homes with relatives. But their sisters found a home with a woman who had simply said yes to building a park.

Pennies and Providence

Joyce’s story stirred something deep within me. I’ve only heard God’s audible voice once — during a desperate prayer to save my business from bankruptcy. An employee had advised me to be specific, so I prayed for the exact amount needed to meet payroll, down to the penny.

The next morning, an advertiser called with leftover budget he wanted to prepay. I agreed without asking the amount. The check that arrived? The exact figure I’d prayed for. To the penny.

Dreams and Dinner Tables

More often, God’s voice comes through dreams and persistent thoughts that don’t seem to originate from my own mind. Years ago, I had a vivid dream about hosting a dinner, the table filled with history’s greatest artists. That dream became the Plein Air Convention — a gathering that has birthed countless miracles.

One such miracle, among many stories, concerns a woman who approached me at the convention with three months to live, wanting to experience the convention once before dying. We prayed together right there in the exhibit hall. She’s alive today, a decade later, her cancer in remission, her doctors unable to explain what happened.

Competing Voices Within

Here’s what Joyce’s story reminded me of: We all hear voices. The question isn’t whether we hear them, but which ones we choose to follow. Evil whispers too, encouraging choices that would destroy us and those we love, just for brief moments of pleasure. The apostle Paul wrote about this very battle in Romans 7:15: “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.”

The difference between divine whispers and destructive ones? The fruit they bear. As Jesus taught in Matthew 7:16, “By their fruit you will recognize them.”

The Uncomfortable Truth

Some readers cringe when I speak of such things. The Bible actually addresses this directly. First Corinthians 2:14-16 explains why faith can seem like foolishness to those without it:

“The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.”

In other words, spiritual truths require spiritual eyes to see them. It’s not that believers are delusional and non-believers are rational — it’s that we’re operating with different perceptive capabilities. The passage continues: “Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others. For who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him? But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.”

This isn’t arrogance; it’s simply acknowledging that faith opens doors of understanding that remain closed without it. Like trying to explain color to someone who’s never had sight, some realities only make sense when you’ve experienced them yourself.

I’ve come to accept that following heaven’s whispers will sometimes make us look foolish to the world. Joyce looked foolish building a park in a devastated neighborhood. I looked foolish praying for exact amounts. But foolishness that transforms lives and communities? That’s wisdom dressed in work clothes.

Your Park Awaits

What persistent thought keeps tugging at your heart? What seemingly ridiculous idea won’t leave you alone? What giant idea is being ignored because it seems impossible? What voice have you been dismissing as impractical, impossible, or irrelevant?

Joyce’s park wasn’t really about playground equipment. It was about obedience creating space for miracles. Those two girls thriving in her home? They were always the point. The park was just God’s way of getting Joyce to the right place at the right time with the right heart to rescue these precious lives.

Life isn’t about what we accumulate — it’s about who we help when heaven whispers their name. It’s not about our plans — it’s about having the courage to say yes when God’s plans interrupt our own.

Listen and Act

Joyce’s advice was beautifully simple: “Listen and take action.”

Not just listen. Not just act. Both.

Because somewhere, there’s a park waiting to be built. A life waiting to be changed. A miracle waiting for someone brave enough to look foolish for heaven’s sake.

This week, as I paint the beauty of Como, I’m asking myself: What’s my next park? What voice have I been too busy, too practical, too afraid to follow?

The morning light on Lake Como reminds me that God is an artist too, painting possibilities across the canvas of our lives. We just need to pick up the brush when He hands it to us.

What will you paint when heaven whispers your name?

Eric Rhoads

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

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

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.