Foreword

This is the first book foreword I've ever written, and I do so at the age of 90 because I wholeheartedly believe its pages hold life-changing wisdom and perspective. Wise Decisions contains something not just for certain people, but all people, because it's our everyday decisions, whether large or small, that ultimately determine how we show up in life.

The pages ahead lay out a roadmap for building and strengthening our decision-making capacities, supporting us in making the kinds of choices that stand the test of time. Importantly, walking our talk with the young people in our lives, whether our children, students, athletes, grandchildren, or simply multigenerational friends, teaches them by example how to make thoughtful, intentional choices, offering them a priceless gift that will shape their life trajectories in unforeseeable yet powerful ways across time.

As I read through this book for the first time, I reflected more deeply on the people and experiences that shaped my own decision-making process, and what became clear was simply this: just about everything I needed to know about making wise and thoughtful choices was taught to me by my grandfather during childhood hikes in the mountains of North Carolina.

Despite being an outsized force in our community, my grandfather embodied the values of kindness, respect, integrity, and service always and without exception. Not once did I see him display arrogance, anger, or act in a demanding way. He showed up for others, whether it was a close friend or a stranger from one of the nearby poverty-ridden farming communities, and when a tough decision needed to be made, his inner guidance was plain and simple-he did the right thing.

My grandfather's actions spoke volumes, as a steadfast rule choosing the hard right over the easy wrong. Having built and funded the first school for African American children in China Grove, North Carolina, years before I was born, his ethic of caring, respect, and support for others, regardless of their circumstances, were the defining traits by which he was known in our community and our church. He was a true leader in every possible way, his values and ideals playing out in real time in the tangible decisions he made that impacted lives for the better.

All of this took root in me in a way I can see more clearly now in hindsight, the cutting-edge science of how I became who I am today illuminated across the science-focused chapters of this book. The bottom line is that it was both what he did and how he did it that stuck with me over time. As I think back, I remember how he respected and trusted me, spoke with me much like an adult despite being only five years old, and gave me opportunities to think deeply and reflect, to engage with him in the process of making decisions.

His unending care and respect wove a thread through interactions with myself and others, indelibly shaping the man I grew up to be. He instilled in me a sense that my ideas, thoughts, emotions, and questions had merit. He infused in me a sense of value for the important things in life, not material goods, but rather service to others and making our world better in a way that I uniquely could. He showed me how I too could navigate my own path in life such that, like him, I could impact the lives of others in a positive way. Just by walking his talk, he instilled in me a decision-making framework that has always felt like second nature, just a part of who I am.

This insight reinforced in an even deeper way the extraordinary capacity of adults to shape the minds, bodies, and higher-order spiritual beliefs of young people. And it's the times when emotions are running high, so-called "teachable moments," when the most powerful opportunities to lead by example present themselves. These are the rare moments within the fertile soil of a safe, trusted, and respectful relationship, when we adults can embed powerful life lessons that provide a felt sense of confidence, competence, and purpose for the young people we want, over and above all else, to see flourish.

Without question, this is the priceless gift my grandfather gave to me.

Prior to reading this book I'd never thought in considerable detail about the components of how I've made decisions. Nor had I ever tried to take the process from inside the black box of my mind and put it into words. Having now done this, a few things stand out.

First, my health, exercising every day, eating healthy food, and getting a good night's sleep is and always has been fundamental for the clear thinking I've needed to make solid decisions. The ways in which health ignites wise decision-making is the topic of the book's lead chapter. Second, while the concrete facts of any issue are important for thoughtful and informed deliberation, I now see the magnitude to which trusting the wisdom of my body, via my emotions and intuition, have played a role in the decisions I've made. I saw my grandfather do this over and over and recognize that these same core qualities have become second nature. Third, when I have a big decision to make, the solitude and freedom of nature helps me see the bigger picture more clearly, a particularly relevant fact in this era of relentless exposure to screens and social media. And fourth, if I was to lay out my decision-making process, I'd say it's been a combination of hard data and "gut feel", with input from a handful of wise friends, that have guided me throughout my 91 years. Incidentally, my body's language of emotion and intuition often provided clearer and more immediate feedback than the back-and-forth of hypothetical outcomes unfolding in my brain, all which set the stage to channel the ethos of my grandfather: to do the right thing.

Of the hard decisions I've had to make in life, whether in business as chairman of Westinghouse Broadcasting faced with mafia-driven death threats, making the call in 1981 to break the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) story to the world, or as Chancellor of the University of Denver, the spirit of my grandfather has run a thread through them all.

At age 58 I'd retired from Westinghouse and had planned to live my remaining days as a cowboy on my ranch in Colorado. Out of the blue one day, a dear friend posed a question I'd never anticipated in a million years, whether I'd take over as Chancellor at the University of Denver. Not believing I had the capacity nor the skill set, especially at a university that was in significant trouble, I nonetheless chose to vet the idea with three close wise friends, who to a tee endorsed the idea.

It was a brand-new challenge, and I decided to take it on, just for a short few-year stint, to help the university stabilize and find new leadership. Sixteen years later, much to my surprise, I'd fallen head over heels in love with DU, most powerfully with the opportunity to shape young lives in a profoundly impactful way.

With the support and collaboration of an incredible team of trusted, creative, passionate and purposeful women and men, DU took on a whole new life. We were forced to make many hard decisions across time, letting go of long-standing employees who didn't uphold basic standards of ethical behavior, all at a time when the university was bleeding financially, and student enrollment was on the decline. Decision by decision, we moved in the direction of True North, and slowly but surely, we began to turn a corner.

Together we introduced and enforced rigorous standards around character and integrity across academics and athletics, upheld the core principles of kindness and service to others, and maintained an overarching focus on developing and graduating students of honor, integrity, and purpose who had the healthy bodies, minds, hearts, and souls to go out and change our world. Like my grandfather, it was vital that we modeled what we expected of others as we worked to reshape the culture and emotional climate of the university. This required making many hard choices along the way.

One in particular stands out because I love sports, and this story is emblazoned in my memory. In April 2004 the DU men's hockey team was in the finals of the NCAA Division I championship game in Boston, and odds were stacked in favor of the other team. The night before the highly anticipated game, one of DU's star players, a top scorer and the one who had made the go-ahead goal in the semifinal game, had violated the standards of behavior required to take the ice with his team the following day. In a difficult and time-sensitive conversation between myself, the Athletic Director and the head coach, we needed to make a call, all the while knowing his absence on the ice in the final meant not only lower odds of a win, but more importantly, a lesser chance of the ripple effect of all that a Division 1 championship win would mean for DU as an institution.

On game day, as DU took the ice against their rivals, the young man lived out the consequences of his character infraction. The stalwart player was not included in the lineup, but rather sat in the stands, dressed in a suit and tie, with teammates who were injured or hadn't made the 20 player roster. The message: Whether a star or second-string freshman, all players live by the same system of rules and receive the same penalties for noncompliance. It was a vibrant living example of what DU stood for, representative of the culture we'd intentionally and carefully cultivated over time. On a joyful closing...