By Callie Oettinger | Published: August 20, 2010
Erik Proulx: Filmmaker, Writer, Speaker, Change-Maker Extraordinaire. Photo Credit: Courtney Perkins.
The film “Lemonade” was my introduction to Erik Proulx. It is inspiring, uplifting, motivating—all the good stuff—and is a strong reminder of our abilities to reinvent ourselves—hard-charge our dreams, at any moment. A 15-year veteran of the advertising industry, Erik created commercials for brands like Volvo, Fidelity Investments, GMC Trucks, and Perdue Chicken. Then, two days after being offered a raise and a promotion, his agency laid him off without ceremony. He responded by creating “Lemonade” and the blog Please Feed The Animals. His experience, combined with the collective experience of the hundreds of people he’s interviewed for Lemonade (the book), has made him an insightful speaker, author, and advocate for personal and professional reinvention. He has appeared on CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, NPR’s On Point, ABC News with Tory Johnson, and several other national print and broadcast media to discuss his front-line exposure to the shifting attitude around work and careers. Erik has been a contributing writer to Advertising Age, Adweek, and Creativity Magazine, and his “Dads Without Dads” column is a regular feature in The Good Men Project Magazine. Erik is currently filming “Lemonade: Detroit” about the reinvention of a city trying to redefine itself after the collapse of the auto industry.
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By Callie Oettinger | Published: August 6, 2010
Geoffrey C. Ward is an historian, screenwriter, author and former editor of American Heritage magazine. He has collaborated with Ken Burns and other film-makers, on numerous documentaries, including The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, and The War, and is the winner of six Emmy Awards, seven Christopher Awards, and two Writers Guild of America awards for his work for public television. He has written fifteen books . His A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt won the 1989 National Critics Circle Award, the 1990 Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
What sparked your interest in history? Was it your teenage years growing up in India? A teacher? A specific historical figure who grabbed your attention?
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By Steven Pressfield | Published: July 30, 2010
Sebastian Junger is the author of The Perfect Storm, which spent over three years on the New York Times bestsellers list—and was the basis for the motion picture starring George Clooney. He also is the author of New York Times bestsellers Fire, and A Death in Belmont, is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, and has been awarded a National Magazine Award and an SAIS Novartis Prize for journalism. His most recent book, WAR, a New York Times bestseller that follows a single platoon based at a remote outpost in the Korengal Valley of eastern Afghanistan, was released in May 2010. Sebastian’s time in the Korengal Valley is also the subject of the documentary Restrepo, which Sebastian directed with award-winning photographer Tim Hetherington. Restrepo won the 2010 Grand Jury Prize for documentary at Sundance and was released theatrically as a National Geographic Entertainment presentation of an Outpost Films Production in June. Its worldwide television premiere on the National Geographic Channel will take place this fall. Check out Sebastian’s work, connect with the soldiers profiled in the WAR and Restrepo, and interact with other readers via Sebastian’s community site, Twitter and Facebook.
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By Steven Pressfield | Published: July 18, 2010
I met General Hal Moore a few years ago, at a dinner in his honor in Los Angeles, around the time the movie We Were Soldiers was released. Both Joe Galloway and General Moore signed a copy of their book We Were Soldiers Once . . . And Young for me. General Moore added a note, citing a quote from my book, Gates of Fire, which he said reminded him of LZ X-Ray and his warriors in that fight. It was the quote about “Any army can win when it still has its legs under it; what counts is what they do when all strength has fled and they must produce victory on will alone.” That note means a great deal. Decades earlier, he and the 1st battalion, 7th U.S. Cavalry kept their legs under them during the battle of Ia Drang, and produced victory. And General Moore has continued standing strong since. A special thank you to Joe Galloway for providing the pictures accompanying this post.
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By Steven Pressfield | Published: July 9, 2010
I’m in awe of everything General Sam Wilson has done. His is a name that everyone should know. He’s accomplished more in his lifetime than many of us dare to dream about. He served as a reconnaissance officer with Merrill’s Marauders in Burma, during WWII; as a CIA spy-ring operator in Berlin, uncovering Soviet secrets; as a director of instruction at the U.S. Army Special Warfare School; as a civilian working with USAID in Vietnam and then in the personal rank of minister at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon; and then back in the military, as a Special Forces Group Commander, followed by an assignment as the Assistant Commandant at the U.S. Army’s JFK Institute for Military Assistance (now the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School); then Assistant Division Commander for Operations in the 82nd Airborne Division; as chief defense attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow; as a director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; as Deputy to the Director Central Intelligence for the Intelligence Community; as one of the founders of the U.S. Special Operations forces and one of the creators of the Army’s Delta Force; and as a teacher and ultimately president of Hampden-Sydney College.
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