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howard’s gift. Copyright © 2012 by Eric Sinoway. All rights reserved. Printed in
the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175
Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sinoway, Eric C.
Howard’s gift : uncommon wisdom to inspire your life’s work / Eric C. Sinoway
with Merrill Meadow.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-250- 00424-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-01562-4 (e-book)
1. Business planning. 2. Strategic planning. I. Meadow, Merrill. II. Title.
HD30.28.S477 2012
650.1—dc23
2012028243
First Edition: October 2012
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
chapter one
Business Planning for Your Life’s Work
that. But I would have gone with no major regrets over things
I’d done or not done.”
For a reason I didn’t immediately understand, I left Howard’s
hospital room feeling worse than I think he did. He was up-
beat, encouraged, joking. I was reflective, brooding, confused. I
couldn’t figure out why. Instead of heading home after that first
hospital visit, I drove back to the Harvard campus and spent
a few hours that evening wandering around, alone with my
thoughts.
I remembered my first meeting with Howard several years
earlier, and how he had challenged me—right off the bat—to
think differently than I had been doing to that point. He’d done
it in a way that was hard-nosed and stimulating, insightful, and
warm and caring, all at the same time. As I continued to walk
aimlessly around campus late into the evening, I realized that
while I was incredibly grateful that Howard had survived and
had lived his life with what he described as “no regrets,” there
was something eating at me. A thought sitting, annoyingly, just
beyond my mind’s reach. Then it came to me: Howard’s expe-
rience had made me realize that I had a giant regret of my own.
For the last three years, Howard and I had been spending a
few hours a week together—in his office, at his home, or sim-
ply walking around the Harvard campus. In that short time, he
had evolved from my professor to a mentor to a dear friend. We
had talked about many things, some frivolous, but most serious.
Our conversations had touched on music and books and travels,
on politics and economics, on family and philosophy, on business
strategy and professional development, on the value of educa-
tion versus experience, and on the many ways one could make
a difference in the world. We talked about pursuing success and
recovering from failure. About setting goals and setting out to
achieve them.
If I had to sum up the topic of all those conversations in one
Business Planning for Your Life’s Work 9
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