I’ll never forget a deep sea fishing adventure I had over twenty years ago. It all started at business school during orientation week when I befriended a classmate from Florida over a couple beers. Jon and I became pretty good friends over those two years and would often get together to shoot the breeze about school, about careers, about life. It became quickly apparent that one of his passions was deep sea fishing. Correct that. His ONLY passion seemed to be deep sea fishing. He would somehow find a way to work the topic into just about any conversation. I couldn’t really relate but to each their own. Well, he was very interested in sharing his passion with me. Apparently, I had no idea what I was missing. So he invited me to crash at his house in Ft Lauderdale over the winter break and to experience this magnificent sport of deep sea fishing (to this day I still cringe when I use the words “fishing” and “sport” in the same sentence). I politely declined. I explained that I had already committed to the infinitely more riveting sport of watching paint dry. I thought that would be the end of that. I thought wrong. Not wanting to take no for an answer, I got the same invite over spring break that year and again over the following year’s winter and spring breaks. No, no and no. Finally, as we headed into our final week of school, Jon asked me one last time. At this point he was practically begging. I was starting to feel pretty guilty for repeatedly blowing him off those last couple years and I had exhausted my go-to list of excuses so this time I reluctantly accepted his invitation. And off to sunny Florida we went. Continue reading →