all time poem. In the 1970’s my Mother gave me a book of poetry which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I came upon the Calf-Path poem which I found to be very thought provoking. I can remember reading it to my sons who were quite young and probably rolled their eyes and sat in silent obedience as I told them to listen. Move ahead 20 years and I was a Branch Sales Manager for Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage attending quarterly manager meetings, where the CEO would always bring us up to date on the Company’s progress achieving quarterly goals. He always ended the meetings with a very powerful motivational speech and sometimes would incorporate a poem which he used to make a particular point. Whenever he did that I would think he would love my Calf-Path poem. I finally got the nerve up to send him a note with the poem and received a very nice note back thanking me for it. A year or so goes by and we are all heading to the National Convention in San Francisco. Our CEO had an unfortunate fall at the airport where he was carrying a suitcase in each hand, tripped and went down so fast that he sustained a serious amount of injury to his face. He therefore was unable to attend the Convention where he was the key-note speaker. Another gentleman introduced himself and said he would be reading his speech, however I didn’t feel it sounded at all like speeches I was use to hearing our CEO give. In fact I have to say it was an awful speech, which was so surprising to me. A few months later I received my copy of the Company Newsletter and there is the speech in its’ entirety. The speech used the Calf-Path poem as its’ theme. I was so excited I immediately called my Regional Manager to tell him it was my poem. He was shocked and said: “whatever you do don’t tell anyone you gave him that poem. We sat around a table in San Francisco and were damned if we were going to talk about a calf. Do you know how many hours we spent trying to modify his speech”. I was momentarily saddened by his reaction, but down deep he could not dampen my excitement. Here is the poem in its’ entirety. The Calf-Path

The poem was intertwined in the speech with the idea of getting off the Calf-Path requires you to see differently and to think differently, and that great innovation means getting off The Calf-Path. It was the best speech I ever read.

(Click twice on The Calf-Path and once on the URL)