From thought leadership articles that challenged conventional wisdom to impactful news stories that shaped the industry landscape, 2023 was a year of growth, learning, and critical insights.

“What I clearly remember from my first to my last encounter with Richard was the fluency with which he presented ideas and information on a whole host of subjects.”

With great sorrow and bittersweet gratitude, we share the passing of our kind, brave, caring, dear friend and colleague, Richard S. Levick, Esq.

It is indeed no blessing to know the future, but it is a gift, particularly in times of crisis, to have a pretty good idea of what is coming next.

“Generals are always prepared to fight the last war.”– Winston Churchill

The worst decisions I have ever made are those that try to correct the past.

We overcompensate or second guess or simply take the road “less traveled” and think, as Robert Frost so beautifully wrote, that it will make “all the difference.” While the past is a wonderful teacher, it is but a factor, not a blueprint.

If we have learned anything over the past six years, and certainly after January 6th and the midterm elections, it is that the Social Compact is real and serves as the bedrock for a civilized society.

Twelve years ago, we launched CommPRO.bizas an educational resource for communications professionals. I could have never imagined how far we’ve come. Working with the C-Suite, the contributed content comes from corporate executives, investors, and public relations specialists. Over the years, we expanded into a wide variety of industry sectors, including, marketing, social media, financial communications, public affairs, and events.

“Ah death, a change of clothes.”–The 14thDalai Lama

The endless fields of amber grain. Valhalla so far in the distance it is, we are sure, just shy of eternity. Mortality, we have decided, is not for us. “Heaven can wait.”

“I want to be remembered as a woman…who dared to be a catalyst of change.”– Shirley Chisholm

The first presidential campaign I remember was 1968 when Vice President Hubert Humphrey ran. He suffered from a very late start—too late to participate in the Democratic primaries—due to President Lyndon Johnson’s shocking March 31 announcement that, “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.” From the start, Humphrey would have had to pull off a near miracle just to be nominated.

“Why so much grief for me? No man will hurl me down to Death, against my fate.And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it, neither brave man nor coward,I tell you – it’s born with us the day that we are born.”– Homer, The Iliad

This is the story of three journeys—two remarkable women on very different paths and the one we are all taking together.

What makes great societies and religions so strikingly powerful is the slowness with which they change. We may not agree with everything they stand for but we know they are built upon a foundation of beliefs and principles. Solid stone. They do occasionally metamorphosize but usually stop short of revolution and give us time to catch our collective breath.

When there is a lack of honor in government,the morals of the whole people are poisoned.”– Herbert Hoover

In honor of Independence Day and our 500th podcast we dedicate it to the memory of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, the three Freedom Summer organizers murdered, June 1964.

“My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, ‘You’re tearing up the grass.’ ‘We’re not raising grass,’ Dad would reply. ‘We’re raising boys’.”– Harmon Killebrew

“Ah death. A change of clothes.”– The Dalai Lama

What we remember are the stories. It is what holds us together. Families. Communities. Countries.

How do we find the strength to keep going? I know from so many recent conversations that I am not the only one to have those days when the fatigue will not dissipate and getting out of bed feels like fighting gravity.

I am a child of “The Great Society,” President Lyndon Johnson’s call to use the country’s post–World War II prosperity to “enrich and elevate our national life.” With an overwhelming majority in Congress, he was able to sign into law 84 pieces of legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the antipoverty Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the Food Stamp Act, the establishment of Head Start, and The Higher Education Act of 1965, which, among other things, provided low-interest loans to students.

We are an over-polled society, a fact which subsequently influences politicians to prefer to follow rather than lead. Yet, how is it possible that up until U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s draft in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization leaked, only 20% of Americans thought Roe v. Wade was in danger of being overturned? It is like looking at a Monopoly game board and not recognizing that it is a square.

The problem with infidelity is not so much the act but the loss of trust.

The leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s first draft of Dobbs v. Jackson Health Organization is an act of unfaithfulness to the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic norms and is one more destructive blow to a country based on a voluntary experiment known as democracy.

After being falsely blamed for King Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic Church and of infidelity, incest and seduction by witchcraft, Queen Anne Boleyn was beheaded. It was, of course, powerful gaslighting, gleefully engaged in not just by the King, but by the insiders of the Royal Court. Sensing her weakness, they piled on and, among other things, referred to the Queen as “the concubine.” The King had eyes for Jane Seymore.

CRISIS. The word strikes fear in the hearts of executives and board rooms. It seems there’s a crisis every day in 2022 and the current seismic events are not one-day wonders, but rolling, long-term landscape changes.