The road so far, and beyond today

Every one of us arrives at today by a different road. Two people may attend the same schools, work in the same careers, and even retire at the same time, yet their journeys will still be different. This is mine.

My friends call me Monty, and this is who I am and how I got to where I am. Please feel free to do the same.

My childhood was very similar to most of yours. I was raised in a home where there was love, discipline, fun, and family. But that was only a part of the foundation. My teachers saw each student, not just “the class.” One would be reading while another was trying to complete the assignment without reading. Another would be asking questions, and still another would be just staring at the blackboard. The best teachers recognize those differences and adjust how they teach so each student has the best opportunity to learn.

Sadly, we all also have stumbling blocks in life, where things don’t go as we wanted. The crucial lesson is to understand this, failure is the best teacher you can have. You are not “a failure” you just found one way that doesn’t work. Failure has taught me far more than success. Success often meant I accomplished the task and moved on. I remember those moments, but not nearly as clearly as the ones where I struggled. When something didn’t work, I had to ask why. That journey of asking, adjusting, and trying again has stayed with me far longer than the success itself.

I have taught for much of my life, just not always in a classroom or lecture hall. Whether working in food service, hospitality, or IT support, I’ve always found myself teaching in one way or another. In a classroom or lecture hall, take 5 minutes to find out who is sitting there staring at you, and thus, how best to talk to them. In food, find out who’s chopping or stewing next to you, how they work, and how best to work with them and help them work with you. Oddly enough, in IT support this is crucial. When a client calls or chats or emails, make sure they know you see them, not just “here’s your fix, next in line” because that leaves them feeling dismissed and that diminishes a person. If you see them, treat them as a person and important in your day, even failing to find the solution isn’t a failure, it’s just “I need more eyes on this, and I will make sure we get you a solution, it just isn’t happening now” and that’s OK.

Early in my professional life, I substitute taught. Simply put, I wanted to teach, subbing put me in classrooms and working with those who may one day hire me, so I ran for it. One Friday, an AP Government/Economics teacher had an emergency and I was called in. As all of us did, and students still do, the reaction was “A sub? Cool, nothing class time” and they pulled out phones, though yes, I was long before that possibility when in school. Naturally, I instructed them to put phones away. One student piped up that I was “being Draconian.” Rather than just say “well, that’s the rules” I challenged the thought, replying “Actually, I take a Jeffersonian stance. The rules are what they are, no phones, and the one person who could say it’s OK, your teacher, didn’t say that, so I must enforce the rules.” One student laughed, clapped, and proudly explained the distinction to her classmates before they even had a chance to ask. By the end of the day I had lectured every class period, and a few months later I became the preferred substitute for their social sciences department.

It wasn’t that I was “just the perfect teacher.” I was far from perfect and still am. Rather, it was my approach, I didn’t look down my nose, I treated the students as young adults, people I was there to aid on a journey, and used a situation to do just that.

Years later, watching Young Washington in 2026, one line reminded me of the classroom and more from my life. “Failure is a tutor sent by God, if you listen you gain wisdom.” Washington had faced brutal defeat and nearly given up. Instead,he listened. Many times in life we face that, a project that doesn’t launch, a job that doesn’t pan out. It’s not that it happened that defines us, it’s how we respond, not react but respond, that defines us. Were I able to go back to 1754, just days after Washington faced the defeat at Fort Necessity on 3 July, I imagine I’d simply tell him “I’m not saying it’s right or good, it’s not, I’m saying it happened. Now, how you decide to respond to it, that will define you.” That is how I try to approach life. Failures and setbacks will come. They always do. I can’t change that. What I can change is how I respond to them.

The greatest lessons in my life have rarely come during success. They’ve come when life asked a simple question: “Now that this has happened, who are you going to become?” Life is always teaching us something, if we are willing to ask what it’s trying to teach.

This is the conversation I wish to have here, not one of “I’m the author, you’re the student, listen to me.” That accomplishes little to nothing.

Rather it should be “we are both students, just at different levels, so ask, talk, debate, and we can both learn.”

The rules are simple, remain civil and logical, each of us is different. Disagreeing with someone is not hate or an attack, it’s disagreement. If you ask “who likes pineapple on pizza” in 20 different places on 20 different dates, you will split each room, those people don’t hate each other, they disagree.

Approach a conversation thinking that way, and you will see a vast change in how conversations go.

So, ask away.

Bring your questions, your disagreements, your recommendations, and your experiences. I don’t expect us to agree on everything, and I don’t think either of us needs to. If we both leave a conversation having learned something, then it was time well spent.

Now, let me ask you a question.

Where would you like to start?