Dave Eubank had come from a missionary family, but he didn't feel called to be a missionary. Instead, he joined the military and eventually became an Army Ranger. Dave became a warrior.

The first time I cried in public came upon me suddenly. I walked up the stairs of the balcony of a church well before the service started. I was alone. Well, nearly alone. One other person was sitting down near the front of the balcony. He was bald, with dark hair encircling a shiny dome, and a dark mustache. He cleared his throat recognizably.

I had been running for 28 minutes and 36 seconds.

28 minutes and 46 seconds.

28 minutes and 51 seconds.

52. 53. 54. 55. 56.

Then I collapsed, a few hundred feet from my house. I kneeled with one knee on the ground, at the corner of a country road and a subdivision.

I looked down at my watch: 28:56. I had done something that people told me I would never do. I had done something that seemed impossible 15 years earlier.

An older man sat down next to a younger man on an airplane. They had never met.

After a few moments of silence, the older man made a proposition to the younger man. He asked the younger man to steal something for him. In exchange for the stolen item, the younger man would receive a sum of one million dollars.

I was sitting on a chair in a senior partner's office. It was my first week as a bona fide lawyer at a big firm. I was dressed to impress. I had my yellow pad ready. I was prepared to practice law.

I listened as the partner explained a huge project. I wanted to be a part of it. It seemed interesting and challenging, and I was excited to help. After what seemed like entirely way too long, the partner stopped, looked me directly in the eye and asked me a question. He stopped talking and waited. A long silence ensued.

There goes Jeff Bezos," a man said.

Comedian Kevin Hart was in a room with well-known and successful business owners and individuals.

Then, Jeff Bezos walked in.

Instantly, Kevin said to his friend, "I'm going to go say what's up to him. I would love to pick his brain. That's an interesting individual."

His friend said, "Don't do that! Why do you want to do that? Don't look like the dude that's thirsty."

One of my favorite parts of working from home right now is that I spend way more time with my kids.

But with that joy comes a problem: I am spending way more time with my kids.

Just last night, I gave two of our young children a bath. Normally, my wife does bath time, because, well - she's just better at it. My wife can get four kids clean in 15 minutes. After 20 minutes under my watch, one child was screaming and a fist-fight was about to break out in the tub.

After the great hockey coach Herb Brooks led the U.S. Hockey Team to win the Olympic gold medal in 1980 and accomplish the "miracle on ice," he coached the NHL's New York Rangers for a few years. After his NHL stint, he took a step back and started coaching amateur hockey in Minnesota. He went from the greatest hockey coaching job of all time to the NHL - and then back to coaching high schoolers.

It was 1913.

A young man named Francis had just overcome a nearly insurmountable lead in a golf match. Now he had to finish his comeback.

He knew he was fighting for his future in the quarterfinals of this amateur tournament. He didn't know that everything good that would ever happen to him depended on this moment. He had grown up in near-poverty, with a father who worked in coal mines to support his family. The bedroom window of his youth oversaw a golf club across the street, at which he could never play because his family didn't have the means to join as members.

I've learned a valuable lesson repeatedly over the last 20 years: all good ideas somehow start with my wife.

I realized this, again, sitting in a cozy nook at a local bookstore. I was part of a small audience, listening to best-selling author Gregg Hurwitz. It was my wife's idea, of course, to start reading his books. He read a passage from his latest book, then took questions from the group.

I recently started taking a vitamin. I was told that I would not notice any changes in my health until three months later.

So I took the pill every day, without really thinking about it.

I actually noticed some effects after about 90 days.

The pill was working, just like I was told.

"You can't build this website with this text. It's not right."

I was showing one of my best friends some of the text that I was planning to include on the new version of my website. His opinion was clear.

"This does not seem right to me at all."

I stopped talking. I had no idea how to respond.

I stepped onto the stage and walked down the path to the podium. This was the biggest speaking event of my life. Two thousand people were waiting for me to start talking.

Most graduation speeches are forgettable. A select few get remembered for more than a couple minutes after they are delivered. I wanted to say something that stuck with my friends and their families forever.

One day my karate instructor walked up to me before class and asked me an unexpected question: "What are you so stressed about?"

Before she asked this question, we had not spoken. She should not have known what I was feeling. But I was stressed. I can remember that day so clearly.

I had the type of anxiety that you can actually feel in your chest and throughout your body. There was a physical manifestation to what I mentally felt.

The ability to listen. Really listen. It’s a rare skill right now. Most of us are only hearing what we want to hear.

But are we really listening?

I’ve been trying. I haven’t written much until now. But scary events occur on a daily basis. At some point whatever we are full of has to come out.

Our time of projected comfort has shortened. Most people have entered a desert for the first time, where survival for a day is a victory, and tomorrow is no guarantee.

Frustrated, I sat at my desk.

I was running a media department for a leadership development company.

Two of my bosses had taken me out to lunch and told me I was doing a great job. They gave me the biggest raise, percentage-wise, of my entire career.

Even though I received praise and more money, I felt the rumble of discontent starting to shake me.

Deep down, I knew what was wrong.

I just didn’t want to accept it yet.

In March 2005, the Walt Disney Board of Directors selected Bob Iger to succeed Michael Eisner As CEO of the Walt Disney Company.

But there was a six-month period before Bob Iger formally became CEO.

Until then, Eisner was still in charge.

Eisner had largely turned Disney around twenty years prior. Disney struggled until Eisner revitalized its now-powerful brand.

One of the hardest questions to answer correctly is this one: what is the next right thing I should do? My friend wrote an entire book about it. And there are countless ways to address the problem.

One of my personal struggles is deciphering what to do next out of all of the cool things that I find interesting.

Five years ago, I knew what I had to do: start writing. I had to write not because I wanted to write, but because not writing would have hurt too much. I had to write to be the person I wanted to become — or face extreme regret at the end of my life.

I was alone.

Sometimes the best things start that way.

Surrounded by cubicles in a law school career development office, I was waiting for an interview to finish. I was about to meet a man who could alter the direction of my career. But I didn't know it.

There is one trait that is in demand, nearly everywhere and in every arena. Though it doesn't have much flash or sizzle, it is the bedrock of all great leadership.

It is the one ball, that if dropped, doesn't bounce. It breaks.

It is the glue of every relationship, organization, and endeavor.

It needs constant tending, and requires constant vigilance.

And it is an idea that no one likes to embrace, but we all admire.

It is accountability.

No trait is more important, nor admirable.

Accountability is the measure of a leader's height.