Future Forward: Leadership Lessons from Patrick McGovern, the Visionary Who Circled the Globe and Built a Technology Media Empire

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LESSON NINE

Chief Encouragement Officer: Never Stop Cheering Them On

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

—RALPH WALDO EMERSON

For a man who flew an average of 300,000 miles a year or more for much of his long career, Patrick McGovern had an unexpected phobia: he was afraid of flying. Specifically, he hated flying on small planes. Yet one day in 1998, he called his son Patrick III and said, “Hey, what are you doing this afternoon?”

“Nothing,” his son replied. “Why?”

“Do you want to pick me up and go for a ride?” McGovern asked cryptically. Perplexed but curious, his son, an entrepreneur and technology investor, agreed and picked him up at his Hillsborough, California, home. They drove two hours and ...