George Grody

L's Taken

So many friends across the world
Protesting foreign governments I disagreed with despite being detained and tear-gassed
Traveling (though much of it was tied in to work)

Very few things are important, try not to give a shit about everything else
You can get as much, if not more, joy out of helping people achieve things they might not have without your help
Live your life based on your values
Don't be boring or mediocre
Love your own company
Dogs are preferable to people.

Moonlighting
House
Blue Bloods
Sound of Music
Mary Poppins
Patton
Big Jake
Godfather
Any books by F Scott Fitzgerald, Mark Twain, John D McDonald, Robert Parker, Clive Cussler, or William F Buckley

Sitting in my backyard in front of my pond with waterfalls, smoking a Fuente cigar with a class of Port. Listening to music, with my dogs at my feet and my koi swimming around. That's a 1-2 hour vacation depending on the length and ring size of the cigar!

Didn't get into Duke for regular admission and started in the Spring semester
Had a kidney removed while I was at Duke and missed a semester
Missed a lot of goals at P&G but still got promoted a bunch of times
Had a great divorce
Retired early (at 48) to teach when it would have made more financial sense to keep working for another 7 years
Had a heart attack on campus after class and had no pulse for 8 minutes (chance of survival at that point is 0%) but was resuscitated by Duke EMS students and have had no issues
Got put on the kidney transplant list was told it would take 7 years to get a kidney and I'd only last about 5 years on dialysis - got a kidney in 7 months and instead of a 3 month recovery it took 3 weeks and I started teaching classes on time in the Fall of '17 (my sister donated her kidney to someone whose donor donated to me)
Probably being the least educated person teaching at Duke - I only have my Duke BS though I earned an RLD (Real Life Doctorate) degree at Procter & Gamble.

Constantly changing assignments and locations, especially overseas where I didn't know the culture, the language, the way business was done, or the people I'd be working with or who would be working for me.
Coming back to teach at Duke and having to develop a syllabus and manage classes.

I've never failed at anything. I reject the word. It's original meaning has been tainted with so many negative connotations that failure has almost come to mean fatal. I've screwed up, messed up, fouled up, fucked up, made a ton of mistakes and bad decisions, come up short of goals, done the wrong thing, said the wrong thing all more than I can specifically recall. Yet here I am, still alive, having fun, helping people, living the dream. So nope, never failed.

Coming to Duke, though I got into other schools, even though they didn't accept me for first semester admission
Took the job with P&G even though it was my lowest offer
Accepted an overseas assignment with P&G when everyone told me it was a mistake to leave the headquarters then kept on taking overseas assignments when my bosses said they were risky and could hamper my career growth
Turning down a promotion because I wouldn't like the work in the new assignment even though it would have meant a better title and more money
Retiring at 48 to come back to Duke to teach - a job I didn't exactly know how to do for a lot less money than I had previously made.

All those obstacles and leaps of faith above
Doing what people told me not to do and having those decisions be some of the best I've made in my life
Being vulnerable with people

Figure out your personal brand - your purpose, values, and principles - and live it despite the pressures from the world around you.

Click the back button on your browser to go back to the Anti-Resumes page!