My company is having a huge kick-off gala in my hometown filled with hours and hours of presentations and motivational speeches that are, truly, spectacular. Our CEO even flew in last night to give us a huge boost with his speech.

Now, you know that I don't reveal who I work for or what my business is because of proprietary information that is outside the scope of this blog. But I would like to pass on something that happened last night.

It was just after a great motivational speech by a famous person, a living legend, really. And I had to piss, bad! So, I made my way to the restroom and used the stall, washed my hands, and checked the time.

It was 8:00! That was my son's bedtime and I haven't gotten a chance to see him in two days. So, I called home on my cell, still in restroom by the sinks. And just as I got my wife to get my son the phone, the CEO comes walking around the corner to wash his hands.

My son was talking to me, telling me how much he missed me and loved me.

Now, I had a choice--I could have hung up on him or pretended that I was on some business call or something but that would have been the action of the weasel and I'm no humping weasel.

So, I just let go and started baby talking to him, telling him how much I loved him and missed him and that I was sorry I wouldn't be able to read his stories to him tonight (I'm reading him The Hobbit). To my surprise, the CEO laughed, but in a good way, in the way that a man touched by a sweet memory laughs and suddenly I realized that this guy was a father (and just happens to by an unbelievably magnificent human being who is quickly rising to the status of hero in my mind).

But look, we are all human beings before we are anything else. And if we can't be humans with each other, then there's nothing left of the grace and majesty that once accompanied the higher angels of our natures.

I learned never to be ashamed of expressing my love for my child any place or time because that love is more precious than all the pats on the back by CEOs one could ever receive.

And when I jokingly expressed my embarassment to the CEO's number one man, he looked up from his Blackberry, pulled his bifocals down his nose so he could see me better, and said, "Josh, life is about bringing children into this world and watching them grow." Then he slid his glasses back up his nose and went back to his blackberry surfing.

I think that is the wisest statement I have heard directly from the mouth of another human being.