What masterpiece have you created lately?

Summer vacations are usually 14 to 21 days of getting your skin to sizzle and putting your brain on ice. It is the annual time when indolence and incoherent mutterings are approved and even encouraged. If you come back to work and can't find your desk and forget your computer password, you have been a smashing success at taking a vacation.

I was poised for another annual shutdown of my synapses when I realized keeping the cranial cavity humming could be fun.

My wife and I just returned from three weeks in Europe. I worked the first three days (yes, they actually paid me for this junket) providing leadership training to a German client (yes, they do serve beer at break times, which does not make my job any easier in the afternoons) and then we took two weeks on our own.

On the flight back to Springfield, I made a list of everything I learned from the Europeans. I am refreshed, but importantly, I am renewed. My mind came alive with new insights about what it means to do business and craft a life in the Ozarks.

First, I learned that life takes time.

There is an of-the-moment quality about life as we Americans now know it. Immediate gratification is the art of the deal. If you want to buy 100 shares of IBM, then just log on