During all those years I spent writing “Company Men,” I never once thought about anyone reading it. Let alone seeing it featured in a bookstore window display or even being a reason for people to spend a precious week night listening to me discuss it! Here are some scenes from one of the happiest moments of my life. Every person there was a gift.

As a writer, you spend countless hours alone, in your own head, working out ideas and trying to turn a mass jumble of thoughts into something coherent. For me, it’s a way of making sense of the world around me and grappling with difficult questions and even more difficult truths.

At the core, it’s a very selfish pursuit in that sense.

During the four years it took me to write Company Men – A Wellness Guide for Black Men in Corporate America, I didn’t give one thought to the idea that anyone would ever read it. Nor did I think it would have the capacity to bring people together—especially people who weren’t the target audience I had in mind.

I simply spent that time wrestling with questions that have troubled me for years.

Such as: Why did my Uncle Juan, a CFO for J&J, die so young? And why are so many Black men, particularly those of us who are successful by conventional standards, dying or suffering strokes and heart attacks before the age of 65? How is the stress of the way we work and spend our day-to-day lives affecting our bodies? What can we do to increase our longevity