About Alex Alexander

I was born an Army brat, the son of an Army sergeant and an immigrant mother. I lived all over the Western United States in my younger days. On my eighteenth birthday I joined the Army myself, and thereby launched an improbable adult life. I was smart enough to graduate from West Point and the Harvard Business School, after which I hopscotched back and forth between careers: soldier, banker, management consultant, college lecturer, business coach, and now columnist and author. Coinciding with all that I was an avid triathlete, marathon runner, and gym rat. Married at the tender age of eighty-two to the remarkable Ali (proving me smart), father of two world-class daughters, Kristy and Erin (proving me lucky), and surviving some extreme health scares over the years (proving me resilient, or maybe lucky again), I continue galumphing into a future which, even at my age, seems to be opening up to more and more possibilities.

My Sense of Purpose in Life

My deepest sense of purpose is to help people (including myself) function more effectively in our lives and our major undertakings. My strategy for doing this is to seek understanding about essential things and share that understanding with others. The essential things within my expertise include principles underlying the behavior of the human mind, business principles, and the larger driving forces that shape our lives.

Truth be told, I want to help the world become a better place, and this is my way of making the attempt.

I Believe…

I believe that people are inherently neither good nor bad, but are what they learn (and unlearn) to be over the course of their lives. I want to promote the good and suppress the bad in myself and others. 

I believe that the mind is the source of all human experience, and that the mind is a flawed but adaptable engine for guiding us. If we learn to understand and educate our minds in accordance with external reality, our behavior will improve, our lives will be more successful, meaningful, and joyful, and our contributions to ourselves and others will be more beneficial.

I believe that character is the most important element of human behavior, and the one that makes the greatest difference for good in the world. Character, to me, includes honesty, courage, equality of being and fair treatment for all, dedication to purposes greater than self, a can-do attitude, and objectivity. I believe that leadership is the most important driver of any endeavor great or small, and character is the most important component of leadership.

Finally, I believe that the quest for meaning—more than joy, success, or enlightenment—is the most fundamental goal of human existence. Only you can define what is meaningful for you, however self-aggrandizement, money, and melancholy (especially self-pity and defeatism) are never meaningful.

Strategic Intention.  As much as possible, I intend to…

  • Uplift human spirit for the widest possible audience through my writings.
  • Promote widespread understanding of the workings of the mind, and thereby help improve conscious and unconscious thought processes for everyone who is open to that possibility.
  • Influence as many people as possible in the direction of wisdom, and away from thoughtless, impulsive, or emotionally-driven behavior and beliefs.
  • Help the business community understand and utilize fundamental business principles, develop sound thought processes and judgment, and operate successful, profitable businesses, with the ultimate intention of contributing to the betterment of their constituencies (customers, owners, workers, and the communities they serve).