Today, I am flying back home to St. Louis, MO to celebrate my high school 10-year class reunion, and I for one couldn’t be more excited. The 10-year reunion represents a time when, theoretically, people have started to find their place in the world. They’ve completed their graduate degrees, have gotten into the groove of their careers, and maybe even accomplished another thing or two like getting married or having a kid. Yeah, a few of them may still be doing exactly what they were doing 10 years ago, but that’s probably the exception, not the rule.

While high school brings back nothing but fond memories of Friday night football games, backyard summer parties, and dances with the various all-girls schools across town (yes, I went to an all-guys high school…and no, it wasn’t weird…that’s just what you do in good ol’ STL), it was also one of the biggest developmental periods of my life. Sure, it’s easy for your teenage years to get overshadowed by the freedom and growth that going away to college provided, or what you learned about your path in life during your first years in the “real world” as a 20-something. But I would argue that my time in high school (specifically DeSmet Jesuit…Go Spartans!) laid some critical foundations that shaped my worldview and impacted the choices I’ve made in my life and career...