No Finish Line - Meyer Feldberg

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What Will Your Life in Retirement Be Like After a Highly Successful Career?

Some people can’t wait to enjoy the freedom to retire. But for many of us, it’s just the beginning of the next chapter. What is it like to change lanes and perhaps never retire?

Professor Meyer Feldberg is the author of No Finish Line: Lessons on Life and Career. He joins us for a conversation about the book, his reflections on different phases of his illustrious career – including his post-retirement career – and his advice on continuing to move on, contribute, and grow throughout life.

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Bio

Meyer Feldberg served as dean and professor at Columbia Business School for over 15 years. He received a BA from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, an MBA for Columbia Business School, and a Ph.D. from the University of Cape Town. In 1972 he was appointed dean of the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business. In 1979 he became director of executive education and associate dean at Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management. In 1981 he was appointed dean of Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business, and in 1986 returned to Columbia as professor of management and dean of the Business School. In 2003, he was named the Sanford C. Bernstein Professor of Leadership and Ethics and held the chair until 2007, when he became dean emeritus. In 2007, Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed Professor Feldberg president of New York City Global Partners. Professor Feldberg is currently a senior advisor in the Investment Banking Division at Morgan Stanley. He and his family have lived in eight cities on three continents.

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About the Book

Meyer Feldberg is a storyteller. The source of his stories is his rich and unique life, which took him from South Africa under apartheid to a C-Suite in present-day New York, from the hallowed halls of academia to the frenzy of global investment banking. As with all storytellers, there is a purpose embedded in each of his stories that is specific in its details but universal in its message.

No Finish Line is Meyer Feldberg as his friends and colleagues know him. It is the professor dispensing sage advice. It is the mentor telling a tale about himself that is really about you. In his telling, Feldberg’s story―his successes and his failures―is a lesson plan for how to lead a worthy personal and professional life.

This concise volume reminds the reader of the importance of courage and decency in our relationships. Feldberg shows how values such as self-awareness, personal responsibility, and generosity play out in ways that in retrospect become pivotal. He relates his regrets as well as his triumphs, candidly sharing how our failures to live up to our own expectations can continue to haunt us. Written by a leading fixture of New York’s educational, cultural, and business elite, No Finish Line is an engaging portrait of what matters most in living a good and successful life. – Columbia Business School Publishing

Order No Finish Line: Lessons on Life and Career by Meyer Feldberg

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Wise Quotes

On Mentoring

“It gave me an understanding that there are two kinds of mentoring, mentoring that is destructive and makes life awkward and difficult for you and mentoring that helps you grow – where you admire the individual that’s working with you and assisting you and directing you.”

On Second Careers

“I don’t use the phrase second act or second shot. You’ve got to feel the energy of wanting to move on and move up, move on and move up. And then one day, I assume you say, I’m done. I’m not done. But to me, it’s not a second act or a third act or a fourth act. It’s just been moving on and moving up.”

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