This is one man's journey, told through the stories that have shaped his life. Author Harry Strachan's story began in Costa Rica, where he was born into a large missionary family. As an adult, he moved to the United States to pursue higher education. After studying at the schools of law and business at Harvard, he returned to his alma mater to teach. He then moved into private industry and eventually returned to his Central American home with the mission of investing both for profit and impact. But the heart of these experiences is how he deals with challenges. He reflects on coming to terms with family expectations, finding a vocation that fits his talents, dealing with emotional setbacks and serious illness, raising a family, and learning to love well in marriage. Through it all, there is a spiritual journey that moves through the loss of the conservative, traditional faith of his childhood to the establishment of a set of values that guides his life. Harry's reflections are told with humor and authenticity. His story offers provocative reflections for the next generation who are seeking to both "do good and do well" "Harry Strachan is one of the most remarkable people I've ever known. He has been a lifelong friend whose path through sorrow and success has been a brilliant example to me of the 'examined life' Written principally for his children, these stories will resonate with anyone who is willing to live outside the box" -Maestro John Nelson, Conductor
Finding a Path
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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Harry Strachan was born and raised in Costa Rica. He went to the United States for his higher education, eventually earning a doctorate from the Harvard Business School. He has had three careers, the first as a professor with the INCAE Business School of Central America and then the Harvard Business School. In the second he joined Bain & Co in Boston as a management consultant. In the third he returned to his home in Costa Rica, continued to consult with Bain but also founded Mesoamerica Partners for private equity investing and M&A advisory services. The Strachan Foundation, which he created in honor of his grandparents and parents, supports educational and other philanthropic activities through Central America. For his work in the region, he was named one of the one hundred most influential business leaders by the magazine Estrategia y Negocios.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A missionary kid from Costa Rica to Harvard, to Bain and back to Costa Rica, who found a path of his own
March 27, 2013
By guy wilcox
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Memoirs are probably not worth writing unless stories still painful and surprises still inexplicable have long-since etched the shape of a life. And if they are not unusually well-told, so that like it or not we are drawn in by the energy fields, the "slings and arrows", and even, somehow, by things left unsaid, then memoirs are probably not worth reading either. With this book, not to worry.
A few months after his father's death, in the summer before his senior year at Harvard law school, Harry Strachan returned to Costa Rica hoping to discover something about the wounds and struggles and dreams and demons that might come to light in his father's personal papers, the substance of a memoir, perhaps, that his father had never written. Instead he discovered, not for the first time, there was no road map, only a terrain with multiple options and the anxiety of having to move forward on his own. Would he ever measure up? He had already moved away from the faith of his fathers. In which direction should he go, and who would go with him?
Interwoven with doubts and self-critical revelations are threads of gold. He tells of a dream he had while still in college. He was pitching for the Yankees in the World Series at Yankee Stadium. And his team was winning, his confidence growing, when, as dreams will allow, he was on a larger stage pitching an intervention that saved the whole earth. A few years later he was on President Somoza's farm in Nicaragua and it was not a dream; he was pitching a way forward after the earthquake of 1972. His "optimistic enthusiasm, especially in crises" is one thread of many that seem to tether his life to the man he had so much wanted to make proud.
This is an extraordinary story of a sometimes brash but extraordinary person. It is a story of angst and courage, of recognizing the cards one has to play and learning how to proceed when the chips are down, of the terrors of feeling abandoned and the deep satisfaction of Finding a Path.
A few months after his father's death, in the summer before his senior year at Harvard law school, Harry Strachan returned to Costa Rica hoping to discover something about the wounds and struggles and dreams and demons that might come to light in his father's personal papers, the substance of a memoir, perhaps, that his father had never written. Instead he discovered, not for the first time, there was no road map, only a terrain with multiple options and the anxiety of having to move forward on his own. Would he ever measure up? He had already moved away from the faith of his fathers. In which direction should he go, and who would go with him?
Interwoven with doubts and self-critical revelations are threads of gold. He tells of a dream he had while still in college. He was pitching for the Yankees in the World Series at Yankee Stadium. And his team was winning, his confidence growing, when, as dreams will allow, he was on a larger stage pitching an intervention that saved the whole earth. A few years later he was on President Somoza's farm in Nicaragua and it was not a dream; he was pitching a way forward after the earthquake of 1972. His "optimistic enthusiasm, especially in crises" is one thread of many that seem to tether his life to the man he had so much wanted to make proud.
This is an extraordinary story of a sometimes brash but extraordinary person. It is a story of angst and courage, of recognizing the cards one has to play and learning how to proceed when the chips are down, of the terrors of feeling abandoned and the deep satisfaction of Finding a Path.
