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An Interview with Prolific Author James R. Lucas '68

An Interview with Prolific Author James R. Lucas '68

James Lucas '68 is a prolific author of 25 books (and counting) that explore a wide range of topics from leadership and marital advice to theology and science fiction. In the following interview, he discusses valuable lessons he learned as a Jr. Bill and later in the corporate and consulting worlds. He encourages us to be curious, confident and humbly attuned to the wisdom of the world.

How was your SLUH experience? Any favorite memories or teachers?

I went to SLUH for several reasons. First, I thought that it was the best high school of any kind in the St. Louis area (I was right). Second, I thought the school would prepare me for my life and career (it did). Third, I knew the Jesuits would be demanding and make me do my best (they did!). And fourth, my Dad and his two brothers attended SLUH; I had heard a lot about it, and wanted to continue the family tradition.

As an author of 25 books (and counting), I know that the rigorous language training at SLUH (in English, Latin and Russian) helped me immensely. I owe a special debt to Father Kane in sophomore English (he was known as “Pop Kane” and “Hurri-Kane”). He was brutal, which was perfect. No mercy for sloppy writing, or anything less than excellent. He would have us diagram sentences on the board, and if there was a mistake, he would say something like, “Class, Mr. Lucas apparently believes that dangling participles are a wonderful idea. What do you think?” Hmm. He was the first “molder” of my professional writing career. Thank you, Father Kane.

Father Peiper, our Latin teacher, was tall, slender and fearsome. His way of asking questions was designed to strike terror into our hearts. He took a deck of cards and put a Latin number on each one, then assigned each of us a number. He would ask a question, shuffle the deck, and turn up a card. The “winner” had to stand and answer the question. If he couldn’t, he had to stand for the rest of class. If his number was called again and he couldn’t answer (likely with the hovering dread), he was sent to the office. It was a small picture of what it must be like to be on death row. But I sure learned my Latin, which still helps me today in my book writing (and deciphering legal jargon).

My Russian teacher was Mr. Alfred Pasqualucci (his name sounded like an Italian dish – “The lady will have the lasagna, and I’ll have the alfredo pasqualucci”). He was excellent and demanding (and one of the few non-Jesuit teachers at that time). Once when we were a bit out of control, he threatened to take us all outside and fight us, all at the same time! Even with our underdeveloped brains we suspected that this would not be in our best interests, and later we learned that he had been a Golden Gloves champion. Years later, I was talking with several Russians who were having trouble understanding my Russian; I think I was speaking it with an Italian accent. They apparently didn’t know if I was asking them about their work or ordering a pizza.


My best and worst memory happened on the same day. My junior year we were rated #1 in the state in football. CBC was #2. The teams met in the first-ever high school game played at Busch Stadium. We took a 6-0 lead at half. Then a bad omen: the seniors carrying the paper Mâche Billiken dropped it coming out after halftime. We fumbled the kickoff and ended up losing 17-6. Hero to zero in an hour, but a pretty good lesson for life: When you’re riding high, be aware of turning tides, and have plans for how you’ll survive them.

I wish there were more Jesuits to teach now, as almost all of my teachers were Jesuits. But you’re still in a Jesuit learning environment, and being taught by some of the best teachers around. Appreciate them, and drain them dry of all they know that can help you. If you’re a classy guy, you might also thank them with a word or a note. They don’t have to care about you, but they do. (See my book Gratitude: The Startling Impact of Giving and Receiving Appreciation.) You’re now living in a very ungrateful era. Go against the tide and be the most grateful person you can be. This is very much in line with the SLUH vision for you as men of character and influence.


Were you involved in any activities at SLUH that hinted toward your future success?

Although I was hugely behind our athletic and other extracurriculars, and enjoyed playing sports, I wasn’t able to be involved because of my situation. I lived in the North County area (Bellefontaine Neighbors), and for the first two years I couldn’t drive even if we had another car (which we didn’t). There was no I-170 back then, so it was all through the city.

I had to take three buses: the first from a few blocks away from my house to a deserted area of Broadway; the second from Broadway between the cemetaries to the start of Kingshighway; and the third right down Kingshighway to the school. Total travel time about 1 ½ hours each way. I was mugged twice, and nearly kidnapped while standing next to the Calvary Cemetery wall on West Florissant (FYI, I wasn’t killed).

I also learned what it meant to be the only person of one race in the midst of a host of people from another. I learned that they were people just like me, with the same hopes, desires, plans, dreams, concerns and fears. An indescribably valuable lesson that has impacted much of my thinking and writing. I learned that skin color is a worthless criterion for judging anyone. Ever.


There was some sort of school magazine for which I wrote. I probably would have gone straight into writing, but since I was good at math everyone seemed to push me toward science and engineering. It turned out that no experience, if good and moral, is ever wasted. I got multiple degrees in engineering at Missouri S&T, multiple professional engineering licenses, and a corporate career building some amazing projects.

And then I added writing books, at first in my “spare” time. My SLUH experience taught me several important things that led me to success in my future as an author, as a teacher and consultant (Luman International), and as a high-tech entrepreneur (Galileo Somatosensory). Among those lessons learned:

  • Perseverance. I had to really want a SLUH education to get up at 5:15 a.m. to catch the first bus at 5:45 a.m. Perseverance is crucial to being an author. A lot of people want to write a book. Without unrelenting perseverance, you have no chance of even finishing the book, much less getting it published. The same is true with creating a new business. There will be a hundred roadblocks, and to be successful you will have to go over, around, or through all of them. Or lose.
     
  • Resilience. At SLUH, I learned that if you didn’t do as well as you could on a test or paper, you had a choice: Get better, or get lost. My first book manuscript was rejected by 40 publishers. I decided I could live with anticipation, but not with disappointment. When I’d get a rejection, I would immediately send out another proposal. Vince Lombardi said, “The real glory isn’t winning. It’s getting knocked to your knees and then coming back.” Life at times will beat you like a drum. Train yourself now to be ready to come back from those beatings even stronger.
     
  • Smart Use of Time. I imagine homework is still challenging at SLUH. I learned to do much of it while on the three buses. I had to work summers, so to do the required reading and more, I had to skip some fun stuff. Be willing to pass on some fun time to have the time to be great. Not all, just some. You simply can’t be a successful author or entrepreneur or anything else if you don’t value your time and know how to spend it well. When you’re ready to finish a book or project, you have to know how to eliminate all distractions, even good things, to drill down and make it happen, like undefeated Rocky Marciano before a championship fight. There are a lot of books out there that are 90% done, and that’s as far as they will ever get.
     
  • Perfection. Teachers at SLUH will teach you about important things like “the best,” and “don’t settle,” and “you can do better.” Nobody will buy a book that has poor writing, sloppy thinking, okay grammar, or slim vocabulary. Editors won’t save you. The FDA won’t approve “pretty good” medical devices. Learn how to do everything you do as close to perfect as you can. You’ll never get to perfect, but you will train your mind to see even small imperfections that can scuttle both your work and even your best ideas.

How would you describe your professional career?

I started out in corporate life. No matter your aspirations as an entrepreneur or self- employed person, the wisest course is to start your learning on somebody else’s nickel, and with real mentors standing around waiting for you (if you’re eager and hardworking and humble). I ran production and inventory control for the H.D. Lee Company, built power plants for Black & Veatch, built manufacturing plants and warehouses for Hallmark Cards, and built chemical plants for The Pritchard Corporation (now part of Black & Veatch).

Three books by Lucas.

Dealing with the corporate hierarchy and bureaucracy was almost always annoying, and at times was a roadblock that I had to remove. But it was a tremendous learning experience.

Then I left corporate life and started my own consulting company, Luman Consultants International. I did keynotes, teaching, and training around our leadership model, the Diamond of Excellence (you can get an overview of this at www.luman.co). Over the next three decades, I spoke to or taught over 200,000 people in person, including CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and leaders of NGOs, government and military. I was able to help a good number of failing organizations – even big ones – turn themselves around.

But all the while I was writing. They say that engineers can’t write, but that’s nonsense. I’ve had books published from 1985 to 2023, with more to come (God willing), and translated into many languages (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Arabic). SLUH developed both the left side of my brain (rational, linear) and the right side of my brain (creative, insightful). If you work hard, the school will do that for you as well.


When did you first develop an interest in writing?

My interest in writing began at SLUH. All of the teachers were highly literate, and all insisted that any writing you did had to be better than good. The English teachers were especially influential, of course, but a paper submitted (for example) in history had to be pure as gold. It’s fair to say that everything I learned about writing skills, aside from personal experience and reading, I learned at SLUH. So grateful for all of them!

The first thing I actually wrote was a prose poem about my observations of those very different people on those buses I was riding as a mid-teen. For a host of reasons, St. Louis suffered from a real racial divide, but there I was in the middle of the poorest part of the other side of that divide, and it felt just as genuine and authentic as what I observed on my side of the divide.

What did I learn that helped my writing? Everyone knows things you don’t know. Be humble. Know that there is always more to the story. Start with observations and preliminary assessments long before you get to making judgments. Jesus said, “Stop judging by outward appearance, and instead make a right judgment!” I think He was saying that when we judge quickly, based on what we see, we’re always partly or totally wrong. I do make judgments about people and events, but only after a lot of observing and assessing.


What do you write about in your books?

I’ve had 25 commercially published books to date:

  • Five major books on leadership, addressing fatal illusions, balancing authority and empowerment, building passion and commitment, managing the many paradoxes of leadership, and merging high performance with top-shelf ethics;
     
  • Eight smaller books on leadership that were published both individually and as a set called Passionate Lives & Leaders, giving people books on 8 crucial leadership topics, supported by many real-world stories, examples and fill-in-the-blanks;
     
  • Two books on theology (thank you, Jesuits!), one on dealing with the paradoxes of God (Knowing the Unknowable God), and one dealing with the ever-present issue of pain and suffering (Walking Through the Fire: Finding the Purpose of Pain in the Christian Life);
     
  • One book on male-female relationships, Am I the One? (“Before you tie the knot, make sure the rope isn’t around your neck”);
     
  • Four books on parenting and family life (people rightly say there are no training manuals for parents, but these books can be pretty good substitutes);
     
  • One book called The American Ideas: 13 American Originals to Know, Love, and Defend, to give Americans a positive but realistic understanding of what made this country different and accomplished;
     
  • Four novels, two futuristic and dealing with the sanctity of life (A Perfect Persecution), and two historical fiction picturing Noah living in an advanced society (Last Ship Out); and
     
  • My most recent book on Gratitude. We all need more of it. I’ve come to see that ingratitude is always the mark of people who are going nowhere fast.

Any future book projects?

I’m always working on 2-4 books at a time.

Why? Well, first, I’m interested in everything. Second, it allows me to work on what I’m most passionate about this week or month. When I get to the 70-75% completion point on a manuscript, however, I go into hyper-focus mode, drill down, and work my tail off to finish it and make it “just so.”

My current book projects (I’ll call them by my “author’s title,” although publishers almost always have their own ideas; sometimes, they’re even…well, okay):

  • Arrogance: How Pride Leads to Ignorance, Incompetence, and Destruction. Confidence, always. Arrogance, never. You don’t want to turn your smarts into stupid. The Greeks talked about Hubris and Nemesis, and they were spot on.
     
  • Big Is Bad: Mammoth Institutions and Their Obliteration of Human Scale. Size matters. When any organization or institution gets too big, bad things always ensue. I plan to discuss examples from all areas of life, and offer some modest ideas to keep us from being wiped out by any or all of them.
     
  • Cruise Ship Christianity: 10 Terrific Ways To Make American Christianity Irrelevant. The tentative title speaks for itself. America in decline needs a robust, Battleship Christianity, and Catholics need to play an important part in muscling up. And yes, I do appreciate, and enjoy writing, sarcasm. (For an interesting read, see Benjamin Franklin’s satire entitled Rules By Which A Great Empire May Be Reduced To A Small One.)
     
  • The Diamond of Excellence: Leadership with Elegant Simplicity. There are 4 crucial areas every leader must master to be the best, and the vast majority of leaders aren’t doing any of them. Based on Luman’s leadership model and 30 years of improving it.

What advice would you give current Jr. Bills?

  • Tell the Truth. Always. Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” But how can people around us know the truth if we won’t tell it? Besides, nobody has a good enough memory to keep track of a lot of lies.
     
  • Go Outside the “Norm.” You have access to some of the brightest and most experienced teachers on the planet. Don’t just learn from them in class. Seek them out and have questions ready for them (probably one at a time!). Sample:
    • “What was the most important factor in your success? Why?”
    • “What’s the most important thing you’ve accomplished to date? How did you do it?”
    • “What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in your education or career? What did you learn from it? What can I learn from it?” 
       
  • Train Yourself To Always Do Your Best. If you’re a student at SLUH, you’re probably pretty smart. You may have even been able to coast through grade school and get “A's” with little or no effort. If you’re smart enough, you might even be able to do that for a while at SLUH. But don’t do it. At all. Ever. You have the chance to train yourself, your mind, your heart, your spirit to be outstanding, patterns that will apply to everything you do for the rest of your life. Or not.
     
  • Dare To Be Different. My 8th grade teacher, Sister Regina Marie, for some reason took an interest in me. She would often say to me, sometimes in a whisper, “Dare to be different.” I knew she didn’t mean “be weird” or “be disagreeable” or “be contrarian.” She meant, “Don’t be afraid to do something you know is right, even if you’re the only one who knows it.” You will have a thousand people and forces trying to make you conform to things that range from suboptimal to poor to stupid. Never cooperate with nonsense. America today is full of nonsense. Be someone who is willing to stand alone, knowing that in some odd way that makes you a majority.
     
  • Do Real Spiritual Growth. In your life you’re going to hit walls you can’t go through and problems you can’t solve on your own, not even with a host of really smart people helping you. You need to always be ready to fall back on, rely on, and trust in God. Not in just a traditional or ritualistic way, but in a personal way, because God wants to be with you and in you, and you can be on the side of God and the angels. You won’t know when those low times or moments or events will come, but I promise you they will come. The good news is that you can prepare yourself, starting right now, to be ready for them, and to make it through the valleys your soul intact.

Last thought: You don’t have time or bandwidth to make all of the mistakes that it’s possible for you to make. There’s just too many ways to mess up. Do a lot of research, from every side of every issue. Learn who the experts and posers really are. Ask wise (not just smart) people about how to do something, even if you’re sure you’ve already nailed the answer or solution.

And make a difference. A big one. For God, the world, and yourself.