“CEO Dad” humors readers while delivering a serious punch line for today’s success-addicted fathers.
Los Angeles, CA (PRWeb) June 14, 2007 -- 60 percent of men at the top of Fortune 500 companies admit to prioritizing work over family—yet eight out of ten say they wish for more time off. The bottom line? Today’s executives feel stuck. Tom Stern was stuck, too—until his family gave this former CEO a swift kick that sent him flying from the boardroom to the playroom. Today, the business humorist and media personality jests about his failures and foibles in CEO Dad: How to Avoid Getting Fired by Your Family (Davies-Black, 2007, $19.95)—a “seriously funny” book touted by everyone from comedian Jerry Seinfeld to Stephen R. Covey, who authored the forward.
In a satirical tale of redemption, Stern tells the story of a father who treats his family like a corporation and manages to alienate just about everyone—even his shrink—with his out-of-control neuroses and narcissism. As a kid, Tom Stern had big shoes to fill—yet seemed to do little more than disappoint. His powerful father, Alfred R. Stern—mogul of cable TV and later head of PBS and Mt. Sinai Hospital—had no time for a needy, bed-wetting son with ADHD and dyslexia. What’s more, the boy’s great-grandfather was “the” Julius Rosenwald, legendary entrepreneur-philanthropist who built Sears, Roebuck and Co. from the ground up. The bright spot? Stern’s gift for gags—aimed mostly at himself—won others over. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College, he pursued a career in stand-up—alongside pals Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno—but failed to make beer-drinking Joes laugh about the hardships of growing up rich on New York’s Fifth Avenue. Stern eked out a slightly better paycheck developing comedy programming for HBO and, later, managing comedians.
In the mid-1990s, Stern’s career took a 180-degree turn. He launched an executive recruiting firm, making millions courtesy of a massive U.S. labor shortage. As a hyped-up businessman with a 24/7 drive to succeed, he turned into the “CEO Dad” he had once mocked. In the winter of 2002, tragedy rocked Stern’s world. His wife, Lisa, was brutally attacked and robbed in the garage of their California McMansion. The two thugs, who had tailed Lisa home after spotting her diamond ring, were never caught. Stern took a break from business and rerouted his energy to his wife and kids.
Then, not even two years later, came another blow: After enduring countless surgeries to reconstruct her face, Lisa was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Stern stepped again into the caregiver role—supporting his wife through chemotherapy and a bilateral mastectomy—and, once and for all, heeded life’s wake-up call. Finally, he was a real husband and father.
These days, Stern—at 51, a self-described “recovering” success addict—is busy balancing work and family from his home in Los Angeles. He’s out to create the next Dilbert with CEO Dad—a nationally syndicated comic strip about an executive who treats his family like a corporation—and has written a business humor book, CEO Dad: How to Avoid Getting Fired by Your Family (Davies-Black, 2007, $19.95) available at Amazon.com
Moreover, he’s developing CEO Dad as an animated prime-time TV series for CNBC,
a first for a financial network.
About:
Tom Stern is creator of the nationally syndicated comic strip CEO Dad and author of CEO Dad: How to Avoid Getting Fired by Your Family (Davies-Black, 2007, $19.95). A sought-after executive recruiter and business humorist, he frequently talks about work-life balance and lessons from his own success addiction on radio, in blogs, and for corporate audiences. Stern hosts Opportunity Knocks—a groundbreaking radio show that gets people jobs on the air—and is a guest humorist on PRI’s Marketplace and a popular work life blogger for Fast Company magazine. An executive recruiter with clients ranging from IBM to Sony Pictures, he frequently performs his one-man show “Stop My Life, I Want to Get On!” for CEO Dads—and Moms—across corporate America.
He lives in Los Angeles, where he loves being husband to wife Lisa and “recovering” CEO Dad to daughters Alexandra and Arianna.
Contact:
J.D. Bowles
JD @ JDBConsultants.com
818-742-5880
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