Never, ever quit

Bob Basten swept into the meeting just moments before it was scheduled to begin. Ordinarily, he would have showed up early for some sociable small talk. But this was no ordinary gathering. It was August 8, 2002, and it was Basten's last day as CEO. The board members, outside investors, and senior executives had gathered in a large, windowless conference room in Washington, DC. Basten, a 6-foot-5-inch former football player with intense blue eyes, looked down the table at the line of faces staring back at him. Basten began to talk about his own death sentence. Two months earlier, he had received a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. There is no cure, no treatment to halt the steady progression of the debilitating illness; life expectancy for ALS patients is typically between two and five years. As a result, Basten told his stunned colleagues, he was stepping down at once as president and CEO of Centerprise Advisors, the company he formed in 2000 by combining several business-services and accounting firms.