Meaningful Moments

What do you do when “the end” comes unexpectedly? After almost 22 years with the firm, that is what happened to me, “the end” came unexpectedly with three letters on a brisk morning in December in Boston – ALS – three simple letters, but with so much complexity and quite a lot of disruptive power. What do you do?

Throughout one’s career, you chart your course and map out the future so very carefully, and then you find yourself in a strange eddy of wind that changes your course suddenly and sets you unexpectedly on a different path. You have to make in-the-moment course corrections with no map, no compass, and no guide. What do you do? Well, you face forward. It’s really all there is, of course. And, you look back because you can’t help it. I’ve had the privilege to look back on some amazingly meaningful moments recently and share them with some colleagues. I thought I might share some of my thoughts a bit more broadly.

Looking Back

This past Monday, in Pittsburgh, it was my absolute honor to get the chance to see so many of my colleagues and friends with whom I have spent much of my almost 22 years with the firm. I had the chance to share time with them, to celebrate them, and to share with them about all of the meaningful moments that have made such a profound impact on me throughout my career.

I shared with them about all of the postage-stamp like memories that I have cataloged along my journeys, moments that I have had in which we’ve created lasting memories together that stand out to me as these vivid little postcards in my mind. If we’ve crossed paths over the course of my career whether you were a colleague, a client or a co-conspirator along the way, chances are that you’re in my postcard file in some small way. Filed away in my catalog are an array of amazing moments that I will cherish forever: moments that will now carry me forward into my next chapter.

I love the concept of moments because “moments” have modifiers that are so meaningful and really encompass so much of what I’ve filed away in my postcard catalog of memories.

Moments of Doubt

My entire career was fueled by moments of doubt. Here’s a guy whose career was nothing if not circuitous, whose journey to a leadership position in a top consulting firm was not one that can be described as “typical.” I indeed took the road less traveled, a line that I borrowed when I was going through the partnership admissions process so many years ago. Doubt was the fuel that powered me. Doubt powered me to ask the “naive” questions. It made me more curious, more cautious at times, more creative, perhaps. Doubt led to dot-connecting and questions that opened up innovative opportunities and risk-taking that otherwise may not have happened without the seeds of doubt being at the heart of it all. But, most beautifully, doubt also meant that I built the most amazing relationships with people around me who gave me the confidence to try new things, to take risks, to make the leaps of faith that paid off. Doubt led to so many postage-stamp memories and postcards in my catalog file that I am beyond grateful for that nagging feeling that always shows up everytime that question forms in my mind and my stomach that says, “Can I really pull this off?”

Moments of Triumph

In looking back at the last two decades it is hard not to think about all of the memories of being deep in the moment with my collaborators, at the white board, solving problems, creating and collaborating on new ideas. So many of my postage-stamp memories and postcards are filled with the faces of people with lightbulbs going off in window-less conference rooms in random places around the country when we’ve latched onto a good idea and made it better or solved a problem for a client. So many moments of triumph when we’ve created a story that can inspire a client to take a risk that makes life better for the people that they serve. Those moments in which I have felt so alive as we create and mold ideas into stories into inspiration. I feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to create – to create ideas, to create stories, to create impact.

Moments of Defeat

As I have spent some time looking back, I have reflected on those times in my career when I have not been at my best, when I have let myself and my colleagues down. And what I have found as I flipped through my postcard file of memories is that in each instance, there was someone and at times several someones who were there holding me to account, asking more of me and helping me see that I could do better. It is so easy in these moments when someone is not meeting their own expectations to leave them be, to just go along and suffer through and make things work because having the hard conversation is too hard. Have it. It’s time well spent and energy worth expending. Too many times feedback goes unsaid; trust me when I say that the hardest conversations are the most memorable and the most welcome. Relationships get stronger as a result, and everyone is better for it. I am exponentially better for the hardest conversations that I have ever had in my career, and the postcards in my file from those moments, they are some of the most cherished. I look at them and know that those are the people that I can count on the most. Those are the people that truly love me because they took the hard decision to tell me I could do better, and they were absolutely right.

Moments of Laughter

We often say that if we did not laugh we would cry. I posit that we should do both more. I have been blessed to work with colleagues with whom I have laughed often and boisterously – frequently at myself. Life is absurd, and life as a consultant is frequently doubly so. Booking flights to the wrong city, being dropped off by an Uber at the cargo terminal instead of the passenger terminal (and not noticing because you’re deep into a presentation on a call in the backseat), finding yourself locked out of the client’s building in the middle of the night when you stepped outside to pick up the pizza delivery, trying to casually cross a street in India in rush hour traffic…we need to laugh at ourselves or we might cry. Laugh more, cry more. It’s human. Those postcards are the most fun to flip through.

Moments of Quiet

When I mentally flip through the postcards of my career, the ones that I most frequently pause on are those where I’m just sitting with colleagues having a conversation. Whether we are at an airport, in a hotel lobby, before a meeting, in the office, after a dinner, or wherever, it is always these moments of quiet when we find ourselves simply existing in the same space together as people that mattered most to me. Having an honest one-on-one conversation with each other, connecting together, sharing an experience – these were the times that mattered most to me. These are the moments that populate my card file with the most vivid pictures of two of us sitting together connected as human beings. I urge everyone to be present in the moment with each other as much as possible. Put your phones down, make eye contact and connect with each other. Connect with your teams, connect with your leaders. These are the times that really matter to people. These are the times that create people’s careers. These are the times that people remember. This is what creates real impact.

Moments of Impact

Throughout my career, I have been blessed to have been able to make an impact on my clients, in my community, and on my teams. It was humbling to hear from my colleagues and friends on Monday and throughout the last several months in public and private about how they think that I have impacted them. Impact has always been at the heart of what has driven me to do what I do. When asked what kept me at the firm for so long, I always used to answer, consistently. that there were three things: 1. Our people, 2. The chance that I always had to grow, and 3. The opportunities that I always had to make an impact. Anyone who has ever asked me that question has consistently gotten that same answer…for years.

So, since that cold December morning, the question with which I have wrestled was “How am I going to make an impact if I am no longer strong enough to work?” But, if you’re reading this blog on this page, hopefully you’ve seen how. With the Live Like Lou Foundation, I’ve found a way. If I can play a part in giving people their voice back, in reconnecting people with their loved ones, in helping people living with ALS to maintain their autonomy, agency and dignity while this disease seeks to strip all of that away by making Talk to Me, Goose! available for free, well, I found a way. I hope. Join me in helping to do that, please.

Facing Forward

When you find yourself in a strange eddy of wind that changes your course unexpectedly, and when there are no charts and no maps, what do you do? You face forward. I think that’s really all you can do. I was recently virtually introduced by a friend to the artist and writer, Hanna Du Plessis. Hanna and her caregiver Marc live just a few miles from me here in Pittsburgh, and she is also living with ALS. Marc and I have exchanged a number of emails, and I look forward to actually meeting them in the near future as we live only a few miles apart. Hanna wrote Bedsores and Bliss: Finding Fullness of Life with a Terminal Diagnosis and the final chapter of that book “Five Stars” resonated deeply with me. I shared these with my colleagues as Hanna’s philosophy harmonizes a lot with my own:

• Do whatever it takes to come into agreement with reality, to play the hand you were dealt, despite your wish to chuck it into the blender and watch this deck of devastation disappear into smoke
• Grieve, with abandon, all you are losing. Pause, and when you’re ready, focus on what is possible
• I will use every ounce of agency available to me to respond to this boa constrictor with creativity and push more life into the world
• Lean toward trusting and loving what is
• Stubborn joy

I share these with you because these have encapsulated a lot of how I have tried to tackle the last 11 months, and how I hope to continue to move forward from here. I also share these with you in the hopes that you too will recognize that we all face a similar way ahead just, perhaps, on a different trajectory. None of us exits this world any differently; we all have a terminal diagnosis. It’s just that some of us know what ours is. And, while I’ve been asked how I cannot be angry about what is happening to me. It is because I choose not to be. I lean into Hanna’s interpretation of Stubborn Joy. It takes much less energy to be joyful than angry. I have neither the time nor the energy to be angry. But, I do grieve. Indeed, I do so with absolute abandon, but I must move on to focus on what is possible. I grieve, for example, that I can no longer cycle up the hills that I used to. While I grieve though I celebrate that I still turn the pedals at all. I will play the hand that I am dealt, and I trust that what is, is. I cannot change it, so I must accept it. I trust that I have the strength that I need to endure. And, importantly, right now, I love. I love that you have come to this place with me to learn more about me. I love that we are, in some way on this journey forward together. And, I thank you.

A Moment of Gratitude

As I have been reflecting and turning the page from one career to the next, from one of my lives to the next, I cannot help but be grateful. On the Fourth of July, 1939, Lou Gehrig said that he was the “Luckiest” and that may well have been true then, but today, well…I beg to differ.