Feb 13

Life and Business

My dear sister gave birth to her first child last week - a daughter - my first niece. I don’t know much about little girls, except that they are adorable and we dress them in pink. Blue bad. Pink good.

Being a continent away is distressing. These life events are important and getting a snapshot via Yahoo Photos is a bummer. Mind you, it’s better than nothing and being physically separate does not mean we are emotionally distant. Still, the birth of a human being is amazing and I wish I were there.

I am teasing myself thinking I should say these life events make business events seem silly. Business events are not silly, of course, though it is tempting to say so. They are meaningful, only more mundane. And, I could easily build a case that the everyday attitudes and behaviors we bring into our work-based conversations and relations are more important than how we respond to major events like births and deaths if only because they are far more numerous. How we spend the majority of our minutes makes up the majority of our character - all fantasies of instantaneous, Hollywood-style heroics aside. In my book, the executive who breeds stress and anxiety 24/6 is not absolved on day seven because he spent the day kissing babies. How we are minute to mundane minute is how we are.

And so, as I oggle at newborn pictures on this computer screen I feel intoxicated with a sense of optimism and limitless hope, the kind only a birth can bring. If balance is needed in this moment, I also recognize the presence of immense responsibility and risk. My sister and brother-in-law, and the rest of the people they invite to influence their child, have embarked on a long journey to help Elizabeth create for herself the kind of life that brings her alive - and brings others alive, too.

Seems like what executives are supposed to do minute by mundane minute.

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