New Year’s Eve 2020, 9:24 p.m.
I dressed warmly. With my balaclava, puffy jacket, and running tights, I looked like the unfortunate progeny of an ill-conceived liaison between a cat burglar and a snowman. It was cold, below freezing cold; and I was going for a walk with my daughter Erin. Erin died in June.
Erin and I used to love walking around the lakes. Sitting there home alone on New Year’s Eve, thinking about Erin and staring into the chasm that was the gaping hole in my heart, I decided we should go for a walk.
Striding along the icy path ruminating, 2020 had been a challenging year, I’d lost more than some and a lot less than others. I didn’t die… that said, if I’m being totally honest there were a few moments when I wondered if staying alive was really worth all the effort. As I made my way around the lakes under the comforting glow of a full moon, I could feel the tears ebbing and flowing as the conflicting tides of my grief and gratitude crashed against the shore of my soul.
The timing seemed perfect when I got to the bench overlooking the lake, so I sat down for a cry and a chat.
“Hey dad, you’ve got to slow down.” I heard Erin’s voice kindly admonishing me in my ears... well I heard her in my heart. As I listened to the voice I’d never heard on Earth (in her more than 15 years alive Erin never said a word out loud), I reflected on the pithy tweet I’d glanced at earlier, “If you don’t pick a day to relax, your body will pick it for you.”
Erin continued with her next nugget of sage counsel, “Be then do, Dad.... be then do.” That’d been one of our mantras when she was alive, so much so that I have it tattooed on the inside of my wrist to remind me. And yet somehow, no excuses, for whatever reason, I’d averted my gaze, and I’d lost my way of late.
Like many others 2020 had been a rough year for me. At the same time, I could never quite shake the profound sense of gratitude I felt at how truly blessed I was.
With the whole COVID-19 thing, a significant portion of my business pipeline disappearing overnight, and Erin dying, I’d given myself a pass and had allowed myself to feel sorry for myself. My coping strategy - I got busy. In order to get away from the uncertainty and fear and grief, I decided to try to assert my control wherever and on whatever I could. As a man of faith, I caught myself a little too frequently skipping past the whole “Thy will be done” and “in God’s time.” Instead, I tried to assert ‘my will’ which not at all surprisingly produced predictable poor results.
And here I was, December 31, 2020, and rather than winding down the year and giving my body, mind, and spirit a chance to relax, I’d been neck deep in conversations about projects I was working on in Australia, Israel, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe, and here in the United States.
Perhaps, most ironically my ‘busyness’ on the last day of the year had more to do with me distracting myself. I was awaiting the results of an MRI I’d just had. Almost three years cancer free, if I let it, my mind still played games with me as I waited for a call from my doc during which I was almost certain I’d hear him tell me “You’re good to go... all clear.” I knew I was a little nervous as I’d caught myself laying the groundwork and rehearsing a familiar bargaining conversation with God. “Hey God, if you can just see a way to give me a clean bill of health, I promise I’ll take better care of myself in 2021.”
Awaiting the call, I’d stayed busy all day and into the night. Sitting by the lake, chatting with Erin, I reflected upon how a few short years ago, I’d been shaken to my core with some rather nasty medical test results. They’d found all sorts of pathogens, cancers, bacteria, amoebas, and flukes all over my body. I was not well back then. Fortunately, I am now.
Really short version of that story - I got sick and during my journey back to wellness I met with - amongst others - God in Israel, the Karmapa Lama in Nepal and a revered Shaman in Bolivia (Amazon). In my quest for a cure, they gifted me instead with a prescription for health.
That prescription for health was as appropriate for the challenges I was facing back then as it is for the challenges and opportunities, we are all facing now as we enter 2021.
Anyway... I’m obviously still alive and well.... so, what is that miracle prescription ... what is the magical elixir... that can help us all as we head into 2021… what is it that Erin was reminding me to “Be then do”?
It’s so elegantly simple, the application of which whilst not easy, promises incredible rewards. It is... if adopted in the prescribed manner, potentially the greatest strategic enabler available to us all when it comes to reliably and recurrently producing tangible results in business and in life... it is...
“Be grateful. Be kind. Do the next right thing.”
