Why am I willing to be so open?
We are visitors on this planet. We are here for one hundred years at the very most. During that period we must try to do something good, something useful, with our lives. if you contribute to other people's happiness, you will find the true meaning of life.
– Dalai Lama XIV
In several interactions I’ve had so far with readers of this Substack, I’ve been asked privately why I am so willing to be so open to write about very personal issues. The reason is that I’ve felt a lot of gratitude for others who have been willing to share and hope to pay it forward. I hope to contribute to other people’s happiness!
Gratitude for others sharing with me
I have been grateful when people have shared their very personal life advice with me. There are a few examples I can share here.
One example of this advice came right after Marsha and I got married. I was then a young product manager at my second startup, and the VP of Engineering told me about what led him to a divorce with his first wife. The net was that they were both good people, but they just started living parallel lives. His specific advice was for me and Marsha to start some hobbies together, which we did. At the time, Marsha and I started doing both golf lessons and tennis lessons together! Those specific hobbies didn’t last beyond having kids, but we still exercise together through activities like running and Apple Fitness even today! I still remember this advice, and I appreciate its sentiment.
Another example or sharing came once we started having children. When Marsha and I had a miscarriage between our first and second daughters, we were at first dismayed, only to learn later from friends and close coworkers with similar experiences that miscarriages are really common. We learned that people just don’t talk about miscarriage openly, and this is now a topic of research. I personally believe it would be helpful to avoid unnecessary pain if people could be more open about this in general.
As I’ve shared in a previous post, I think it’s also important to remove the stigma associated with couples counseling. I really appreciated a good friend sharing the advice that his pastor gave to him and his wife. His pastor told them that we are all naturally attracted to people who in many ways will “rub us the wrong way” with the intention for us to continue to “polish each other into perfect stones.” This proved very helpful for me to put in context the advice we got from our own couples counseling back in our 30’s while we had little kids.. (More on this later.)
The pay forward mindset
With these past examples in mind, I started sharing with friends and coworkers some things that might be considered very personal, with the hope of helping others on their journeys, too. It started during my career with some of the examples above.
For example, I have shared pretty openly about the couples counseling experience that Marsha and I had early in our marriage, and I have heard back from many who have expressed gratitude over the years. Even when topics don’t get too “heavy,” I have always tried to bring my true self to relationships to provide the opportunity for sharing, even in professional settings.
Now that I’ve been retired for six years, I can honestly say that virtually no one I worked with reflects back on the actual work we did together. It’s rare to hear something like “hey, Steve, we did such a great job on that 2012 Q2 business plan!” The reflections I hear are usually about how we felt supported by each other in our relationships, or even about the time we spent together outside of the office, perhaps during work dinners or when traveling together on business. In my case, I love karaoke, and many have come back to talk about singing together, which had very little to do with the specific work at hand.
So, with this Substack, I’m hoping to help others either in or about to enter their retirement journeys, as well as to help others build some empathy for others going through this.
For the next week, I’d love to hear some feedback on why you’re here, so I can best tailor the content going forward.
We are not alone
In the spirit of us all contributing to each others’ happiness, I’ve been a strong beneficiary. Very little of my blessings have been things I’ve done “on my own.”
More concretely, during my career, friends and past coworkers were key to my moving forward. The two career moves I made during my career without a friend referral were both one-year job stints that didn’t fit me that well. All my other career moves (to Latitude, to AskMe, to consulting with All Star Directories, to Barracuda, and to Igneous) were all referrals from friends and past coworkers.
Similarly, in retirement, all of my favorite consulting gigs and projects were referrals from friends and past coworkers, too! Despite that I have been in the space of saying “no” a little more often to transition to a new journey, I have so appreciated those who have been willing to think about me and support me all along the way!
I hope everyone reading this can contribute and share with others to experience the gratitude that I am feeling.
So, thank you all for your support and for reading this Substack. I would also encourage any of you to share this with friends and family!
Will never forget the great Stevie P rapping about sales ppl “eating steak while I’m eating burger”
Much more is learned about life and oneself during times of struggle and outright failure than times of great success. I had all of the above.
If I had everything to do all over again, I’d have taken a year off, traveled, volunteered, and made it a point to surround myself with people “different” from me.
Different professions, different ethnicities, different strengths and weaknesses, different everything. And I’d have asked more questions and listened more.
I do recall a job well done on the annual partner conference and acquisition integration. Then again that’s rooted in latter experiences and comparisons. I would say being personally vulnerable at a workplace is a risk and speaks to emotional safety. Are there people who would weaponize any experience? Or would it be held sacred and a special moment or bonding? I found the latter can be difficult to identify in workplaces, especially at competitive tech companies. It was too easy to one up someone and feel threatened than to want to row in the same direction. I do reflect on the individuals who had the ego strength to be authentic, driven, and share the oars.