In recent months, I’ve had the opportunity to observe a lot of moments of transition as people I know, and even people I don’t, move on from what was to what is next. Moving on is never easy, it is always fraught with emotion and uncertainty on both sides. The person more visibly moving on and beginning something new has an excitement about what is next, but also a sensitivity to those they are moving on from. Those that are continuing on with their work can feel abandoned and like they’re being left behind. It is truly a mind field of moments that could go both ways if all parties aren’t intentional about their responsibility and ownership of the situations.

In reflecting on the best transitions I’ve been a part of, one thing has been constant: gratitude. The old Dr. Seuss quote, “Don’t cry because it is over, smile because it happened” leans into that idea of gratitude. “Smile because it happened” is a great daily reminder that things are happening all around us that may never happen again and we should look for the things to smile about and the things to remember with gratitude. In Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman’s incredible song, “Time To Say Goodbye” the chorus translates to “Time to say goodbye, horizons are never far, would I have to find them on my own, without my true light with you?” That is the kind of gratitude that is worth hitting the high note for.

How a company says goodbye to team members is one of the most telling things about the culture of a company, especially young companies that in a lot of cases end up feeling more like family. I remember the first time I left a company for a new role, I was excommunicated. I never heard from anyone that I had worked with for the past five years again. It became very clear very quickly that the culture of inclusion was only a retention tool, not a true caring about the individuals and what was best for them.

One of my favorite things to do when bringing someone on board for a new role is to share with them that I know our time working together has an expiration date. I tell them that no matter how successful the company we are building together becomes, we will eventually go our separate ways, whether that is in 20 months or 20 years. Then I ask them a question, “what do you want to make sure you learn from me and this experience?” I do my best to make sure that working on my team is the turning point in their career and that they will always look back at their time with our company as something that they’ll think of fondly.

We all only get so many moments with others and sometimes, especially when new companies or organizations are being formed, you have to “teach them how to say goodbye.” As George Washington says to Alexander Hamilton in “One Last Time” “If we get this right, we’re gonna teach them how to say goodbye, you and I, if I say goodbye, the nation gets to move on and will outlive me when I am gone.”

Your legacy is in how you say goodbye. Your company culture is how you move on just as much as it is in how you onboard. Your friendships and relationships may only be for a time, but just because you grow apart doesn’t mean that you can’t find gratitude and reasons to smile because it happened.

Goodbye brings a closure that allows everyone to look back on with respect and finality.

Over this past year, I’ve watched countless friends and family make life altering decisions. More big moves than I have ever seen in such a sort period of time from so many indirectly connected people. The pandemic was a great catalyst and spurred on a lot of decisions.

Now, almost a year into the world realizing that 2020 wasn’t going to be a year like any other, I have been reflecting on some of the decisions I’ve made, or didn’t make, during that time as well as catching whiffs of similar levels of contemplation from others about their decisions made.

The more I’ve thought about it, the more the decisions, and their outcomes, fall into two different groups. People who ran from something and people who ran towards something.

People who ran from something looked a little bit more like the people on the bridge trying to leave with everyone else in the apocalyptic film, hastily packing and yelling at their seven year old that they can’t bring all the stuff animals, there’s just no time. Call it an overreaction. Call it a less than well thought out plan. Call it what you will, but I’m seeing a lot of those folks walking back some of their decisions and eating a little bit of crow sandwich for their incendiary comments about “any one not moving to Miami must hate life.” Running from something always needs group validation and causes mob mentality that if you aren’t helping us get away you must be a part of the problem.

Other people, people who ran towards something, they seem to be settling in and finding their groove in the new world they' choose for themselves. It wasn’t “New York is dead and is never coming back so were getting outta here.” but more, “we’ve been looking at getting a place upstate / moving back to Texas for a few years and this turn of events gave us the space and time from work to do it.” Those people were likely going to make that decision at some point, they just made it quicker given the circumstances.

So as I walked through the West Village this morning with my dog and my coffee, saying hello to the bakery owner, the dry cleaner guy, and a neighbor that seems to always walk their dog at the same time, I was struck with the question: if you didn’t run from or run to anything, what does that mean?

And now, another cup of coffee and a kiss from Maddie later, it means I was pretty lucky that I didn’t have to make a decision one way or another and had a life that I was really excited to just continue to live out in the best city in the world.

Sometimes, deciding not to decide anything is the best decision.

While I have never mastered all of the lyrics from REM’s song, The End Of The World As We Know It, that phrase was playing over and over in my mind this morning as I reflected on the events of yesterday. The peaceful transfer of power carried out yesterday in the swearing-in of our 46th President, Joe Biden, was the end of the world as we know it.

And I feel fine.

But I am also reminded that every day carries the designation of being the end of the world as we know it. Every day is filled with potential to be a day that we look back on as the turning point. Every day carries the promise of being the moment that things changed, a breakthrough occurred, and our lives looked different from that day on. How great is that?

When I was finishing my finance degree at Texas A&M, I had a few really tough professors. The kind of professors that had name recognition and elicited a “oh man, good luck!” from other students when you told them who you had for FINC 428. They were tough but always in their own unique way. But when I look back on those classes, I can tell you exactly which friends I made over the course of that semester. We rallied together in study groups and helped each other out with group projects and swapped notes if we had to miss a class. Tougher professors created a shared adversary that drew us together into a unified community in a way that nicer professors and the easier course didn’t,

There are a lot of things to say about the past four years. And they’ll all be said for a long time to come. But, there was one thing that I watched with great interest and that was the way that different groups came together towards a common challenge that hadn’t come together in the previous less difficult administrations before. There causes they came together to promote, to defend, and to fix were not unique or new to the world, they were exposed. And as they as in Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step to solving a problem is an acceptance that you have a problem. There are a lot of things that went very wrong the past four years, but admitting that we have a problem, that we have a lot of problems, as a country is a step in the right direction that the negative forces prompted.

So today, a day that a lot of people are waking up feeling better about things, I am concerned that we will have a short term memory. I pray that the challenges that were surfaced and starred us straight in the eye in recent years would be challenges we would continue to face head-on and not let slip back into obscurity but our rallied troops of people believing in a better future for all Americans would continue the work with as much fight and as much passion as they’ve had when there was a more clear threat at the highest level.

Today is the end of the world as we know it, and tomorrow will be as well, but coming together with so many friends and family to continue the fight for justice and equity for all, one day at a time, I have to say, I feel fine.

You know exactly what scene I’m talking about. It happens about two-thirds of the way through an epic adventure or wartime movie. The main characters have been facing impossible odds, outnumbered, and surrounded by the challenges. They have made a huge gamble and we all wait on pins and needles for it to play out. Just as it looks like their reinforcements are coming, that their salvation is at hand, we are all shocked and horrified that the very thing we placed all our hope in doesn’t come through and what we thought was our last chance to escape is no more.

No one else is coming.

This is the point in the story that we see what these characters are made of. This is the defining moment that makes the movie. This is when, faced with the harshest realities, they realize the only chance they EVER had was found in the resources and people they have in that bunker. Everything that has happened up until this point in the storylines of every character slowly reveals how they’ve been sitting on the solution all along, but the safety net and comfort of an outside rescue had clouded their ability to see that truth clearly.

Last year, the year that shall not be named, was like that for me and a lot of people I know. The bunkers we found ourselves in felt every rumble and reverberation from yet another explosion hitting much closer than was comfortable. Then, almost unanimously, everyone was holding on hope for the same rescue operation to come through and save the day. 2021 was almost here. 2021 was just days away and if we could only hold on, 2021 would arrive with the winning blow and we could “get back to living life.” And now, on Monday the 4th of January 2021 a lot of us are realizing the same thing.

No one else is coming.

2021 arrived and it didn’t change the severity of our situation. 2021 didn’t start with the email outlining the relief we were looking for. 2021 didn’t fix the flaw in our system. 2021 missed its shot firing the proton torpedoes into the exhaust shaft. The Death Star is still fully operational.

So this is the moment in your hero’s journey where you get to decide how the final third of this movie plays out. This is the moment to take the most sobering look at what resources you have in your bunker and pull together your plan to risk it all to make the move you now know you need to make. You’re the only one who can do it. You are the protagonist that makes the move that turns the corner and brings the momentum to your successful conclusion of this epic saga. You are the hero in your story.

“The most dangerous man on earth is the man who has reckoned with his own death. All men die; few men ever really live.”

— John Eldredge

For me, there is real comfort in knowing precisely what you are dealing with. Having everything else stripped away and knowing that you are the final line of defense is a rare but powerful position to be in.

So what do you do now? Here’s what I’ve done and continue to do when I find myself in these moments.

1. Awareness - Be aware that that is where you are. Take a hard but quick look and understand with clarity exactly what you are up against.

2. Reality - Anything that distracts you or gives you comfort that softens the reality of the situation must be avoided.

3. Resourcefulness > Resources - It is time to get scrappy. You don’t have anything left to lose. Find new avenues. Ask for help from different people. Lean into your creativity and go Kevin Macalsiter on this enemy.

4. Win or Fail Quick - You don’t have time for a big elaborate plan. See your next three moves on the board and then reassess. Things will change when you start making moves and you need to be ready for them to change again.

5. Control - At this point, you know how much is out of your control so don’t waste time on woulda, coulda, or shoulda’s. Only focus on the things that you alone can impact and see how their movement impacts other pieces on the playing field.

6. Hold On - When making your move, know how long it will take to know if it worked and don’t second guess it until then. If you ease up before the breaking point, you’ll never know what could have been.

7. Jump - After you’ve done everything you can to make the most of your chances, jump and trust yourself to bob and weave with whatever happens next.

So what bunker are you still in? What story are you still living out? How does it feel to know no one is coming and it is all on you?

“If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’”

— Rudyard Kipling

Every time you find yourself in this place, it is a chance to strengthen this muscle. It is an opportunity to build deeper confidence that there is nothing that can stop you. It is a moment to discover how strong you actually are and that maybe even when things aren’t as dire as they are now, you have what it takes to step up and proactively be your own hero.

No one else is coming. But you have everything you need. Let’s go.

2020 was full of lessons, but some of the best for me this year were discovered while boxing in the park with my trainer. This fall, I was reminded of how much I enjoyed boxing as a form of working out. The combination of mental and physical stress mixed with the high paced combinations and full-body movement made for some noticeable results and a renewed excitement about getting better each week.

I met my trainer through an Instagram post where I talked about getting stood up by another trainer. One of my followers, a personal trainer I’d worked with in the past, said she knew of someone that might be a good fit and would reach out. When she connected us, this trainer told me he was no longer training, but that because of the referral, would consider it. His only condition was that we had to do early mornings, which thankfully was what I was looking for also.

Now when I tell you that this trainer was no longer training, it is important to understand why. He’d been a champion boxer for 15+ years fighting all around the world before retiring to then become a top trainer at one of NYC’s most prestigious gyms. But while training as a world-class athlete, he’d also graduated from Princeton with a degree in history and then with his masters from St. John’s University in public history. One of his personal training clients recruited him to leave his training career and he now oversees the NYC office for a nationwide nonprofit focused on racial reconciliation through education and the arts.

Very quickly, I realized that I was going to learn a lot more than just how to throw a better left-hook. I was basically sparring with Socrates.

1. Learn to fight, not to box - While we were out training in Washington Square Park, the gym of the neighborhood in COVID times, we’d see other trainers with clients doing speed drills or boxing combinations. I made the comment that they looked like they were going faster or doing more complex things and he said, “They’re learning how to box. I’m teaching you how to fight.” He went on to explain that style points only matter in the ring when it goes down to the judges. That wasn’t what I was there to learn.

2. Slow and strong is better than fast and weak - As we got further into our work together, we did eventually get to more complex combinations of 7 to 9 punches fired all in a sequence. But frequently, a majority of the punches I threw were much more like glove taps because I was optimizing my stance and my movements for speed instead of strength. While an ideal fighter is both fast and strong if you have to pick one, pick strong and make every punch count. Being fast looks good, but if you don’t do any damage to your opponent, you’ll just end up tired.

3. The fastest way to learn how not to do something is to get punched in the face (or ribs) - Because we were boxing outside of the world of gyms and insurance and waivers, we couldn’t quite spar or have him throw even a love tap back at me. But, on an occasion, just the threat of seeing his hand coming toward my face when I dropped my guard or towards my ribs when I was leaving them unprotected while trying to look good on my combination, was enough to get me to rethink my posture and my commitment to defense so I could be around long enough to throw back some offense.

4. Footwork and Core Win - As we were getting back into the combinations and the flow from one punch to the next, I got in my head about how my hands and my arms looked. My focus on my upper body started to make everything hurt when I landed punches. He saw this and made me go throw all my combinations again, but with my hands behind my back and only focusing on my core and how it turned and my footwork and how they got me in position. We added the arms back to the exercise and all of a sudden, the punches were landing with a deeper pop on the pads and less pain in my arms. The power comes from your feet, is wound up in your core, and made visible through your fists.

5. Punch through the target - If you aim your punch to hit the target, the strongest part of your punch is happening prior to impact. If you aim your punch to drive through the target, the strength is hitting the target and then driving it backward. Kind of like setting a goal, if you only aim to reach the goal and not beyond, if you fail or have hardships come up on your way to the goal, you’ll miss it. But if you aim beyond the minimum acceptable goal, you’ll surely hit it and hit it hard

6. Know your advantage and exploit it - I have long arms and I am tall. After a little while, I started to see how that could be very advantageous for me when fighting and is the reason that wingspan, or reach, is always listed on the stats of the boxers before they enter the ring. My long arms allow me to keep my opponent further away from me until I am ready to throw a punch. But on the flip side, means that opponents with less reach have to get inside my striking distance to throw a punch at me. Knowing that it changes the way I would approach a fight and how I would look for my spots and look to defend.

7. It is not about the combination, it’s about the opportunity - For training, putting together combinations of punches all in a row is a good way to get familiar with coming in and out of punches from different starting points and angles. But in a fight, no one is walking up to their opponent and thinking, jab, jab, cross, hook, hook, uppercut - they’re looking for the openings and sitting on the patterns they’re seeing until one of the patterns they’ve recognized, like dropping your right glove every so slightly before firing off a left hook, you can make them miss and then make them pay. Sometimes it is rounds and rounds of taking punches while looking for your shot, but if you can recognize the patterns and be patient enough to wait for the right opportunity, victory is yours.

Today was our last session and I am pumped about all the work we did this fall. There is a lot of life lessons in a boxing lesson, but most importantly is always get back up and get back into the fight. When you have an opponent like 2020 coming at you like a relentless heavyweight, it’s not about speed or fancy footwork, it'‘s about playing good defense, knowing how to take a punch, but then coming back stronger from everything you learned.

For me, 2020 might be one of the best teachers I’ve had and I can’t wait to get up from this last round of punches and wait for the opportunities I’ve been seeing all year to come together into something that looks like a highlight reel combination that lands with speed and with strength in the days and months to come.