Twenty Things In Twenty Years
Programming Note: While I write literally all day at work - emails, slack messages, whiteboards and more, I haven’t actually sat down and truly written anything in many years. Encouraged by my wife, Mary, to start sharing some of the stories of my life, especially with our daughter, Emma, I’m going to take on the challenge of writing down as much as I can remember about the moments which have been important to me along the way.
Emma, I hope one day you’ll read and enjoy these as much as I’ve enjoyed remembering them.
It’s been twenty years since I walked through the departure gates at Heathrow Airport and boarded the plane to my new life. Which is now my actual life. Almost half my life. Over seven thousand days. Since then, I’ve learned a lot. About the world, about myself, and about other people. It’s been an incredible journey, and while I never really thought about it at the time, what happened next was exactly what I’d hoped for, and much, much more. I’ve traveled, met some incredible people (and even married one of them), been super sick, laughed, danced, cried, fought, loved, been loved, studied, and overall had the most amazing set of lived experiences I ever could have imagined. While I have discreet moments of regret along the way, I have absolutely no regrets at all about the decision my twenty eight year old self made in moving half way around the world to pursue the dream of living here.
A time like this makes one naturally nostalgic and reflective, and I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’ve learned along the way. I’ve been doing weird mental math such as realizing I’ve been playing Destiny for longer than I was in higher education. Or that I’ve been to more Interpol shows than Browns home games. Or that Denville, New Jersey is a place I’ve lived longer than anywhere else, ever. Or the sheer volume of places I’d still love to visit here.
And the more things change, the more they stay the same. I still listen to the same music, and dress the same way. After many a shaved head, I have long hair again. I eat the same (bad, although it’s a daily operation to improve) stuff, still drive a mini cooper and still watch the same kinds of things as I always did. Despite everything they do to stop me, I’m still a Browns fan.
So I thought I’d write these stories down, not only as a way to remember them for later, but also to try and make sense of them for myself right now. None of these are rank ordered. None of these are more important or meaningful than others. But they do reflect and capture how I feel after twenty years of leaving the country I grew up in. As you can imagine, my relationship with ‘home’ is a complicated one, especially in recent years where the place you’re from seems to have less and less bearing on what you believe, what you value, and what you think is right. The place I’m from seems more and more distant with each passing year, and the trips back less and less frequent.
In sharing my stories, I hope they are helpful and enjoyable to read, just as much as they have been to sit down and write on a cold, snowy weekend in beautiful Denville, New Jersey.
Kindness is everything
It’s the only shortcut that’s good, and the only shortcut that works. It took surviving cancer for me to actually grasp this, with the kindness of strangers and all those around me showing me, with exceptional clarity, that the only thing that matters is to be kind.
I’m an only child, and I’m very much an only child. I’m independent, exceptionally comfortable with my own company, and find it hard to be around large groups at social events for very long. I find other people exhausting, and while I’m a naturally introverted person, which only in recent years have I begun to embrace and understand, I’ve usually taken incredibly social jobs. My career is filled with managing large teams, running social media accounts, traveling for speaking engagements at conferences, fostering collaborative workplace culture, and all the things that go into building what’s great at work.
To be clear, it’s been amazing, and I have been incredible fortunate. But it’s tiring, and the deeper I get into my career, the more tiring it can become. But I’m embracing that too, and getting a lot better at explicitly carving out the necessary time and space for me to recharge, and giving others the opportunity to thrive in that work too, which is its own mutual reward of course.
Kindness is memorable, and powerful. And genuine, consistent, long-lasting kindness towards others is one of the best things we can ever do, especially at work. When I think about those people whom I’ve admired for how they’ve built their careers, or who I’ve seen advance through an organization, it’s inevitably those who have been kindest. Sure, there are numerous other ways to climb the pole, but this is the only one I’m interested in. I’m not interested in toadying my way to the top, playing games with others, or indulging in the politics of advancement. I’ve never cared about this, and likely never will. But it took serious illness for these feelings to crystallize into something more like a mission, a way of being, and something that felt more like, well… me.
And you know who puts on the best example of this, every single day, no matter what else is going on in life? Our dog, Harley. More on the appreciation of dogs later, but her kindness is infectious, inspiring and incredible. She’s always kind. Similarly, when I think of the best bosses, or the people who’ve changed my life exponentially for the positive, they’ve always been the kindest. The school teacher who told my parents they had the family’s first university applicant on their hands. The boss who sent a week’s worth of groceries to my house when I was in recovery. The other boss who called my bluff on me wanting to come to America, and actually offered me a job here. The girl I fell in love with who is relentlessly kind no matter what life throws at her. And her family who have welcomed me into their lives as one of their own, and shown me what the real meaning of love really is.
And when I think of those moments over the past twenty years of which I’m proudest, they’re always those moments of kindness and selflessness I’ll never forget. And that’s really the heartbreaking thing. I know it, but there’s so many moments where I didn’t do it when I had the opportunity. Where kindness was at a premium, or carried the expectation of reciprocation. Where the lack of kindness in others resulted in the lack of kindness in me. I know it, but like all of us, I’m working on it.
Only recently have I really understood the value of self care, of self-kindness. Or really the deliberate cultivation of experiences which I know are very healthy for me mentally. These very often involve doing absolutely nothing, writing, or otherwise being absorbed in a book. One thing they rarely involve is a screen. For twenty five years I’ve sat all day in front of a screen, and especially during more than two years at home during the pandemic, it’s getting more than a little old.
One of the biggest acts of self-kindness was removing myself from social media (not completely, I’m still on LinkedIn, and sort of on YouTube, running a gaming channel no-one watches, with which I am completely at peace). But during a moment of clarity whilst on vacation in Hawaii, I decided no more Twitter (especially Browns Twitter, which is infuriating), no more Facebook, no more Instagram. No more any of it. I was thankfully never on TikTok or Snapchat. And while the urge to doom scroll, even on LinkedIn, is still there, without a social presence to manage, it’s really liberating, even if I feel the retroactive guilt of hundreds of wasted hours posting so much garbage in the past. I’m pretty confident that running numerous social accounts for work was a contributing factor towards the gradual decline in my health that ultimately put me in the hospital, even though I experienced a lot of recognition and success for the work at the time. At some point it’s just a colossal waste of time, but hey, I still believe more folks will come around to the idea, especially after reading anything about Cambridge Analytica. I live on the web and build things for the internet all day, which is a genuine passion of mine, but sometimes the kindest thing I can do is to step away and no longer ‘be’ the product myself for someone else.
It’s only a mistake if you don’t learn from it
I remember sitting in a featureless boardroom high up in a Midtown Manhattan office building I was working in, with a number of executives, where we were having a fairly casual conversation about a new product my team was rolling out. There were a million moving pieces, and while everything was going well, we didn’t really have any visibility into a potential launch date. Which is of course, especially after I’d gotten them excited with a well executed demo, exactly what they asked for.
Completely misreading the room, and with a wry smirk on my face, I jokingly answered ‘well, you know us Product folks don’t like to give out dates’. Their faces dropped, a couple of the toadies behind them grimaced, and I knew I’d dropped myself in it with a poorly read wisecrack that no-one appreciated. I tried to backtrack and talk about the roadmap, but it was too late. Any confidence in me or excitement they’d felt in the product had been crushed by my own stupid hubris. There were subsequent meetings about the state of the product with higher and higher folks, as well as a rotating carousel of strategic thinkers brought in to give their counsel. It never went well, and in subsequent years, the budgets dried up, my team was split up, and ultimately I wasn’t really left with much else to do other than see myself out. There’s a lot more than just my mis-reading of the room in that moment at work in this journey, but I always remembered it as the moment I blew it for myself, and track it as a definitive career low moment of my own making.
But of course I learned from it, with as they say, those unable to learn from history being doomed to repeat it. And now I look back on the whole situation free of guilt, but with more than a healthy dose of humility. What I learned is that sometimes, most times, you just need to shut the hell up. Over the past year I’ve really doubled down on doing this, but I’m going against twenty five years in the workplace of doing exactly this. Outside of work I’m a lot, lot quieter. I’m usually in the corner reading a book, I go to church every Sunday and dread the ‘peace be with you’ bit. I never like to make small talk conversation with servers or those otherwise taking care of me.
Over the years I’ve said some stupid, stupid stuff, most of which I’ve thankfully forgotten. I’ve sure enough had some stupid, stupid stuff said to me too as well of course. And my stupid stuff is usually in response to their stupid stuff. And then the whole world revolves around everyone’s stupid. It’s not good. I look back on the kid from London who arrived in the snow in Philly, and I want to share all of this with him. To take him to one side and tell him not to be such a different person at work. Not to try so hard. That he doesn’t need to fill the space of a meting with his own thoughts in order to provide self-validated value to the team. To just be. And that saying nothing is just as powerful as trying to say everything. Strangely enough, being back in school at Penn over the past year has really helped me in this. I think it’s just being back in an academic climate that’s having a calming, more thoughtful and abstract conceptualization effect on me. And certainly getting me to take work a lot more healthily as ‘work’ comes to mean something different the more papers I write, responses I make, quizzes I take, and grades I get.
These days, I still make mistakes all the time. But I’m much better at owning them. And I’m much more at peace with them. I mean, I’ve already had the worst day of my life in being diagnosed with cancer, so how bad can it really be to just raise your hand and own up to something? You always get tomorrow to dust yourself off and try again, right?
Philadelphia is the greatest city in the world
I’ve been to a lot of places in the world, but nowhere has ever felt like Philly. My original point of entry into the United States, on every one of our frequent trips there, it always still feels like home. I’ve an immigrant’s love of the place. The historic buildings, the amazing food, and especially the people. There’s just some places in the world where you feel as if you’ve found those just like you. Philly’s one of those places, and weirdly enough, so is Cleveland, and every time I go to a home Browns game, I get those same feelings of love for the place that I do whenever we visit Philadelphia.
We have a ton of friends there, we fell in love there, and now I’m even a student at the University there, which in itself has been an incredible experience and a huge accelerator of meeting even more amazing Philadelphians. The city’s changed a lot since I left there in 2004, especially South Street where I used to live, which always seems to be going through predictably cyclical waves of investment and abandonment. We visit often, and it’s always a place we can recharge, relax, and be ourselves. When the skyline emerges over the hill as we tear down 95, there’s a calm which washes over us, knowing that everything is going to be just fine. When we hit the hotel room, we always watch the local news, which always seems to be just that little bit more bonkers than what we have in New York. But there’s something about the smell of the place, the crispness of the air, especially in winter, and our nostalgic love for the place that hasn’t faded one bit in twenty years.
I don’t really miss my life there, but I do miss some of the weirdly Philadelphian things. I used to live above a Wawa, and even though we have a Wawa down the street from us, it’s not quite the same. All Wawas smell the same though, which is wonderful. Some of the unique record shops or places to eat, which whenever we go back are of course never as good as we remember them, and a solid reminder that we should have gone to the Princeton Record Exchange instead. I do miss the local movie theaters, especially the Ritz Bourse and Ritz Five, which seem to be going in and out of business these days, their attendance decimated by covid just like everywhere else. I feel like every movie I saw at those places was always great, especially when paired with a huge cup of yoghurt raisins, which always sounds great when you order it, but has you reaching for the barf bag after stuffing your face with them for an hour like I usually do. Self-control with snacks was never one of my strongest attributes, and Philly is one of those places in the world sufferers like me should avoid at all costs. Going for walks up and down Sansom late at night and listening to Elephant, Stellastarr and Interpol while trying to decompress from yet another challenging day at work. The early mornings at the pub watching the Premier League football, having a full English cooked breakfast and trying to avoid nostalgic reminiscence of empire with other Brits. Yuengling beer. Wawa counter pretzels and hazelnut coffee. Peanut Chews and Cow Tails. The City Paper and breakfast at the South Street Diner.
Every time we go there, it’s energizing. And given that, we never really do it enough. We prefer to go and see bands there and drive the extra miles instead of just heading over the bridge to Brooklyn, which we can’t stand going to. I’m proud to be a student again, and even prouder to be doing it in Philly. Going to Penn has been a powerful life changer for me, and I’m excited for where the latest chapter of my time with Philadelphia is going to take me next. But when I think of major moments in my life since I’ve lived here, most of them have some connection to Philly. I met Mary for the first time there. She was a student there and now so am I. Philly was the first city we visited with Emma. Philly is where we’ve seen some of the best concerts of our lives. Philly is where some of our best friends still are. Philly was the place where I ignited a love of American History, my prior experience of which was dismally deficient. And Philly’s always a place we’re so sad to leave on a Sunday afternoon with the specter of work on a Monday morning back in New York looming.
Dogs are actually awesome after all
For the longest time, I couldn’t stand dogs. One had bitten me as a kid, and I never really got over it. I don’t remember too much about it, but I think I must have been about three or four, and was probably tormenting it through the bars in a gate. The dog snapped, caught my hand, and there it was, tears in my eyes, I was a cat person from then on. We had a cat when I was growing up in Somerset, Holly, who lived to be an old puss, dying the same year I moved away to London. She got slow and sick, like a lot of pets do towards the end, and it broke my heart when we had to say goodbye. I couldn’t bring my nineteen year old self to be in the vet’s room when she died, as I’d never known a time without her. I still miss her.
These days we still have cats in the house. Mary’s cat Maya, who was with her when we met, was always Mary’s closest friend. There for her when she came home, there for her when she woke up, and always there for her during a movie. The two were inseparable, as all great pets are, and we still miss her a lot. She’s buried in the back garden here at home, and we think of her a lot. My cat, Abby, who we got when we lived in Hoboken, is almost eighteen now, and about as nihilistic as they come. She doesn’t give a crap about anything, anyone, and is exclusively motivated by food, treats and water. She’s always been an independent alley cat, and we often joke that we found her in the garbage. She’s slowing down a lot these days, and spends most of her days asleep on the house boiler next door to my basement office. She’s lost control of some of her digestion, is prone to spraying, and has a lame leg. But she’s always there with a brief acknowledgement whenever we need to do the laundry, and lets us know when she needs to be fed and watered. I love her a lot, but I feel the end coming, which always makes me sad.
Our other two twin black cats, who have the full run of the house, Freda and Macy, are completely bonkers. Freda is Mary’s new cat, and Macy belongs to Emma. They are always full of beans, demanding of treats in the morning ritual, pretty much signaling it’s time to eat whenever I go into the kitchen. They chase each other, talk to each other, eat bugs, climb the walls for no reason, and are generally full of life.
Mary grew up with a dog, and Emma has always wanted one. The girls love animals, especially dogs, but for the longest time I had resisted getting one. I love the Playstation, which also met with equal amounts of resistance. So Mary made a bet with me. If she were to get me a Playstation, we could get a dog. Thinking she’d never do it, I agreed. And then, the next Christmas morning, the Playstation was there, and the resigned acknowledgement that we were, after years of refusal, going to be a dog family. Bluff called. Game over.
Our first dog, Rosie, was a rescue dog with a lot of emotional and behavioral problems, many of which only got worse as she got older, especially around other kids. It came to the point where we had little option other that to give her back up for adoption, and I always think about what happened to her. I hope she’s OK and at peace wherever she is.
So we had to get a new dog. This time we went to a professional breeder, literally in the middle of nowhere in rural New Jersey, and picked out Harley, our beloved golden retriever. Since getting her, now I get it. She’s kind, excited to see you when you’ve been away, eager to show you that she loves you, and overall just a best friend. She sits by us, keeps us all company, and is just a great, great pet. After forty four years of being afraid of them, she’s helped me understand that indeed, dogs are actually awesome after all.
I don’t miss England, but I do miss English things
This is always such an odd one to try and articulate. I have no real nostalgia for the country itself, but I do miss my friends, my time at University in London, the culture of going to the pub, and weird little things like Yorkie bars, Walkers crisps, Hob Nobs and other stuff that you can just as easily get here, but at a premium. I watch EastEnders and Coronation Street every day, a ritual I use to decompress from the work day and to put a delineation between work and downtime, between the day and the evening. When I lived in London, I loved my soaps, and now in an age of endless streaming and exhaustive choice, this dad gets to watch his stories every day again. There’s a solid gap of about 15 years in between where we were on a break from each other, really because it was almost impossible to find the current episodes, so I’m thankful for BritBox, YouTube, and most of the internet for helping us ex-pats scratch our soapy itch.
I miss the late-night take-your-life-in-your-hands kebabs and fish and chips after the pub with my friends. The smell of the underground or the stale stench of beer and sweat in a barely populated pub. I miss my old bedsit I used to live in as a student and studying late at night at the Kingston University library, and my first ever grown-up apartment in Richmond. My old mini cooper and the frequent trips to the garage to trick it out while simultaneously trying to make sure it didn’t fall apart above fifty miles an hour. I miss the lost afternoons record shopping on Berwick Street and in Camden, or the Sundays lost in the libraries of South Kensington. The television of a late Saturday afternoon as the football results come in and the sun setting as it’s time to warm up the crumpets and make some tea. Venues like The Astoria or The Marquee, all long since demolished to make way for the inevitable path of what counts as urban progress.
But there’s a lot that I don’t miss at all. I don’t miss the cultural indifference to service or the neglectful welfare of others. The xenophobic chaos of decisions such as Brexit. The belief that the days of old will return one day, or that the age of empire is something somehow to be celebrated. The fear of foreigners and the generally pessimistic outlook. The lack of opportunity or the drive to overcome. The lack of belief that a brighter future is out there for the taking. Every time we go back there, people seem to just care less and less about more and more, and we always leave fairly disheartened about the state of things. We’ve not been back for almost ten years now, usually opting to spend our vacation days traveling here, or spending time at our beach cottage. It’s a weird feeling, and people ask me all the time, but ‘going back’ just isn’t an itch I need to scratch.
I’m not close with my parents or any of my family, so there really isn’t much nostalgia, or even reminiscing to lean on there, but I do really miss my friends, my best friend in particular. We text a lot most days, and the occasional phone call is always such a treat for me. I miss the garbage we used to chat about over a few ales. The weird and wonderful movies we’d go and see in the middle of the afternoon after ditching work. The tears of laughter we’d cry as we told each other jokes only we’d understand. The Christmas dinners we tried and failed to cook together. The love of music we shared and our increasingly acerbic and sarcastic visits to galleries. Like all friends, our lives are in different places, and he tells me he wishes I lived nearer, and I feel the same. We’re dads, career people and adults now, but that feeling is always there. Of all the things I wish could be different about living in America, I wish he was here as well.
Cynicism leads nowhere
This phrase is borrowed from Conan O’Brien, who when delivering his parting monologue after getting fired from The Tonight Show, encouraged his viewers that if you worked hard, and were kind, amazing things would happen. And through it all to please not be cynical. That it was his least favorite quality. We used to watch Conan a lot, but like much of his audience, dropped off after his move to TBS, but the bravery of his speech never left me. It’s one of those moments where someone inside the television reaches their hand out through the screen, takes yours, and says ‘I think the same thing you do’.
The virtues and benefits of hard work are something I’ve always understood and embraced. I’ve worked the long hours and weekends. I’ve agonized over academic papers just as much as the corporate spreadsheets I just don’t understand. And when the going got tough, I’ve never been afraid to get up early, roll up the sleeves and figure it out. In many ways, it’s also frustrating for me to see others not do this, and this is often the source of my own cynicism. That it’s disappointing for me when others don’t live up to my expectations of them, or when their behavior falls short.
Cynicism and sarcasm is often a place I go when I’m uncomfortable, and it’s never something I’m proud of, although I’m getting better with age at spotting it, diagnosing it, and reminding myself to calm the f down with the aggravation. In the past I’ve attributed it to ‘high standards’, but the reality is that when you’re cynical, the only person who suffers is you. And that joining in on a cynicism festival with someone else, even if ‘misery loves company’, is really, really unhealthy. You can nod, and acknowledge, but just don’t join in, it leads nowhere. It’s like the junk food of emotion. It might feel wonderful in the moment, but an hour later you just feel hollowed out and you’re still hungry.
In an odd way, I find cynicism more something I feel as an English quality than an American one. That it’s somehow a particularly biological Shadbolt family trait to be as cynical as possible, and find as much deficit in others as you can. That there really is no greater sport than a few solid rounds of some biting British sarcasm, something I often fall foul of when I’m not even being sarcastic, as my delivery can feel a lot harsher than intended just because of how I talk to those unfamiliar with how I speak. Which isn’t my fault, but it does become my problem.
I do enjoy a really solid burn these days though, just so long as it’s not me doing it. But it’s in these moments of stress, frustration and anxiety where it all comes out, and I’m at my most cynical, usually about something over which I have absolutely no control, and years later, completely no memory. But when I reflect upon times where I’ve simply descended into long periods of cynical apathy, it’s always the same outcome, such behavior is a complete waste of time. So Conan’s right, it leads nowhere, and it’s been a valuable lesson for me to breathe, take a beat, and just smile. In a year’s time, who’s going to care about any of this anyway?
Opportunity is everywhere
Since living in America, I’ve come to the belief that if you want something, going out and getting it is always possible. It took me forever to find the confidence to be able to ask managers for advancement, and I remember the first time I ever did this, sat in a restaurant in Pimlico in London, stammering and stuttering through the virtues of what I thought I could bring to the table after my boss at the time had left. How this inarticulate and anxious recent college graduate would be the future of the business. At one point, the boss just reached across the table, looked me in the eye, and said ‘what is it that you want?’ I told him I wanted him to put me in. To give me the opportunity to show what I could do. And to help him get what he wanted too. It was an invaluable lesson, especially in humility, but also in getting to the point, something the past twenty years in America have made me much, much better at. Sure, I can still operate at weapons-grade verbosity (see: everything on this page), but those crisp, clean verbalized half sentences are always moments where I feel good that I was able to get there. I’ve also learned a lot about waiting to talk and actually listening, and I can spot it in others, especially these days on web calls.
One of the things I really wanted to do when I moved here was travel. And I’ve had the incredibly fortunate opportunity to do a lot of it. I’ve been all over the place. Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco. Scaled sacrificial temples in Mexico City, and seen Messi score in Barcelona. Vancouver, Toronto, Austin. Gone surfing and seen the sunrise over the edge of a volcano in Hawaii, and finished hurricanes in New Orleans. My beloved Cleveland, Seattle, Phoenix and many, many more. I’ve loved every minute of it, even though most of it was for work, and towards the end of my time in the real estate industry, I absolutely loathed the conference circuit. My point is that I wanted to do it, and I found opportunities to actually make it happen were in abundance in America. I also fully acknowledge that a lot of what I’m saying here comes from a place of privilege, and that for many these opportunities are a lot, lot harder to come by than I’m describing. I’m incredibly grateful for what I’ve been able to do, and I know how lucky I am.
I wanted to go back to school, to buy a home, to get married, to have children, to make friends, to eat incredible foods and seeing amazing things. All of it is here, somewhere. In most instances, it takes the confidence to ask, but so many people don’t do it, or can’t do it. So many folks are scared of the consequences of their actions. Of not getting what they want. But what have you got to lose, really? So it doesn’t work out, at least the person you asked now knows that you’ve got the stones to signal your appetite, which is in itself incredibly valuable.
Mary’s always wanted to open her own art studio and teach as many kids as possible the joy of creative work. She’s doing it. And thriving. The work is hard, but she’s put the effort in to make hundreds of opportunities for herself to achieve her dream, and I couldn’t be more proud of her. It’s amazing what she’s done for herself. I never thought I would be able to apply, let alone get in, to an Ivy League University, and then get a bunch of A+ grades in psychology and ancient mythology. But here we are. I never thought I’d work for The New York Times, or NBC, or travel the world speaking for The Corcoran Group and leading the charge for what digital in real estate could be. But the opportunity to do it all was here.
I often think if I would have enjoyed these same opportunities if I’d have stayed in London. If I’d have been happier. If I’d have done more with my time. I don’t think so. I think it’s something unique to American culture that if you want it, and especially if you want it enough, you can do it. All you need is the get-up-and-go to make it happen, and to find those willing to lend a hand. Those people seem easier to find here, and more willing to cheerlead for someone looking to do things in life. Maybe that’s the difference between here and there. That here there’s just a much stronger culture of doing things. Even if those things don’t work out, at least you’ve tried. And that’s the best anyone can hope for I think.
If it’s important enough, you’ll find the time
I can’t stand the ‘advice’ that comes from the stage at conferences aimed at the corporate world, but every now and again there’s something I’ll hear that I just can’t shake. I have a love / hate relationship with Gary Vaynerchuk, who for the most part I can’t bear to listen to, but a few years ago I heard him say that if you want it enough, there’s more than enough time in the day, so stop watching (insert name of popular TV show of the moment). Get up early, or go to bed late, but if you want it, you’ll find the time and make it happen.
I’m not piling on as an advocate of hustle culture, which I find to be one of the most toxic things about the modern workplace, but I do know what Gary’s talking about. I see this in Mary, who stays up late building her business, and I see it it myself writing five thousand word papers for school before the work day begins. Even writing all of these stories down, shut in over a snowy weekend. But it’s not just work of course. It’s making sure we take the time with each other, and ourselves. To just check in and let someone know that you’re thinking of them, and to ask yourself how you’re doing. To reminisce about a great memory along the way. Or to grab that coffee and share war stories. As we’ll see elsewhere here, it is the work.
Work does not define you
Of all the things here, this has been the toughest one. Let’s start with a story from a few years ago. Our team’s designer and I were in a particularly contentious review with some senior folks, who were not in a good mood, something that was always more frequent than any of us were comfortable with. The work we showed was unpopular, and eviscerated. It wasn’t good. With our tails between our legs, we resigned to take the conversation away, and try again. When we got back to our desks, we shared our experience with our co-workers, who were just as taken aback as I was. But my experience was different from our young designer’s. I was focused on the tongue-lashing we’d received. She was focused on just sitting down and getting on with things. I was taking a dip in the toxic pool of revenge, whereas she just didn’t seem to be bothered by it at all. And then she said it. She looked at us and said “My job’s not my life”. And at that moment, wise far beyond her years, it all made sense. Look at us, arguing over someone else’s anger. Getting upset at someone else’s bad day. And not being able to see past the here and now of what’s already been and gone.
The problem in looking back over twenty years, is that work has defined me. It’s been a massive part of my life, really because in moving to America, it’s the reason I got to be here in the first place. It’s played into existential fears about my own abilities, just as much as it’s played into the empty calories of pats on the back. It’s where I’ve spent most of my time, and most of my energy. Looking back I have very, very mixed feelings about this. While work life for the most part has been incredible, a lot of it has been fueled by a self-drive and ambition to make the most of every single opportunity available. That’s not a bad thing of course, but it does come with a price. And that price has often been me.
Only since the pandemic started in 2019 have I actually started to stop thinking like this. These days we read a lot about the anti-ambition of the great resignation movement. That for millions of Americans, it’s surviving at work, not thriving at work that’s the motivator. Just get through each day, and someday soon it’ll all be over. In a strange way, if anything I’ve felt more ambitious during the pandemic, it’s just that my ambition is being directed elsewhere. I love my job and the people I get to work with every day, but I love being an ancient religious cultures major at Penn in a completely new and different way.
Over the years, I’ve let work win. It’s been late nights and early mornings in and out of the city. It’s been traveling the country speaking at conferences and being interviewed. It’s been not even realizing how sick I am but still wanting to send that one more email update. I’m not a fan of Stephen Fry’s, but I remember him saying something about critics, whom he loathes. He said “imagine when you die, and you go up to heaven or whatever you believe in, and Saint Peter is stood at the gates. He asks you what you did with your time on earth. And you tell him that you spent it telling everybody else who they were doing wrong and what they should do better. What a colossal waste”. I’m likely butchering his remarks, but the sentiment’s the same, at least as I remember it. I feel the same way. When you look back, will you say “Damn, I ran I really tight spreadsheet”, or “I was really great at attending meetings and following-up”. Or will you say something else? Something like “I saw it all. I experienced every flavor and color of the world as much as I could.” Or “I was the greatest dad anyone could ever have had, and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat”. I think about this a lot. I think it’s an important perspective, even if it might not be the most popular or pervasive one in the room.
There is no selfishness or judgment in not making work your life. Some folks are completely consumed by work, and happy. Let me take nothing away from that either. You do you. Take that call if you need to. Answer that mail if you must. But for me, the regret of spending too much time even thinking about work is something I have learned a lot about, and only recently have I actually started to do something about it. If there’s any real regret, it’s that I didn’t start earlier.
You are not the jerk whisperer
As I’d imagine with most of us, I’ve way more bravado outside of work than inside it, and a lot less tolerance for calling out strangers than co-workers. There’s always less consequence in honking that horn at the old lady who just cut you off in traffic than crafting that perfect biting comeback at someone you see every day in the office. One of our neighbors here in Denville is very much ‘that’ jerk, and he’s felt my wrath a number of times over the years, as in turn I’ve felt his. He’s your archetypal grumpy old man. Someone who’s very much a ‘hey kids get off my lawn’ kind of guy, and the last place we’d ever want to knock on the door at Halloween. He’s crossed over the street to give us a piece of his mind a couple of times, and feels especially confident when he thinks he’s just speaking to Mary, which in itself is disgusting of course. But the last time he did it, many years ago, one of our closest neighbors and good friends, and I, decided to let him have it. I don’t even really remember what he came over to our house to complain about, but I think it was something to do with garden cleanup bags somehow not being in a place he was comfortable with. Or perhaps it was Emma and her friends playing in the yard just that little bit too loudly for his delicate ears. Or that the elements took down one of the town tree’s branches on our street, which he somehow felt we should be responsible and accountable for instead of the wrath of God.
But he really got it from both of us. He tried to walk away and we wouldn’t let him. I threatened him with the police if he ever came over again, and that no-one here liked him. I was shaking afterwards as I’d never had a go at someone like that before, but it felt amazing, and to this day, how dare he. Apparently his wife came over to Mary and apologized for his behavior the next day, which was sweet, but I can’t imagine what her own life must be like. I genuinely feel sorry for him, as it must be so lonely to be like that, but perhaps he’s happy in his own way. That’s his business I suppose, and certainly none of mine.
I’ve worked with a number of jerks, and for a number of jerks over the years too, thankfully all a long time ago in the past. And I’ve spent far too much time trying to placate them, to please them, and to make them like me. One of the things I’ve learned is that such endeavors really are a mug’s game, and a lot more trouble and anxiety-inducing than they’re worth. I’ve worked for autocrats, narcissists and those with toxic contagion, and over the years, learned to spot it and silo it when I see it. It’s never easy work though, and especially hard when at the end of the day they are evaluating you and making compensation decisions. I’ve had work of mine ripped up and dropped at my feet, been told my work was egregiously bad, and even that I should ‘go home’ because ‘things were so much better before you arrived’. I found out many years later that the sweetheart who told me that ended his time at that place crying in his car with anxiety before every work day.
These days I reflect on this kind of stuff with a fair amount of ambivalence, and it’s been a long, long time since I’ve worked with someone this challenging. And of course, of course, there’s inevitably been times where I’ve been the jerk for others too. For the most part what I’ve learned is that, just like Will Hunting, it’s not my fault. That it’s not my job to make others like me, to fix others, and that the best me is the real me, not some fake, artificially-created-in-a-career-lab me. That I am who I am, and if that’s cool with you, then it’s cool with me and I want you to do the same. It’s hard to accept, and even harder to work through, but ultimately, and especially as I look back on several places I’ve worked over the years, it really, really just isn’t worth it. The best I ever try to do is stick to that wonderful phrase that ‘people will forget what you said, and forget what you did, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel’. I don’t always hit this squarely, and I’m highly fallible, just like everyone else, but we’re all trying, and that’s good enough.
The best revenge is massive success (sort of)
I heard this once, and I’ve heard various versions of it over the years, but it’s always something that’s resonated with me, even if it’s a little obnoxious, and it always reminds me of one of the best pieces of advice I ever got. I was getting increasingly frustrated at just not being able to get anything done at work, really because of a vast interwoven set of dependencies, none of which seemed to want to play nice with what I was responsible for driving. I wanted to drive a ton of incremental development for our website at the time, but just couldn’t. I was beginning to wonder why I was even there at all.
I finally took all of this up with my boss, who simply said “well, if you can’t be awesome over there, go and be awesome and build something amazing over here instead”. It was simple advice, but empowering and incredibly freeing. From there I span up my own projects I could execute myself. Ran my own projects as a team of one. And began to grow things. And they grew. And grew. Most of them to such an extent that I was being asked how others could do the same thing. I traveled the country speaking about the work we were doing, and shared as much as I could. I won awards, was covered in the national press, and enjoyed a lot of success. It wasn’t just validation of the work, or indeed, my boss’ smart guidance, but it was also confirmation that properly prioritized and resourced, this is what we should have built all along ourselves anyway.
And then I got sick. Really sick. The hubris I’d felt was very swiftly dealt with as the universe self-corrected and put me in my place, and the work there was never really the same afterwards. I eventually ended up leaving a few months later for different reasons anyway. But I always think about that meeting where my boss helped me understand that if you want to do great work, but find yourself not being able to do it because of someone else’s rules, that still means you should find a way to do what you believe in.
Revenge isn’t a healthy motivating force at all, and I’m even a little uncomfortable including it in this kind of writing. But it is an energizer, and it can work. The key is definitely not to exact revenge upon a cruel world that’s wronged you, but to exact revenge upon the co-created situation you’d made for yourself. To use revenge as a positive force to propel you away from something unhealthy in yourself. Not to ‘show them’, but to evolve and grow away from something in your past.
Real love is hard
Mary’s mom and dad love me unconditionally. I feel it. I know it. And lord knows I’ve given them reason for doubt over the years. I call them mom and dad too, and that’s what they are to me. They are kind and generous, patient and caring. Always at the end of the phone, always happy to hear from me, and always willing to lend a hand. Mary’s the eldest of four, and I’m an only child. I grew up never having to share. Never having to compromise. And pretty much always getting my own way. Perhaps this explains a lot.
But to see the genuine selflessness of my in-laws is always an incredible lesson for me, and one of the best things that’s happened since moving here. Every time we see them, no matter how brief, they always put on a masterclass in what it means to spend your life in service of your kids. This isn’t easy for me, but I’m trying every day to emulate them, and I couldn’t have two better role models.
Doing nothing is the best work
During a particularly low moment, the omnipresent advice handed out by the internet put this in front of me: “I lied and said I was busy. I was busy, but not in a way most people understand. I was busy taking deeper breaths, I was busy silencing irrational thoughts. I was busy calming a racing heart. I was busy telling myself I am OK. Sometimes, this is my busy, and I will not apologize for it.” I don’t know where this comes from, and it’s often imitated and reproduced, but in that moment, it was the perfect thing I needed to hear. And with the same universal guiding hand, an old friend of mine said almost the exact same thing to me after I turned to him for some advice. That working on myself is the work, and it’s a lot more important than the work which pays the bills.
Over the years I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression. There, I said it on the internet. I experience high highs, and low lows, and for the most part, thankfully, I have it all very much under control. I’m surrounded by a wonderful support system, personally and professionally, and while I rarely talk about it, it’s always there as a thing. It’s taken me a long time to come to grips with all of this, as well as medication, but the reflection and space to recharge is essential. I ruminate in the quiet, but I also make sense of what happens next. In these spaces I listen to myself, to my body, and remind myself that I’m a lot tougher than I think I am. That whatever comes next, spoiler alert, everything is going to be OK. And double spoiler alert, it’s taken me twenty years to actually realize this and do something about it. I’ve never been big on therapy, but I do enjoy the beneficial tonic of silence. I once met someone who’d gone to one of those silent retreats for a month, and it sounded amazing. Work, life, it’s all so noisy. I think this is one of the reasons I’m enjoying being back at school, as it’s giving my quiet time a sharpened focus on learning something. A reason to be still, even if my mind is still consuming something. That the stillness of reading something new and exciting is in itself its own rechargeable reward.
Our devices are the current nemesis of doing nothing. We sit in the quiet but still reach for the phone. We doom scroll and vegetate over fail videos and the short form nonsense screaming for our attention and ‘engagement’. We stream, scroll and submit willingly to those who’d game our eyeballs in service of commercial gain. I often reach for a book instead, but even that can be tough, reaching the end of a page and knowing that your eyes have consumed the words on the page, but that you have no idea what any of them said as you were thinking about something completely different that in itself was likely a complete waste of time.
After twenty years of being in America, the next twenty are going to be very different again. If the first twenty have been euphoric, joyous, noisy and energetic, the next twenty are going to be a lot calmer, with retirement somewhere towards the end of that time too, which is already a wonderful, but kind of scary thought. I often think about the decades of my life. The first twenty were spent growing up and surviving school in rural England. The next ten saw me move to London, then Milan, then Holland and back to London to start my first job. The next ten saw me move to America, fall in love and get married, survive cancer, reset the clock and most importantly, become a dad. The current ten has seen me figure out exactly what I want in life, understand myself and others a lot more, and be able to weather anything the Laestrygonians throw at me. I’m concurrently doing more and more as I thrive at work, where I’m genuinely, finally, happy, but also doing less and less as I become slower, more thoughtful, and am able to make more sense of the things around me and empower others. It’s been hard to get here, but when I do this, I feel most like me.
Know when to fold ‘em
Grit is one of the most amazing qualities, and something I have deep admiration for in others. If I can’t figure something out, I really do have a determination to go over, under, or simply through a problem until I get there. I’m not afraid to put in the hours, but I also know when to stop trying. When it’s self-preservation and the need to simply get out of there for your own health. This happened a couple of times when I lived in Philadelphia, where I was in situations so destructive that the only thing left to do was to cut ties permanently, and never look back. Many years later I’d come to a place of peace with myself over what happened, but it took a long time, and I don’t have any regrets about the decisions I made.
I often think about what my life would have been like if I’d not moved from Philadelphia to New York, as I miss the city desperately. But then I think about what wouldn’t have happened, and I immediately come back down to earth. My life with Mary, Emma, The New York Times, NBC, Harley and everything the world has shown me over the past years wouldn’t nearly have been as rich and wonderful. No more what ifs, but if you need to get out, show no fear.
You’re more resilient than you think
When you study applied positive psychology, you learn a lot about the science of overcoming. Of what it takes to be resilient, and how to build the resources to bounce back swifter and stronger. I think a lot of this is simply the learning of lived experience. Of being yelled at. Of failing. And of just being wrong. But leaning on what makes you most you is one the best ways to cope. For me it’s things like creativity, curiosity, love of learning and the realization of where I can be brave. When I see these in other people, I also see myself.
I’ve been through cancer and lived. I’ve had a giant freight truck take out my mini in the middle of the George Washington Bridge. I’ve been in toxic work cultures where all anyone thought about was who was going to get cut next. I’ve been in horrific meetings and public dressing downs. Yet through it all, somehow, I’ve been able to maintain a sense of humor, a willingness to try again, and enough humility to learn again and fail again. To get back on the horse and go again.
When I moved to Philadelphia I didn’t know anyone, or anything. I had no idea how to buy a car, how to navigate getting around, how to understand the money, the different words people used, or really what on earth was going on. Looking back I have no idea how I did it, but I did. When I moved to New York a few years later it happened again. When I bought a house and got married it happened again. When I became a dad it happened again. And with every new job it happens again. With every new thing, you get just that little bit wiser, that little bit tougher.
Sometimes you learn, and sometimes you don’t. But I remember those who were kind to me. Those who raised their hands and helped. Those who told me I wasn’t on my own. Sometimes I didn’t want that help, and I regret doing that, and there’s still a part of me that feels a strong sense of imposter syndrome. That somehow me being here is something I’ve fallen into fortuitously, and that one day the whistle will blow and it’ll be time to go home deported. But that’s crazy talk. If I’ve learned anything from living in America, it’s how to be resilient. I see it in Mary, who is brave and courageous beyond belief, and I see it in myself when I reflect on the journey so far.
Listen to your body (and your spouse)
I’ve written a lot about my survival journey. But the hero of that story, and all these stories, is really Mary. She was the one who kept telling me to go to the doctor. She was the one telling me to slow down and eat better. And she was the one who sat by the bed on those long nights at the hospital. She’s also the one who told me that if I wanted to quit the job I was miserable at, we’d be OK. Something I knew, but needed to hear. And she was the one brave enough to spend twenty three hours in labor while Emma refused to co-operate and join us. So sure, it’s always healthy to check in with yourself and see how you’re doing. But the people who really know what’s up are the ones who see you every day, and already know what’s wrong long before you do.
It’s not your fault when you lose touch
Over the past twenty years, I’ve met a lot of people, made a lot of friends, and gone to a lot of different weird and wonderful places. I’d say that I have about three or four actual friends. Not work friends, who are more like colleagues I suppose, not past work friends, not Mary, who is of course the bestest of best friends, but actual, ‘hey I just need you to hear me yell phrases down the phone for a few minutes’ confidants. I must have worked with hundreds of different people over the years, but I’m rarely in touch with any of them. I never really thought it would end up like this, especially as I’d been so close with my team in London, but it’s just not sustainable, and when you leave a job, you pretty much leave the people behind too. I still think this stinks, especially if you’ve built some great connections, and perhaps it’s working in media that’s more compounded here, but of all the people I’ve crossed paths with, only a few are still in regular touch.
This is still something I struggle with in the context of my college friends, who I really felt would be friends for life. But as the years went by, the texts and calls slowly ebbed away, got further and further apart, and eventually just stopped altogether. This is one of those things I really do think would have worked out differently had I stayed in London. Now I hear of them visiting New York and not calling to meet up, which breaks my heart. But it’s not my fault. I’m just as much of a co-creator of that situation as they are. I’m the one who moved three thousand miles away. I’m the one who was only at the end of an email or a phone call, no longer able to just jump on the tube and go for a pint. I’m the one who couldn’t come over and watch the football. And I’m the one who still isn’t writing to them or making any effort to reconnect after all these years. It’s not my fault, but I really do wish it was different. The last time all of us got together in London was almost ten years ago. I cried when we had to say goodbye. I miss them a lot, and we always have such good memories of our time together as students. But everyone, including me, is making their own memories now. We all have our own families, our own worries, and our own new sets of friends, which you can’t begrudge anyone of.
As for friends I’ve made here, it’s a similar story. Good friends from Philly, especially now that I’m not on Facebook, are long gone, although it was wonderful to hear from one of them a few weeks ago. I really must do that a lot more. I never really made any close friends during my time in New York, which was monopolized for the most part with work, although I’m really, really good friends with my old New York Times team, who tend to always be the exception to any rule. But that’s the thing, I’m lamenting losing touch, but it’s something everyone does, including me. Over the past few years, one of the things I’ve tried to do is get in touch with some old teachers, the ones who really stood out, those who made a difference, and thank them. This was inspired by one of my teachers from Kingston passing away and me only finding out years later, and then my main teacher from my time in Holland passing away and my heart breaking in two at never being able to really tell him the tremendous impact he’d had on me, and how thankful I was to have gotten to study under him. I resolved not to let that happen again, and for the most part there have been some great, if brief, notes back from me finding them. It always makes my day when someone gets back in touch.
An old friend of mine from school, who I used to go to gigs with back in the Somerset days, and who I’d lost touch with for a very, very long time, reconnected with me a few years ago, and it was wonderful. We reminisced about the old days, the shows we’d gone too, the bands we’d seen at festivals, and the folks we’d gone to school with. He and his family even visited New York and we had a really, really lovely afternoon together. We talked about keeping in touch, and how hard it is for people. I asked him why, when I think about old friends, old girlfriends, or old acquaintances all the time, who is thinking of me? Am I missed? I’m an easy Google, but many of the people I think about are not. I’m at peace with it, but it’s a specific gap in life that I wish just wasn’t a thing. On the other side, of course there’s also those folks I am more than comfortable in distancing myself from, and when I’ve left situations where I no longer have to have contact with them, it’s been more relief than sadness. But even those people, I still think about them. And ultimately, I still hope they’re OK.
Building great big enormous things is cool. Building people is a lot cooler.
I never, ever thought this would be a thing in my life, but over the years the building of people has been one of the most rewarding, fulfilling and energizing things in my life. I’ve had the incredible good fortune and opportunity to have built some massive, massive things in my working life, from broadcast experiences viewed by millions of people, to digital products used by hundreds of millions of people. It’s all very exciting, and at some point, so big that it’s actually difficult to understand this kind of volume as actual people doing actual things in the real world.
When I left London, I left a team I’d built from scratch, really as a team to scale what I was doing myself and to stop me burning out, which was definitely happening. To this day, they’re still one of my favorite teams and proudest moments. We worked hard, and played harder, and I miss them a lot. How we ever got anything done through all the laughing and joking I still struggle to grasp, and every time I watch the original British version of The Office it brings back a wave of nostalgia of that time. We built some great, great stuff together, and it broke my heart to tell them that I was leaving for America. They’re all doing their own things now, having long left QVC. Some of them run their own businesses, some of them are in different parts of the world, but all of them are thriving, which is something I’m incredibly proud of being a small, small part of.
Since coming to America, I’ve been able to build teams like these again a couple of times, with my current direct team at NBC being my all-time career favorite. In many ways, it’s actually when I can’t do this kind of work, either because the team is so entrenched in it’s own legacy world that it’s an enormous lift to make any kinds of cultural headway, or so small that everything is always on fire and actual developmental, appreciative conversations are not doing much other than just checking off a box for Human Resources each year. But the pride I feel at their achievements, their overcoming of challenges, and of their genuine thriving and consideration for each other is something that makes my heart swell every time I see it. It makes all the work, and the work of being at work, worth it. We spend most of our lives with the people we work with, so it has to be fun. And when it’s not, those days pass really, really slowly. The people you work with come and go of course, that’s just jobs. And we always say we’ll keep in touch, but of course never do.
There’s always those exceptions though. My boss at Corcoran, Christina, who despite years between us in working together, is still my champion and always in my corner, continuing to put on a masterclass in kindness whenever I hear from her. My team at The New York Times, who were my rock during some wild times, and an amazing group of people who I speak to every day still. Again, how we ever got anything done in between all the horsing around I will never know. We’re all in different places in our lives these days. I’m at NBC, Kat’s at LinkedIn, Cory’s at Google and Soo’s at Apple. Pretty incredible to look at, but we all know that when we worked together we had something incredibly, incredibly rare. That it’s so hard to find a team like that who cares so much for each other that all subsequent teams in your career are measured against them.
And of course then there’s my daughter Emma, the best product Mary and I ever shipped. Seeing her grow up isn’t easy, but seeing her learn, laugh, and grow in confidence is the most amazing thing. Seeing her ace a test, score a goal or do things independently, even if it’s going for her favorite bubble tea is something I’ll never get used to, but I hope this feeling never goes away. I can’t wait to visit her in college, walk her down the aisle, and be there if she becomes a mom. I am so proud of her, and the woman she’s growing up to be, and I can’t wait to see what she’s going to do in life, it’s going to be amazing.
Things I only dreamt of are actually here
When I was a kid in rural Somerset, I dreamed of living in America. I’d watch the grainy footage of old Browns games, or the pub culture of Cheers or Ally McBeal, and think I want to go to there. That America always seemed that bit brighter, that bit more intense, and that bit more exciting than the overcast gloom I’d grown up in. And to channel some Han Solo, all the stories, all the hopes, it’s all real. All of it. Everything you’d ever want to do is here somewhere.
When I first moved to New York, a co-worker took me under his wing, and one night we went out for a few beers. He told me something I never forgot. That everything that had ever been in the world, or would ever be in the world, inevitably ends up somewhere in New York. I’ve thought a lot about this, something which for him was probably just a throwaway remark, but I really do think there’s some larger truth to it. That whatever you want do to, and if you want it enough, it’s here. And while such a conversation obviously comes from a place of privilege that will be uncomfortable under scrutiny, it is nevertheless how it feels to come here as an immigrant and build a life.
Over the past twenty years I’ve seen some incredible things. I’ve been to the most amazing places and met some wonderful people. I am very, very lucky. I’ve been to places as diverse as Wrigley Field and the New York Times morgue. The Golden Gate Bridge and the Montauk Lighthouse. The world’s greatest museums and most spectacular collections. I’ve eaten the weird and wonderful, and met the even weirder and even more wonderful. But the things I’ve actually seen here are bigger than these experiences. I’ve seen genuine kindness up close. So close that I could touch it. I’ve seen the deep, deep love in a moment of death. I’ve seen the joy of births and the tears of laughter between children who don’t think I’m watching. I’ve closed bars in New Orleans and seen the sunrise over volcanoes. I’ve loved and lost, but also found the one girl in the world who loves me unconditionally for who I am, come what may. I’ve rolled the dice and come up short, just as much as I’ve spun the wheel and cleaned the house out. But none of it would have been so magical, so fantastic, so utterly incomprehensible, had I not taken in a deep breath, and taken a chance on myself.
Tomorrow is always a fresh set of downs
This is something I tell my team all the time. That it’s OK that something bad happened, it’s what you do next that matters. Inspired by the Patron Saint of Philadelphia, Rocky Balboa, it’s not how hard you hit, it’s how much you can get hit, and keep moving forward. When bad things happen, I often spend a restless night with the empty calories of rumination. Agonizing over the useless anxiety of the what-ifs and maybes. I make things bigger than they are, and worse than they ever will be. And then something occurs to me, and I fall asleep and rarely think about it ever again. That the joy of life is that every morning you get another chance. That every morning is an opportunity to reset the clock and try again. That every morning is a place to do better.
I’ve always found it hard to let things go. That somewhere down the line, the person who’s crossed me will get their karmic comeuppance. One of these previous learnings concerns revenge. But what kind of victory is that, really? The temporary junk food satisfaction of payback? Or the vindictive joy of equilibrium? Or when I do something regretful, that it’s forever on me, irredeemable and permanent. That I’ll always be the guy who did that thing. And while it might be true for some, it doesn’t have to be like that for me. It’s not my fault, but it’s also not my problem. Every Sunday morning I sit in church, usually on my own, and I ask for His forgiveness. And when I don’t get to do this, I feel less resolved in the coming week. That something’s missing or incomplete. The ritual completes with me bringing lunch back for Mary and Emma, and enjoying a great sandwich from the local Italian deli. When we do this, Monday mornings are a lot easier, and the dread of Sunday evenings fades.
Tomorrow’s also a fresh set of downs, not just for the pathology of anxiety, but for the opportunity to thrive. That tomorrow I’ll be able to do that thing I really want to do, or that I’ve been looking forward to forever. That I’ll be able to write, learn something, make something, or meet someone. Calendar reviews for work are rarely filled with fatigue, and more filled with the expectation of the fun we’re going to have together. It reinforces all of the amazing things I get to do each day, no matter how hard or challenging they might be. It helps me remember to look around once in a while, and enjoy the ride.
The football analogy here is a deliberate one. Being a Browns fan is brutal, and there have been decades and decades of disappointment. Every time we get ahead, something awful inevitably happens. We drop the ball on the goal line, miss field goals, give up penalties and just never, ever seem to be able to get it together. But despite it all and whatever they do, especially now I go to home games every season, I still love them. I still give them chances. And I still see the best in them. And while I sometimes need to be reminded of this, let me extend that same generosity to myself and to others. That’s the amazing thing, that there’s always a next season, always a draft, and an infinite number of things we are in control of that shape what happens next. If we want it, those opportunities to reset, to thank, to repair, are all there. And we can’t grow without them.
Perhaps it’s a trait more present with survivors, but ever since I became one, I’ve always felt like I’d been given a second chance. That the universe somehow intervened and reset a few things to focus me more on what’s important in life. Gratitude, kindness, family or being relentlessly helpful. All of it shows up at work, but none of it is about work. Jobs come and go, and the people you work with come and go even more frequently, especially in these chaotic days of remote working, and the associated fatigue and burnout of our collective struggle to get to the other side of a global pandemic. I’m proud to be a survivor, but also sometimes forget about the second chance I’ve been given. The fallibility of the moment always shows up to make sure I continue to be tested. But after twenty years of living in the greatest country in the world, I do know with complete optimistic certainty, that whatever comes next, is going to be so much fun.
One more thing. Dear Future Matt.
It’s December 2026, and five years ago you were just starting your sophomore year at Penn and writing about spending twenty years in America. You were thriving at work, having recently been promoted to Head of Product and investment was pouring into your expanding team. Your daughter Emma had started middle school this year, and you were hopeful to travel again soon once the world emerged from the pandemic. In 2021 you’d overcome a lot so far in life and had a strong sense of who you are and what’s important to you. You’d come a long way since growing up in rural England. You loved to read, laugh, be creative visually and in writing, and had many, many friends. Your story so far had been a fun one.
Now you’re in your fifties and are in a masters’ program, still at Penn. You graduated last year summa cum laude with distinctive concentrations in ancient classics and globalization, and have decided to further pursue your passion for the past by entering into Penn’s graduate program in ancient history. You still have your eye on a potential doctorate, and are well on the path to achieving it. You speak fluent Greek, both modern and ancient, and these pursuits are the primary source of vitality and energy in your life. You’re still heavily involved in student community activities, and are now even running your own clubs. You’ve become the model for how to thrive as a returning student.
Emma’s 17, and starting to think about college. You want her to go to Penn and experience everything too. She’s still a happy-go-lucky kid, but growing into her own person with a strong sense of what she wants to be in life and the impact she can make. She wants to be a veterinarian, but like her parents has a love of the arts, and pursues world-building projects in the Metaverse.
You’re still at NBC, which you love, although lots of colleagues have come and gone over the years which never gets easier. Your team and portfolio have expanded, and you’re the tenured strategic authority on what to do and how to do it. You still operate with the wide-eyed curiosity and love of learning of an entry-level employee. Your passion for what’s best in others, what makes an organization flourish, and what’s truly meaningful at work has become recognized and celebrated far beyond the walls of your organization. Candidates apply to work at NBC because they want to work with your team, and are drawn to what you all stand for and represent in life. You’ve written books about your working life over the years, and how other teams can thrive too.
You’ve had to be brave both at work and in life, but are humble enough to know the difference between your own needs and the needs of others. You’re a strong storyteller, and use your stories to help others navigate and shape their own. You lift others up, but aren’t afraid to take time to yourself to recharge and decompress. You sleep well.
Your anxiety and depression are still here, but now you’re friends with them, and warmly greet them when they show up unannounced. You’ve worked hard over the past few years to craft a calmer, more thoughtful you, to create the space to recharge and reflect, not as a project but as an ongoing pathway to a better you. A more ‘you’ you. You still love to be around others, and thrive in zesty spaces where their lightbulbs are going off. But what energizes you most today is aligning others’ strengths, and then simply getting out of their way, even though you still want to play too.
In the past five years you’ve written, traveled and learned a lot. But you’ve laughed, sung and danced a lot too. You crossed off going to Tokyo, Athens and Rome from your bucket list. You went to all the shows you could, and ate all the incredible new foods. You’re healthy, happy, and energized. You doubled down on ensuring that life isn’t a rehearsal, and took every possible opportunity you could, making them for yourself even when they weren’t there. You’ve met some incredible new people, and your life is richer for it. You are loved not for what you can do, but for who you are, and what you represent.
You never want to grow up, but if you ever do, you want to be just like you.
