sona khosla

One of my close friends just had her second son. She named him Will. This got me thinking about names.

What’s in a name?
Does the name make us who we are or do we make the name? The likely answer is that it’s a little of both. But, one thing I know for sure is that names have strong emotional associations. Back to the name Will: It’s a name that means a lot to me. While I had a good and quirky artist friend in high school named Will, in more recent years I had a watershed moment with a colleague named Will.

The story of Will
It was late in the work day and I made an executive decision that wasn’t necessarily mine to make. Honestly, it was a combination of having to act quickly under pressure, not thinking thoroughly through the situation and feeling too tired to walk over to consult with the people who needed to be consulted.

This decision caused an almost instantaneous rush of two senior-level directors and an irate executive towards my desk. They put me in my proverbial place. I was caught off guard. I got defensive. I justified my decision. I raised my voice. I got mad. I backed down. I reluctantly apologized. An innocent by-standing colleague watched wide-eyed.

I went home a complete stress case, tense in the shoulders, a raging fire within and re-playing the drama over and over again justifying my actions to myself. I slept like shit. And then I woke up in the morning and went to work again hoping not to run into any of these guys.

The real Will
I walked into work and was met with a voicemail, an email and a note from a co-worker that Will, one of the three storming guys, wanted to speak with me. I was terrified. I figured I was gonna get it again.

And then something totally unexpected happened. Will spoke. He had a sleepless night. He spent the night talking to his wife about what went down. He apologized for “bullying and crucifying” me. He made no excuses. He took full responsibility. He apologized with heart and sincerity. He asked for my forgiveness. He promised to not treat anyone disrespectfully again. Then as if that wasn’t stunning enough, he said he cared more about being who he truly is than having a job and doing what the boss wants.

The courage of Will
Will’s courageous words triggered a deep and important realization that I, too, had strayed far from my values. I, too, had become someone I wasn’t proud of. I, too, got swept up in organizational bullshit and sacrificed what’s important to me. I, too, lost myself without ever realizing it.

The gift of Will
They say that maximum growth occurs at the border of order and chaos. Amidst all of the stress, fear and adrenaline, Will helped me re-connect with the person I really am and want to be. Will’s conscious decision to take responsibility for his actions and his choice to be true to who he is despite any organizational and personal consequence triggered the same desire in me. Will gave me the will to take the risk of being myself.

I believe Will lived up to his name and by doing so reinforced its powerful meaning. My friend’s newest baby is blessed to share such a powerful name with an individual who has stand-out integrity, so this blog is written in Will’s honour — both of them.

Definition of “will” excerpted from www.dictionary.com.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I went on a short roadtrip. During our getaway we stopped in on my husband’s ex-wife’s parents whom he has remained close with since his divorce over 12 years ago. The 24 hours we spent together changed me.

They shared stories of travelling 1,000 miles across the Congo and doing an emergency tracheotomy to save a baby’s life. 

They shared the tragedy of losing a friend who escaped a train fire, only to die when she went back to gather some important papers. She was a gentle nun who they worked with in a burn unit at a charity hospital in Jalandhar, India.

They shared the joy of their son and his partner’s recent adoption of two older boys and their first trip on a plane to visit their new extended family.

My husband’s ex-father-in-law shared the “good fortune” he has had watching hundreds of people die and noticing it’s the ones who have loved—not the ones who believed in God—that have gone with the most grace.

He shared the experience of watching his father die 26 days short of turning 100 years old.

He told us tales of riding his daughter’s old mountain bike from Kelowna to Guatamala, riding a road bike solo from the Arctic Circle in Norway to the Southern edge of Malta, kayaking down the Danube and surviving unpredictable winds and waves in a kayak off the shore of Vancouver Island where at least one man has gone missing before. All of this done after his 60th birthday.

He looked us in the eye and told us he could die happy today.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I realized that this couple lives a life of meaning. I connected with an emptiness at the bottom of my stomach. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt like I was contributing to something meaningful.

Something woke up inside of me. A longing. A stirring. A deep-rooted desire. A memory and maybe a commitment I made somewhere, sometime to make my life count.

This is an amazing book that I do not recommend.

The Answer to How is Yes: Acting on What Matters unmasks our obsession with how we should do things instead of why we do things. Peter Block argues that we are so focused on finding the most efficient ways of executing on ideas that we overlook asking the important questions, like “is this the right thing to do?” or “why am I doing this?”

I have never thought so much about the values that drive my choices, behaviours and leadership. I’ve never thought so much about my relationship to my company, my boss, my community and my co-workers, but I’m always delighted when a book triggers me to think hard about my deepest values and beliefs.

If there were a “Coles notes” version to The Answer to How is Yes, I would full-heartedly recommend it. But as it is, I just can’t recommend this book. While the book is rich in ideas, the writing is dense, academic and sometimes overly esoteric making it difficult to fully absorb the profound reflections of this bold thinker. I would, instead, recommend any of Peter Block’s articles. Albeit short, they have brought me to tears.