Take A Beat

May 14, 2026

He was sharing the story of his life, mostly his professional life. The interviewer was asking him to reflect on some specific aspects of his leadership for a research project. He had done well over the years, rising to heights he had no way of knowing he would attain.

There were challenges along the way, but he didn’t dwell on them in the telling. He’d had some difficult assignments but made the best of them. Keep moving. Persist. Grow.

His manner was easy. That was probably true in the workplace as well. If you were blatantly out of line, only then did he breathe fire. Otherwise he was Mr. Congeniality – a good gatherer of people who could build a high performing team. A good mentor and coach to help each person work in her or his strengths. And a good strategist. He was the type of person many people would relish working for or with. But something was missing.

The interviewer listened but initially couldn’t name it. Slowly she became aware of how he was not connecting the dots in his life. Not connecting to a bigger picture of what existed. Certainly there was some awareness, but it seemed very superficial. It was as if he hovered over some events without fully grasping the depth of a moment, the meaning it had for his life. He was somewhat present, but a bit removed from the essence of what was happening. Not stopping to take it all in, just pressing forward.

Was he breezing past these moments because he didn’t want to discuss them during the interview? Did he breeze past them as they showed up in real time? Had he ever peeled back the layers to see the impact of certain experiences? It was as if there was a boundary line that would not be crossed.

Until it was.

At a certain point in one story he was sharing, he remembered a friend or acquaintance who was slowly dying in front of his eyes. The man’s body was visibly changing and he was getting weaker.

Carry on.

Eventually he was told that the man was near death. That’s when he went to the hospital. Arriving at the friend’s bedside, the man raised from the pillow and called out to him, recognizing that he had come to see him – or see him off. The next breath was his last.

Speaking these words and remembering this moment, he froze. Very slowly he dropped his head and got quiet, allowing himself to feel what was rising up inside. He didn’t move for a few minutes. In time he would say that he never made space to recall how that man’s life had touched his own. Or how the timing of his arrival to the hospital coincided with the man’s departure from this life.

Was there something the dying man wanted to share? If he had made time to visit sooner what might he have learned?

There it was. Making time to be still.

There is a time for talking and directing and doing. And things can go quite well. But what might be overlooked and lost when we’re separated from ourselves because we’re so caught up in getting something done so we can say it’s done and cross a task off of our endless list? How can we be all of who we really are when the internal connection isn’t intact?

Imagine what heights we could reach if we would pause and stop talking to notice what is right in front of us.