It’s been 9 months since we lost him and I still have my Dad’s number saved in my phone. I can’t get myself to change it. Mum has his phone and I am so grateful she answers when I call, but I miss talking to him. I was at the airport for a morning flight, and my mind was racing as I tried to figure something out. Normally at that point I used to tell myself, ” Let me call and ask Dad what he would do?
I guess in many ways he is still with me because in most cases, I know what he would do and that helps me find my way forward. But it was so much better to hear him tell me in his own words. The world felt like it was a better place with him around.
The presence of a person and the relational energy that emerges from being in contact with another person (or a group of people) is powerful. A large group of colleagues gathered to pause and take stock of our half-yearly performance. The PowerPoint slides and the numbers tell a story. Data is what helps us make sense of past performance and prospects.
Charles Fombrun (author of the book ‘Reputation: realising value from the corporate image’) defines corporate reputation as “the perceptual representation of a firm’s past actions and future prospects that describes the firm’s overall appeal to all of its key constituents when compared with other leading competitors”. In many ways, a half-year review is a reputation stock-taking exercise.
Energy is also data: the way someone shows up, who smiled and whom? Who sat where? So many subliminal data points get assimilated by being present in a room with another.
The opposite also happens. When the energy cannot be deciphered. When the context is missing, and there is just content to decipher, a simple text message can be misread. Here is where the mind starts to play games. It fills in the blanks with all sorts of possibilities. I need a story that helps me to understand and make sense of the world. When there are gaps in data, often these stories are fabricated. The answer seems to be rooted in getting to the facts. What’s real. What’s imaginary. Humans are animals who tell stories. Some stories are true; some are fiction.
“What would Dad do?” I ask myself as my mind comes back to the story it’s trying to figure out. Dad can’t answer my call anymore, but he is with me – I have his memories and my version of understanding the world through his eyes.
I know what he would do. Dad would show up, like his father. My grandad’s favourite line was “leave it to me…” and with that he would take care of whatever and whoever needed taking care of. Dad did the same. His line was “the names Dey…” which meant he had thought through all the angles and was prepared for any eventuality. I miss them both, and how they made me feel about my world.
As I shared with a colleague during a coffee catch-up, on the sidelines of our H1 meet, the mantra I found from insta-wisdom is simple. Move. Make. Connect. Give. Do these 4 things every day, and that’s a life lived well. Get up. Show up. The show must go on.
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