Transitions: My Journey

I chose to write my inaugural blog by telling the story about how Lead To Change came about. It’s really story of my journey to my second half. I hope my story prompts you to think about your second half wherever you might be on your journey.

Two years ago, at the age of 59, I decided to retire from Deloitte when I turned 60. I’d spent more than 34 years with the firm (over 25 as a partner). That might seem young, but Deloitte partners have a mandatory retirement age of 62 — so I was only leaving a couple of years on the table. I’m not exactly sure what all the factors were that led me to this decision, I just knew it was time to go. Lots of people were a little surprised. After all, my work was interesting, challenging, and (I believe) impactful – and it would continue to be had I stayed for two more years. I also didn’t have a definitive plan for what I was going to do post-Deloitte. So why would I cut that short by a day? Something was telling me it was time to get out of the way and get on with my life. Let me be clear, I loved my time at Deloitte, and I consider myself to be the luckiest person in the world to have been granted so many opportunities and to have learned from and worked with so many incredible people. But all good things must come to an end. So, there I was at age 59 with absolute certainty about my decision to retire and, at the same time, more uncertainty about my future than at any time I can remember.

This uncertainty created quite of bit of anxiety — way more than I’d expected. I never thought of myself as a particularly anxious person, but here I was wringing my hands about the future. I was worried about being bored — being without structure — being irrelevant — losing connections. Who was I if I wasn’t a Deloitte Partner? I kept thinking about my dad who retired relatively young and never seemed to find his mojo. And after being extremely healthy his entire life, he got sick a few years in, and remained unhealthy for the rest of his life. The anxiety I speak of emerged quickly and grew with each passing day. And it didn’t subside the day I walked out the door. And some of it still remains. I think there’s some goodness in it, but jeez it’s uncomfortable.

I was sure about one thing — retiring from Deloitte didn’t mean “retiring” — i.e., spending my days playing golf, fishing, and puttering around the house. In fact, I recoil when people ask me how retirement is going, as though I should be relaxing. I mean, first of all, I’m only 61 today, and a young 61 if I say so myself. Anyway, there was going to be something more -- I just didn’t know what it was yet. I’d thought about and explored a lot of things that leveraged my knowledge and experience (and some that didn’t) – working with start-ups, consulting, private equity, buying a small business, starting a brewery/distillery. And one by one, I ruled each of them out — I just couldn’t get excited about any of them. While, I hadn’t concluded on what I was going to do, I had decided I wanted to be master of my domain – to determine what I did and when I did it – to not be a slave to someone else’s agenda – to have time for family, friends, and other passions. I also wanted to do meaningful work that offered intellectual stimulation.

As to intellectual stimulation, I’ve been fascinated with leadership, history, philosophy, and the behavioral sciences in general. I was enthralled with biographies of great historical leaders – from Genghis Khan to Abraham Lincoln. This led me to an interest in what made successful people tick. I found the works of Daniel Goldman, Erik Erikson, Deborah Tannen, Robert Kegan, Zenger and Folkman, among others, super interesting. I’d studied philosophy in college and maintained my curiosity about how great thinkers saw the world – from Aristotle to Teilhard de Chardin to Ken Wilber. I considered going back to school — and I still think I might one day do that — but it wasn’t a long-term solution. I decided I needed to find something I could grow into for the next 30 years. That’s right, 30 years! Who knows how long I will live? That’s not an important question. It just had to be something I could be good at, but could get better at for the rest of my life.

A few years ago, I started studying a bit about mindfulness and developed some habits such as meditating, journaling, and deep reflection. And this prompted to me to ask myself some really hard questions. For what am I most grateful? What is my purpose? What energizes me and what drains me? What do I want? When I reflected on what was most gratifying about what I’d been doing for so long, it was being part of peoples’ lives and seeing them thrive and succeed. And so I asked myself what I could do that was gratifying, meaningful and intellectually stimulating — that leveraged my knowledge and experience — that offered autonomy and flexibility — that kept me engaged in other people’s lives — that provided a vehicle for my own growth — that gave me a sense of purpose? The one thing that seemed to fit was leadership coaching.

So, I dove in. I spent time interviewing leadership coaches, and talent executives who ran coaching programs, and I read several books about coaching. One of the coaches I interviewed encouraged me to “just start coaching” – and referred two senior military officers who were in transition to the private sector. That was my first taste. I believe I helped them, but I also knew that coaching was different than leading – and that I needed training. I started researching various programs and discovered that Georgetown had the best program, by far. So, I applied – which was more involved than I expected – was accepted. I was really excited about the prospect of being back in school. What I didn’t expect was that it would be one of the most enriching experiences of my life. I’m eternally grateful to the faculty, my fellow students, my pro bono clients, and all those who contributed to making this program into a life-affirming, transformational

experience. It helped me crystalize my thoughts and feelings about what I would do in my “second half.” It helped me focus on my desire to give back, deepen relationships, explore spirituality, be more compassionate, and help others. What became clear to me was that coaching was my calling. Now all I had to do was build something to house my aspiration.

I decided that I had enough material wealth, and I didn’t want my work to be corrupted by the need to make a living at it. But I needed to create a vessel to house the operations of the enterprise. It needed to be serious and professional. So, I formed Lead To Change LLC which operates as a for-profit enterprise. I also formed the Lead To Change Foundation to be the sole beneficiary of the LLC’s profits and to accept private donations. The foundation’s mission is to support leaders who serve the public good.

You might be asking how I arrived at the name “Lead To Change.” I was trying to come up with something that captured the essence of my beliefs about leadership and coaching. I believe people, organizations and communities need transformational leaders, and leaders need to transform themselves in order to be effective transformational leaders. And I wanted the name to be a verb — and so, ‘Lead To Change’ was born.

That’s the story of how Lead To Change came about — and my journey to my second half. My second half journey has just begun. I can’t wait to see how it turns out. You might be wondering, “what’s with this notion of a second half.” Rather than answer that, I’d encourage you to read “Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life” by Richard Rohr which was recommended by a fellow classmate and friend, Sean Sanford. I hope my story has prompted you to think about your second half wherever you might be on your journey.

I hope you’ll tune into future blog posts. Your comments, feedback are most welcome.