Man plans. G-d laughs. Now what?

There's an old Yiddish proverb: Man plans and G-d laughs.

Leaders plan a lot.

We have agendas, strategies, calendars, goals, people depending on us and then somebody gets bad news. Really bad news.

Maybe it's you. Maybe it's your spouse, your child, your parent. Maybe it’s someone on your team. Suddenly, the plan isn't the plan anymore.

And the hard question for leaders becomes: How do I stay reliable when life isn't?

People depend on you for decisions, income, direction, and sometimes simply the reassurance that you'll show up tomorrow roughly the same person you were today.

That doesn't mean you have to pretend that nothing is happening.

It means recognizing what your role requires of you now, what you can realistically continue to provide, and where someone else needs to step in.

I think most of us have dots on the timeline of our lives. Things so significant that we remember everything as before that happened or after that happened.

I have mine and some are great. Quitting theater to go to medical school. My wedding. The birth of each of my boys. Of course some are really hard. Losing my mom, My divorce. Losing my dad. My son's injury in the military.

Some are joyful. Some are devastating. Each of them were an inflection point.

Resilience doesn't mean preventing those moments. We can't.

It means figuring out how to navigate from the place where we actually are, not the place we expected to be.

What are your inflection points? And how do you figure out how to be who you need to be when you’re in the “after?” Hit reply, I’d really like to know.

Also, we’re talking about how to handle this at our September 22nd Think Tank at 12:05PM EST, where I'll be joined by David Magness, DO, MBA, FACOFP, EPCOT Medical Director at Walt Disney World; Mairin Moore Cane, leadership advisor, bestselling author and keynote speaker; and Gabriel Rodriguez, current cancer fighter, mentor, husband and father, and retired FBI senior leader.

We're talking about what happens when a health crisis shows up in the middle of the life, and leadership, you already have. Register here for the Zoom link.

All my best,

Dr. G