100 Business Days Out: Day 23 - 21 Years

Today I was back in New Orleans (twice in two weeks…three times in the last decade…weird timing) to speak to the senior HR Team of Cigna Insurance. I was invited by John Murabito, the EVP of HR to come speak to his team. Nearly 21 years ago John and I met and we grew up together within the Frito-Lay HR organization. We both parted PepsiCo around the same time, he to Monsanto, me to EA. We both did well and he is now the senior HR executive in one of the largest corporations in the US. And here we were in New Orleans, him leading his senior meeting and me coming in as a guest keynote speaker and someone that these young HR team were looking up to as what they should be aspiring. How does the time fly that we end up being the people that we once admired and wished we could someday be? It is even more striking when after all of these years you can sit and talk about those that were ahead of us and we still put them on their pedestal. And now we inherit the roles and we take on the responsibility of being the generation ahead. We have become the ones to be replaced. What a great lesson that 21 years taught me today. We all have our time, our moment, and when we get the chance we must pass it to the next generation and then let them carry the torch. For me, tonight was a passing moment and I am thankful and proud that John chose me to help him develop and bring his team along. That in itself is part of the legacy that one can leave behind. And without the years in the bank and the jobs successfully done, there would be nothing to pass along. I feel tonight as that is part of the journey I am on, to pass along to others what little I have learned and even smaller the amount that I might mastered.