52 weeks, 52 words: Week 27 - Focus

I am not entirely certain what the trigger was this week while vacationing with my family on Martha’s Vineyard but I awoke one night with a searing memory of my very first few weeks at Symbiotix all the way back in 1999.

Working on a satellite symposium and a series of regional advisory boards as a fresh-faced neophyte to this medical marketing and communications world, for a startup company that had landed its first major account assignment, I was one member of a team that was still creating actual 35 mm slides for certain events and slogging through a process for direct mail fulfillment on event recruitment drivers that included our own multi-step process of butterfly seals, mailing labels, and postage. Let’s just say a knowledge of direct mail brokers and a streamlined process was not entirely upon us/me at that time and any notion of billable time/productivity was a foreign concept.

Thus, was born the mindset and the earliest memories of simply getting s*it done…which have permeated my DNA and evolved into a moniker shared by many associates of mine so much so that we joke about being in the GSD club.

Processes may have (and certainly needed to) evolved, too, but a mindset that tinges client relationships, third-party partner relationships, and like-minded employee chemistry around a unifying focus on getting the results you want and willing them into existence by buckling down and making them happen has been hard coded into my business philosophy and daily approach ever since 

So, that searing memory reflex jolted me in the middle of the night toward remembering a dear part-time employee Kathleen Brewsaugh who became a maternal figure in those early days of the agency. She was a devoted, widowed, Christian woman, retired from a career in nursing, and savoring her golden twilight years. She took on small, unassuming projects for us and occasionally traveled to an event around the country as a support and resource.

I remember once sitting in the Atlanta airport on a layover with Kathleen and her making me my first Bloody Mary in the Delta Airlines lounge – a combination of vodka, tomato juice, and a kitchen sink of other accessories. In college I hadn’t had such a refined palette – so I let her guide me on how to combine from a breadth of garnishments to make the best Bloody Mary. And they were…though an odd combination of ingredients, it’s as if Kathleen plucked from the various options available to her, based on each and every Bloody Mary she had ever drunk in the past. There was a lilt to her voice as she described the reason behind every inclusion. And it was as delicious as she was delightful.

What’s interesting to look back on now 20+ years (and too many Bloody Marys to count) later is how that focus and determination pinpoints a driving mindset that was born not out of lasering into a single aspect of the project lifecycle but, quite oppositely, out of a rich and broad wide-angle view of the project – from client management through event execution and production – in its totality.

By seeing the entire project (admittedly out of necessity more so than by design initially), I was imbued with a greater appreciation for what was most important and had wave upon wave of recognition to the learning experiences that could translate to future projects and assignments.

Somewhere along the way as the years and experiences accumulated, that knowledge gain became less acute, though. I’ve had to cajole myself back into focus and prioritizing the acquisition of knowledge. The learning mindset persisted but gave way to a greater allegiance to GSD-ness. Over time, I lost my focus because I became too focused myself.

I think that that can happen as our careers advance. Sponges in our early days, we soak in everything; but as time, responsibilities, and the complexities of our lives and project teams go on, we begin to lose focus on that experiential quotient because we forget the mindset that brought us there. Our focus shifts toward a much more limited view. It’s a paradox because the more narrowly we focus the more limited our field of vision becomes.

However, it’s perhaps only in our ability to see ever-more broadly that we can pluck out the things on which to focus. The narrower our focus the more limited our ability and selection of things will become. Some say “aim small, miss small” in an attempt to frame focusing as based on precision. That’s true to an extent…but actually a bit misguided.

Broad experience will help to determine where to aim in the first place and to focus on the right target.

Focus will amplify what makes us good and give us the energy to strive for better. Focus will improve our stamina as the years grind on, harnessing our potential, and fueling our dreams. Focus will inspire us to concentrate on what’s most important every day and propel us forward. Focus comes from knowledge of what to isolate and keep as much as it comes from what to discard.

I learned through my 3 am dream and subsequent googling that Kathleen passed away in 2018. Somewhere, somehow, I was too distracted back then and that information didn’t find its way to me until just now. Maybe it had but I was so focused on other trivial things and hadn’t internalized it. So, while I would have much rather preferred to have been able to get myself back to sleep, I perused her obituary and remembered her with fondness. What struck me most in the summary of her life story was her devotion to family, faith, and music.

In the end, the summary of her life was not a tribute to her accomplishments and her inclusion in the GSD club (even though she certainly was a member) but about her tremendous spirit and the impact of her life on an ever-increasing circle of people. Her focus was in core areas, but her influences were vast and myriad.

Kathleen was intoxicating because she was so interesting and so cosmopolitan – she gave off a vibe that drew people in closer as if there was no limit to the potential sources from which she could draw and then reflect back into her own life and her own experiences. All the world was fodder from which she could then focus back into the areas she prioritized – her family. Her faith. Her music. We should all be so devoted.

I really miss her. 

It’s a reminder to me, for the rest of this vacation especially, but also for the rest of this year (and hopefully longer) that in our focus we cannot forget what’s really important: Focus-involved choice and being selective. And that our focus must originate from seeing as broadly as possible, with infinitely vast opportunities to apply what we’ve learned; through inspiration coupled with diversity of experience we can then choose deliberately and get s*it done! 

I don’t know what prompted my brain’s chemicals to spark a memory of Kathleen this week, but I am so glad that it did. The salt air and a few home-crafted Bloody Marys may have been my version of a Proustian madeleine but the result is the same: recollection of the past and a memory of prior knowledge and experience.

We shape our future and our destiny based on our remembrance of the past. From that collection of experience, we can select that on which to focus as we proceed. I’ll drink to that.

Here’s to you, Kathleen!

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