This Day Would Break My Heart.

I was sitting at the boardroom table and could feel the waterworks about to start.

It was the day I was giving notice and leaving a mentor of mine who'd been in my corner for the first 10 years of my career.

It tore me up.

When I was 19 I worked at Bacardi as a junior sales rep.

At 26 I had the opportunity to work together again at PMA Canada overseeing the Mast-J?germeister US, Inc. brand for British Columbia.

With the chapter of my story coming to an end, I was excited to go all-in in the world of advertising with a sought-after agency in Vancouver, but at times, to a fault, change isn't easy for me.

Our meeting was scheduled for EOD. It was a Monday, and I went in earlier that day to "work on some admin". I had no administrative work to do, I wanted to just be in the office long enough to calm my nerves.

After a little B.S. I hit him with the news:

"I'm giving my notice here as I've taken another job and will be starting in a month". The words came out, not as clearly as I would have liked, but I fumbled it out and got the message across.

I waited. I didn't know what to expect, but it didn't take long before I could feel my eyes filling up and that uncomfortable in-between confident and scared sh*tless.

I felt like I was betraying what we’d built together.

(Note: It wasn't that he was just my boss, he was a good friend, and more so a father figure. Over our relationship there had been countless times I would call to ask an opinion, or think to myself, what would DMac say in this situation?)

But I was wrong.

He told me, “Ryan, I knew that 2 years, max, would be all that I could squeeze out of you. You’re born to do much bigger things. Thank you for all that you’ve contributed and I love you, bro.”

He made it easy. It didn’t need to be hard. He understood I was doing what was best for me.

We often overthink what others may want or need at the cost of giving ourselves what we know is right. There’s a lesson in here.

Along our path, we come across those who change the game for us.

They need to be recognized and appreciated as without them there’s a good chance I’m not writing this to you today and you’re not doing what you love to do at this very moment.

Who was that leader for you?

Tag and comment them below and let’s give some love to those who deserve it.