Top CEO Shares The Centrality of God's Love

“God loved us into being.”

—C.S. Lewis

Sandy Costa is a dear friend and one of the greatest leaders I’ve ever met. He is also the most loving CEO I have ever known. A pharmacist and attorney by training, Sandy rose to the highest echelons of leadership and influence. As President and COO of Quintiles (now IQVIA, now over 80,000 employees), a Contract Research Organization, he led the company’s growth from $90 million into an S&P 500 in just six years.

I’ve met several of his former employees who have said, “Sandy was my best boss ever.”

Sandy’s tremendous generosity was shaped by his working-class father, who gave to others—sometimes until it hurt—because he saw people in even greater need. His deep love for others was inspired by his mother, a woman who believed that everyone’s children were beautiful, everyone’s career was something to be proud of, and everyone she met deserved her genuine affection.

This holiday season, please pray for Sandy. He was recently diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia, a lifelong battle that will challenge him and those who love him. Yet, true to his character, Sandy refuses to give up. He continues to give his all to life and those around him, embodying the same love and generosity he has always shown.

— Mark Faust

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December, 2024

“God loved us into being.” Can you imagine a more glorious lineage, as we seek the fruits of salvation? We are not here because we won a quiz game.?May we never forget that all that we do is connected to God’s will.

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This is not a trite teaching, but a seminal practice of those who glory in the Lord’s love. For He is the altar at which we place our most fervent prayers. This truth allows us to conquer stale optimism. May we never forget that every breath we take is divinely authored, as we bask in the transcendental experience of surrendering to Him who loves us beyond all measure. As we follow a path to spiritual restoration wherein our hearts beat as one with The Lord’s, we celebrate that in the Lord’s kingdom there are no strangers.

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And so, when we get angry at or disappointed by another person, never forget we are scolding God’s most precious creation. Fortunately, such goings-on do not diminish His love for us. We express our love through faith. As Richard Rohr so poignantly claims, to have faith is to have confidence in Love itself. If you have an active prayer practice, it is simple to find targets for your compassion. As an aside, you can tell a lot about someone by studying their eyes. Not just the color of a person’s eyes but much more. While getting my pharmacy degree, I worked for a mystical octogenarian named Arthur. His eyes were a soft blue. And when he looked at you, they became the portal to his soul. They instantly revealed a man with limitless compassion. I still love him. Spiritual scholars tell us that joy is an act of faith that in turn gives us an inner strength and a large measure of resilience. When we love another, we surrender totally to the Lord.?

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“It takes great courage to become who we are meant to be.”

—Mystic Mother Cabrini

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Want to save a life, help someone who is lonely and downcast? Why did Christ say to help and honor the least among us? Spiritual scholars tell us that bringing joy to another is an act of faith. When we love another, there is no turning back, even though?Reality can be a tough wall to surmount. Saint Francis understood that challenge well, however, in telling us that, “No action takes on more certainty than the truth.”

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Want folks to respect and trust you? Then be predictable. Never lose sight of the complexities of human beings, so clearly understood when we consider the difference between a problem and a predicament. Simply stated, problems have a solution, but predicaments do not. Why? Because predicaments always involve people. We are all living contradictions.

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Recently, my wife Jean wrote a wonderful essay reflecting on what we should leave our children. She tells us that the most powerful things we can leave our families are not material possessions accumulated over a lifetime. Rather, the most meaningful gifts we can leave are the lessons we learned over a lifetime as we took on and worked through the seemingly insoluble predicaments in which we found ourselves from time to time.

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Starting with the importance of taking up Christ’s advice to love one another. And, closely related, allowing others to help us in times of need. As a friend reminded me, when we share our concerns, they become lighter upon our shoulders in every case. One related point I have quite clearly observed is that our elders don’t value material items as they did earlier in their lives. It’s quite striking. I guess they figure out that it’s a plain dumb idea to value every petty material trophy we acquire in our early years. In this way, we finally get the message that the most important thing in any of our lives and that which we value the most are relationships. When we nurture relationships, the importance of material things is clearly diminished. From our first breath to the last, our life’s mission is to get closer to one another and thereby closer to God.

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Over the past few years, I have taken an interest in what the Lord teaches us through observing the animal world. I recently read an interesting article on what separates a champion Iditarod sled dog from lesser dogs as they trek over 1000 miles. The answer? The greatest dogs have “a joyful spirit.” In a trainer’s words, the special dogs radiate a sense of “pure joy.” As one contestant put it, they are almost “drunk with a nearly insane state of anticipation.” WOW! When was the last time we had that much fun?

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While watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, I was taken by one of the ads. Lots of folks, surely strangers, began to hug one another. It was clear that the huggers were equally taken by their counterparts’ show of affection. I was moved because what occurred reminded me of what wonders our human DNA can bring to each of us. And there are few things more powerful than watching humanity take flight. People who recognize the wave of goodness that engulfs them at times have a deep-seated sense of gratitude and an extraordinary measure of joy. Do you know folks like that? We all do. These are people who refuse to exist on life’s sidelines.

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“And when our work is done, Our course on earth?is run, May it be said, "Well Done".? Be thou at peace.”

—?? West Point Cadet Prayer?

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Lincoln believed that clear-sighted leaders could “carry a nation.” That such leaders are “informed by Providence.” As society is currently fashioned, we surely need new perspectives on the proper tenets of civility. The good news is that coveted moral principles are getting a foothold and the Golden Rule is making a comeback! Fr. John Riccardo sees the story of his life as “a narrative arc,” “with clear high points and low points representing a process of cumulative development. For each moment we exist is the moment we have been born for. Some come to call it God’s plan.”

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“I would rather be fooled than not believe.”

—Mark Nepo

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We are all drawn in by dramatic natural phenomena. As you may recall, on April 8th, 2024, a solar eclipse occurred. Technically, an eclipse occurs with the passage of all or part of one celestial body in front of another. Similar eclipses like the April eclipse might not occur for hundreds of years. It was covered live by TV stations where there was a total eclipse. You could see folks looking to the sky, and when the moon was fully in front of the sun three words fell from the lips of observers repeatedly, “Oh my God!” It became more like a celebratory chant, a reverberating proclamation. Their reaction should not have been a surprise. The Lord’s divine genius was on full display in that eclipse. As the witnesses stared upward, they were drawn to the glory of His masterwork—the boundless heavens He reigns over. Each reflective sigh, each joy-filled exclamation, each solar flare that erupted from the Sun’s surface reinforced the wonder of it all. Or perhaps, I thought, a solar eclipse is one more way the Lord sends us “the Good News.”

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?“Always go to a friend’s funeral or they won’t go to yours.”

—Yogi Berra

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As some of you know, I recently bumped into an unwelcome medical problem. Its name does not matter. I am still healthy in most every way and hope to be so for many years to come. Yet dealing with this culprit has been one of the most profound learning experiences of my life--personally profitable in countless ways!?Occasionally I’ve been asked if I feel as though I have received a stroke of bad luck. Or if anger ever washes over me at my medical condition. Those questions surprise me, however.

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For how can I get angry while carrying out the Great Healer’s personal plan for me? Moreover, the Lord has never been in the business of punishing people, even yours truly, and I cannot advance a single theory of why He would do so?now. Rather I continue to steadfastly believe I have come to learn that the ‘true self’ in each of us never dies!

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“I have fought the good fight.? I have finished the race.? I have kept the faith.”

—?? 2 Timothy 4:7 ?

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And so, my game plan remains unchanged. It is the one I have tried to follow for most of my life: gladly forgive—show compassion to all—smooth over life’s challenges—and pave our path with grace and ease. Finally, each morning I read the following passage. The unvarnished truth of these words never ceases to bring me comfort:

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“When God opens our ears—and our hearts—we are never again the people

we were. And upon being called by God, we must accept one of the oldest

truths of self-discovery: The only way forward is through whatever predicament we find

ourselves in. There is no going back, there is no turning away. Faith calls us

forward. The Lord beckons us with strength for the journey and salvation as our

destination. We must stay the course, keep the faith, and finish the race. He

will be with us every step of the way no matter how hard things get. The way

forward is through.”—Joseph Durepos

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My friend, in many ways life is also a process that allows us to gather stories.

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Hopefully, more will follow. ?

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God Bless,

Sandy

November 2024

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Finally, my heartfelt thanks to my dear friends Cathi Taylor for helping me put my words to paper and my editor Linda Hobson Ph.D. for her help and counsel in the composition of this message.