Happy Sunday Everyone-
Anyone reading this would likely say they have a lot on their plate. What that “plate” consists of is different for all of us. Could be work, could be scarcity of business, could be more than you know what to do with, could be death of a loved one, kids going off to school, new babies, you name it, we all have a lot on our various plates.
I woke up Tuesday night at 2:00AM with the “holy crap, I’ve got a lot on my plate” feeling. Not sure if I’d go as far as to call it a panic attack vs. high level of discomfort, certainly not good for sleep. As I was laying there, I was rewinding my day, thinking of how my first call of the day (group call) was fairly negative. Little more complaining than I’d like.
This is hard to tie together but as I was thinking about it, I thought about the rubber bracelet I’ve worn every day since Chris Devin gave it to me. Chris Devin is a guy I wrote about last year about this time. He’s someone that gives you perspective on how much you have on your plate, and how you deal with it. If we followed his playbook, we’d all be better off, the world would be.
Our CEO would call Chris the company warrior. To make a long story short I interviewed him last year for the company wide call on him overcoming cancer. When I saw him a few months later he whispered at dinner that the cancer was back. Fast forward to now, a year later, he’s still battling. After he and I spent some time together, he sent me a couple of his favorite books and this bracelet. On it is WTD, PVC, LFG, and WGT, that’s it.
I called Chris a few weeks ago to check in, we both go back and forth on the check ins. He picked up with his standard infectious Boston accent. I asked him what he was doing “well to be honest with you I’m just leaving the hospital, I had radiation on my hip, and now heading out to meet the family”. Every other time I talk to him, he’s leaving something medical, and always smiling, even when it’s not going well.
On this call, he asks me to hold on a second, I’m sitting there, and I hear him have a full-blown conversation with the parking lot guy. Chris is asking how he’s doing, and not to check the courtesy box, but because he actually cares….minute goes by, he comes back on. I didn’t say anything to him about his conversation, but I was thinking “wow, here’s a guy leaving the cancer area, could easily be in a not such great mood, but instead takes the time to talk to the parking attendant like he’s his best friend”.
So, let’s talk about this bracelet, my big plate night last week, and me remembering the initial meeting of the day being relatively negative, all at 2:00AM. While I was laying there in the dark, I started rubbing my fingers over the small indentations where these letters are, and I was thinking about my conversation with Chris, and I was thinking about Chris’s conversation with the parking lot attendant.
Here is what those letters stand for-
WTD: Win The Day
PVC: Positive Voice Choice
WGT: We Got This
LFG: Lets F-ing Go
On the surface, without knowing Chris, you could discount this bracelet and those letters as a symbolic brief motivational tug. When you know Chris, and you talk to Chris, and you engage with Chris, you understand he believes that he has to win every day. He chooses always to have a positive voice choice going through his head and expanding that PVC out to us. He never falls off the belief that he’s got this, and I’ve never left a txt or a conversation with him not finishing with Lets F-ing Go.
I talked to Chris this week again explaining all that transpired. Although not comical, he had another story of him getting stuck in the hospital after some tests went wrong, having to call in his oncologist to tell the other doctors they had to let him go to drop his eldest off at Boston College. He called it a jail break, always lightening the mood.
My point today isn’t a comparison game of Chris’s plate vs. mine, or yours for that matter, it’s a recognition of his mindset, his strength, his grit.
I ended my last Sunday Thoughts about Chris with “I will get more of Chris in my life, I promise you that”. I have, and I’m grateful for it!
The bracelet’s never coming off! I’m hopeful if your day, week, or month is feeling a little heavy, you’d consider WTD, PVC, WGT, and LFG!
Here is a pic of Chris/me last year!
