The Baton and the Field

Week 63 – July 7, 2026

There are weeks that move quickly, and there are weeks that seem to exist outside of time. This was the latter.

It was a week where past, present, and future converged—not in collision, but in quiet, unmistakable convergence.

The week began with creation. The Business Universe expanded into something far greater than strategy or planning. It revealed itself as a philosophy of stewardship, a living framework for creating the conditions where people and systems can flourish. What once felt like a business tool now feels like a reflection of who I have become.

At the same time, life asked me to walk into one of the hardest moments I have ever faced.

Visiting Patty made the reality impossible to ignore. The woman who has mentored me for three decades is nearing the end of her journey. The roles we have occupied for so many years are gently, painfully changing. One seemingly ordinary moment captured everything that words struggle to express.

She needed to write a check.

She no longer remembered how.

I wrote it.

She signed it.

Only later did I recognize the symbolism held within that simple act.

Capability met trust. Responsibility met authority. For one quiet moment, the future rested in two pairs of hands. She was still signing her name. I was already carrying the work. No ceremony. No speeches. Just love, trust, and thirty years of preparation expressed through ink on paper.

This was not the beginning of the baton being passed.

It was simply the moment I finally saw it.

For three decades, Patty and Bob entrusted me with countless small opportunities to grow. Small responsibilities. Small acts of confidence. Small reminders that they believed in me long before I fully believed in myself.

This is simply the largest expression of that same trust.

I wish the circumstances were different.

But I no longer question whether I am capable of carrying it.

Alongside that realization came another.

Over two nights spent with Zach, I was unexpectedly shown the depth of my own transformation. Not through grand conversations, but through ordinary moments.

I ordered myself a smoothie without thinking to ask if he wanted one.

Years ago, I would have instinctively abandoned my own wants to ensure someone else was comfortable first. I would have checked, anticipated, second-guessed, and adjusted myself before ever considering what I wanted.

That instinct is gone.

Not because I worked hard to suppress it.

Because I healed it.

When he left dirty dishes beside the sink before walking out the door, I didn’t become angry. I didn’t spiral into old stories. I simply saw what was true.

Some people change.

Some don’t.

Both are simply information.

For perhaps the first time, I realized I no longer needed his growth to validate my own.

The contrast itself was the lesson.

The greatest realization of the week, however, was about leadership.

Somewhere beneath the grief, I noticed a quiet loneliness settling in. Not because I lacked people who loved me, but because there was no one standing one step ahead of me anymore. Bob is gone. Patty is leaving. The mentors who held the next layer of wisdom for thirty years are no longer here to lean into in the same way.

And yet, another truth emerged.

I do not have to carry everything.

I only have to carry what is mine.

My work is not to hold everyone else.

My work is to hold the field of coherence, so others can carry what belongs to them without collapsing beneath it.

That single realization shifted something profound inside me.

Leadership is not carrying every burden.

Leadership is tending the conditions where others are able to carry their own.

As my fiftieth birthday approaches, I find myself standing at an unexpected threshold.

This week was not a Dark Night of the Soul.

Perhaps it was simply a dim week of the soul.

The light never disappeared.

It merely softened long enough for deeper truths to become visible.

There were tears.

There were hugs.

There was grief.

There was exhaustion.

There was laughter with old friends.

There was comfort.

There were plans for the future.

There was profound gratitude for the mentors who shaped me.

And through it all, there remained one unwavering truth:

The woman entering her fiftieth year is no longer searching for herself.

She is learning what becomes possible when she no longer abandons herself.

The baton is being passed.

The field is being tended.

And somehow, even through tears, both feel sacred.