At this writing, I am 13 weeks post injury and was just cleared a week ago to resume exercise. I’ve been making exceptional strides in range of motion and strength and I know I’ll beat all their goals for me. In fact, I plan to be a new and improved me when this is all said and done. Along the way, so far, it’s been a humbling journey with a few key lessons.

(1) Denial is not your friend during recovery. Perhaps the most sobering take away came from my Physical Therapist when I complained I was not making enough progress fast enough. She was annoyed with my lack of patience, and pointed out “you are not 12 anymore or you wouldn’t be here”. For me, age had never been a determining factor and was merely a state of mind. For the very first time it was clear Father Time was in control. And if I was going to recover, it would take removal of all denial, and doubling down on whatever I was told to do. So I have sucked up the reality of not being 12, or even 30, in order to make the progress I need to make. She gives me 4 reps of 10, I do 6. She gives me a goal of 5% range of motion, I have to work harder to get there. And I have.

(2) Patience patience patience. To be clear, I have very little. My PT reminds me of this 2x per week. I am harder on myself than she is, and that’s saying a lot. Sometimes being patient is good. Like when waiting for something to come out of the oven perhaps, it’s not going to cook any faster watching it. Or, when waiting for a train, it’s going to get there when it gets there, no matter how late I am or how much I pace. So okay, I can try to be patient. In the world of recovery, I don’t think patience is a virtue. The lack of it means you expect more and push more. Coupled with #1 (acknowledging realities) these will help me make strides and get full use of my hand back. It’s my new formula: LOD + LOP = Progress!

(3) Someone always has it worse than you. Growing up, my Dad always said that phrase whenever my siblings and I would complain or fall into self-pity. During the 4 casts, 2 splints and weeks of physical therapy, I can honestly say there were times when the pain was worse than childbirth. I had some dark moments. The casting process did not go well for me. Swelling for weeks had the cast serve as a vice grip. Bruising was brutal. Nerve damage left me feeling my arm was on fire, I was 24/7 in agony, with an inability and difficulty to perform some basic functions, dependency on others, loss of sleep due to pain, etc…And I started a new job one week after, which was not ideal timing, having to limp into work and not be able to function at top speed. I was sucked into a vortex that left me thinking how easy it would be to use drugs and alcohol to numb the pain ( most I took was Advil because I was working). During this period, I reflected on people I knew who had debilitating back injuries, or those who were injured or lost limbs in the Boston Marathon bombings. I thought about my time working with HomeBase which served Veterans with Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD. Friends and family who have had cancer and endured surgery and chemo/radiation. I looked at people in the hospital dealing with other issues far worse than mine. I thought about my friend Nancy who had been hit by a car while riding a bike and was in rehab at the same time. News stories of children beaten, domestic abuse, etc… flooded my mind. I thought about the people who weren’t battling physical pain but were battling emotional pain. All of these individual’s stories were my companions and inspiration during this time. They reminded me, first, I had no right to complain about a thing. Second, what incredibly strong people each of them were to get up every day and survive, fight, get better. And last — I was not going to let this get me down.

(4) Mind & Body Connection. This will come off all hippy dippy, but this injury taught me how completely connected the mind and body are. I learned this in the silliest of ways, but when I couldn’t type on my computer with my left hand — for weeks — because of the cast, it impacted my brain and my mental state. Anytime I sat down to write an email or a presentation, my mind was going faster than my one hand could keep up, impacting me so severely that I started to become mentally paralyzed when I sat down at the computer. Frustration turned to anger then depression. My capacity to get work done was hindered far more by my mental state than my physical state. At that point my focus shifted on getting my head in the game. And as soon as I did, it went full circle, my ability to get work done improved.

(5) Using my non-dominant hand taught a lot. It’s true that injuring my dominant hand was a struggle in the beginning. My co-workers and family got a lot of giggles watching me eat like a toddler using a fork for the first time, but as the weeks progressed I went from inept to master using my non-dominant hand. I was forced to use something that was considered weaker, not as good, less than. Now with both hands working I am stronger than I was before and I can fluidly switch between two strong options. It made me think a lot about forcing myself to take on that same challenge in other aspects of life. Do I automatically go to the default? The expected? The strongest? Applying that to work — am I giving enough opportunity to the less obvious choice ? Do I give each person enough opportunity to demonstrate what they can do? Do I default to the person we know and expect for certain things? What if I didn’t do that? Is there a non-dominant choice that might allow a different perspective, a different outcome? Are there activities and actions I can take on that may not inherently seem my strongest skill, or even could be seen as a weakness, that I could now try and improve upon? When put to the test, my non-dominant hand had to perform double duty. But beyond that it’s made me think what a gift it is to know that when pushed, even the weaker option can rise to the occasion.

I am graduating now to normal life and take-home PT activities and they tell me by the end of the year everything will be 100%. My plan is to be more than 100% sooner! I am also excited about getting back on the mountain this winter, but will plan my exits off the chair lift a little differently!

My Agency Life. After 20+ years working at Arnold Worldwide, an ad agency within one of the largest holding companies in the world (Havas), I was spending a majority of my time working closely with the C-Suite in each of my client assignments. I’d had the good fortune to manage a roster of incredible brands such as Jetblue, John Frieda, Jergens, Silk Soy Milk, RBS/Citizens, Huntington Bank, the anti-smoking brands and many others. The more immersed I was in the board room discussing business issues and strategies to solve those problems, the more I felt at home on the client side. Way back in my early days, as an entry level account manager at BBDO/IQ&J in Boston, working on the Gillette and Ocean Spray businesses, my Ocean Spray client offered me a job. I decided to give client side a try. It was one of the most educational experiences of my career. My aperture widened as my capabilities expanded by spending time in R&D, trade marketing and promotions. Ultimately I missed the creative side of the business so much and knew I had a lot to learn about brand and creative strategy, so I went back to the agency life believing this new experience would make me a more well-rounded agency exec.

The Agency Life was one I loved 95% of the journey, thanks to clients and teams that were smart, fun, challenging (in a good way) and which provided me more cherished opportunities than I can count. Yet, it was always in the back of my mind that I’d go back client side at some point. A year ago I had one of those now-or-never moments, resigning in a massive blind-faith jump kind of way to be a marketing consultant/contractor working with some former clients. Talk about eye-opening. In this past year, I conducted three agency reviews, launched a new brand, began to transform an organization to deliver a brand promise we’d created and learned more about acquisition and CRM than I could‘ve done within the walls of ad land.

Life in the Middle. This new consulting/contract role provided an interesting vantage point — -no longer an agency exec and not yet employed full time for any one corporate marketing team, I was operating in the middle. Things I saw, heard and experienced on the agency side looked different when stepping out of them into the safety of the middle. Some days it felt like one of those dreams where you see yourself from above, only in this scenario it was me watching my former ad agency self. Other days I saw clearly why certain pain points exist from the eyes of the client, and those moments were cringe-worthy. Other times, actions I witnessed validated my opinions or confirmed client behavior, but I simply didn’t have both sides of the story —until now.

Here’s 7 insights from Life in the Middle:

• No one is actively listening/paying attention. That’s a broad generalization, I know, but it’s pretty accurate. Much of my Life in The Middle was spent explaining the other side, serving as a ‘whisperer’, bridging the communications void or simply with my jaw-dropped. A very senior exec at a large agency completely missed the deadline for the pitch I was running. Two weeks later, I got a call asking to be included, even though they missed the cut-off and we were well underway. If you miss that date, how will you handle the account if we hired you? (we didn’t). In another fell-on-deaf-ears example, I witnessed one of the most well-regarded CEOs in the US — who appeared to rarely ask for anything out of the ordinary from the agency —share concerns with an agency lead that he wanted more senior level attention, someone with decision-making power at the agency to be engaged in his business. Fair request? Every meeting, for 6 months, the junior team showed up with no senior level engagement. Despite the plea, no change occurred. Well, except of course that, surprise, surprise, the account went into review. With dozens of examples to pick from here, I asked myself, how did we get here, this place where in the communications industry, basic communication is truncated, ignored, and/or requires translation? Good news is the bar is so low — if you just become exceptional at listening, paying attention and reacting, you’ll win.
• Difficult conversations are the best kind. Consider this the graduate course to listening well. The most solid and long term relationships involve a disproportionate amount of tough conversations. The problem is most people shy away from them. Oddly when you have them, and you are especially gifted at having them, you take control of bad news and can turn it into a win. This is simple physics. When it’s going south, the effort to change the trajectory requires an equal or opposite action (or greater). An honest, ‘I have something to share with you/deal with’ conversation can be that momentum shift. Recently, I had to pull a top executive aside and discuss some behavior that was troubling. He was one of my favorite businessmen of all time, but his impatience level was over the top. He had a tendency to demand when anyone was in a room they speak up or leave. He’d point this out to people if they were being quiet, in a way that would embarrass them. In this one large forum, this incredibly brilliant yet introverted employee did everything in his power to find a moment to speak up and his brilliant point was counter to that of this demanding executive. The senior exec didn’t take well to having a public counterpoint, and he blasted this guy, accusing him of not thinking it through, to the point of submission. I tend to be unable to keep my mouth shut, so I pulled this top exec aside in private, “Which is it you value more?” I said. “Speaking up or solving problems”. He looked at me not sure what I meant. I explained that he essentially ended any chance for anyone on his team to feel comfortable speaking up when he stomps on something he doesn’t like. I likened what he just did to abuse. Make them speak and then swing at them. Ironically I reshared the same facts that this brilliant introvert had shared, only now in a new light. He saw the value of the viewpoint, and then at the next meeting apologized to the group and quite sincerely and graciously to the individual. He owned the tough conversation. Not only did this once shy exec become more confident in coming forth, and solved many issues in the months that followed, but there was more engagement throughout the leadership team knowing now it was a safe place that encourages tough dialogue.
  I sat in thousands of leadership meetings (both sides) where “wins” were shared. Awesome everyone, I love celebrating good news too. But equal time should be spent asking everyone to identify what potential problems are brewing. Make sure you have talent who act as heat seeking missiles on issues and force those challenging conversations. This applies to agencies,clients, employees, bosses, peers. In the world we live in where bad news travels faster than the speed of light, you can’t always wait to have the solution. It’s almost guaranteed the person you don’t want to have to share bad news with, is going to find out with or without you.
• Agencies: If you Don’t Want to Be Treated Like a Vendor, Then Be a Partner. “Clients Treat Agencies As Vendors”. I heard this, and yes I said this, many times when I felt clients were keeping us out of important conversations or giving prescriptive direction instead of telling us the problem so we ‘experts’ could fix it. This isn’t me drinking the koolaid, it’s me swallowing a humility pill. Until you demonstrate value, until you are willing to get into their business with them and listen and help them win, be on their side, feel their pressure, you are a vendor. Earn your way to partnership. It’s not a given. Do you trust every doctor you see? Are they all the same caliber? When they enter the room, do they spend much time talking about their credentials and # of surgeries? No, they get about their business understanding what brought you to them, your issue and they put their expertise to work.
  During an agency search that I led during this year, in round 1 of the pitch process, some agencies demonstrated value right out of the gate, ie thought leadership in the category, well known case histories with their fingerprints on it, provocative thinking on our business, and team members at the table that were renowned subjected matter experts in the field. They demonstrated their value and showed how they were already being partners. Conversely, some agencies spent so much time talking about themselves, they ran out of time and didn’t leave enough time to share their thoughts on the assignment and our business (clearly didn’t rehearse). Partner. Vendor.
  In an existing agency relationship where I was in the Middle, I heard one agency exec complain that they hadn’t been involved in any research nor were they included in any meetings where the discussion was pertinent to the work they were developing. They were begging for their senior key contact to pay attention to them and they never got a response to emails. This of course would perturb me when I was on the agency side. But with a new lens, I was seeing this all differently. I knew this senior executive very well from years of working together. I knew his best catch up time was on cell during commuting hours and his expectation was his counterpart would be the senior-most, smartest people at the agency. But the agency was having a Management Supervisor Level call on him. When the President of the Agency came to me to see if I could help, I asked if he’d talked to him about all this. He hadn’t taken the time to figure it out. Hadn’t asked what the issues were. Hadn’t spent any time himself reaching out to offer insights or value. That’s just asking to be placed into the vendor category.
• Clients: If you Want Agencies to Give You the The Best, then Invest in them (time, team and money). Make sure what you are doing has engagement from the top. I once had the CEO of a large client take key members of the agency and client team out for dinner, across departments when we were kicking off an important assignment. He set the stage for the entire year long effort — he clearly defined his goals, he inspired us by discussing the value he placed for the role each of us would play, he challenged us to bring out the best in our team and to give him the best talent we had. Everyone left committed and no one wanted to let him down. No one ever did.
  Conversely, during Life in The Middle, I saw some massive client mis-steps with how a Client worked with a very talented and dedicated agency. The Agency was being squeezed so tight on fee there was no chance to get the best talent. Worse, the toxic viewpoint this leader had about agencies in general spread throughout the organization. There was no attempt to get to know the agency, attend meetings with them. From the top down there was no belief in the power of a brand building and creative thinking to drive growth. Clients: The moral of the story is — have a brand, a team, a project, an attitude that makes the best talent in the agency clamor to work on your business. You will then get more than your money’s worth.
• Things you should just be/demonstrate but never have to utter: Two of them that are top of mind but there are dozens: We are integrated, We are excited about the work. It’s like saying you are cool or you are a people-person. If you have to say it, then you aren’t. I kept a log during the agency review process of the number of times agencies felt the need to caveat the work they presented by saying “we are really excited about what we are about to share…” Saying you are excited about it doesn’t make it good work. Your enthusiasm isn’t so infectious we can overlook the fact the creative is off strategy. In fact it can set you up to look pretty bad if the client isn’t as enthused. Let the work create excitement on its own. Or just be passionate in presenting. One very large agency in the pitch continued to talk about how they were one big integrated agency, yet their presentation had multiple templates, they didn’t sit together, they contradicted each other. Nothing about them was integrated. Learn when to be vs say.
• Agencies Should Abandon Time Sheets. Period. During my time away from adland perhaps the biggest perk was not being tortured weekly to turn in my time sheets. It got me to thinking… corporate marketing teams are judged by their output and quality of work. During Life in the Middle, I performed similar functions as when I was an agency exec, but never needed to account for my time via the archaic time sheet system. My system was attacking the assignment with gusto. Work got done and I got paid. Why then do agencies still follow this practice of spending hours a week wrangling their employees to do time sheets? Note to every finance team and client: they aren’t accurate anyway by the time people get around to submitting them in a beaten down haze. Agency folks are so busy doing the work for clients they don’t have time to document. Agencies waste so much time chasing down time sheets and for what end — to give clients more ammunition to question the time you spent, too much, not enough? Wouldn’t it just be better to give a client the time it needs to do the job exceedingly well? Then they can evaluate that — either the work is great or it isn’t. Come up with a fair price for the team and agree to it and let everyone do their job against a scope. Zappos once rewarded employees for spending more time with clients. More time equated to a higher purchase and a happy customer. #nomoretimesheets
• There’s a lopsided value placed on the “new bright shiny object”. There were many days during my agency life that years of experience were not valued as much as the latest and greatest “capability”. Whether that was talent being ushered in that possessed digital or social or consumer journey or AI — it didn’t matter, there was a fixation on this NBSO that automatically rendered the rest of us old models, worthy of discard. Like Woody in Toy Story, cast aside when a new tricked out toy arrives.
  Luckily, I survived most all of those stages by keeping my head down and producing results. But during Life in the Middle it was a complete 180 to feel the value placed on expertise and experience. The win is to build a team with both.

My next Life. Taking that monumental leap a year ago proved to be rewarding personally and professionally. I’m actually about to take the next jump. I’m wrapping my contracts up and about to start a new, permanent role as a Chief Marketing and Chief Operating Officer for a small but growing company in the Boston area. Each of my work lives has been an incredible foundation and these insights and learning, I hope will serve as a reminder to me as I take my next big step out of Life In the Middle.