The sea level gay has landed.

I take the selfie at the Vail airport and post it in the WhatsApp thread for the wedding I’m co-officiating at the Beyul Retreat in Meredith, Colorado (elevation: almost 8,000 feet). My running joke with everyone on the WhatsApp thread: I am a sea-level gay. A homosexual who does not thrive at altitude. I come from an “island, warm water, sand — not snow” people. The only bears I want any contact with have beards, biceps, and bellies.

It’s approximately 11 a.m. MT on January 17, 2025–1 p.m. for my body, which is still on EST. I’m hungry. I had breakfast at the Delta Lounge before my 6 a.m. flight, and then snacks on the second leg of my trip, but no real meal. I text my partner. I text my mother. I let them know I’ve landed safely in Vail. I make my way to the rental car dealership — to pick up my RAV4 all-wheel drive, because I’ve been told there are snowy roads ahead. I don’t really know the difference between all-wheel drive and four-wheel drive. I live in Manhattan. The only places I’ve owned cars are in Miami, FL, and San Diego, CA.

I plug the address into Waze and take off on the 2.5-hour trip to the wedding venue. Even though I’ve been on a strict news fast since November 2024, I choose to listen to Strict Scrutiny, a podcast analyzing the current Supreme Court and what to expect under the incoming Trump administration.

I have a thought: I should stop and get food.

The wedding couple had mentioned a Whole Foods at the foot of the mountain in the email thread. But I don’t stop. I just want to get there. I can wait the two hours to get some healthy stuff and not gas station nibbles or fast food.

I’m driving through back roads — none of them feel like major highways. It’s somewhat suspect, but I trust Waze. About an hour and a half in, I approach a road barrier. The arm is up.

The road, although rural up to now, had been plowed, but snow covers the road ahead — trace amounts at first, then more.

Well, I guess this is the snowy road they mentioned. Thank goodness I have the right car for this occasion.

I clock it: I’ve been out of cell phone range for about 20 minutes. No service. No Wi‑Fi.

I proceed.

About 20–30 minutes in, the car slows. The snow gets heavier. I’m not able to maintain the same speed I had on the cleared roads.

I skid and become hyper focused.

There is a bank of snow to the right and then a ravine.

I keep accelerating.

I skid again and the car stops along a pileup of snow on the right side of the road.

I try to press the accelerator and nothing.

I’m stuck.

I’m annoyed . . . which is followed by a barrage of self-directed anger.

“You fucking sissy sea level gay! Of course you know all the lyrics to ‘How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria,’ but you have no idea how to get out of this problem, do you?”

I sit in the car, seething.

I have an image of my Cuban-American father, who would lecture me about all the ways that men needed to know “car stuff,” and I would roll my eyes. I guess I should have paid attention.

Then I think: This is clearly the road to the wedding. If I just sit and wait patiently, another wedding guest will come up this road and help me out. I keep the car running so that I can run the heater. I pick up The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, which I’ve been devouring, and wait.

After about 30 minutes, nobody comes.

Okay, fine. I guess I have to figure this out.

I turn the car off and step out of the car. First realization: the car is shelter. The most important thing right now is the car. I make sure the keys are in my pocket as I fervently press the “fwiki fwiki” (what we call in Spanish the key fob with the automatic lock/unlock button), making sure the door remains unlocked. If I get locked out of this car, I’m in real trouble.

I keep the door open while I work, taking in how piercingly quiet and stunningly beautiful my surroundings are. Snow everywhere, and rock — clay-red rocks that jut out from the mountainside. I don’t have any tools except for the thingy you use to clear snow off your car (apparently called a snow brush), and I start brushing snow from around the tires.

Satisfied with my work, I go back and sit in the car.

Put the keys into the ignition. Step on the accelerator.

Nothing.

Now I’m really annoyed. Where are the wedding guests? It’s the middle of the afternoon; I can’t be the last one arriving to the wedding. I have a thought about the car battery. If I’m going to run the heater, I need to keep the car running. I cannot drain the battery. I take a deep breath, turn the car on, and grab the book again. I sit for another thirty minutes.

Nobody comes.

I think to myself, “Okay, maybe if you grab one of these rocks on the side of the road and put them in front of or behind the tires, you’ll be able to get the traction you need to move forward.”

I turn the car off. Step out of the car. Keep the door open. Ensure the fwiki fwiki is in my pocket and the doors are unlocked and start digging for big rocks. I put a couple big ones in front of and behind the tires. Satisfied with my work, I step back inside the car. Turn on the car, attempt to accelerate, and NOTHING.

I sit back in the car and turn the car back on. Now I’m pissed. Pick up my book. Keep reading and continue to wait . . . someone HAS TO BE MAKING THE WAY UP THE MOUNTAIN FOR THIS WEDDING.

I have another idea. Build a pathway of rocks to create even more traction.

Open the car door and keep it open. Fwiki fwiki in the pocket and start climbing the side of the mountain to grab more giant clay-red rocks, to build a little red road.

Step back into the car having broken a bit of a sweat. Put the keys in the ignition. Turn the car on and step on the accelerator. Doesn’t work.

Three strikes. I’m out. I can’t think of any other way to get out of here.

I’M STUCK.

I get the car manual and read that there is an emergency satellite connection called the SOS button on the overhead console. Eureka. I press the button and get an error notification — out of range. This seems like a very useful tool for precisely the situation I’m in, and also a failure.

It’s getting darker. Nobody has come. Afternoon is turning to dusk, and I’m present to the fact: this is not good. This is dangerous. A thought creeps in: Is this really how it’s going to end? Is this how I’m going to die?

And then — I laugh.

I actually laugh. There’s laughter and disbelief. You’ve got to be kidding me.

I’m present to mortality. The stakes. The ridiculousness. And also: awe at the majesty around me. I’m surrounded by natural beauty. It’s silent and peaceful. I’m clearly afraid of wildlife, but I don’t see any. No birds. No rabbits. No bears. No foxes. Nothing. No one.

Fear and dread make themselves known as my heart rate elevates and I can feel discomfort in my belly. I quickly interrupt these unwelcome visitors and consciously assert that I don’t want fear in the driver’s seat. Eduardo needs to stay in control. In power.

Now, in my work, I’m very resourced around fear, specifically as a public speaking coach whose business is called Fearless Communicators. That’s when the acronyms appear that I often share with my clients:

False Evidence Appearing Real.
Face Everything And Rise.

As I’m reckoning with my mortality and trying to suppress the terror that begins to surface, a mantra emerges:

In this moment, I am safe.

Alternative realities start flooding in. Yes, I could die. But I’m not going to die right now. The car could have gone off the side of the road. I could have gone down the ravine. I could have been in an accident, injured, bleeding to death. Death, in my current circumstance, is probably a couple weeks away. I have shelter and it’s 72 degrees with a zero percent chance of rain inside my little RAV4 with a full tank of gas.

In this moment, I am well.

I have warm clothing: a Canada Goose jacket, a thick sweater, thermal underwear, and Sorel boots (I’m a Cuban homosexual who likes nice things). I don’t have food. That could turn into a bigger problem later but not RIGHT NOW. I’m surrounded by fresh snow and I can easily remain hydrated. I would rather be in a million other places, but all things considered: I’m actually okay.

In this moment, I am loved.

I have a destination, and while I am clearly alone for the moment, I know, trust, and feel that there is SO MUCH LOVE FOR ME in the world. Not only my partner, my family, my friends . . . but more importantly there are people that love me on the other side of this road waiting for me to arrive who will do everything in their power to search for me once they realize that I’m missing.

I am stuck and it sucks. But it could be SOOOOO MUCH WORSE.

I realize: if I operate under fear and panic, and the alternative realities that it creates in my mind, I run the risk of making mistakes. Getting locked out of the car. Losing the keys. Falling down the ravine. Doing something stupid that could prove a fatal error.

I also start retracing my steps and recognizing other errors that I have already made that would indeed impact my rescue.

I recall that I had told the couple I was flying into Aspen. But I flew into Vail. And when I landed and WhatsApped “the sea level gay has landed,” I didn’t tell them which airport. If the people at the wedding were trying to retrace my steps . . . they would be looking at the wrong airport.

I had texted my partner and my mother when I arrived and they both knew that I had landed in Vail. But the couple and the handful of people that I knew at the wedding had no relationship with my partner or my mother and had no way of being in communication with them.

My partner also doesn’t speak English. Our entire relationship is in Spanish, so even if people at the wedding could get a hold of him there was a language barrier. As it’s getting later and later, I start to feel his worry. When I travel we have micro moments of connection: updates of when I arrive at the hotel. Selfies and pictures of random things that I know will make him laugh and smile while he responds with “payaso.” Spanish for clown. He would be the first to clock that something was off and I start feeling into his isolation . . . his panic and dread in realizing that I may be missing.

I get teary as I imagine him stressed out in our apartment in Harlem, and it quickly transmutes to self-directed anger again. I can feel the beginning pangs of panic.

The Level 12 Capricorn takes over quickly with immense clarity: PANIC LEADS TO MISTAKES. It’s getting dark and I accept that there is a very strong chance that I will be spending the night here.

In this moment I am safe.
In this moment I am well.
In this moment I am loved.

There had been news of a polar vortex. Blizzards. Snow. Although peaceful now, I fear that nature will not cooperate.

My commitment is to stay with the car. Run the car with the headlights, hazard lights, and the heater on.

I choose to develop rituals when I have to step out of the car . . . primarily to go to the bathroom.

I turn off the car.
I unlock the door.
I put the keys to the car in my pocket.
I triple check that all the doors to the car are unlocked.
I use the fwiki fwiki.
I step outside and leave the driver’s door open.
I pick a spot where I pee.
I pick a spot where I gather fresh snow in my temperature-controlled water bottle. It won’t melt in there so I’m chewing ice to remain hydrated.
When I’m done, I step back inside the car.
I turn the car back on along with the headlights, hazard lights, and heater.
And I press the lock button 3 times to ensure that there is no way anything or anyone is going to get inside this car.

In this moment I am safe.
In this moment I am well.
In this moment I am loved.

I’m Cuban and my body is screaming for a siesta. My eyes get heavy. I recline the driver’s seat and close my eyes to take a nap.

Night

I wake with a start, the way you wake when your nervous system is doing security rounds without your consent. I look at the clock and it’s 7:00 p.m. The mountain, my little RAV4, and I are enveloped in darkness.

I honk the horn. Not as a strategy so much as a refusal. A way of letting the mountains, the sky, and the creek in the ravine below know THE SEA-LEVEL GAY IS STILL HERE DAMNIT!

Then I exhale.

I return to the mantra and repeat it like a lifeline.

In this moment I am safe.
In this moment I am well.
In this moment I am loved.

It settles me and I get comfortable in the driver’s seat.

I pick up and finish reading The Covenant of Water. I was halfway through the book at the beginning of the day and devour the remaining pages. I’m always afraid of finding myself with nothing to do, and always travel with multiple books and several magazines.

I pick up Malcolm Gladwell’s Talking to Strangers and immediately have the thought that only a person in crisis would have: This could be useful when the stranger arrives to rescue me. As I read the book, the premise becomes clear — human beings are notoriously bad at reading strangers — and I laugh again, quietly, alone, at my own timing.

At around 8:30 or 9, the solitude starts to morph into sadness. I choose to spend the night writing messages to my loved ones on WhatsApp. Not “I’m fine,” because I’m not sure I’m fine. Not “help,” because they can’t send me help. But the other kind of message — the kind you write when you are both an optimist and a pragmatist and you don’t want the people you love to be left with silence should this be my end.

I write to my partner in Spanish, because our relationship lives there. I write to my parents. I write to my identical twin brother. To my sister. To friends. To colleagues. The messages begin to resemble each other, the way a prayer resembles itself when you repeat it:

This is what’s happening. This is where I am. This is where I was going. And then different colors and flavors of “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

As I start to write, I feel the presence of my beloveds in the car with me. I feel the sanctuary of their loving embrace, the solace of their steady gaze, the soothing familiarity of their voice.

And then I have a thought that arrives like a cold finger to the ribs: If something happens to me, no one will see any of this.

I always travel with school supplies because I am, at heart, a queer fifth grader in need of contingency plans that can be solved with paper, highlighters, and felt-tip markers.

I tear a sheet of paper from one of my notebooks and write my name: Eduardo Félix Placer. Below that I write, “In case of emergency this is the code to unlock my phone XXXXXX. There are messages to my loved ones on WhatsApp. Please ensure that they’re delivered.”

I make two copies.

One stays in the car. One goes in my pocket. The redundancy is the point: if I’m separated from the vehicle, my identity and my love notes travel with me and there’s contingency to ensure the messages reach their intended destination.

Outside, the snow begins to fall — soft at first, then insistent. The world reduces itself to white and shadow. Whiteout outside. Blackout inside.

I write.
I read.

I have a sudden thought about carbon monoxide and the added potential danger of poisoning if the exhaust is covered because of the snow. I complete my rituals again as I prepare to step outside of the car to ensure that the tailpipe of the car is not covered. For now, it’s in the clear and I stay alert to the possibility of this danger and trust that keeping the engine running helps keep the system and myself breathing and alive.

I read.
I write.

The snow continues to pour down.

Sometime around 2 in the morning my eyelids get heavy.

I repeat my mantra like a prayer.

In this moment I am safe.
In this moment I am well.
In this moment I am loved.

I close my eyes.

My nervous system, for a few hours, lets go.

Morning has broken.

I wake around 6:00 a.m. with a start. It’s dawn. It has stopped snowing. The car is still running. The car feels cozy. I find myself singing the beginning lines of the Cat Stevens song, “Morning has broken, like the first morning.”

I’m energized.

I’M ALIVE.

I repeat my ritual to step outside of the car to ensure the tailpipe is in the clear and although a lot of snow accumulated over the evening, all is good.

I get back into the car and my Level 12 Capricorn brain takes over again.

By the time anyone would have realized that I was missing, it would have been dark. They would have reached out to the police, airports, etc., and they probably would have begun their search out of Aspen and not Vail. There had been a blizzard overnight, so they wouldn’t have started the search. They would start the search for me at daybreak. Sensible people wake around 7, eat breakfast, and mobilize by 8. I’m — by my memory — about an hour and a half away from the wedding venue. Two hours, maximum.

So: 9:30. 10:00. I can stay put for another couple of hours. If I can center myself and continue to keep the fear fairies at bay, time will fly and I’ll be rescued in no time. 10:00AM! Eyes on the prize.

I perform the rituals. I step out carefully — fwiki fwiki, door unlocked, keys in pocket.

I look at the road in both directions as if my gaze can conjure a vehicle.

Then my body presents a more immediate agenda: I have to shit.

The question becomes practical, then comedic: How do I wipe my ass?

The answer, unfortunately for the world of media and journalism, is: The New Yorker.

I take one of the magazines I always bring “just in case,” and I discover that I have, in fact, been preparing for this moment my entire adult life. I use the pages with images of choice political figures that are about to be inaugurated into office with almost ceremonial satisfaction and bury it in the snow.

I scout the road: walk a few minutes ahead, the curve disappearing into what looks like oblivion; walk back behind the car, the emptiness almost louder than the night’s silence. Return to the driver’s seat. Wait.

I have a thought: I’m a storyteller and a story doula. The situation is real, the danger is real — and still, I have agency. Being the protagonist becomes a survival strategy. I can keep my mind from spiraling by doing what I know how to do: make a story out of raw facts, scene by scene, decision by decision, until the narrative points toward the ending I can feel in my bones: rescue.

I open my notes app on my phone and start to write.

I look at the clock. 9:30AM. I honk the horn.

No one.

I scout the road again. Moving forward a couple minutes in the snow to the bend in the road because if someone’s coming from the venue, that’s the direction. I’m looking for some semblance of movement. A vehicle. A snowmobile. Something.

I make my way back to the car, settle my nervous system, and continue writing.

I look at the clock. 10:00AM. I honk the horn.

No one.

I get out of the car again. I follow my footprints in the snow as I move forward to the looking spot to see if there’s any sign of humanity. Nothing. I walk back past the car to see if there is anyone coming from behind. Nothing.

I walk back to the car. I turn on the car again and note that I’ve been with the car for 24 hours and have only used a quarter tank of gas. Worst case scenario, I have another three days where I can live like this.

I look at the clock again. 10:30AM. I honk the horn louder and longer.

I get outside of the car and move to my two chosen lookout points, always able to see the car. I can feel my anxiety start to rise.

“Where is everyone? Clearly they should be here by now! Stick to the plan. You’re doing great. You’re safe, well, and loved.”

I get back in the car and I realize that I have not had any caffeine since the previous morning. I address my body out loud and ask it — politely but firmly — to not stage a withdrawal coup. I need my energy. I need my focus. I cannot be negotiating headaches and discomfort along with my fate.

At 11:00 a.m., what has been simmering all morning finally comes to a boil:

No one is coming.
Not soon. Not on this road. Not in the way I expected.

Up to now, my strategy is simple: nighttime had said “Stay with the car. The car is shelter. The car is the safest place to be.” Every nerve in my body had agreed.

But daylight has its own argument. Daylight says: “You have 5–6 hours of sunlight left. You can move. You can choose. You can walk for 2–3 hours and if you don’t find any help, you have another 2–3 hours of daylight to get back to the car.”

Forward is a blank, the road folding into the mountain like a secret. Backward is known geography — the way I came, the direction of Vail. The terrain is rural. Houses, if they exist, are far apart. It’s Colorado, and I have the grim awareness that wandering onto someone’s property is not merely awkward; it can be dangerous in a gun-happy country.

I look at the clock.

11:11AM

Some people read numbers as coincidence. I read them as a nudge. In numerology and some spiritual teachings it could be an indicator of synchronicity, or an alignment of your true path.

11:11 feels like a full sentence with a period.

Daylight strategy wins.

I make three signs and place them on the dashboard where they’ll be seen. If I disappear, I want to leave a clear trail behind me. On the first sheet, I write my name. I write where I’m going. On the second, I write the phone numbers of my mother and sister. On the third, I write the numbers of my friends at the wedding.

I strip my backpack down and rebuild it the way you pack when you know you’re doing something risky: extra underwear, thermals, thick socks, gloves, hats. My water bottle. Some New Yorker magazines just in case. Warmth is currency. I take the snow brush as a talisman and a potential weapon to protect me from wildlife.

I step out of the car.

Press the fwiki fwiki three times.

The car is locked and I begin walking down the mountain.

Thirty minutes into the walk, the scenery changes: I pass the barrier arm. I hit real road. My world expands by inches and then by miles.

Walking becomes easier as my feet leave the unplowed snow and touch asphalt.

And then I see them.

Two vehicles. Moving towards me.

I wave my arms like I’m directing an aircraft, because after twenty-four hours of silence, I am not about to be subtle.

They make their way up to me and roll down the window.

The Sheriff asks, “Are you Eduardo Placer?”

I choke back tears as I look at him and say,

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.
I once was lost, and now I am found.”

They fill me in on the rescue from their point of view. A missing-persons report had been filed by my friends at the wedding around 9:00 p.m., and — like I had suspected — they began searching in Aspen. They hit dead ends quickly; night falls, the blizzard intensifies, and at a certain point they’re forced to call off the search until morning. By then, contact has been made with my partner and my mother, and they’re able to track my rental car back to Vail — trying to geotrace the vehicle and locate any cellular activity that might narrow down where I am.

Overnight, the blizzard had wiped the tracks of my vehicle. And even if the tracks had been there, they tell me they wouldn’t have believed the story the tracks were trying to tell: they didn’t think a rental car like mine could have made it that far up the pass. That’s why they say, plainly, that if I hadn’t moved when I did — if I hadn’t changed strategy at 11:11 — they likely wouldn’t have found me for a couple more days.

And then they tell me something else: that I’m very loved. That there have been a lot of people working behind the scenes — supporting the search, coordinating, praying.

And that’s the part that lands the deepest — not because I doubt prayer, but because it confirms what I’d been trying to remember, enveloped by the darkness, in a little RAV4 in the middle of a blizzard, stuck on the side of a mountain: I am not alone. I am not solitary. I am held by the universe — and all the love that I fiercely and fearlessly project from my queer Cuban heart to the world was reflected back to me in my greatest moment of need.

We walk back uphill for my belongings, since they’re unwilling to drive their vehicles up the pass. I show them what I did to stay safe, and they tell me I did everything right. They take pictures of the notes I left on the dashboard. Then they help me haul my luggage down the mountain. They are gentlemen and carry my luggage for me.

It looks like the sea-level gay has passed the mountain-gay test with flying colors.

Back in range

Once we cross into cell range, the phone begins to behave like a phone again. The WhatsApp messages — those love notes written in the dark — start leaving the car all at once, like birds finally released from a cage. People who knew I was missing are relieved. People who didn’t know are bewildered and alarmed.

“What are you talking about?” they say, which is fair.

I call my partner. I call my mother. I call my siblings. I speak to the bride and groom and hear the cheers of the wedding guests in the background as the story starts taking shape in real time. What had lived in my head — then on paper, then in unsent WhatsApp drafts — now comes to life as I start recounting what happened out loud. I start weaving together the events of the past 24 hours, and the story accelerates toward a resolution.

At the airport, the car rental attendants offer me Domino’s pizza. I accept with a devotion usually reserved for a fine-dining tasting menu — savoring every bite like it’s the most exquisite meal I’ve ever tasted. For the first time in 24 hours, I drink liquid water — not snow, not ice.

The tow costs almost $3,000. It requires a special vehicle. I pay it because I am alive and because money, in the presence of mortality, becomes strangely abstract.

I rent another car because this journey always had a destination: my friend’s wedding. And somewhere in the long night — between rituals, mantras, and messages — I realize something that becomes both anchor and strategy: I am not crafting a tragedy. A tragedy ends in death. A comedy ends with a wedding. I’m not dead, and the wedding starts in 2.5 hours.

The officers watch me plug the address into Google Maps this time and confirm that this is the correct way to get to the venue.

Someone from the wedding party meets me at the Whole Foods parking lot so that I don’t have to trek up the last couple of miles alone. I follow him up the real road — the one Waze did not give me, the one I should have taken from the very beginning.

When I arrive at the Beyul Retreat, I walk in as vows are being spoken. The ceremony is in motion without me. My co-officiant stands performing the sacred ritual, and I take my place as witness — in circle with this beloved group of humans who prayed and pulled for my safe return.

Afterward, I do what I came to do: I say thank you.

I thank the people who sounded the alarm. I thank the people who coordinated with my family. I thank the mountain community that held me with logistics, love, and prayer.

At the wedding reception, I sit next to the married couple and ask if I can offer a toast. Between my WhatsApp messages to my family — pragmatist and optimist that I am — I had thought, There’s still a chance I’ll make it. So I prepared a blessing. And because I didn’t make it in time to officiate, I offer myself up instead as their Fairy Godmother — which they lovingly accept.

I sit back down beside them as we nourish our bodies with the most delicious food in the warmth of the lodge, and I feel the circle complete. The story has an ending. Not the one fear tried to write — one of loss, one of disappearance, one of death — but the one I kept choosing, scene by scene, decision by decision: a world in which I arrive, alive, and love in all its manifestations wins.

And because I’d already offered to be their Fairy Godmother, it feels almost inevitable that the story would insist on a little magic of its own.

The magic

Later that evening, I mention to several guests the 11:11 moment and the synchronicity of that symbol and the decision to choose a new strategy that led to my rescue. My co-officiant shares that at 11:11 — on the mountain — she was leading an ecstatic prayer. People chanting. A fervent communal invocation:

“Eduardo, come home. Eduardo, come home. Eduardo, warm your bones.”

Sixty bodies, gathered, shouting my name into the air, calling me to safety.

My sister, in Boston, looks at her phone at 1:11 p.m. Eastern — 11:11 a.m. Mountain. She screenshots it because 1/11 is my birthday. Desperately trying to keep calm with her husband and daughters, this sign comforts her and she senses that I will be okay. She says to herself that I’m going to be okay.

My grandmother died on January 17th. I am found on January 18th — my grandfather’s birthday.

You can call it magic. You can call it miracles. You can call it coincidence.

Or you can call it what I call it: being held — by friends, by family, by lineage, by the living, by the dead, by the heavens, by the universe — beautifully conspiring toward a happy ending.

EPILOGUE

January 17, 2026

I find myself surprisingly emotional as I take an early morning Uber from Harlem to JFK. I’m not heading to the mountains; I’m heading to Maui to celebrate my birthday with my twin brother, his family, and my mother.

Instagram reels are reducing me to tears. My heart feels tender — little micro-releases of the memory of that ordeal. And somewhere between the Van Wyck Expressway and Terminal 4, I commit to finishing and sharing the complete story of my mountain adventure.

Here is what surprises me, one year later, as I continue to make sense of what happened.

First: I found competence by refusing a story of incompetence.

In the car, my inner critic is loud. I am furious at myself. I am certain I am incompetent. I am playing the old tapes — about masculinity, about preparedness, about being a sea-level gay in a landscape that seems to demand a competence I don’t believe I possess.

I quickly stop engaging with that narrative. I stop feeding the story that I’m helpless, clueless, doomed. I return to what I know in that moment to be true and make measured and practical choices: stay with the shelter, keep the car warm, stay visible, avoid panic, don’t make it worse. I make rituals. I make signs. I make a plan. I execute it.

And later, when the rescuers tell me I did everything right — trusted my instincts, prioritized shelter, stayed with the vehicle, made myself visible, avoided panic decisions, left notes, walked at the right moment — I realize the most surprising part isn’t their validation.

It’s that competence was there the whole time.

I didn’t become competent when they found me. I became competent the moment I refused to let fear narrate me as incompetent.

So this is a story about self-trust as a way to find steadiness inside the spiral.

Second: prayer is a social technology.

I understand, more deeply than I did then, that prayer is also a focusing device: collective energy and intention pointed toward a single outcome.

And I don’t just mean prayer in the traditional sense. The mantra that emerges for me in the car becomes its own kind of prayer — an invocation I return to, again and again, to steady my nervous system and keep me oriented toward life.

My partner prayed alone in our bedroom in Spanish, keeping vigil while he waited for news. A guest at the wedding — an atheist who didn’t grow up with any religious tradition — prayed for the first time in his life. A woman on the mountain found herself praying the rosary, recalling words she hadn’t recited since she was a child. And on the mountain, there is also ecstatic communal prayer — full voice, full body, a chant carried by a circle of people calling me home.

Whether you believe in supernatural intervention or not, prayer — silent, spoken, shouted, or chanted — is a way of refusing helplessness.

So yes — this is a story about the power of prayer.

Third: storytelling was a life-saving tool.

Not in the sentimental way — though yes, it consoles. In the practical way.

Story is how I stay in the driver’s seat.
Story is how I prevent fear from turning into frenzy.
Story is how I track time, make decisions, and keep my mind from dissolving into worst-case hallucinations.

I am a storyteller and a story doula. I’m in the work of piecing events together to illuminate meaning. I do it for clients. I do it for audiences. And for those terrifying 24 hours in January, I do it for myself — sentence by sentence, message by message, mantra by mantra.

An unexpected event forces a protagonist to reckon with his greatest enemy. Not the mountain. Not the blizzard. My biggest enemy is fear itself. The story becomes scaffolding. It becomes shelter. I am clear, even then, that this is not going to end as a tragedy. I am writing my way toward a happy ending, and my choices begin to align with that conclusion.

And in the year since — during a political moment that often feels like a national whiteout, a collective nervous system on fire — I find myself returning to the same practice: locate the moment, name what is true, refuse to let fear do the driving.

However this story meets you — whatever you need from it, whatever you recognize in it, whatever meaning you are able to extract — may it be of service.

In this moment, may you be safe.
In this moment, may you be well.
In this moment, may you remember you are loved.

Postscript

When my phone comes back to life, this is one of the first messages that finds me — my identical twin brother, coordinating from Hawaii. My message to him and his message to me were being sent at approximately the same time:

“I love u. If you get this message, they are resuming the search at first light. They think you are on Cottonwood Pass. Stay with the car and run the car to stay warm. They will go to rental car places in the morning to try and get the license plate of the car to geo trace it. The phone towers are too far apart to accurately locate you with your phone. There is a universe praying for you that loves your being and your light. As always — draw from me what you need to make it through the night.” Javi

This Thursday, you’re speaking in public. At your Thanksgiving table. Here’s how to create Zonas de Amor — zones of love where everyone belongs.

As a Belonging Architect, I’ve spent years studying how leaders create spaces where people feel genuinely seen, valued, and connected. But this Thanksgiving will be different for me — it’s the first without my father, Papi, who we lost in August.

His absence will be loud at our table. And I have a choice: pretend it’s not happening, or create what I call a Zona de Amor — a zone of love where we can hold both grief and gratitude, loss and laughter, the beautiful and the broken.

This Thursday, millions of people will gather around tables. Most will sleepwalk through rituals, settle for small talk, and miss three profound opportunities to use their voices as bridge-building tools.

This guide is for anyone who wants something different. Who wants to create real connection instead of polite performance. Who’s navigating complicated family dynamics, multicultural gatherings, or their first holiday without someone they love.

You’ll learn:

• How to give grace (religious or secular) that sets the tone for authentic belonging
• Specific questions that unlock meaningful stories across generations and cultures
• How to speak gratitude that creates genuine connection (not generic platitudes)
• How to make space for grief while honoring joy
• Year-round applications for leadership and workplace communication

Whether you’re at a Thanksgiving table, in a team meeting, or on a stage — these principles will help you become a Belonging Architect.

Let’s begin.

You’re Speaking This Thursday (Whether You Planned To Or Not)!

This Thursday, you’re going to stand up and speak in front of a room full of people.

Some of them will be watching you closely. Others will be distracted by their phones or the football game. A few might be dreading what you’re about to say.

Not because you’re giving a keynote. Because you’re sitting down at a Thanksgiving table.

Here’s what most people miss: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PRIVATE SPEAKING! Public speaking isn’t just stages and boardrooms. It’s also in how we show up for the people we love — our blood families and our chosen families.

The communication skills you use to lead teams, pitch ideas, and build workplace culture? They matter even more when you’re trying to build connection with the people who matter most.

This Thanksgiving, you have the opportunity to become a Belonging Architect — someone who deliberately creates conversational spaces where people feel like they genuinely belong.

You have three profound opportunities to use your voice as a bridge-building tool:

• The Power of Ritual Speech (Giving Grace)
• Communication Architecture for Belonging (Sharing Memories Through Storytelling)
• The Vulnerability of Spoken Gratitude (Saying What Matters Out Loud)

Let’s break down how to make each one count — and how these skills translate to the conversations you have, all year long.

SECTION 1: The Power of Ritual Speech — Grace as Leadership Communication

The Moment:

Someone clears their throat. The room quiets down (mostly). All eyes turn to one person. They’re about to give grace.

This is a ritual speech — a formalized moment of collective pause before a shared experience. And most of us sleepwalk through it.

You cannot build belonging through small talk. You build it through shared stories

What Usually Happens:

“Dear Lord, thank you for this food, for family, for health. Amen.”

Fifteen seconds. Generic. Forgettable. Everyone immediately reaches for the mashed potatoes.

What Could Happen:

Grace — whether religious or secular — is an opportunity to set the emotional tone for the entire gathering. It’s your opening statement. Your thesis. Your invitation for how you want people to show up.

This is your first moment as a Belonging Architect.

How to Give Grace That Actually Matters:

1. Make Eye Contact First

Before you speak, look around the table. Let people feel that you’re present. This isn’t performance — it’s presence.

2. Speak to the Room, Not to the Ceiling

Even if your grace is a prayer, you’re speaking for the people at the table. Use language that includes everyone’s beliefs and backgrounds.

Try: “I want to take a moment to acknowledge that we’re here together. That’s not guaranteed. That’s not automatic. That’s a gift.”

3. Name What’s Real

This year has been hard for some people at your table. Don’t pretend otherwise. Authentic grace acknowledges both gratitude and struggle:

“Some of us are carrying heavy things right now. And we’re still here. That takes courage. Let’s honor that.”

4. Invite Connection

When I share grace, I center our interconnectedness — the land, the hands that cultivated the soil, the care that prepared this food we’re about to consume together. All the life, love, and labor that will nourish our bodies and our spirits.

As you close your grace, offer an invitation, not a period:

“Let’s eat together. Let’s listen to each other. Let’s make this table a place where everyone belongs.”

The Leadership Lesson:

Ritual speech — whether it’s grace at Thanksgiving, opening remarks at a meeting, or a toast at a celebration — is about setting the container for what comes next.

Belonging Architects understand that how you open a space determines how people show up in it.

Leaders who rush through rituals miss the opportunity to establish psychological safety, shared values, and collective intention.

Year-Round Application:

How do you open team meetings? With rushed logistics or with intentional connection?

How do you begin presentations? With apologies or with grounded presence?

How do you start difficult conversations? With defensiveness or with acknowledgment of shared humanity?

Grace isn’t just about religion. It’s about giving people permission to be fully human together.

SECTION 2: Communication Architecture for Belonging — Building Community Through Storytelling

The Moment:

The meal is underway. Small talk about traffic and weather is dying down. The room settles into that familiar rhythm of polite conversation that goes nowhere.

Someone needs to ask a better question.

This is where most Thanksgiving gatherings flatline into polite boredom or devolve into political arguments. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

The Problem with Small Talk:

Small talk keeps us safe. It’s surface-level. Transactional. Forgettable.

“How was traffic?” “Cold enough for you?” “How’s work?”

We ask these questions not because we’re curious, but because we’re uncomfortable with silence. We’re performing connection without actually creating it.

But here’s what it costs us: You cannot build community through small talk. You build community through shared stories.

What I Call “Communication Architecture for Belonging”

At the root of community is communication. At the root of communication is communion — being in sacred connection with one another.

These words share the same origin for a reason. They’re inseparable.

Communication architecture for belonging is the deliberate practice of creating conversational spaces — through the questions we ask, the stories we invite, and the listening we offer — where people feel like they genuinely belong.

Just as architects design physical structures that shape how people move, gather, and interact, we can architect belonging through how we communicate.

And one of the most powerful tools for building belonging is informal storytelling: the sharing of memories, cultural specificity, and intergenerational narratives that remind us we’re part of something larger than ourselves.

This Thanksgiving, you have the opportunity to be a Belonging Architect. To design conversational spaces where real connection happens.

Here’s how:

1. Ask Specific Prompts (Not Generic Questions)

Generic questions get generic answers.

Don’t ask: “How’s everyone doing?”

That question is so broad, so safe, that the only possible answer is “Fine.” And then the conversation dies.

Try one of these instead:

“What’s a Thanksgiving memory that always makes you smile?”

“What’s a family tradition you’d want to pass down — or one you’d want to change?”

“Who taught you how to cook your favorite dish, and what did you learn from them beyond the recipe?”

“What’s a story from before I was born that shaped this family?”

Notice the difference?

Specific prompts unlock specific stories. They give people permission to go deeper. They signal: “I’m not asking out of politeness. I actually want to know.”

The Leadership Lesson:

The quality of your questions determines the quality of your conversations.

Leaders who ask lazy questions (“How’s the project going?”) get surface-level updates.

Belonging Architects ask specific, curious questions (“What surprised you most this week?” “What obstacle are you navigating right now?”) and get real insight.

Communication architecture starts with better questions.

2. Create Space for Cultural Specificity

Not everyone at your table shares the same heritage, traditions, or history.

That’s not a problem to smooth over. That’s the richness.

Too often, we try to find the “common ground” by avoiding what makes us different. We aim for the blandest, most universal conversation possible so no one feels left out.

But here’s the paradox: We don’t build belonging by erasing difference. We build it by honoring difference.

This Thanksgiving, invite people to bring their whole selves to the table:

Ask:

“What did Thanksgiving (or harvest celebrations) look like in your family growing up?”

“How does your cultural background influence what gratitude means to you?”

“What foods on this table tell your family’s story?”

Here’s what I mean:

Growing up in Miami with a Cuban-American family in a very Cuban-dominant city, our Thanksgiving was “traditionally” American — turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, the whole Norman Rockwell scene.

But my extended family in the Northeast? They didn’t live in a Cuban-dominant community. For them, assimilation looked different. Their Thanksgiving table had turkey with black beans and rice, and bowl of yuca lathered in mojo criollo.

Same family. Same heritage. Two completely different expressions of belonging.

Miami didn’t need the black beans and rice to prove we were Cuban — the whole city was Cuban. But in the Northeast, those black beans and yuca were a quiet declaration: “We’re here, and we’re still us.”

What dishes on this table tell your story?

When you invite cultural specificity, you’re doing something profound: You’re saying that people don’t have to shrink themselves to belong.

That’s communication architecture. That’s how you build a table — and a team, and a community — where everyone can breathe.

The Leadership Lesson:

Inclusive leadership isn’t about treating everyone “the same.” It’s about creating space where people can bring their full identities without code-switching, without hiding, without shrinking.

Belonging Architects understand that the best teams aren’t the ones where everyone assimilates to the dominant culture. They’re the ones where difference is seen as strength.

Context matters. A Latinx employee in Miami experiences their identity differently than a Latinx employee in Maine. An LGBTQ+ person in San Francisco navigates their identity differently than an LGBTQ+ person in a small Southern town.

Communication architecture acknowledges those differences. It doesn’t demand one “right” way to show up.

3. Honor Intergenerational Storytelling

The elders at your table carry institutional memory. The younger generations carry fresh perspectives. Both are essential.

But most Thanksgiving tables operate on implicit hierarchies:

1. Elders at one table and young people at another where no intergenerational conversations are occuring.
2. Elders talk, young people listen (and scroll their phones)
3. Or young people dominate with their opinions while elders stay quiet

Communication architecture breaks that pattern.

It creates conversational structures where wisdom flows in both directions.

Try this:

Ask grandparents or elders to share: “What was Thanksgiving like when you were my age? What’s changed? What’s stayed the same?”

Then ask kids or young adults: “When you have your own Thanksgiving someday, what traditions do you want to keep? What will you do differently?”

This does something powerful: It creates a narrative bridge across generations.

It says: “Your story matters. You belong to something bigger than yourself. And what you do today will echo into the future.”

The Leadership Lesson:

Organizations have institutional memory in their long-tenured employees and fresh perspectives in their newest hires. Both are necessary.

Leaders who only listen to senior voices stagnate. Leaders who only listen to new voices lack context.

Belonging Architects honor both. They create structures (like “listening circles” or “reverse mentorship”) where wisdom flows in all directions.

4. Do the Hardest Part: LISTEN Without Interrupting

Here’s where most people fail at communication architecture.

You ask a great question. Someone starts telling a vulnerable, meaningful story.

And then you:

1. Interrupt with your own story
2. Try to fix their problem
3. One-up their experience
4. Check your phone

Don’t.

Listening without interrupting, fixing, or performing is one of the hardest communication skills to master. It’s also the most powerful.

Because here’s the truth: Most people aren’t looking for solutions. They’re looking to be witnessed.

When someone finishes their story, resist the urge to immediately respond with your story or advice.

Try this instead:

“Thank you for sharing that.”

“I didn’t know that about you.”

“That must have been hard/beautiful/complicated.”

“Tell me more about that.”

That’s it. That’s the whole job.

Witness their story. Let it land. Give it space to breathe.

The Difference It Makes:

When you truly listen — without agenda, without interruption — you’re doing something radical:

You’re telling someone: “Your experience matters. You don’t have to earn my attention. You already belong here.”

That’s communication architecture. That’s how belonging gets built.

The Leadership Lesson:

The leaders people trust most aren’t the ones with all the answers. They’re the ones who make people feel heard.

Belonging Architects understand that in one-on-ones, in team meetings, in difficult conversations — the quality of your listening determines the quality of your relationships.

Active listening isn’t passive. It’s one of the most generous, powerful things you can do.

5. Share Stories of the Past — Make History Present

Thanksgiving tables are time machines.

They hold stories of people who aren’t here anymore. Of struggles that shaped who we became. Of choices that echo into the present.

Communication architecture makes those stories visible.

Ask:

“Who’s missing from this table that we wish was here? What would they say if they were?”

“What’s a family story that gets told every year? Why does it matter?”

“What’s a hard moment from our past that we don’t talk about enough?”

This last question is risky. But it’s also necessary.

Because families — like organizations — carry unspoken histories. Losses. Conflicts. Migrations. Betrayals. Survivals.

When we only tell the “highlight reel” stories, we create a false belonging. A belonging that only works if you pretend the hard parts don’t exist.

Real belonging includes the whole story. The beautiful and the broken.

Example:

This Thanksgiving is the first my family is experiencing without my father, who we lost at the beginning of August.

His absence will be loud at our table. In the empty chair. In the stories we wish we could tell him. In the laughter that catches in our throats.

We could pretend it’s not happening. We could rush past the grief. We could fill the silence with small talk and forced cheerfulness.

But that wouldn’t honor him. And it wouldn’t honor us.

So instead, we’ll name it. We’ll ask: “What do we miss most about Papi?” “What commentary would he offer about this meal?” “What story about him should we make sure we never forget?”

Marking this moment as a family is not only an opportunity to honor his memory — it’s also an opportunity to give air to the loss and make room for the grief.

Because here’s what I know from lived experience: Grief doesn’t go away when we ignore it. It just goes underground.

And when we create space for it — when we speak it out loud, when we witness each other’s pain — we don’t make it worse. We make it bearable.

That’s communication architecture for belonging. Making room for the whole truth. The beautiful and the broken.

The Leadership Lesson:

Organizations that only celebrate wins and ignore failures create cultures of fear.

Teams that never acknowledge loss — whether it’s a departed colleague, a failed project, or a painful restructuring — signal that hard truths aren’t welcome here.

When leaders share stories of past challenges — “Here’s a project that failed and what we learned” or “Here’s someone we miss and what they taught us” — they create psychological safety.

They signal: “You can be honest here. You can struggle here. You still belong.”

The strongest teams aren’t the ones that never experience loss. They’re the ones that know how to grieve together and keep moving forward.

The Bottom Line: You Are a Belonging Architect

This Thursday, you won’t just be passing mashed potatoes and making small talk.

You’ll be designing conversational spaces.

You’ll be deciding: Does this table feel like a place where people can be honest? Where difference is honored? Where stories are witnessed?

That’s what Belonging Architects do.

It’s not about having the “perfect” Thanksgiving. It’s about creating the conditions where real connection can happen.

And here’s the beautiful part: These same skills work everywhere.

1. In your team meetings
2. In your one-on-ones
3. In your difficult conversations
4. In your keynote speeches
5. In your everyday interactions

Communion. Communication. Community.

They’re not three separate things. They’re three dimensions of the same practice:

The practice of creating spaces where people feel like they belong.

What stories will you invite at your Thanksgiving table this Thursday?

Drop your thoughts in the comments. I want to hear how you’re architecting belonging.

SECTION 3: The Vulnerability of Spoken Gratitude — Specificity as Connection

The Moment:

Someone suggests going around the table to share what everyone’s grateful for.

Cue the awkward shuffle. The vague platitudes. The rushed, generic answers.

“I’m grateful for family.” “I’m grateful for health.” “I’m grateful for this food.”

True. Safe. Completely forgettable.

Here’s the truth: Vague gratitude doesn’t build connection. Specific gratitude does.

The Problem with Generic Gratitude:

When we speak gratitude in generalities, we protect ourselves from vulnerability. We say the “right” thing without risking real emotion.

But gratitude without specificity is just polite noise.

How to Speak Gratitude That Matters:

1. Name the Person

Don’t say: “I’m grateful for family.”

Say: “Mom, I’m grateful for how you always call me after a hard day to check in — even when I don’t respond right away. It reminds me I’m not alone.”

See the difference?

The first version could apply to anyone. The second version can only apply to your mom. That’s what makes it powerful.

2. Name the Action

Don’t say: “I’m grateful for my friends.”

Say: “Charlie, I’m grateful for all the visits you made to my apartment when I was convalescing after multiple leg surgeries.”

Specific actions = specific memories = specific connection.

3. Name the Impact

Don’t say: “I’m grateful for good health.”

Say: “I’m grateful that my body carried me through a year that tried to break me. I’m grateful for therapy, for medication, for the people who held me when I couldn’t hold myself.”

This level of specificity requires vulnerability. And vulnerability is the currency of deep connection.

4. Make It Uncomfortable (In a Good Way)

Real gratitude should make you feel something. If your gratitude feels safe and easy to say, you’re probably not going deep enough.

Try this test: If what you’re about to say is making you a bit misty, you’re on the right track.

The Leadership Lesson:

Leaders who practice specific, vulnerable gratitude create cultures where people feel genuinely valued — not just generically appreciated.

“Great job, team” means nothing.

“Sarah, the way you made space for quieter voices in yesterday’s meeting showed me what inclusive leadership actually looks like and that you’re an extraordinary team player. Thank you for modeling that” means everything.

Belonging Architects understand that specific gratitude is a bridge. It says: “I see you. Not the role you play, but YOU. And you matter.”

Year-Round Application:

1. In performance reviews: Name specific moments, not general traits
2. In thank-you notes: Describe the impact of someone’s action, not just the action itself
3. In team celebrations: Tell the story of how someone contributed, not just that they did
4. In difficult feedback: Name what you’re grateful for before naming what needs to change

CONCLUSION: Your Voice as a Year-Round Bridge-Building Tool

This Thursday, you’ll sit at a table with people you love, people you’re learning to love, and people you’re choosing to show up for.

You’ll have three opportunities to use your voice as a tool for connection:

1. Give grace with intention — set the emotional tone for presence and belonging
2. Facilitate storytelling — create space for memories, cultural specificity, and intergenerational narrative
3. Speak specific gratitude — name people, actions, and impact with vulnerability

These aren’t just Thanksgiving skills. These are Belonging Architect skills.

The same communication principles that help you build a meaningful Thanksgiving gathering will help you:

1. Lead more effective, human-centered meetings
2. Build psychological safety on your teams
3. Navigate difficult conversations with empathy and clarity
4. Create workplaces where people feel seen, valued, and connected to shared purpose

Your voice is one of your most powerful tools. Not just for delivering presentations or pitching ideas, but for architecting belonging everywhere you go.

So this Thursday, don’t sleepwalk through the rituals. Don’t settle for small talk. Don’t hide behind vague gratitude.

Show up. Speak up. Architect belonging.

And then take those same skills into every room you enter for the rest of the year.

What will YOU say at your Thanksgiving table this Thursday?

I’d love to hear in the comments:

• The prompts you’re planning to ask
• The stories you’re hoping to invite
• How you’re making space for the whole truth — the beautiful and the broken

If this resonated, please clap 👏 (hold down the clap button for up to 50 claps — it helps others find this).

And share it with someone navigating a complicated table, a first holiday without someone they love, or anyone trying to create more meaningful connection.

Want to go deeper?

• Follow me on Medium for more on Public Speaking, Presence, and Communication Architecture for Belonging.
• Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eduardoplacer/
• Work with me: Keynotes, workshops, and 1:1 coaching at www.fearlesscommunicators.com

Here’s to speaking with courage, clarity, and heart. 🦃💛

— Eduardo

About Eduardo Placer:

Eduardo Placer is a Story Doula — a communication coach, event MC, keynote speaker, and facilitator who helps leaders create “zones of love” wherever they go.

Trained as an actor and forged through lived experience as a gay Cuban-American, Eduardo teaches that authentic communication isn’t about perfecting your performance. It’s about architecting belonging.

Connect with Eduardo on LinkedIn or learn more about him and his WERK at www.fearlesscommunicators.com and www.eduardoplacer.com

I want to begin by expressing my profound gratitude.

For you. For all that you’re up to. For the light that you share with your family, friends and colleagues. For taking a couple minutes out of your day to read this article. May this message be of service.

I had a fall at the end of October and severed the tendon that connects my quadriceps to my knee. Since the end of November I’ve had three leg surgeries. One was the initial repair to the tendon. Six weeks later I re-injured the leg and went back into surgery for the same issue.

I have been informed by the “meaning committee” in my life, that the lesson in left leg injuries is around RECEIVING and in the knee specifically around FLEXIBILITY. Clearly I hadn’t learned enough around receiving and flexibility . . . because at the end of January, I reinjured the leg and had surgery again to repair the tendon.

On Friday, February 9 (10 days after my second surgery), I noticed my leg swelling and over the course of the next 24 hours it got progressively worse. On Saturday afternoon, February 10, I started feeling a post-surgery level of pain in my leg. After three tries, I finally got a hold of my doctor and made my way to the Emergency Room in Manhattan.

Tired, on crutches and in pain I made a conscious choice as I approached the window to be admitted into the Emergency Room. I told myself that I was going to begin EVERY CONVERSATION WITH GRATITUDE.

I looked at the gentleman who was just starting his shift and said, “Before I give you my ID and my insurance card, I want to begin by expressing my profound gratitude for you. I know it’s a weekend and you have a long shift ahead of you, and I want you to know that I’m grateful for the care and consideration you’re going to give me. I’m in pain and I’m tired, and I trust that you are here to be a partner in my receiving extraordinary care.”

He looked up.

Shocked.

He softened.

HE SAW ME, BECAUSE I BEGAN BY SEEING HIM.

I said the same thing to the nurse who started taking my vitals and instead of sitting in the waiting room, I was immediately put on a bed and wheeled to see the on call orthopedic emergency resident.

I repeated the practice with the ER nurses, the woman who confirmed my insurance and ID (who literally told through tears that my acknowledgement made her day, her week and her month), with the ambulance drivers who had to take me to another hospital to continue to administer tests on the leg, with everyone at the second emergency room I was taken to at 11PM that same evening . . .

I woke up the following morning at 7:45AM, repeated the gratitude to the Orthopedic resident standing over my bed, where she informed me that they had discovered a pseudo aneurysm behind the knee and that I would be undergoing emergency vascular surgery in 25 minutes. I was under the care of one of the best Vascular surgeons in NYC and that my Orthopedic surgeon was also going to be in the room.

I was wheeled into the operating theater and there was a flurry of equipment and human beings, all strangers, getting the room and me ready for the procedure. As the two surgeons walked in, I called them and said to them,

“Please bring the entire team here.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and approached me, laying down on the narrow, cold surgical table.

I looked at them all and then said, “Before this surgery I want to express my profound and deepest gratitude for the care you are going to give me. For the sacrifices you made in service of your medical training, for the countless hours of study, practice and preparation . . .for the struggles you’ve had . . . it’s a Sunday morning and you are here in this moment with me as agents of my care and well being. For all that has brought you to this moment to offer your best in my healing I want to say thank you!”

THEY HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO SEE ME, BECAUSE I SAW THEM FIRST.

The anesthesia kicked in and I passed out.

I continued that practice again, with every human being who walked into the room after the surgery . . . to deliver food, to clean the room, to draw blood and take my vitals. I was discharged from the hospital on Monday, February 12.

I am a little over a week out from this ordeal and luckily none of the orthopedic work was compromised by the emergency vascular surgery. I continue on my healing journey. My leg is locked in a leg brace and I can’t bend my knee until the first week of April.

As I have been sharing about my Gratitude-a-rama with friends and colleagues, I have been left with an observation and question.

We often express and acknowledge AFTER we experience great care or exceptional service.

What if instead of waiting for gratitude and acknowledgement, we LEAD with it?

I felt like I drew forth the best possible care for myself because I created every single human being around me as an agent and partner in my well being. The look of surprise and shock on EVERY SINGLE FACE when I began my gratitude confirmed how uncommon it was for them to be seen and acknowledged.

And now for a transition to public speaking . . .

I am the founder of Fearless Communicators, and run a global public speaking coaching business. This experience got me thinking about the formal and informal opportunities individuals are called forth to share their message and expertise.

So . . . imagine your at your next public speaking opportunity. (I like to say there is no such thing as PRIVATE SPEAKING . . . ALL SPEAKING IS PUBLIC.) Whether it’s a formal opportunity and you’re speaking in front of hundreds of humans, or it’s a presentation for colleagues or potential clients. What if instead of saving your gratitude and acknowledgement until the end, you LEAD WITH IT.

I invite you to approach the event planners, the sound technician, the people who set the room up, the stage manager, your audience, your fellow colleagues, your potential clients . . .

Look them in the eyes . . .

and share deeply from your heart . . .

“Before I begin, I would like to express my profound gratitude . . .”

Wait and watch.

SEE THEM FIRST, ALLOWING THEM TO FULLY SEE YOU.

Magic will happen.

The email comes in. I feel a pit in my stomach. It’s 1:30 PM. Friday, April 17. It’s the end of week 5 of Social Distancing and Quarantining. The notification from Chase Bank arrives about the status of my PPP Loan.

I have been attune to the news and am aware that the initial money allocated to the program has run out, and although I am skeptical that I’ll receive this initial funding, there is still a sliver of hope.

On Friday, April 3rd, I submit the preliminary information that CHASE required to begin the application process on the Chase.com portal. It’s the day the program is LIVE. Chase promises to communicate the next step in the coming days.

I wait.

On Tuesday, April 7th, around 11AM, I make my way to the Chase Website to see if there are any updates. To my surprise the application is now LIVE. I spring into action, call my bookkeeper, and submit the application just before 2PM. Almost immediately after I hit send there is a moment of panic because I’m not given a confirmation number and I forget to take a screenshot of the completion page. I refresh my inbox for 45 minutes until a confirmation email finally arrives. Later that evening I receive an email from CHASE telling me that the applications are now LIVE on their website. I take a deep breath. I have done all there is for me to do.

I wait.

I continue to wait.

There is ZERO communication from Chase until I receive this email from Jennifer Roberts, CEO of Chase Business Banking on April 17th.

I read the email. Feel all the feelings. Walk over to the printer. Print the email. Grab a red felt tip marker and get to work.

I am a small business owner. I am a client of Chase Bank. There is a global pandemic. I shouldn’t be chasing CHASE for a shred of humanity and a touch of class in their communication.

As a communications expert, I chose to examine what was missing in this notification. What could have communicated effective and human-centered leadership in the midst of a global crisis?

What I uncovered were the 5 Principles necessary to communicate and build trust: RESPONSIBILITY, ACCOUNTABILITY, TRANSPARENCY, EMPATHY and MANAGING EXPECTATIONS or what I’m now calling RATE ME™.

RESPONSIBILITY — There are things that you can control and things that you cannot. Own what you’ve done well, and acknowledge what you have not. “We will do better, in the next few days” is not good enough. Do Better Now.

ACCOUNTABILITY — Both Houses of Congress and the President passed legislation to support Small Business Owners. The Banks were assigned the responsibility of managing and processing those loans. Many banks balked at the opportunity, chose to point fingers and blame. Nothing about this is ideal. Step up, own it and do the best you can.

TRANSPARENCY — I have been informed that there is a queue and a process. I still, however, do not know what number I am in the queue. I don’t know how many applications are in front of me. I also don’t know, nor am I confident, that if another round of funding is agreed upon by Congress and the President, that the funds will reach me.

EMPATHY — We are not just Business Clients. We are human beings, who are stressed, afraid and unsure. This is not just important. It is necessary and vital. You also have all of my private and personal information at your disposal. You know enough about me to advertise for credit cards and new accounts at your bank when I log in. Invest in a mail merge so that I have the experience that you’re dealing with an actual person.

MANAGE EXPECTATIONS — At this point, I want personal and open communication, often. I want to know what else you’re doing for me as a client and small business owner. I want you to communicate where we are in the process and what I can expect from it while being responsible, accountable, transparent and empathic.

CHASE, and Jennifer Roberts. For the handling of this situation and this communication your RATE ME™ score is an F.

I have drafted the letter, I wish I would have received from Ms. Roberts and the Communications Team at CHASE. Consider it my contribution, so that you can do better for all the small business owners that are your clients . . . NOW.

*******************************************************************

Dear Eduardo,

We at Chase Bank understand that we find ourselves in the midst of a global crisis. The SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program, approved and signed by both houses of Congress and President Trump, is a lifeline to Small Businesses throughout our great nation. We all knew the demand would be high. Unfortunately, the funding allocated for this initial round could not reach the demand.

I am sorry to inform you that we were not able to process your application in this first round. We understand that you, as a small business owner, may be feeling angry, anxious and scared.

As CEO of Chase, Business Banking, I want to take full responsibility for our lack of communication in this process. These are trying times and our silence and unresponsiveness may have added to the stress you are currently experiencing. We promise to do better and we promise to start doing better NOW.

Congress is currently considering another round of funding. In the interim we’re committed to:

1. Continue to work our existing queue of applications. You are currently #XXXXXX. (We were only able to process up to #XXXXX)

2. Be honest and transparent in communication with you about your pending application.

We realize how vital and necessary these SBA Funds are to you and your business. Please know that myself and our entire team are working tirelessly on your behalf and on behalf of all the small business owners that we are proud to call our clients.

Thank you for being a Chase customer. Please know we value you and the work that you do. CHASE CARES and we promise to stand with you through these trying times.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Roberts

CEO, CHASE Business Banking