How Am I Doing?
Hey there! I hope you are having a good weekend. Why would I want you to have a bad weekend?
I may have just said something misleading.
I wasn’t really ”hoping.”
And I wasn’t really thinking about you, much less thinking about the quality of your weekend.
All of which leads me to share the epiphany I had in June of 2021, and it is this:
No one wakes up in the morning with their first thought being, “I wonder how Rich Perkey is doing today?”
Heck, even I don’t wake up and ask that question of myself! (I am thinking about dressing and making coffee…)
I call that epiphany “The Lesson of Covid.”
That lesson has been a good one for me.
That realization has provided the impetus for me to be more proactive and preemptive in looking at how other people are doing.
No one wakes up in the morning with their first thought being, “I wonder how Rich Perkey is doing today?”
That realization is why I have worked to be more responsive to friends, clients, contacts, candidates, placements, and others who ask for my time. It is an honor to be asked for your opinion, or to serve as a sounding board. And Lord knows, I turn the tables and get their counsel.
No one wakes up in the morning with their first thought being, “I wonder how Rich Perkey is doing today?”
That epiphany motivated me to work on doing a better job of connecting with clients who need to recruit talent for lives of leadership and service.
No one wakes up in the morning with their first thought being, “I wonder how Rich Perkey is doing today?”
This thought has led me to be more proactive and discerning about planting the seeds for relationships I want to grow in the future.
No one wakes up in the morning with their first thought being, “I wonder how Rich Perkey is doing today?”
This awareness has led to my reconnecting with many people who have been important to me over the years, but from whom I had grown distant during The Great Covid Hibernation of 2020 to 2022.
All of this reminds me of one of my favorite Davidson College basketball teammates.
My freshman roommate at Davidson College was a 6’9” “mustachioed string bean” from Delran, New Jersey, named Tim Bowker, known then and now as “Boke.” “Mustachioed string bean” is in quotation marks because this is how Charlotte Observer sportswriter Stan Olson described Boke in an article about the Davidson basketball team during our freshman year.
Boke was, and is, hilarious. He arrived at Davidson with the dialect of one born and raised in a South Jersey zip code that qualifies you to be a Philadelphia Phillies, Eagles, Flyers, or 76ers fan.
When Boke interacted with anyone, he dispensed with the usual and customary greetings, such as “Good Morning!” or “Good to see you!” or “How are you?”.
No, Boke’s standard salutation was a booming:
“HOW AM I DOING?”
It was very effective. You were completely disarmed and jolted from any just-woke-up self-absorption and lethargy.
You were forced to come back with a reply of “Huh – I don’t know Boke, how are you doing?”
“Good, man. I’m doing alright!” came Boke’s reply. “How you doing?”
No one wakes up in the morning with their first thought being, “I wonder how Rich Perkey is doing today?”
It’s OK.
Really.
It’s OK!
The reason I am OK with all of this is that the world is not supposed to wake up and think about Rich Perkey.
The world is under no obligation to think about, nor care about, my well-being.
Instead, I am the one with the obligation.
And that is… to “love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Share