Michele Woodward

Powerful Coaching. Powerful Results.

Laurie Foley

What’s Really Important

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MTW and LaFo

I’m writing this just before I leave the house to fly to Atlanta for the funeral of my dear friend, the writer and brand strategist Laurie Foley.

You’ve all been so kind these last weeks as Laurie’s condition progressed ever closer to her death.

In fact, you were cheering for her back in 2014 when she went into remission: I wrote this then, You Get To Decide, and I heard from so many of you that her story was inspirational.

And the response to my more recent posts, Real and Raw and last week’s The Price of Friendship have been warm and embracing for me. Just when I needed it most.

So, I thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

And I thank Laurie for bringing friendship, kindness and caring into such sharp focus for so many through her dying process. Even when she had so little strength, the woman had a lot of energy.

Take care of yourselves, friends. And take care of those you love. Make time for them. Honor them. Be kind.

It’s loss like this which reminds us what is really important.

 

The Price of Friendship

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I drove out to the mountains last Thursday and took a solitary drive along the Blue Ridge. I could see a storm coming in from the west, clouds like monochromatic watercolor on the horizon.IMG_5041

I needed the space, I needed the solace of nature.

Because my friend Laurie Foley died that morning.

I wrote about Laurie a few weeks ago, after I visited her in hospice. To get a bigger sense of the life she lived,  you can read Laurie’s obituary in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, too.

Laurie was an amazing person, yes. A PhD in Computer Science at age 26? Hell, yes, she was amazing.

And she was also my friend.

People ask me, “Oh, did you grow up together? Did you meet in college?”, as if that’s the last chance to meet anyone who matters.

The truth is: I met Laurie in 2008 when she was my student in coach training. Then I became her mentor, her colleague, and her friend.

We liked the same books, and the same movies. She had a dog named Mocha. I have dogs named Milo and Bootsy. She had a kid. I had kids. We both loved puns, and British humor. We both took training in archetypes – different training programs, though – and she not-so-secretly thought her program was better than mine. We both disliked fake, insincere and slick salesmanship. We both believed in the things that cannot be seen. She came to visit me a couple of times, I came to visit her a couple of times. In the last few years, we connected every day as she navigated her life with ovarian cancer.

We were grown-up friends.

Earlier, in my late 30s, a slightly older friend moved away and called to talk with me about how challenging it was to fit in to her new community. She said, with a deep sigh, “No one wants a new friend after forty.” This was not happy news because she was smart, gorgeous, fun, engaging and blonde. I mean, if she couldn’t find new grown-up friends, I was destined to become a friendless bag lady living out of a shopping cart by my next birthday.

It’s true that too many of us struggle to find friends – friends at work, friends in the neighborhood, friends at all. And yet the Mayo Clinic says having the connection that deep friendship provides is vital to your health. 

So, having friends is a very good thing.

The downside, of course, to allowing yourself to become deeply and authentically connected to another person is the sad fact that some day one of you will die.

And your heart will break.

And you may think things will never be the same again.

But that pain is the price you pay for having loved deeply, for having cared completely. For allowing another person to have seen you at your best and at your worst – and you them – and loving them anyway.

When you understand just how important connection and friendship is, you can take steps to create and foster relationships. Last year, Koren Motekaitis (also a former student – see a trend developing?) and I spent an entire hour talking about the power of friendships on her How She Really Does It radio show- listen to it here and get some more insight and approaches to growing and appreciating the people in your life.

If you feel less connected than you’d like to be, then today is the day you can start changing it. Be more open. Make eye contact. Find the places where you have things in common with others, and talk about it with them. Make the effort. Be vulnerable enough to be someone’s friend.

You will never regret it. 

This week, I’ll head to Atlanta for Laurie’s funeral. This is a day I had hoped would never come, but it has. And as the sun streams through the stained glass next Saturday afternoon, and people say wonderful things about her heart and her spirit, my every breath and heartbeat will be a simple thank you for the deep and abiding friendship we have shared.

 

Real and Raw

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LaFo arms

There are some voices out there who tell you that the way to get ahead is to calculate every move you make – life is all one big game – and you do whatever you have to do to win.

Every move is transactional.

Every gesture is intentional.

Every social media post is congruent with your short term/long term goals.

Every single thing you do is thought out and supportive of your “personal brand” – the brand that’s going to get you to the top, only to the top, and keep you there.

It’s all calculation, positioning, appearance, working the angles.

Yep, and then…

Then we have a fast-moving crosscurrent of people who are waking up to say, “I’ve had it with fake.”

These are people who are looking for authenticity. Demanding it, even.

They want it in politics, they want it in relationships, they want it in leaders, they want it in communities.

They want real. They are okay with raw.

They just want what’s true.

A week ago, I was in Atlanta with my dear sister-by-choice Dr. Laurie Foley who moved into hospice care after it became clear that there was no more treatment for her ovarian cancer. Laurie is a PhD computer scientist who later became a transformative coach, speaker and writer. As I sat in her hospice room and we talked (and talked and talked), a realization bloomed in my heart and mind.

Here, at what is most definitely the end of her life, Laurie had no time for triviality. She only wanted to talk about things that are real. Things that are, at times, raw – but things that need to be said.

Folks, I learned that there is no pussyfooting around in hospice – because who’s got the time? You want strawberry ice cream? You ask for it, clearly and insistently if you must. You want to talk with someone on the phone? You ring them up. You need to say who you want to see and who you don’t? You say it.

It’s real. It’s raw. And it’s very, very true.

Since Laurie’s entry into hospice, social media – Facebook in particular – has blown up. People are posting recollections of hearing her speak, or being coached by her. On a whim, I suggested people write “LaFo” (my witty JLo-esque nickname for my friend) on their forearm to show their love for her, and now thousands of people have done so and are posting pictures of their LaFo art. There’s a moving video, a powerful speech by her, and loving reminiscences everywhere. A fabulous artist has even made a coloring book page celebrating LaFo.

It’s as if, here at the end of her life, Laurie’s impact has never been more powerfully felt.

At nearly the same time that Laurie moved into hospice, our dear friend, the writer Patti Digh, had a heart attack. She wrote brilliantly about it on her blog, and that piece was picked up by the Huffington Post where it’s gone viral. See, Patti was told her heart attack symptoms were simply anxiety. When, in reality, she had a 90 percent blockage in a key artery. The piece she wrote – the one that Arianna Huffington read and directed be posted – it’s real. It’s raw. It’s true. You can read it here.  Her follow-up piece was as beautiful a piece of writing as I’ve ever seen her do. Read that one here.

This confluence of events has been, as you can imagine, like a strong dose of smelling salts to me.

I’m asking: What am I doing with myself and my work?

How do I want to show up?

Is there any place I’m hiding?

Where can I be more real? More raw? More true?

Tough questions, but important ones – and I’m going to keep asking them of myself until I’m totally satisfied with my answers.

I’m going to be more real. More raw. More myself.

Because if I’ve learned anything in the last ten days, it’s this: There is no more time for pussyfooting around.