The Moment After the Punch
It is not the adversity that defines us. It is what we do after.
The Punch to the Face
It is not the adversity that defines us. It is what we do after.
Today was one of those days that remind you why you keep showing up.
It started with a privilege: a seat in a room full of women leading at the highest levels, being honest about what leadership actually costs and what it truly requires.
The keynote addressed the future of AI and the importance of learning and growing alongside the technology. That insight was a powerful start to the day.
Then a panel discussed the art of the calculated reset—pauses that arrived in their forties, some welcomed, some forced, and what they found on the other side. It was gorgeous and inspiring in the way that only real truth can be.
And the panel that resonated with me most throughout the day opened with a reference to Mike Tyson.
Not the championship.
Not the highlight reel.
The punch to the face.
Because here is the thing about a punch to the face: it is not the defining moment. What happens after is.
The moment after the knockdown.
The moment after the loss.
The moment after life arrives without asking permission.
That space—the one between the hit and getting back up—is where we are actually built.
I sat in that room nodding because I have lived in that space.
The Season After the Punch
Later that same day, I watched my son's lacrosse season end in a playoff game that came down to the final minutes.
My quiet, stoic boy—the one who rarely raises his voice—was on that field shouting, "Now is our time. It's now or never."
He was right.
It was, in fact, not their time.
But over dinner, something more important happened.
He reflected on the season, on the adversity the team had faced and overcome, on the moments that stretched them, and on what he expected the coach to say at the banquet next week.
He didn't use the words punch to the face.
But he might as well have.
The adversity was the season.
The resilience was the story.
And I sat across from him thinking:
"That is leadership. That is life. That is every season worth having."
What Each Decade Teaches You
In my twenties, I'm not sure I would have had the words for any of this.
Resilience was something I experienced without fully understanding it.
I was living it before I could name it.
In my thirties, I was living it in ways I had never anticipated.
I was navigating my daughter's rare disease while building an administrative career—facing an unknown chapter that arrived without warning and demanded everything of me.
There was no roadmap.
There was only the choice, made over and over again, to keep going.
To find courage in the middle of the mess.
To build something meaningful even while something else felt terribly uncertain.
And now, in this next decade, I am learning to listen differently.
To reflect more intentionally.
To choose progress over perfection—not as a consolation prize, but as the actual standard.
Because the punches come.
They always come.
For our teams.
For our families.
For our organizations.
For ourselves.
It is not the punch that writes our story.
It is our response.
The 1% That Adds Up
Strength and resilience are not dramatic.
They are not a single moment of triumph or a highlight reel worth sharing.
They are the quiet, consistent choice to get back up—1% better each time.
The season defined by adversity.
The woman on the panel who paused at forty and found herself on the other side.
The boy on the lacrosse field who learned more from a loss than any win could have taught him.
Today was a full-circle kind of day.
And full-circle days are worth writing down.
Because growth is not an event.
It is the standard.
The older I get, the less interested I am in avoiding adversity and the more interested I am in understanding what it teaches us.
The punches come for all of us.
What we build afterward becomes the story.
