Standing on Their Shoulders

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” — Isaac Newton

A Sunday note on leadership and life, written to spark reflection before the week begins.

You earned your seat. Talent mattered. Hard work mattered. And neither is the whole story.

Behind every seat like yours is a short (or not-so-short) list of people who opened a door, made an introduction, said one sentence you never forgot, or took a risk on you before the evidence fully justified it. Most of us know this. Few of us stop to name them.

Three of mine.

Lou DeMartino, a college baseball coach working a summer baseball camp, pulled me aside and told me I could play collegiate baseball. I had never considered it possible. He saw it before I did, and it changed what I was willing to attempt.

My own executive coach, Peter Hazelrigg, showed me what this work could be. One day I told him, “What we have here is powerful. I want to have it with other people. Help me find the path.” He did.

And my wife had my back when I left the executive seat for the coaching one, when the income was uncertain and the plan was still taking shape. “You got this!”

These, and many others I have not named, shaped and steered me. They are the reason I am sitting here, right now, writing this to you.

So here is the ask. Give it five minutes. Maybe ten.

Write down the names. The teacher who told you that you could write. The coach who believed in you. The first boss who handed you something you were not ready for, then stood behind you while you figured it out. The friend who made the introduction that became your company. The colleague who said your name in a room you were not in. The list may run longer than you expect.

Then pick one. The one without whom the line of your life bends somewhere else entirely. Reach out. An email, a text, a handwritten note, a phone call. Be specific about what that person did and what it made possible. Specific is what lands and what stays. If that person is no longer here, write the note anyway and read it out loud.

Three questions before the week begins:

Who are the five or six people without whom you would not be sitting where you are today?

Which one may not fully know what they made possible for you?

What will you send, and what day this week will you send it?

You have earned your seat, for sure. You also had help getting there. Naming the second takes nothing from the first.

Whatever room you walk into tomorrow, you carry every one of them in with you.

“I go forth alone, and stand as ten thousand.” — Maya Angelou

In partnership,

Matt