Whew. I am putting fingers to keyboard for the first time in what feels like forever. It was at least a pandemic, a new liver (for the Sports Dude), and an insurrection ago. I don’t even remember when (although I could easily look it up).

Are you still there, dear readers? How are you? How is your family? Are you thriving, surviving, or just hanging on?

Did 2020 make you stronger? Find a new you? Make changes for the better?
Did it overwhelm you? Knock you off balance? Kick your ass? Or a combination of it all?

Was there a right way or a wrong way to do 2020?

It’s Not Always About Me

Eric S. Geller – Before (r) and After (l) Liver Transplant

I feel as if I am coming out of a haze. Just prior to the pandemic’s beginning the Sports Dude’s health took a bad turn. As you may or may not know, he suffers from acute ulcerative colitis and had to have his colon removed about 15 years ago. There was a chance that he would develop primary sclerosing cholangitis, which he did, and that it could go acute, which it did, necessitating a liver transplant, which he had on October 10, 2020.

As we met with the Liver Transplant team at Oschner Medical Center and spoke with his liver doctor back in Los Angeles, we discovered we were in the right place.

Who knew, but New Orleans is one of the top centers for liver transplants in the country. People move here to get on the waiting list. Their doctors are specialists in complicated cases, which the Sports Dude had. And the waiting would be shorter than in Los Angeles.

Speaking to the doctors in L.A., they said most likely the Sports Dude would not have lived long enough to get a liver there.

<insert SHOCKED emogi>

As we were waiting for him to be prepped for surgery just weeks later I looked at my husband, who was probably just a couple weeks away from dying and said: “I don’t think this move was about me and my career.”

Just Say Yes

I’ve blogged before about the power of saying “Yes!”

Saying yes led me to my career as a whole.

Saying yes led me to leadership positions that led me to leadership training.

Saying yes led me to know when it was time to stay, and when it was time to go.

Saying yes led me back to the Sports Dude.

Saying yes led us to New Orleans.

Karma or Right Place or No Coincidences?

I try and live my life by the spiritual principles I have learned in my recovery program. But I am also a creature filled with self and I really, really want it to be about me. And usually, it is not. When I step back and realize that I am just a part of a whole I can find my place.

So what does this have to do with legal marketing?

Legal marketing is part of the ecosystem of a law firm. We have the ability to influence almost every function within the firm. I am on more committees because my team includes the communicators, the branders, the doers, the servers. We are drivers and innovators, and we are influential and, well, we are legal marketers extraordinaire.

For the past year, my team and I have been showing up and we brought it! We have been saying yes while working from home in the middle of a pandemic.

And late last week I finally had the excitement of returning to office. And I was grateful on so many different levels. And I was humbled in knowing that this firm has given me more than I could ever repay.

Confession

I tried blogging so many times this year. I began this post on January 16 but could not find its ending. And there are several others in my drafts.

And you know what? That’s okay.

There was no rule on how to work, live, thrive, and survive a pandemic, let alone blog. But this extrovert is really, really happy to be back to office, and, yes, I have some things to say. I just know now that I don’t always have to say them.