Pride … a deeper love. "They are merely shining a light on how much work we have yet to do."

Sexton

June 20

We live in interesting, sometimes exhilarating, often sad times. You might ask yourself why I am sharing this image. There is a point here. And it's not to garner sympathy. You might also ask yourself why do I put myself through this? I've developed a pretty thick skin the last couple of years, and I'm quite proud of that honestly.

But I sometimes hear – and recently did – that we've come so far, and the world has changed, so how much visibility is really still needed. I would simply point your attention to these reactions from my Facebook post of this interview. Now I have a public profile, on purpose, and most of these are reactions from people I do not know. And I'm fine with that.

More than half of 127 reactions have an angry or laughing or a crying emoji, perhaps in some kind of judgment. These are exactly the people I want to reach. These are people who need to remember our common humanity. And the price of admission for me is that they get to believe they are mocking me from behind a cell phone screen or computer monitor.

They aren't. They are merely shining a light on how much work we have yet to do.

Link to interview.

P.S. File under bittersweet but optimistic joy … just wrapped my last in person meeting on the Legal Marketing Association - LMA International board. I still have six months ahead yet to serve, but in the spirit of fiscal responsibility and keeping resources directed to member value, we will have virtual meetings the rest of 2024.

The past two days have been incredible as President Kevin Iredell and CEO Ashley Stenger alongside incomparable Jonathan Lurie navigated us through robust and inspiring strategic planning conversations. The future is bright indeed with the marvelous, collaborative, forward thinking, kind group of talented humans on this board. It was lovely catching up, commiserating, thinking among friends old and new.