Hey Chace… see this?
This is Donna.
This isn’t a story I made meaning out of later. These are the actual messages. From 2007. And then years later.
Back then, I was doing consulting on a big M&A. That’s what it said on paper. Strategy. Integration. All that language.
But what I was actually doing… was figuring out who and what could be cut. And I want you to understand this part.
I wasn’t confused about it. I knew exactly what I was doing.
I was sitting across from people while their jobs were… basically… being priced into a model. And I got good at it. That’s the uncomfortable part.
Good at staying calm. Good at being professional without being cold.
Good at making people feel like I was fair.
She even wrote that. Look. She called me the “honest broker.” That line still messes with me.
Because here’s the inconvenient truth nobody mentions:
You can be ethical. You can be kind. You can be fair. And still be slowly hollowing yourself out.
Donna saw that.
One day she pulled me aside. It wasn’t dramatic or emotional, just quiet, simple clarity.
She said she could see what I was trying to hide. That it was eating me. That I was holding a straight face while people were afraid in front of me.
And she said something that only works if it’s said without blame.
She said, “You’ve been given a task. You’ll recommend cuts. I might be on that list too.”
And then — this is the part that I now understand — she didn’t ask me to stop.
She didn’t ask me to save her. She didn’t make me wrong.
She just said: “Do not let this consume you.”
That’s it.
That sentence did more than any advice ever could. Because she wasn’t trying to change my behaviour. She was naming what the environment was doing to me.
And once someone does that… you can’t unknow it.
I didn’t quit that day. It wasn’t the heroic moment you see in the movies and written in books. But something cracked. The role stopped fitting. Like shoes you suddenly realize have been too tight the whole time.
I left not long after. July 9, 2007.
Years later, she messaged me again.
Look at this one.
She said she’d been watching my change in purpose and direction. That she’d been quietly cheering me on. That most people never get there. And if they do, they’re much older.
She knew. Back then. She knew it wasn’t about whether I was good at the job.
It was about what the job was shaping me into.
That’s the thing I want you to hear. You’re in the working world now. It’s one day a week, but it’s a role, just like being a student. Or a son.
I want you to understand this: You don’t just take a role.
A role trains you. Slowly. Invisibly. And sometimes the most important moment in your life isn’t when you decide something.
It’s when you or someone else sees clearly enough to say, “I see what this is doing to you.”
That’s what she did for me. And everything that came after — all of it — traces back to that moment.
Not because she told me what to do.
But because she refused to let me lie to myself anymore.