A year ago, I lost my job… Right before my 50th birthday. Double whammy.
A group of friends were planning to gather to celebrate. Their first response? “Do you want to cancel?” Me: “Hell, no! I didn’t lose my job. THEY lost me!” Bold words at the time, and there was coming time for a bunch of surprises.
What surprised me over the months that followed wasn’t only what I lost.
It was what I missed.
I missed (and still miss) having a team.
I missed people coming to me with a problem. I missed helping someone think something through. I missed being part of the conversations, decisions, frustrations, wins, and ordinary moments that make up a working life. Fortunately, I get more of all of that now 😉
And things I barely noticed while they were happening became things I wished I had appreciated more. Then came the part I didn’t enjoy looking at.
I hadn’t always appreciated them. I hadn’t always shown up well either.
There were days when frustration got the better of me. Times when I withdrew. Times when I was defensive. Times when I let what I was feeling affect how I showed up for the work and the people around me.
I spent a lot of time seeing what wasn’t working around me.
Over the last year, I have had to spend a lot more time looking at what wasn’t working in me.
I can’t fully tell the story of being let go honestly if I only tell the part about what happened to me. Part of that story belongs to me, too. That has been one of the harder lessons of the last 12 months. Those lessons have also shaped what Mind Harmony has become.
I started asking different questions.
Why do smart, capable people react in ways they later regret?
Why do we keep repeating patterns even after we recognize them?
What happens to our judgment when we’re frustrated, threatened, exhausted, or under pressure?
And what has to happen before we respond differently?
Those questions became increasingly personal. They also became part of the foundation for the 3R HUMAN PERFORMANCE OS™: Regulate. Reflect. Respond.
Understand what’s happening inside you.
Look honestly at the patterns shaping how you show up.
Then decide what you want to do next.
I’ve spent the last year doing a lot of all three. And somewhere along the way, “Making Work (& Life) More Human” stopped being an idea about better workplaces.
For me, it became something more personal.
Work is human because we bring ourselves into it. Our stress. Our identity. Our pride. Our frustration. Our relationships. Our patterns… all of the parts of ourselves we’re proud of and the parts we would rather avoid looking at.
I brought all of mine.
Some days I handled them well. Some days I absolutely did not.
12 months later, I don’t look at the loss of that job as the beginning of a story where I figured everything out.
I see it as the point where I started paying closer attention to what I had taken for granted, to what I missed once it was gone, to the ways I wish I had shown up differently, and to the kind of person I want to be in whatever comes next.
That’s a big part of why Mind Harmony exists. The birth of this idea was in the making loooong before September 8th, 2025. It continues to take shape as I live out the work and help people along the way. If you have ever been part of a community that recited a creed, for Mind Harmony (and for as long as Mind Harmony is in existence), this will ALWAYS be true:
“We BELIEVE work (& life) get more human when people understand themselves better, SO we make it possible for people to meet their moment with flexibility, to see and change the patterns getting in their way, BY teaching practical ways to Regulate, Reflect, and Respond.”
Cheers to more to come!
Nathan