TL;DR: I was teaching a room how to be present with each other when I found out the man who taught me presence had died. I finished the session. Then I spent the night writing … while I was grieving. I'm still sitting with what that says about how I'm Organized, Trained, and Equipped.

On Presence, and Where I Take Mine

TSN 26.28 August 16, 2026

Hiya

So there I was… last Tuesday. Just about 20 minutes left in a 3-hour session for a room full of SNCOs at Patrick SFB.

No keynote. No panel.

Just the room, teaching itself.

Leaders had built their own lessons, and groups formed and reformed all morning. I watched people lean toward each other in a way you can't fake and can't schedule.

My phone buzzed at 1037, Eastern time. I was standing near the back, watching over the small groups work through something hard.

I looked down.

A leader had written to tell me that Dr. Eric Canny had died from cancer.

Eric sat on my dissertation committee at USC. He guided so many parts of what I called "the little paper," but that was only a small part of what he gave me.

He used to tell me, "Use the literature to tell your story."

My life experience pointed me toward a research question. From there, I had to do the work. Read. Think. Draft. Read some more. Talk to people, think, and… read some more. Over those nearly four years, I tested what I thought I knew.

Eric taught me to write only what I could defend.

From the group of SNCOs, I drove across base to serve a group of senior leaders at their team on-site. On the front of my mind - and I know I felt it in my heart - I wanted only to be present for and with the folks in that room. After that, I served one final group (members of the Space Force Association) at a community building dinner event. Tuesday was a full day.

That night back at the hotel, I didn't call anyone. I opened the PDF of my dissertation instead. I found the pages I know are better because Eric pushed on them. I dug up my old notes from our meetings, the ones I'd kept without quite knowing why. And I started building words.

I opened my Moleskine. Like I always do when I need to see what I am saying to myself.

Words. Phrases. Full sentences.

I shared a LinkedIn article (link here). Thoughts about presence, about rigor, about a man who saw me and never lowered the standard. Like mentors I hold close, he expected more of me.

Like I always do when something big happens, I texted a few people I hold closest, sharing what I was managing in just a couple of paragraphs.

I said I was doing the inner work that keeps me strong. I meant it. I still mean it.

Giving someone my full attention is the thing I know how to do. I can sit with someone for not even an hour, and often they'll tell me something they've never told anyone.

This week, I gave the folks in rooms that attention. Four times. And when the hardest thing happened, in the middle of one of them, I paused long enough to give my grief the first draft it earned.

I don't know yet what to do with that. Maybe nothing. Maybe it is simply how I am built, and the building was worth it. Eric would probably tell me not to rush to a lesson.

He'd tell me to sit with what I actually saw, not what I assume it means.

So that's what I'm doing.

Sitting with it. A man taught me to be present, and to be rigorous, and not to confuse the two. He is gone now. And I found out about it in the middle of teaching a room how to be present with each other.

Much love,

JW

PS: I played around with GeminiLM and it "helped" me turn this reflection stuff into a little infographic... here you go!