TL;DR: A week of moving from conference room to conference room and hearing hard news… twice. (1) we lost an Airman to suicide and (2) my Mama went to the ER…again. I logged twelve hundred pushups and heard that four leaders I worked with have finished command. I orbit around celebration and crisis. The signal is still there. I tune in to it through the noise.

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TSN 26.9: "On Orbit"

Hi

Last Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I sat in rooms and listened to our senior leaders in the Air Force and Space Force name what they are responsible for. BLUF It’s a lot. Attending the Air and Space Forces Association (AFA) events = highlight of my professional career! I get to attend and participate in TWO conferences each year.

I walked out of each symposium session doing the work that I ask my members to do when we come together to cohere: Find ourselves in the work we do.

For a long time, I’ve focused on understanding my role in the world. Or is it roles?

As a civilian, as a peer, as a facilitator… as a son, a husband, a friend. By naming WHO I am and WHAT I want to be known for, I focus in on really important things.

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Last fall, I spoke on stage at AFA… I talked about Connecting and Connective Cohering. Last week, as I sat there in the rooms at this year’s AFA, I continued along my path of notetaking and deep thinking. 

This was the kind of week that asks everything of me personally AND professionally - and I gave it. I was present. I was useful. I felt the thing I came to feel, which is that the work I do in the human domain belongs on the agenda and in the discussions that are happening in real time.

While I walked the halls of the convention center, four squadron-level leaders stopped me to talk. Over the years, we’d been in the same rooms at the same time, studying the same topics: Leadership Frameworks, Influence, Motivation, and Storytelling. Each person I met with told me about their experience at the command level. For a few minutes each, I stood there and received what they’d shared.

I don't take that lightly.

I also tracked 1,200 pushups across the five days of the work week - part of a team competition at work. It’s amazing what happens when there’s a spreadsheet to fill!

Yup, even on TDY I’m keepin’ up with the uniform wearers! 

I finished the third coaching session with a few people I've been walking alongside since November. Within a couple of weeks, I’ll have finished 60 one-hour sessions with the 20 people who jumped at the chance to get coaching when I offered it last November.

Whether they were serendipitous or scheduled, there were moments that told me something is working.

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And then, between one of those moments and the next, my phone rang. It was my sister. She told me our Mama fell down and she had to bring her to the hospital. A big cut…and now, staples holding her scalp together. I have been sitting with that image since I heard. I felt a sadness AND a relief at the same time. (If you haven’t read about my mom’s stroke, and how we didn’t know she was on the floor of her apartment for four days alone, let me know and I’ll send you that note.)

That is what this week felt like from the inside. Something lifting me. Something landing hard. Orbiting between the two. Not choosing. Just… both.

I just talked with my sister... she wheeled our mama to the high school track.

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At the conference, people who know me stopped me over and over again. They looked directly at me and asked...

"How is your Mama?"

Every time, something in me settled. It still amazes me - that people are tracking. That question was asked before any other question. That care showed up in a hallway, in a conference center, in the middle of a week full of strategy and urgency. I needed that more than I knew.

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There is a lot I am unsure about right now. The world outside feels loud and unstable. The financial reality of my mom's care is something we are still building toward, not standing on. And my sister - I think about her daily. What she is carrying. Whether she is okay.

I don't have answers to any of that.

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What I do have is this: the coaching work is real. The facilitation is landing. The human domain piece of my work - the part that is hardest to explain and easiest to dismiss - that is what I keep watching people need most.

That feels like solid ground.

I orbit. Between celebration and crisis. Between the room where someone tells me a conversation changed the way they approach leading, and the calls that send me back to what is most fragile.

Both are real. At the same time.

I remain here. Watching. Finding the signal each time I need it.

Much love… 

JW

LINKS:

If you didn’t see the panel I was on at AFA 2025 in Washington DC, here are my comments…

My mom fell and cut her head open. Felice got her to the hospital, and the doctors took a cat scan and stapled the wound closed. I’ll keep updates coming over here… 

I read/am reading a few books: “Space to Grow,” “The Great American Gamble,” “Tell Me About Yourself,” "Thinking in Bets,” “Lines in the Parking Lot,” “The Let Them Theory,” and a couple of Jack Reacher novels… If you’re up meetin’ up to talk books with me and others, shoot me an email. I have a travel schedule I’m building for the weeks ahead… 

Finally, for those who wanna jump into the next coaching round, I’ll open my calendar again starting in April. Book your first session here…