The Byrnes Blog

Years ago, when I was caregiving for my father who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, we would spend our weekends driving the back roads of Vermont. It was a way for us to spend time with each other, see beautiful scenery, and get to know each other all over again, this time all grown up. Sometimes we had a destination. Sometimes not. And since GPS wasn’t that advanced back then – and a lot of the roads we traveled were dirt and had names like ‘Bob’s Road’ – we would get lo

Collateral beauty. It is the quiet, often fragile presence of something meaningful that emerges alongside hardship, reminding us that even in the hardest experiences, life is not entirely absent of beauty—whatever form it takes. I first heard the phrase in a movie many years ago, and it resonated with me. I had just lost my mother and was caring for my father, who had just begun his journey with Alzheimer’s. I had moved, changed jobs, and found myself in the impossible world

There is a moment in many leadership conversations that is easy to miss. It does not announce itself. It is not delivered with clarity or confidence. It rarely sounds like, “I disagree.” Instead, it arrives softly. “We might run into some challenges…” “I’m not sure this fully covers…” “It’s probably fine, but…” And then… the conversation moves on. The illusion of alignment From the outside, everything appears aligned. The plan is progressing. The room is nodding. Decisions ar

We tend to think of “lost” as something temporary. A glove. A set of keys. Something misplaced that, with enough retracing, can be found again. But not everything we lose works that way. Sometimes it’s a relationship. A sense of belonging. A version of ourselves we had quietly grown into. And sometimes—it’s the job. One day it’s there. The next, it’s not. In today’s environment—marked by constant disruption—leaders are being asked to make difficult decisions. Workforce reduct

Most disappointment isn’t caused by what happened. It’s caused by what didn’t happen—the version of events we expected, but never actually agreed to. Somewhere in my early thirties, I made a quiet decision. I gave up expectations. Not because I had read a book or attended a workshop. Not because I had a grand theory about human behavior. But because I kept noticing something. People were getting frustrated. Disappointed. Angry, even. And when you peeled it back, the root was

There’s a list. There is always a list. The app, the sticky note, the grocery list, the calendar, everyone’s schedules, and shared calendars at work and home. There is always something to do. All those to-dos wrapped around the fast-paced change we talk about all the time drives us to tick off those boxes, to take care of things and stay on track. Tick. Tick. Tick. The question I raise today is this: do we have to check off all those boxes now? What if we waited? A day. Or t