The Line Isn’t as Long as it Looks.
I’ve had the good fortune to serve on several boards over the years. Each one came with its own rhythm and its own built-in ending. Three-year terms. Sometimes three in a row if you were lucky. And then, just like that, your time was up.
In my twenties and thirties, I never gave much thought to those limits. Time felt generous back then. Wide open. Almost endless.
But I remember one moment clearly.
I was 41, sitting as the youngest member of a bank board, looking at a simple chart—a line next to each director’s name showing how long they could continue to serve before reaching the age limit. My line stretched out farther than anyone else’s.
I’ll admit I felt a little proud of that long line. And maybe just a little invincible.
Around the table, others looked at their shorter lines with a mix of humor and quiet understanding. We laughed about it. Compared notes. But underneath the laughter, there was an awareness that time, even when it looks long, has a way of moving.
And move it did.
Years unfolded in ways none of us could have predicted. We took the bank public. We navigated leadership changes. We celebrated growth. We weathered difficult seasons—moments that felt like they might never end, and others that passed in the blink of an eye.
Some stretches of time crawled. Others flew.
Somewhere along the way, without much announcement, I stopped being the young guy at the table.
I began to notice the chart again. Only this time, my line didn’t look quite so long.
That’s when it really struck me that the line isn’t as long as it looks.
What once felt distant had drawn close. What once seemed permanent revealed itself to be temporary. And yet, instead of feeling loss, I found something richer.
Gratitude.
Gratitude for the conversations that mattered. For the decisions that shaped people’s lives. For the relationships built over years of showing up, listening, contributing, and learning.
I found myself paying closer attention.
Not just to the work, but to the moments in between. The laughter before meetings, the thoughtful pauses during difficult decisions, the shared sense of responsibility for something larger than any one of us.
And I began to see something else. The shortening of the line doesn’t diminish its value. It clarifies it.
It reminds you to lean in. To be present. To say what matters. To appreciate the people you’re sitting beside while you still have the chance.
As we approached the final chapter in the transition of the bank and the closing of a long and meaningful era, that line, once long and steady, looked more like a dash.
And strangely, that felt right.
Because what filled that line—those years, those decisions, those shared experiences—that’s what mattered all along.
Now, looking back over 27 years, I don’t think about how long the line was.
I think about what we did with it.
And I’m reminded of something simple, something worth holding onto: It’s not the length of the line that defines the experience…it’s how fully you live it while you’re there.
Tom is a person who likes to see good things happen for others. It’s why his life’s work has focused on serving those who are building good things for themselves and others. This mostly looks like advising business owners, their family members, and their key employees in attaining success by aligning their personal and professional visions. He’s been doing this for nearly four decades and has watched as his clients’ financial situations have evolved, gaining insights that only experience can provide. Tom applies his mix of financial know-how and business acumen to guide clients toward better financial outcomes, avoiding the common traps that thwart even the most well-intentioned business owners.
