Welcome to the Observations at the Speed of Life, a weekly weblog that carries on the tradition of the long-running Wednesday Weblog.

Soon to come are podcasts, keynote remarks and author events, as well as an Observational Leadership Workshop.

When I was 14 years old, The Byrds released the song Turn! Turn! Turn! Subconsciously, I think I adopted it as a personal philosophy.

“To everything (turn, turn, turn)

There is a season (turn, turn, turn)

And a time to every purpose under heaven…”

It was decades later that I learned the song was almost word-for-word drawn from the Bible-Ecclesiastes 3:1–8—adapted and set to music by Pete Seeger. (And for the record, “Ecclesiastes” remains a word I can confidently mispronounce in multiple ways.)

What struck me then—and still does now—is how little needed to be changed about the message from the time of the Bible to the time of the Byrds. It didn’t need editing. It just needed a melody.

And while some of the lines—a time to die, a time to kill, a time to weep, a time of war—aren’t exactly the ones we put on motivational posters, they are, uncomfortably, true.

Handwritten letters and paper maps are dying. I recently killed a snake in my garage. I cried when I was cut from the 7th-grade baseball team… and again when the Red Sox lost the World Series in 1986.

And these days, I find myself waging a quieter, more personal war—against procrastination and my waistline. Different seasons. Same truth.

What makes the song so enduring is its honesty. It doesn’t promise that every season will be easy or welcome. It simply reminds us that every season will come—and go.

Many times, we argue with that idea. We resist the season we’re in. We want to fast-forward through the hard parts or rewind to the good ones.

But when we look back, with a little distance and a little perspective, we begin to see the truth in the passage. There really was a time for that.

Before our child was born, my wife Betty embroidered a piece that said: "To Everything There is a Season, and Time to Every Purpose Under the Heaven."

She hung it above the crib in what would soon become our baby's nursery.

Like most expectant parents, I would stand there and look down at that empty crib—imagining, wondering, projecting a future I couldn’t yet see. I imagined first steps, Little League games, school projects spread across the kitchen table, maybe even a moment where I would try—probably unsuccessfully—to give advice he didn’t ask for. It was a season of anticipation, filled with possibility, where everything ahead felt open and undefined.

Betty didn’t embroider that piece because it was part of my philosophy. She arrived at it on her own. What neither of us could have known was how much we would come to rely on those words.

Our son Joe was born with multiple, lifelong challenges to his survival.

And in an instant, the season changed.

The crib that once held only imagination now held uncertainty.

When Joe was six months old, he had a tracheostomy inserted into his throat to help him breathe. As a result, we couldn’t hear him cry because air didn't flow through his vocal cords.

So, the crib was in our bedroom, and when we laid him down to sleep, we tied a helium balloon and a small jingle bell to his wrist. If he moved, the bell would sound. If his arm lifted, the balloon would rise. That was how we listened for him. That was how we watched over him.

The future that once felt wide open suddenly felt very specific—and very fragile. The questions changed. The timelines changed. The expectations changed. And if I’m being honest, there were moments when the words on the wall felt less like comfort and more like a question: What is the purpose of this season?

Because seasons like that don’t come with explanations. They don’t arrive with clarity or meaning neatly attached. They arrive with long days, difficult decisions, and moments that force you to redefine what strength, hope, and progress even look like.

There were stretches of fear and exhaustion, when even small victories felt enormous and setbacks felt overwhelming. But there were also seasons of learning—learning how resilient people can be, how quickly priorities become clear, and how love adapts. It stretches, it deepens, it becomes something more durable than you ever expected.

And slowly, over time, something else happens.

You begin to stop asking, “Why this season?” and start asking, “What does this season require of me?”

That shift doesn’t happen overnight. It happens gradually, almost quietly. But it changes everything. Because instead of resisting the season, you begin to live in it—to respond to it, to grow within it.

The words above the crib didn’t change. But our understanding of them did.

They were no longer just poetic. They were practical. They were grounding. They became, at times, the difference between feeling lost and finding just enough footing to take the next step.

And maybe that’s the point.

Not that every season feels good or makes sense while we’re in it, but that every season asks something of us—and gives something to us in return, even the ones we would never have chosen.

Over time, most of us can look back and recognize the pattern. There was a time to plant and a time to reap, a time to laugh and a time to weep, a time to build up and a time to break down, a time to dance and a time to mourn. There were seasons of gathering and seasons of letting go, seasons of gaining and seasons of losing, and, through it all, seasons defined by love.

And if we’re paying attention, we begin to see that each of those seasons—whether we welcomed it or fought it—played a role in shaping who we are.

Because to everything, there is a season.

Not always the one we would choose.

Not always the one we understand in the moment.

But, eventually, the one we come to recognize as necessary.

And if we’re fortunate—and persistent—and willing to stay in the season long enough to learn from it—we may come to see that the purpose we were searching for was quietly unfolding in front of us the entire time.

Turn, turn, turn.

Leadership Development

• Customized workshops and leadership academies designed to move managers from tactical execution to strategic leadership.

Strategic Planning

• Facilitated planning processes that produce alignment, ownership, and clear implementation pathways.

Hiring & Behavioral Interviewing

• Systems that improve selection decisions, reduce turnover, and elevate performance standards.

Executive Coaching

• One-on-one coaching focused on clarity, accountability, and measurable leadership growth.

Board & Governance Advisory

• Support for boards and senior leadership teams seeking clarity, alignment, and sustainable growth.

If you are reading this on a social media platform, click below and you'll automatically receive a 'different' story every week on Wednesday.