Apparently I'm in a Who's Who Now

So this is a little awkward.

I recently learned that Marquis Who's Who selected me for inclusion in its current edition, recognizing my work in risk management and global market development. My first instinct was to assume it was a phishing email. My second instinct was to check whether there was an invoice attached. (There wasn't, which I'll admit moved the needle on credibility.)

Let me be honest about what this is and what it isn't. A Who's Who listing is not a Nobel Prize. Nobody convened a committee, deliberated late into the night, and emerged bleary-eyed to declare that the field could not go on without recognizing my contributions. As best I can tell, somebody, somewhere, decided I was worth a line of type, and I'm not in a position to argue. These lists are easy to roll your eyes at, and on most days I would roll mine right along with you.

But this one caught me off guard, and I want to explain why — because it has less to do with the honor and more to do with where I was standing the last time I took stock of my life.

In 2017, I experienced the kind of setback that doesn't come with a polite name. I won't dress it up. It was the consequence of my own choices, it cost me a great deal, and for a long stretch afterward I genuinely did not know what the rest of my life was going to look like. When you find yourself at the bottom of a deep hole, you can't keep measuring how far you've fallen. The only choice is to start looking for the first foothold. 

So when an envelope arrives years later telling you that someone, somewhere, has decided your work is worth chronicling — well. The objective meaning of the list hasn't changed. It still doesn't mean much. But the distance between that low point and this small, slightly silly piece of recognition means a great deal to me. Not because I've been validated by a directory, but because I'm still here, still working, still being trusted with things that matter. There was a version of the story where none of that was true.

I owe that to a lot of people. To my family, who did not have to stay and did. To the colleagues and clients who looked at the whole record and decided to bet on the next chapter anyway. And to the people doing reentry and second-chance work — the folks who understand, in their bones, that a person is more than the worst thing they've done. I've tried to carry some of that forward in my own volunteer work, and I will keep trying.

So allow me one unguarded moment: I'm grateful. Quietly, sincerely, and more than a directory entry can hold.

Now, back to the wink. If you ever find yourself inducted into a Who's Who, here's my advice: enjoy it for roughly the length of one cup of coffee, tell exactly one family member who will pretend to be impressed, and then get back to work. The list won't remember you next year, and that's fine. The work is the thing that remembers. So are the people who stood by you. Those are the only entries worth keeping.

Thanks for reading.