What I Learned When I Almost Died - Chris Licht [38]
Few of us can pivot on a dime. Just because I had a moment of clarity on the deck about how futile and wasteful it can be to get angry doesn’t mean I never will. I’ll have to train myself, remind myself, to distinguish the moments worthy of anger from those that are not. I’m sure I’ll fail now and then. Re-jiggering my behavior and attitudes is a project that will take the rest of my life.
But in many small ways I’m already a different man. When my anger was greatest about what my brain bleed nearly took from me, I didn’t think of NBC. I thought of Jenny and Andrew. And when, on December 7, BLT entered the world as Ryan Christopher Licht, I took my full paternity leave from Morning Joe, perhaps a small step for you but a big one for me.
These days, I call home more than I used to, just to see how Jenny is. I wouldn’t have thought it possible to think any more highly of her than I did, but I do. Maybe even she didn’t realize what a steel core she has. Pregnant, juggling a job offer, given at other times to high flying emotion, she put everything aside and went more Mika than Mika to make sure I came out all right.
Dad and I are vastly closer. It was always easier to read Mom, who’s outgoing by nature. Dad was less demonstrative. But to see him in the hospital talking with my doctors and monitoring the fine print of my care, I realized I had the perfect, medically skilled, loving patient advocate. He was deeply shaken by what happened to me. Before, we’d talk once in a while. Now, all the time.
At work, I’ve noticed that when someone asks me a question or presents an issue for decision, I don’t answer as quickly and dismissively as I used to. A second or two ticks by. I consider the question. I consider them. I think it throws people off, though I’m not trying to do that. Maybe it’s because, after their incredible e-mails and cards and phone calls during my illness, my colleagues are more real to me now. Maybe I have less tunnel vision about the world in which I walk every day. I give verbal hugs more than ever. At the postmortems after every Morning Joe, I say less and let my leadership team say more because I don’t need to have my finger in every pie all the time.
True, Mr. BlackBerry and I are as entwined as ever. What might be hard to grasp is that a life-threatening illness didn’t make me care about Morning Joe any less. Quite the opposite. It’s more fun. I can go to Control Room 3A knowing there are worse things than whether people get mad at me, worse things than whether someone doesn’t push a microphone button on time, and more important things than whether I’m being included in everything Joe and Mika are doing.
Joe has an expression: “Scared money never wins.” It means, simply, play with confidence. Believe in yourself. My decisions come easier now and they’re clearer. Options are weighed on their merits without calculating the politics. I don’t pick fights anymore, which doesn’t mean I run from them. But I don’t seek out conflict to prove I’m The Man.
On the air the other day, Joe was tweaking then-Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, a potential candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, for not coming on the show in a while. But Pawlenty had already agreed to come on the show the very next week. Joe didn’t know that, nor did I, so I had no reason to get in Joe’s ear and correct the undeserved slam while we were still live.
We looked like cheap-shot kings. But I did not excoriate the person who forgot to tell us about Pawlenty’s booking. Back in the day, I would have. I would have petulantly sought to ruin her day for ruining mine. To no good end, of course.
In late fall 2010, there occurred a sad, astounding coincidence.