#126: The Night in Atlanta (Part 3/3)
This final note of Pip’s series brings together the previous two for a grand crescendo – the night where it seems like his father had perhaps the biggest impact on Pip’s life…and even on the incredible culture of Coburn Ventures and the CFC today. It goes to show the ripple effects one can have in the world, even beyond when we are no longer here.
- Lauren
Pip Coburn pcoburn@coburnventures.com
The Night in Atlanta
I didn’t realize how much I loved my dad until a night in 1999 – eight years after he passed away – in an Atlanta hotel room.
I was having a monster-level, anxiety-filled, zero-sleep night – perhaps one of the worst of my life.
I felt trapped. I was beginning to realize how much of a dilemma I had found myself in. I had just accepted a job to join an awesome work family in Atlanta. By moving to Atlanta, we would be committing to raising our family there.
But after two days of planning on specifics, I was starting to reeeeeeally feel like this was not at all the right decision for our daughter, Bailey, who most of you know has significant special needs. She would not have nearly the same opportunities growing up in Atlanta that she would in Westchester, New York. Night and Day.
I knew I had made a big mistake…
Big big big big big big big big big big mistake.
It hurt so much resisting what a short while later would be so so obvious…I had made a huge mistake and I would have to fix it.
…I felt so desperately lonely resisting the reality…
…I had given my word to my new work family in Atlanta, who I had already fallen in love with. That night, I struggled to accept that I would be breaking my word to them because…
…Bailey meant more to me than my word.
It sucked.
It was also the night I started to deeply deeply deeply love my dad. So, in a way, I am surprisingly grateful for that suffering.
I think after 1968 when he was forced to declare bankruptcy and we moved away from Cleveland, my dad never really got his stride back. That was when he was forced to become part of the system. Dislodged from having a company of his own, I sense it was really really hard for him.
It’s funny to think how my brother, Ted, has been choosing his own routes since age 37, leaving the corporate world. Diane, my sister, has been a choreographer and working independently. Drew has been largely independent for the last ten years or so. There seems to be a thread among us….
Maybe we got our “not cut out for the normal corporate world” from my dad who sure seemed to be miserable in it.
My dad really hated that the Wall Street Journal used the catch-phrase “The Diary of the American Dream." He thought it was a horrendous insult to humans and disservice. We are far more than our money. I am not sure at the time if many others felt such anger as well.
I am glad the world is changing some today. Corporate CEOs now are growingly required to tie the companies they lead back into a WIDER good and a “greater why” than even ten years ago. By a GREAT deal.
THAT is awesome. And I think my dad would agree. I think he might like a corporate world with vast space for humans to be humans.
Pip's first-person bio:
More than anything I suspect I am driven by “community”. Across the past 15in years, I have grown to realize that most any success or fortune I have had in the work I do I have re-invested back into my activities such that I spend more and more of my life with people I adore and admire and just loving being around and working on a whole bunch of things that I am incredibly excited about. I like to study monumental change at the levels of society, marketplaces, organizations and most significantly… people. I like to study culture deeply. I like to attempt to create culture. I like processes and helping others advances their processes and being trusted deeply. My wife Kelly is both supportive and probably confused by what I do for a living which makes two of us. My greatest joy in my work is when I have the chance to draw from two decades of intense work in order to perhaps help someone have a break through.