You get some great, amazingly fantastic news. What’s the first thing you do?
I tell the right person first.
Not by email. Not by text. No social media announcements. If it’s truly great news, it deserves a voice. It deserves someone on the other end who can hear it properly — and share the moment with you.
Years ago my wife entered a radio dial-in competition. The task was simple and brutal: identify the title and artist of three tiny song snippets. She rang the station, somehow got through, and all those years of listening to the radio instead of doing homework finally paid off.
She nailed it.
Joe Jackson. KISS. Elton John.
The prize would be serious money today. Back then it was mind-blowing.
I was in a team meeting when the phone rang. She was crying. My first thought was immediate and protective: What’s happened? Who’s hurt you? I asked what was wrong, bracing for bad news.
Then she told me — between tears and laughter — that she’d won. The competition was announced, she called, they played the songs, she got them all right. She won. Amazing.
When we hung up, I told the team. They were amazed too. My wife rang a couple of friends. One of them was so excited she pulled into a petrol station — not because she needed petrol, but because she needed to tell someone. Anyone. The person on the console met the criteria perfectly. She couldn’t keep it inside.
I think that’s what we do with truly good news. We look for someone to tell. We choose someone who will understand what it means, who will rejoice without qualification, and we let them be the first to hold it with us.
The closer the better. The right person first.
The Afterword 
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