Jennifer Garvey Berger

Spoken in English. Their words, as they said them.

I was I was, some years ago, I had cancer. And, I was I was in the middle of right at the end of chemotherapy, I was in a wig, and and the group knew that I had been unwell. And, it was a lovely group, accountants. Lovely group of senior partners in an accounting firm. And I wasn't even teaching at this moment. I think my friend and partner colleague Keith was at the front of the room teaching, and they were having some kind of, they were having some kind of theoretical argument about something and that there was like this very, like, kind of intriguing but kind of growly energy. And for some reason, I got up. I was sitting in the back cross legged like this without my shoes on as I often, sit in the room, and I ran up to the front of the room in my bare feet, and I said, we have to stop this conversation. You are missing the point. The point is that we have to figure out how your organization can be more loving and how you can feel more love for each other as partners. You can feel more love for your clients and you can create more love across this country. This is the point. Can we have this conversation? And these, like, 25 middle aged men are like you know, I could just see this this was not what they thought was gonna happen next.

And but here it was. It was like, you know, a woman in chemotherapy. You pay attention to these people. Right? And they took it on. And we had the most beautiful conversation about love in an accounting firm. You know, about about what it meant to hold people's businesses in the palm of your hands, about what it meant to give people safety and confidence, about, what it meant to weave the fabric of small businesses together through towns and across the country, and and what it meant to them.

I think people wanna have the conversation. I think they I think they wanna have a space where they can talk about it. I think they they want to believe that love is is possible, that it's right there, that if if we if we believe in it, something new blossoms.

And I think we want this at work. I think people want this at work. I think we want it in in our families, I think we want it in our communities, I think we wish for it from our government.

I think this question of how do we connect to each other where your interests and my interests become held together in common and we can co care for one another.

I I don't think this is a fantasy. I really do think this is our birthright. I really do think we have evolved to do this. We just have to figure out how to let that out.