The Shakespeare quote had been next to my dad’s work phone for years, but it wasn’t until I was 10 that I suspected it wasn’t about boating. The passage, clipped from a magazine and firmly attached with a few strips of Scotch tape, read:

When the sea was calm, all ships alike showed mastership in floating

When I asked my dad why he’d cut out that line, he told me “Ryan, true character and success is defined not by how you act when everything is going your way, rather it’s how you react when everything isn’t…”

That conversation with my dad has stuck with me since. And I go back to that quote on nearly a weekly basis.

Work life is turbulent. Sometimes the numbers are up, sometimes the numbers are down. Some projects will nail it, some projects will fail. Some people are easy to work with, some aren’t.

The true measure of your character is how you react and operate when the seas aren’t calm.

(Image: Johannes Christianus Schotel)