I mentioned last week that I found myself in the middle of the fires that have destroyed so many homes in Northern California. The experience has had an impact on me. Last week I wrote about priorities. I am also thinking about impermanence. What can we make of our efforts when we know nothing lasts forever?

During the dot-com craziness I decided to leave my work at a physician practice and start my own healthcare technology company. The company and the product no longer exist. I started the company, raised money, hired people, installed clients only to see it unwind. I consulted my way to keep the company going for two years before I had to take another job. Eventually after nine years I decided to shutter the company and turn off the remaining physician practices that were using the product. There was nothing left of the company. Does it matter that it ever existed?

I owe so much of my current place in the world to the sum of those experiences. I built relationships, helped physicians practices, expanded my knowledge, learned from my mistakes. I was better at each subsequent role because of the experiences I had running my company. I would never give up the sum of those experiences.

We benefit from embracing the impermanence of our situation in all of what we do. Knowing our role is temporary helps us effectively prioritize. It is important to recognize the value in the sum of the impact we have on others. We aspire to have meaningful interactions with others and deliver value. The meaningful experiences we have in any role are lasting beyond our term.

In my experience as a more senior executive, I found myself responsible for changing the organization. I pushed hard for us to cross train our engineers beyond a single technology focused profile. I recall getting feedback from one of our engineers, he was so grateful for the push to learn different technologies. He felt the opportunity to work on a new product in a new tech stack was due to my leading that change. After I left that role, my impact on that engineer remains.

Our jobs, our employers, all things are only temporary. Focus on delivering value. Appreciate the positive impact we have on others. We can make a big difference in all our impermanence.