"Did Anybody Die?"

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Last night, I was honored to be named among Atlantic Canada's Top 50 CEOs for the fifth time and inducted into the Hall of Fame. Standing in that room with so many remarkable leaders, I found myself reflecting on the lessons that brought me there.

I want to share some of them with you.

The most important lesson I've ever learned

My grandmother, the matriarch of our family, once told me something that stuck: if you don't like it, don't get good at it.

I may have taken that lesson a little too far. I think the only reason I'm here today is because I'm functionally unemployable. And honestly? I suspect a lot of the founders and CEOs reading this are too.

A family of resilience

I'm the great grandson of a subsistence farmer. My grandfather was a first generation roofer and entrepreneur. My dad was the first in our family to graduate from university. I was the second.

We're a family of resilience. A family that prizes improvement and progress.

That's the spirit my dad, brother, and I built Symplicity Designs around, with one simple purpose: to make the world a better place, one organization at a time. We wanted to bring that same resilience and progress to this region.

What I lost last year

Last year, I lost my dad to a terrible illness.

I lost my business partner. I lost my mentor. I lost the one person who was absolutely in my corner no matter what, who would never let me off the hook for a lesson I needed to learn, but who was definitively, unflinchingly there for me.

And our company kept moving.

Life doesn't pause for loss. While I was grieving, we were expanding. While he was fighting, we were building. That's just what happens when you run something real with someone you love.

"Did anybody die?"

My grandmother taught me something else, something that's carried me through every hard moment since.

Years ago, when I was devastated over something, she looked at me and asked: Did anybody die?

No, grandma.

Then we can deal with it. And if someone does die, we'll deal with that too.

That became all too true. We lived through the death of my grandfather in a horrific head-on collision. And later, we watched my dad as he succumbed to multiple system atrophy.

We dealt with it. Together.

What every CEO in that room knows

The thin edge between success and failure is never far away.

Yet every single leader in that room last night gets up. They face the music. They live with uncertainty, ambiguity, incompleteness. They do it anyway.

That's resilience. And we're going to need a whole lot more of it as AI fundamentally changes the markets we serve, the workflows we lead, and everything about what it means to show up for the people in our charge. At home and at work.

We know from the work we’re doing on the forefront of AI integration that the journey is faster than any of us would really care to endure.

We’ll need you more than ever.

The people who make it possible

As resilient as we are, we need the people around us to help us live that resilience.

At work, my aunt is the rock of our culture. She helps me see what I couldn't always see on my own.

At home, most of us are fortunate to have that same kind of person. For me, that's my partner Emily who is the rock of our family, the primary parent, the guardian of our daughters. The reason I get to invest in building these companies and still show up for the people who matter most.

To my partner: thank you. I love you.

Most leaders move a fast clip. I hope this is the nudge you need to remember to thank and recognize the crew around you.

To everyone in that room

Last night we celebrated the Top 50 CEOs of Atlantic Canada. But none of us stand in those rooms without the teams we have at work and the support systems we have at home.

So thank you to the CEOs being honored, and to every team member, partner, and family member who makes it possible.

Did anybody die? No.

Then we can deal with whatever comes next.

And even when the markets and the workflows we rely on die, we’ll deal with that too.

Cheers,

Matt