This isn’t an ordinary story, but it is one that everyone knows a part of due to the nature of the day. Despite it hopefully being a once in a lifetime event, I think there are lessons here on how leaders might approach disaster. The toll that a disaster - whether it's external, personal or otherwise - can take on mental health is vast, and therefore I hope my experience is of benefit to you this World Mental Health Day.
It started on a Monday at 3:30am in Boston. At this time, I am working and living in New York and have the overly grand title of President of the New York Institute of Finance, but I am in Boston for an early meeting, so have come up the night before. I am in a very nice high-rise hotel at some floor in the 30s and the fire alarm sounds. In the confusion, I pull on clothes and head down an interminable number of stairs into the plaza outside whilst we wait for the all-clear. That takes forever and by the time I get back to my room there is no way to get back to sleep. Little did I know that the hotel also had a group of terrorists in residence, who would change the course of history only a couple of days later. I still wonder whether the fire alarm was a freaky coincidence or something more sinister.
The meeting goes well and, at end of the afternoon, I head out to Logan airport for the flight back to New York. The airport is in the usual chaos associated with the flight cancellations due to summer thunderstorms which plague flights on the East Coast that time of year. All flights were cancelled, a couple of colleagues and I make the decision to try to get the last train back to New York. We make the last train by 30 seconds with my shirt soaked in sweat for the first hour of the journey.
