Leadership & The Person In Front Of You

On the way to Celaya, and then León, I stopped at a gas station in Apaseo.

I had stitches from a recent hernia operation, a commercial property project on my mind, and later that day I was heading to see a close friend and investor who has been giving me advice on the property. It was one of those days with a lot of moving pieces, but I was trying not to rush past the day itself.

That is when I met Adelina.

She was the gas attendant. I noticed the compass tattoo on her arm and asked how long she had had it. She told me seven years. She said she never thought she would get a tattoo, but something happened in her life that made her want to mark direction.

For her, the compass was about her four children. Wherever they are in the world, her heart is with them. And if any of them ever need her, she will go in whatever direction she needs to go. North, south, east, or west.

That small question opened the door.

She told me about her husband from La Luisiana, about the Horta last name, and about her extended family in Oaxaca. Then she pulled out her phone and showed me pictures of her granddaughter, probably about three years old, in the middle of the kind of beautiful chaos only a toddler can create.

Adelina laughed as she showed me. You could feel the pride.

Then she looked at me and said I looked like a priest or preacher. I laughed and said, “I’m not even allowed in the churches.”

It was playful, human, ordinary, and beautiful.

When I drove away, she said, “It was so nice talking to you.”

That stayed with me.

I often open conversations with people I do not know this way:

“¿Cómo amaneció? ¿Con los ojos abiertos o cerrados?”

People usually answer one way or the other. The best answer I ever got was, “Con un ojo abierto y uno cerrado.” I still laugh at that one.

Underneath the humor, there is something I keep learning.

Presence is not passive. Presence is how we notice what is actually happening. With curiosity. Not what we are trying to manage. Not what we are rushing past.

In leadership, we often move quickly. We look for the task, the risk, the decision, the outcome.

All of that matters.

But sometimes we miss the person in front of us. We miss the human opening. We miss the trust that appears when someone feels seen instead inconsequential or managed.

Sometimes presence reveals more than strategy.

A small encounter, but not a small moment.

Sometimes leadership begins with something as simple as noticing the person in front of you.

My Auténtico Self™