I knew who I was and what really mattered.

While that was hard from a financial perspective, it wasn’t nearly as hard from an emotional or intellectual one. With introspection came different priorities, values and beliefs. I was forced to reconsider my life’s journey. Looking back, I am grateful for the struggle. With this new focus, things slowly began to change. I confronted questions like, “Why do I exist?”, “What do I like to do, and why do I like doing those things?”, “What kind of legacy do I want to leave?” and “How can I change my life’s trajectory to one that really matters?” These were not easy questions to answer. I spent the better part of 2002 looking for a job-and for myself. When I got asked a year later to work on Coca-Cola’s Salt Lake Olympic project team as an independent contractor, I thought the company had come to its senses and my full-time position would come as soon as the Games were over. My color was Coke red and my cheese was located at One Coca-Cola Plaza. People were kind, and sent me books like Who Moved My Cheese? and What Color is Your Parachute? I was both annoyed and angry by these gestures. I lost my identity and went into a downward spiral. When I left Coke, I no longer felt relevant or important. How could this happen to me? I was a “high performer.” I thought I was earmarked for greater things. Before I knew it, I was on the outside looking in. A year later, the CEO was forced to step down and Coca-Cola experienced its first major layoff in more than 30 years. I was on my way to my ultimate goal-general management. Two years later, I was handpicked for a CEO project. It was at this point I made the jump-first negotiating sponsorship contracts, and then running Olympic and FIFA World Cup licensing programs.

Along the way I saw that Coca-Cola used the power of marketing to communicate the value of its brands. I started in finance, and after two years was invited to join the treasury department. When I left the Navy to attend business school at UNC Chapel Hill, I never expected to be recruited to the Coca-Cola Company. Consulting | Coaching | Workshops to enable them to compete with the big guys.ĭo you expect your career to take a linear path? What if the perceived failures or rejections we get along our journey are what actually define us and make us stronger? What if a real career is just a challenge in disguise? All four studies were published as preprints and haven’t yet been peer-reviewed.Equipping OVERCOMERS with brand strategy, brand expansion and brand licensing tools. They showed that the Omicron variant leads to less severe disease than the Delta variant and other strains. Three other studies were released last week, including one in Syrian hamsters, one in mice, and another in Syrian hamsters. “This was surprising since every other variant has robustly infected these hamsters,” Michael Diamond, MD, a study co-author and a virologist at Washington University, told the newspaper. The researchers noted that Syrian hamsters, which have become severely ill with previous versions of the coronavirus, also had milder symptoms. Those infected with Omicron had less lung damage and were less likely to die. Last week, a group of American and Japanese scientists released a report on hamsters and mice that were infected with the Omicron variant or earlier coronavirus strains. Although COVID-19 cases have surged across the world, hospitalizations have only increased slightly, and the variant appears to cause less severe disease than previous strains. Previous studies showed that some of the mutations might allow the virus to invade cells easily or escape antibodies, the newspaper reported.ĭuring the past month, more than a dozen research groups have studied the Omicron variant in the lab to understand how it affects the body. When the Omicron variant emerged in November, researchers noted the large number of mutations and expressed concerns about how it might affect patients.

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