The Magnanimous Mr. Brookshire
Magnanimous (adj)
- generous or forgiving, especially toward a rival or less powerful person —Oxford
- showing a lofty and courageous spirit —Webster’s
Don Brookshire was an eccentric cat. He was the type who’d come into the office wearing pearlescent blue and silver snake skin boots and three tightly coordinated plaids, have a good laugh at the morning standup, and only half-sarcastically quip, “Well, I guess I overdid it today.” He was the type who’d go to a work outing at a baseball game in a camo tee and military boots, and then go to the bar afterward and be the one corralling people and finding tables for them, even though there was barely space to walk and you couldn’t hear the person next to you talking. He seemed to always wear his heart on his sleeve, he never stopped, and yet somehow he came off as entirely in control of himself.
The dude was old. I’m not sure how old, but he was certainly past the age of having naturally abundant energy. Had his character been somewhat dubious, it would have been easy to suspect his enthusiasm came from a mix of illicit substances. But no, he was unrestrainedly enthusiastic to his core. That’s the first thing anyone would notice about Mr. Brookshire.
At first I thought the reason he made a career for himself in food and beverage was because it was an industry where his level of enthusiasm and eccentricity could feel right at home. I still think that’s true, but by itself, I think that would do him a great disservice.
I’ve met many enthusiastic people. I haven’t met many that enthusiastic in leadership roles. But more importantly, Mr. Brookshire was one of few people I’ve worked with who never tried putting me in a box. Even more, he’s the only person who audaciously put his personal leverage behind me.
I met Mr. Brookshire when we worked together at The Joseph.
Mr. Brookshire taught me about how personal relationships and leverage work. I was trying to get a software company’s cooperation but wasn’t getting anywhere. He called the vice president—an old friend he said, who just so happened to also be the co-owner—left a fifteen-second voicemail, and instantly lit a team on fire for me. I used the lessons he taught me to work myself out of a do-not-compete agreement a few months later.
Working at The Joseph was my first hotel job, it was my first management-titled position, and I was entirely in over my head.
There were nights I stayed really late. A few nights he noticed from his office on the other side of the eighth-floor cube farm. He would pop up to the top-floor restaurant and bring back dinners that accommodated my obscure dietary restrictions—without even asking.
One morning I came in at 6 a.m. in a failing attempt to keep ahead of my inbox. He found me around 7. I was nearly in tears by that point. “You wouldn’t be this torn up unless you cared,” he said. “What can I get you?” He showed back up with a matcha latte from the downstairs coffee bar a few minutes later.
I was a handful.
Mr. Brookshire let me know kindly, “Alot of managers told me I was a real pain in the ass to manage.”
All my tech-support careers to that point had been fixing issues that, at the very worst, might take two or three days to put a bow on. At The Joseph, I saw deep issues I couldn’t even imagine figuring out how to resolve, and it drove me into a frenzy.
I had the wrong mindset. It’s taken me months to realize that that’s what every leader of an organization faces. Instead of living in near constant panic worrying about how to fix every single issue in the next five months, The Joseph really needed someone who would help patiently hold the organization together, even when freak Windows 11 upgrades threatened to shut the doors of the business, and even when the lead technology vendor made it plain they didn’t want to act in good faith. (Considering the company who commissioned them is now embroiled in two public bad-faith lawsuits, it seems reasonable enough to write the same here.)
In game theory terms, I was playing a series of finite games, and the technology vendor was playing the infinite game. Most of the executives I worked with had the mindset of playing the infinite game, too. And like all finite players paired with infinite players, I was the one who gave up.
Every executive saw it coming. Most tried persuading me otherwise. One tried coaching me to block off time for when I had to do difficult work. One told me to be careful and keep my head low. One told me to stay at my desk (by myself) and stay on the phone until I got the issue resolved. Those bits of advice struck me as disingenuous. I had a machete swinging over my head that no one had the power to remove. Most people were just smart enough, and afraid enough, to stay away from it. Some even pretended it didn’t exist. In fairness, they still have their jobs.
There were three people in the hotel who called the machete for what it was. The guy who very generously hired me for something I’d never done before; a friend in people and culture who shared how the same thing had happened to her at a previous job, and that she was more concerned for my health; and the magnanimous Mr. Brookshire. The day I submitted my slovenly-scrawled resignation letter, Mr. Brookshire looked me square in the eye and said, “If it’s any consolation, you’re right, and it probably still won’t be fixed two years from now. I’ve got connections all over. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
After the morning stand up, he went into his office and turned on Spotify to keep his spirits up.
I didn’t follow-up with Mr. Brookshire until five months later. Eventually I tried texting him… calling him… I nearly gave up on getting hold of him. I finally got in touch with him two weeks ago. It was 5:30 p.m., November 21, a Tuesday. Most people had left the office by that point. When I asked him how he was doing, he said he was in the middle of passing two kidney stones and had just been diagnosed with diverticulitis.
“Hold on. I’m getting a call from my doctor. I’ll call you back in just a second.”
The call didn’t come until an hour and a half later. When he finally called me back, I heard a microwave ding in the background. He was home, probably reheating leftovers, and we had our first, and what would turn out to be last, personal conversation. He told me he’d just gotten off the phone with his doctor and that God doesn’t give you more than you can bear. He asked what my plans were for Thanksgiving. He asked me how I was doing. He asked me what I wanted to be doing. When I mentioned a food idea, he sprung off on how years ago he tried pitching someone on the idea of pop-up ghost kitchens, but that was ahead of his time, and he’d love to drum up another business plan. Eventually he settled on, “It’d be great to get dinner. Let’s just find time to break bread.”
We texted back and forth. I looked up restaurants nearer Mr. Brookshire in Brentwood, but I couldn’t find any that I thought would match his commitment to exceptional service and his unbounded energy. I suggested going to Barcelona Wine Bar instead, and he replied back with a confirmed reservation for two faster than I could even think to.
We set dinner for Tuesday, November 29, at 6:30 p.m.
I arrived early. I stood outside the restaurant in the chilling rain. I called. I texted. I waited an hour. And he never came.
I found out yesterday that he passed away just a few days before.
Shakespeare, they say, was preparing for his own death when he wrote The Tempest. I cannot imagine for a second that Mr. Brookshire, who lived in a way that was ever present and bold and almost raw, could not have been keenly self-aware of what was happening in his own body. Maybe his body was already acutely shutting down when we made plans on the 21st in the midst of him passing kidney stones and being diagnosed with diverticulitis. Maybe something freakish happened in the days that followed that sent him over the edge. I hope he went out like a royal foodie by eating way too much stuffing and turkey on Thanksgiving and fell into a euphoric, tryptophan-laden coma. I’ll probably never know. Even though he was in the midst of bad health when he called, and had spent the prior hour on the phone with his doctor discussing what I can only imagine was bad news, he never let on anymore than “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.”
If you look on his LinkedIn profile, his headline begins with #lifeisshortworksomewhereawesome. If you had had the pleasure of chatting with him in his office, you would have seen Eric Metaxes’ biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer prominently displayed on his back wall.
I think Mr. Brookshire knew he was going to die. Perhaps not how or when, but I’m convinced he had already faced his mortality and had determined to live as fully as he could, and to do as much good as he could, until he went out with a spectacular bang. Why else would he have scheduled dinner with me in the midst of bad health instead of waiting to get better? How else could he have faced a very dicey situation at work with no fear and still have offered to put himself on the line for me?
There was a moment in our phone call when I mentioned there was something about working at The Joseph that I couldn’t get away from. “So you want to get back into hospitality and be helping take care of people!” was his instant response, full of enthusiasm and delight.
I think that is the reason Mr. Brookshire made a career for himself in food and beverage. He wanted to throw himself into caring for as many people as he could, and food and beverage is what gave him that opportunity. He was determined till the very end—even to the point of asking what my plans were for Thanksgiving, perhaps while facing his own impending mortality. He didn’t stop caring until death forced him to.
Mr. Brookshire, we’re still on for tapas. I wait till the day I can eat wheat and corn again and you no longer have diverticulitis.
Thank you for showing me what it means to not be afraid.