One of the first questions I ask candidates during job interviews and aspiring professionals early in their careers is: "What's your origin story?" I usually get a confused look in response, followed by a cautious play-by-play of their resume. But that's when I politely interrupt and clarify that I want to hear the story behind the resume: I want to hear about those pivotal moments in the person's life, personally and professionally, that provided momentum to where they are today or even pushed them in an entirely different direction in their career journey. What is this person passionate about, and why? What events had influence on those passions, and how do those threads interweave across time to shape that person into who they are today? Regardless of age, gender, location, or level of success, we're all similar in that we have our own unique origin story. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about mine.

My love of technology dates back to the mid-90s when my uncle would let me play with Corel Draw 3 on his desktop computer in the office by his woodworking shop. My regiment towards learning something new roots in my two best friends growing up that overcame tremendous odds to pursue careers they dreamed about as kids. My vulnerability stems from my wife, who took a leap of faith after a successful career in the entertainment industry to start over as a personal trainer and build her business and brand over the last decade. My fearless devotion to work-life balance comes from my daughter, who taught me after a 97-day fight for her life in the hospital that time is the most precious thing we have, and it's something we can never get back. My discipline with personal finances comes from my step-grandfather, who bought me treasury bonds every year with a 10-year maturity, teaching me the values of investment and compound interest before I even knew what those terms meant. All of these experiences shaped me into the person I am today, and each deserves their own story, but the passion I want to talk about now is possibly the strongest of them all: my love of writing.

My father was the ultimate outdoorsman. His entire life revolved around hiking, running, mountain biking, white water rafting, kayaking, and rock climbing – if it was an outdoor activity in nature, then he was interested. He was also a career National Park Ranger, so his professional life and personal hobbies mashed together like peanut butter and chocolate, which made for a great experience as his son with so many activities to choose from. As a byproduct of this lifestyle, his fitness was formidable, and he would often win outdoor fitness challenges, sometimes with a perfect score while intentionally competing in a younger age bracket than his own. He was a local legend in the communities and parks he worked in, and he made dozens of lifelong friendships from it. And while each of these skills was impressive in its own right, there was another hovering in the background throughout: his ability to write a compelling story.

Because of dad's status in the above communities, he was frequently asked to write articles for niche publications for those communities. Whether it was a story from his time as a backcountry ranger at the Grand Canyon, or an article on how to properly secure ropes for rescue training, he could weave a narrative that would lock in the reader's attention immediately. Writing those articles was never about the money, which barely covered the cost of his time to create them. He was always more interested in offering something of value to the readers, to build up the community of his audience. I remember watching him writing drafts on the typewriter – he never had formal keyboard training, so it was all hunting-and-pecking with his index fingers – and I would eagerly read them when he finished. He had a way with words that was poetic to me, and he often helped me write various essays for school, providing motivation on even the most mundane of topics. I didn't realize it at the time, but his expertise in writing had the most profound impact on me in ways that are hard to describe.

Writing is about storytelling, and as I found my footing in a career of data and analytics, the idea of telling a story from data was a natural extension of those days of me as a young kid watching him on that typewriter and then trying to emulate that behavior myself. Writing has become the foundation of my unyielding belief that remote work can be just as effective as in-person work, but only if you already are or are willing to become a good writer, and thus an effective communicator. Most importantly, writing is my greatest source of stress relief, even if that means writing something that I'll never share with an outside audience. For me, writing has always been about the journey, not the destination, and that journey is what's most important to me. It's why I ask that origin story question in interviews and discussions.

The one thing my father always wanted to do was to write a book about his career as a Park Ranger. When he retired several years ago, he had every intent on starting it, but his health took a turn for the worst in 2014 when he nearly died from a medical emergency. He slowly recovered, but the years that followed weren't kind, and the peak fitness in his early years was steadily replaced with a host of chronic conditions, including cancer, which he fought off after several months of chemotherapy and radiation. But even as his health declined, he was an eternal optimist and remained committed to writing that book... one day. He would often tell me about the chapters he planned on writing once he got better, and that visual hovered in my mind of him once again hunting-and-pecking with his index fingers, this time on a laptop. Unfortunately, that chance never came.

My father, Robert Turan, passed away on Saturday shortly before sunrise. His cancer returned with a vengeance, spreading throughout his body. We tried everything we could to help him, including a trip from his farm in Arkansas to visit a multi-specialty team of Vanderbilt doctors in Nashville over three days to assess every possible route of care, but the cancer exacerbated his other conditions and left him in a frail state with few options. His life expectancy dropped from months to weeks, then to days, then hours. We knew the inevitable was near, and then it finally arrived.

As I think back on my father's life and passing, I feel relieved that he's no longer suffering, but I also feel an immense level of joy from the many things he passed on to me. He wasn't always perfect and made some regretful mistakes later in life, but those mistakes don't diminish what he imprinted on me as a kid when I watched him translate the thoughts in his head into a powerful narrative to share with others. We choose to honor loved ones in different ways, and I choose to honor my father's life by continuing to write narratives, just as he did.

To the reader, I encourage you to reflect on those critical moments in your life that have profoundly shaped the person you've become – those moments of pride, pain, and perseverance. Embrace them and weave them into a compelling narrative, crafting your own unique origin story. Keep that story close to your heart, and share it with pride, knowing that it's a testament to your journey and growth.

Never one to end on a sad note, I'll leave you with one of my favorite pieces of dad's writing: his forward to the book The Obed: A Climber's Guide to the Wild and Scenic by Kelly Brown. I hope you have the same feeling I do in that you'll see and feel how the words jump off the page in a level of authenticity and excitement about a topic he truly loved.