So, this is going to be a bit more stream of consciousness than normal…

Let me explain.

Last Wednesday, I flew to Panama to deliver two keynotes. I was excited for the trip. I’d been once before as a kid and remembered the beautiful country.

I completed the first talk on Thursday evening and the second on Friday morning. I left feeling energized and headed back to the hotel to take a few calls before heading to the airport.

At 12:56pm local time, I was on the top floor of my hotel, sitting at the desk, when I started to feel a light rumbling sensation in my chair. I brushed it off as the AC unit firing on.

But then, chaos. The floor started to shake. The entire building started to sway. I looked outside the window and could see windows billowing in and out on nearby buildings.

It started getting worse. I headed to the bathroom doorway, but the large glass shower door was swinging wildly. Things started falling off the counters and onto the floor.

I would shortly find out that a 7.7 magnitude earthquake was underway. The largest such event in Panama’s recorded history. Over the next 30 hours as I tried to find my way home, there were 161 aftershocks, including several 6.0+ magnitude tremors.

As you probably know by now, I’m someone who processes my thinking through writing. So throughout the 30 hours, I was sending myself notes.

Here are my stream of consciousness perspectives from going through a massive earthquake.

12:56pm: First, everything got smaller.

I don’t really know how to describe it, but the world got smaller during the initial ~40 seconds.

My thought process went from “this is weird” to “this is serious” to “this building may collapse” in rapid succession.

It was the first time in my life that I had even a momentary sensation of thinking that this might be it.

And it was oddly calming. All I was thinking about was the next second.

1 Hour Later: The shared struggle built bonds.

About an hour after the initial earthquake, we were allowed to reenter the hotel lobby.

I immediately noticed just how much total strangers were happily interacting with one another. People were drinking coffee, laughing, and smiling an hour after the event. Sharing their experience. Their travel plans. Their fears of a bigger one to come.

I was reminded of the research that shared struggle releases oxytocin, the chemical that creates feelings of connection, trust, and empathy.

I certainly saw that in real time.

6 Hours Later: When chaos hits, lower your expectations.

My attention quickly focused on trying to get home to my family. But with the airspace completely shut down in the aftermath of the earthquake, it felt exceedingly unlikely that my original flight would depart that day.

As I prepared to head to the airport to try to figure something out, I got into a conversation with a tourist who had left the airport when it got evacuated.

His advice:

Lower your expectations.

He said he’d been through several similar experiences and it always takes much longer than you think. Between crowds, lines, general chaos, and everything in between.

I took the advice to heart. After spending an hour at the airport, I decided that getting out that day was not going to happen. I was just going to make myself miserable and stressed. So I headed back to the hotel to ride it out.

It didn’t bother me, because I’d reset my expectations already.

12 Hours Later: At the end of the day, we are powerless.

That night, I was asleep when I woke up to the room shaking from a powerful 6.0 magnitude aftershock.

As I was lying there in bed, I had the clearest understanding of just how powerless we all are in the face of these acts of God. Or acts of the universe. Or whatever you believe in.

There was, quite literally, nothing I could do to stop or avoid it. We are so much smaller than we realize in our day to day lives.

But maybe that’s liberating.

18 Hours Later: Awareness is so very perishable.

The next morning, I headed to the airport for the backup flight I had booked. It seemed like it had a chance to take off and I was eager to get home.

In the car, I found myself stressing over the same silly things I had been stressing about before the earthquake.

Random work stuff I was behind on. Anxiety over some future decisions. Upcoming travel commitments.

I tried to snap myself out of it and remember the awareness of what was truly important. Getting home safe to my loved ones.

Awareness is perishable. We reset quickly. And the only way to combat that is to constantly create reminders of what those important things really are.

30 Hours Later: Bad luck may not be so bad.

The whole saga felt like a lot of bad luck. But there’s a quote I come back to whenever chaos strikes:

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” - Cormac McCarthy

Say it aloud. Feel it in your bones. Then just deal with the two feet right in front of you. It works.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, I got a text checking in from my dear friend Scott Belsky.

He said something I keep coming back to:

“Everything you do, explore, and realize for the next 24 hours will be lifelong memories...the payload of challenge is meaning.”

He's right. The stories we tell decades later are never about the easy, smooth days. They're about the ones that shook us.

Quite literally, in this case. (Sorry!)

As I pulled back into my driveway 30 hours later, I was filled with gratitude.

For the incredible hosts in Panama, who took such great care of me to make sure I made it home.

For the resilient hotel and airport staff that showed up and provided calm throughout the experience.

For the strong infrastructure of the country that meant that a massive earthquake led to zero fatalities.

And most of all, for my wife and son, who were waiting to hug me when I walked in the door.