Over the past few days, internal auditors around the world have been mourning the sudden loss of Phil Tarling, one of the profession’s most widely known leaders. Phil was a professional colleague and a close personal friend of mine for more than 20 years. As I reflect on his passing, I am reminded of an article I wrote 10 years ago: Do You Live Your Life in Color? As I shared then:
We have all encountered individuals in our professional lives who are living their lives in black and white. While I am sure they love their families and enjoy their personal lives, in their professional lives, they are literally and figuratively just punching the clock. I have always struggled to understand how anyone can spend such a substantial percentage of their adult life going through the motions in the workplace — simply watching the clock until the workday ends. But I see it around me with frightening regularity.
Rather than living my professional life in black and white, I have strived throughout my career to live it in color, whenever possible. I have been inspired not only by my aunt and (a close) college friend, but by countless others whose passion for their work inspired me to live my professional life as if I would only live it once. I am sure there are times when — to borrow the illusion from the Wizard of Oz — I stepped out of Oz and back into Kansas. When that happened, I either changed my attitude or my job as quickly as I could.
Read the full post here.