The deets:

• Thai Passion 7th near Congress Austin
• 11:30am
• Iced tea for both of us (with a side of the second best Thai food I’ve ever eaten)

Background: Shennandoah Diaz (see Cup #2) gave me the names of two people I needed to catch up with in town.  Kurt is one of the two.

This meeting was one that has left me thinking.  About a lot.  One question I keep coming back to is “how can I be more authentic?”

I’m no fraud.  I am honest.  Most of the time, I tell it like it is.  Some (ie my boss) may argue, honest to a fault. But there are times I sugarcoat the truth.  Or I shy away from the truth in its entirety.  I think I’m protecting people.  But if I am totally honest, its self-interest.  I don’t want to hurt someone or cause tension because it makes me uncomfortable.  It’s an ego thing I suppose.  I wish it weren’t so, but I am far too concerned about image.  How will saying that make me look?  What will people think if I do that?  Will they think I’m stupid for asking this question?  This shadow side of me is the very reason I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook.  To me, Facebook is a platform for people to portray themselves in some ideal way and I hate it.  To me, Facebook is the opposite of authentic.  I know, not true for many.  But I’m being honest.

The other thing my meeting with Kurt has got me thinking about is how terrible I am when presented with someone’s authentic truth and it’s shocking.  I can remember sitting across from a business associate at lunch once and almost out of the blue he told me he was gay. I was shocked. First because I didn’t suspect it and second because it was a bit out of left field.  But I wasn’t speechless. We carried on with conversation and I doubt he even knew I was shocked.

Kurt will tell you anything.  He will not sugarcoat.  He puts himself out there in such a beautifully authentic way that you are left wondering why anyone wouldn’t speak their truth. He showed me, look – there’s nothing to be afraid of.

Although there are no shortage of examples, I will share the one that left me speechless (which for a jabbermouth like me is as rare as a parking place at Whole Foods).  I asked Kurt what the most significant thing that has happened in the last month was.  He immediately chuckled and said, “A lot!”. After a second of thought he looked at me and said, “A month ago I tried to kill myself.”  My memory of how I handled that statement was bad.  But not nearly as bad as the reality I faced when I listened to the recording of this conversation.  I just sat there.  I thought little snippets of a ton of things; how did you get to that place, are you OK now, why were you so sad, don’t you know how sad that would make people?, but what came out was, “What happened?”  Kurt, unflummoxed by my flummox says, “It didn’t work.  It got stopped.”  He then shared the circumstances in his life at that dark moment – broke, lost his apt., went through a break-up and he had just found out he had cancer – again. And his honesty continued.  He didn’t wrap it all up into a bunch of fluffiness (like I suppose I wanted him to).  He didn’t tell me how much stronger he is now and how his resiliency surprised him and made him aware of how amazing he is.  He didn’t tell me about a new lease on life and that he will never get to that place again.

Instead, he told me the truth.  Kurt told me he has a long way to go.  He takes one day at a time.  He busies himself with work, friends, food and alcohol.  He has no plan for keeping that darkness at bay and admits he’s in danger of falling into it again.  That is as real as it gets.  And its scary and uncomfortable, like the truth often is.  But it’s also okay.  It’s okay to be yourself.  It’s okay to tell someone the whole truth – especially when they ask.  It’s okay to not know how you are going to make something better.  And it’s okay to take each day at a time and find the courage to carry on moment to moment.

Kurt told me that his life has been a series of roller coaster-like ups and downs.  From childhood to today, life has had a lot of highs and just as many lows. For the most part, he says his mood and affect stay unchanged.  He used to be feisty with a quick temper.  Kurt said, “I used to yell a lot.  I don’t do that anymore.”  He grew up playing competitive sports and recalls always trying to be better.  He pitched seven no-hitters and seven one-hitters in his high school baseball career.  And even with that success, he analyzed each game looking for ways he could have been better. Even looking at other players and finding ways they could improve.

This knack for identifying opportunity and a fervor for improvement may very well be what drew him to start his own business and what makes him such a rockstar at it.

Professionally, Kurt is a Business Development Consultant. In a nutshell, he works with businesses (usually start-ups) to get their business development plan in place, establish processes and procedures focused on lead generation, marketing and sales and then trains the team to make it all happen.  He admits that a lot of what he brings isn’t popular, but says he tells his clients, “I’m going to bring up things that aren’t your idea. That’s why you hired me.”  When the clients trust him, magic happens.

I asked Kurt about the happiest day of his life.  He told me about the day he found out he was cancer free for the first time.  Six years ago Kurt had cancer.  He kicked it’s ass.  Then it came back.  Again, an ass kicking ensued. Kurt won.  This spring, he had a seizure and after some testing he learned he had a brain tumor.  Again, cancer had tried to take him out.  He’s recently completed treatment and is doing great.  Kurt tells me “I’m done giving death the finger!”  Which has happened six times.  Three times he shoved cancer down the steps, once he was shot in the head by a stray bullet on New Year’s, he coded once after a terrible allergic reaction and once his parachute didn’t open while skydiving.

That’s a lot for a lifetime.  It’s a ridiculous amount for 32 years of life.

Although Kurt didn’t name this as so, I got the feeling that Kurt lives by the mantra, “make each moment matter.”  He said several times – mostly in joking reference to his past career as a high-end wealth manager, “do as I say, not as I do.”  He admits he doesn’t concern himself with saving for retirement or eating right.  He loves beer and food that’s terrible for you.  Joking aside, this is the perfect summary of how I felt around Kurt.  He’s not going to dole out advice column-like edicts.  He won’t turn near tragedy into a hopeful message for the furture.  But if you observe him you will see a guy living for today, figuring out who and what make him happy and finding ways to be around more of that.

Before Kurt I was a huge fan of sing-songie inspirational sayings.  I find someone’s ability to turn struggle or pain into something poetic intoxicating.  Today, I realize that the purest beauty is telling your truth.  As ugly and bruised as it may be, when it’s yours and you claim it and tell it, it’s the most profoundly beautiful thing I have ever seen.  And I thank Kurt for teaching me this.

Want to learn more about Kurt?  Check him out professionally on LinkedIn, follow him on Twitter or see what he’s up to or eating via Instagram.