What you lose is not always what you think

Two weeks back, after some updates, I noticed a lot of data missing from my laptop. I retrieved some of it.And then my laptop battery suddenly lost its capacity from 80% to 0 within 2 weeks.

Both felt like straightforward losses - data gone, power gone. It was unsettling.

Another week later, and now travelling without my laptop, I realised what I had actually lost was something less visible.It wasn't just data, but the comfort of knowing it was there. The confidence of having access to what I needed, when I needed it.

With the battery charge capacity, was gone the freedom to work from anywhere, without planning around a socket.

The visible loss is rarely the whole loss and we often don't know what we've lost until the moment we need it and find it absent.

Loss reveals itself through absence, much more than and beyond the event.

For a leader, this is worth sitting with. As you climb the ladder, what have you lost that hasn't shown up yet ?