Lessons from the Tailor

The value of measuring each time.

Audio Narration by David Marlow

“The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor: he took my measure anew every time he saw me, whilst all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.”

―George Bernard Shaw from, Man and Superman

Reimagined art by David Marlow ©2023

It was an opportunity of a lifetime. As THE featured keynote speaker, I’d been invited to speak at AT&T’s Global Business-to-Business conference. The CIOs of the biggest companies in the world were attending.

A flight to New York City and a limousine ride were only weeks away.

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Then it hit me.

Months before, my doctor gave me some bad news. Some, who’s kidding who, he gave me an encyclopedia set of bad news.

Hypertension and the highest triglyceride number he’d ever seen, to name a few.

I made some changes, like eliminating sweetened sodas and upping my exercise.

Three months and minus forty pounds later, my numbers were in the normal range.

This brings me back to the speech in NY.

“I haven’t tried on my suit in a while,” I told my wife.

It was like a circus tent, and with the speech two weeks away, we headed out to buy a new suit.

“It fits perfectly.”

The tailor was amazed; the suit fit perfectly right off the rack.

“The only thing you need is to hem the pants, and I can have that done for you in a couple of days. You’re lucky; significant tailoring is taking nearly three weeks.”

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We change in ways we often miss.

In one part of this story, I was changing in ways I hadn’t noticed and needed to stop that change.

On the other, I had improved in some ways and wasn’t that person any longer.

It is good to check in every so often.

Or, as Shaw admonishes, measure every time.

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