Mark Insull was one of my favorite people.
I suspect he was a favorite for many others, too. To know him, was to love him.
His good looks (that included a luxuriant head of hair), a very proper British accent, and his simply daffy sense of humor were simply irresistible to anyone who came into his orbit.
What really got me was his vocabulary. It was amazing.
Let me illustrate.
Mark started working at CEB a year before I did. Because we were two of the least young people in the San Francisco office, we bonded instantly. On day one we went to lunch.
“Well Jim, this job has me totally flummoxed! I can’t help you, good luck! Ha ha ha!”
Honestly, I can’t remember anyone in my life who ever used the word “flummoxed.” Haven’t heard it since.
Mark and I became friends. Lots of lunches.
You can learn a lot about people going to lunch with them. You learn what matters to them, and how they think. If you were with Mark it also meant lots of laughs in between tales of work and his devotion to his family.
During those lunches I learned about Mark’s meeting Anne Marie. An american college professor and a used car salesman from the UK in San Francisco. An unlikely pair, perhaps. Regardless, he was totally smitten.
They married and had two beautiful daughters, Charlotte and Rachel. He was so proud that both of them were college graduates. From good schools. Something he hadn’t done. “Sort of makes the crazy work thing worthwhile!” he told me just two weeks ago in what would be our last conversation.
What I remember most about Mark was his laugh. He was always quick to laugh at my lame jokes. I was always sad when our time together was coming to an end. He was simply lovely to be around.
This is a super sad time. He’s irreplaceable. No sense to be found here with his passing. I feel so much for his wife, daughters, and family. They know what a special gift he was.
The only thing I can add is, now we’re all flummoxed. RIP – Mark.
Humans
Remembering Steve Jobs – Someone I never met.
Originally published October 11, 2011
Many years ago I lived in Cupertino, the birthplace of Apple Computer. They had a fitness center, state-of-the-art of course, and I taught several exercise classes there between 1984-1985.
Steve Jobs never took any of them.
The public reaction to his death has surprised me as much as my personal one. I cried. Actually, I wept.
I guess this was because like so many others, I LOVED his products. They changed my life. They also changed the lives of those around me.
His products helped me become more productive and in turn a happier person. The people around me appreciated that happier person.
I earned a Master’s degree almost entirely on my Macintosh.
All my (and many other instructors) cycle classes’ music comes courtesy of an iPhone or iPod with music purchased through iTunes or streamed from an app acquired in the App Store. This subgroup of “group exercise instructors” is just one small example of how the tentacles of Jobs’ products are literally everywhere. Six degrees of Apple.
I guess too there is the indisputable unfairness of his death. Why does he go so young when others who have not done anything significant in their lives get to live on (and on)?
Don’t try to answer this. If you do, you’ll sound like an ass. It’s just unfair and one of those mysteries in life.
If there is anything I can take away from Steve Jobs life, having never met him, it’s this: people who make things can form a connection with the people who use them that can be deep and meaningful. The regard ultimately will be based on the thing, and not the person (Jobs reportedly had many personal peccadillos).
Life is short, make good things.
