Conversations, Part One: The Gift of a Shortened Future

Conversations with Vern Ho on Life, Leadership, and the Courage to Be Human

On illness, family, congruence, and learning to live before it is too late

In October of 1995, I sat down with my friend and mentor, Vern Ho, for a long conversation about life, leadership, illness, and the state of our society.

Three months earlier, Vern had undergone surgery and learned that he was dying from cancer. He already knew, at the time of this interview, that he likely had only a short time left to live. What struck me was not despair, but clarity. There was an unusual directness in the way he spoke — as if the nearness of death had stripped away abstraction and left only what truly mattered.

Vern was an organizational development consultant, community leader, and deeply reflective human being. He had spent years working with institutions, boards, and organizations, helping them examine purpose, structure, and the hidden patterns that either nourish or slowly destroy a system. During the final months of his life, he began speaking about illness, organizations, and society using remarkably similar language. To Vern, cancer was not only physical. It was also cultural, relational, and spiritual.

Listening to this interview nearly thirty years later, I am struck by how relevant his reflections feel now. Much of what he sensed in 1995 — fragmentation, disconnection, institutional rigidity, fear-based leadership, and the loss of genuine human presence — feels even more visible today.

And yet beneath his concerns was not cynicism, but a call toward greater honesty, courage, and humanity.

One memory remains especially vivid for me.

On the morning of January 2, 1996, I woke suddenly around 5:30 AM. Lying in bed, I distinctly heard the words:

“Go with God.”

Later that day, I learned that Vern had died around that same time.

I have never tried to explain the experience. I simply carry it with me.

What follows is an edited portion of our conversation from October 28, 1995.

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Vern Ho

The surgery became a catalyst for everything.

It brought into focus the full meaning of life and death, purpose, family, relationships, community — everything. So for me, the last few months have been a kind of capsule of life itself.

And strangely enough, from the very beginning, I felt this illness was a gift.

People kept saying to me, “I wish I could see life the way you do now.” And I would tell them: I think you could, if you truly lived as though your time were short.

But maybe the difference is that I have physical reminders every day that something drastic is happening.

One of the gifts was getting sick in Honolulu. It brought family together. People I hadn’t seen in twenty years suddenly appeared again. And what I realized was that those connections had always been there.

Growing up, I often felt like a loner. I felt different. I kept my distance from much of my family. Even within my immediate family, my sister and I were never especially close.

But when I became ill, I was overwhelmed by the concern and love people expressed.

I remember one moment in the hospital. I was in intense pain, and a friend began placing cool towels on me, soothing me physically while we waited for the nurse. I looked over at my mother, and it was almost as if she wished she could do the same thing, but didn’t know how.

That moment symbolized something important to me about my family: there was love there, but not always an ability to express it openly.

Because of that, I think I always wanted to become more open myself — more honest about what I feel and more able to express it directly.

And maybe that’s one of the biggest lessons of this illness:

how to become more congruent.

To behave more in alignment with what I actually feel.

Even before getting sick, there was still a gap between what I felt deeply and how I expressed it outwardly.

Someone once told me that many cancer patients are people who know how to care for everyone else, but don’t know how to care for themselves. I think there may be truth in that.

So one of the lessons I’m learning now is how to love and care for myself as deeply as I’ve tried to care for others.

And the love I received from family during this time — even people who hardly knew me anymore — was deeply affirming.

I kept thinking:

“How can you still care this much?”

Chuck Craytor

You mentioned that people said they wished they could see life the way you do now. What did you mean by that?

Vern Ho

One thing is simply seeing this experience as a gift rather than only a tragedy.

Another is realizing that I probably don’t have much time left, and because of that, I need to be more congruent. I don’t have time anymore to postpone things that matter.

If something is important, then I need to do it now.

And if it isn’t important, then maybe I shouldn’t bother with it at all.

So maybe the lessons are these:

be more open,

be more decisive,

and stop postponing life.

Pain has also taught me something.

I’ve stayed away from pain medication more than most people probably would. My philosophy is that pain exists for a reason. It asks us to pay attention.

I think most of us spend our lives trying not to feel things.

But eventually we will feel them.

If we ignore the signals long enough, the body eventually forces us to listen.

And I don’t think this is only true for individuals. I think it’s true for organizations, communities, and entire societies.

If we ignore what matters long enough, eventually the system stops us.

Vern Ho

One thing that has become very clear to me is that I no longer want to spend my remaining time arguing about the past.

My mother and I got into difficult arguments after my diagnosis. She would ask things like:

“Why didn’t you take better care of yourself?”

“Why didn’t you have insurance?”

“Why didn’t you do things differently?”

And finally, I told her:

“I do not want to spend whatever time I have left arguing about what should or shouldn’t have happened. I want to talk about where we are now.”

That feels important to me.

Not where we should have been.

Not what we failed to do.

But:

Where are we now?

How do we want to live now?

How do we want to relate to one another now?

Vern Ho

I think many people postpone their lives.

They say:

“I’ll deal with it later.”

“I’ll live after retirement.”

“I’ll change someday.”

But someday is not guaranteed.

That’s the absurdity.

We override our intuition constantly. We ignore what our bodies, relationships, and spirits are trying to tell us.

We’ve created a society where it often feels wrong to trust your own direct knowing.

Instead, we wait until crisis arrives.

A terminal illness.

A collapse.

A loss.

Or we simply never wake up one morning.

But the deeper question is:

When do we finally trust what we already know?

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Part Two will continue with Vern’s reflections on organizations, leadership, social fragmentation, fear, and what he called “the cancer in the system.”