The Importance of Staying in Touch,
for the Busiest Among Us
The
PBS documentary ‘Fortunate Sons’ serves as a good reminder to all business
builders that you can’t put a price on your connection to others.
EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V
AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1
Nov 6, 2025
I wrote a piece a few
years ago after the pandemic (when we were constantly reminded of how many
people arbitrarily and abruptly died) about the importance of not shutting out people from your past. Whether it’s
friends, relatives, old flames, schoolmates, fellow employees, or even noxious
neighbors, staying in touch is necessary—regardless of how much or little you
might remember about your time with them. I noted that this was easier now (for
better or worse) in the era of relentless social connectivity, when it seems
that anyone from the good old days can reach out and contact you through some
channel or another.
I did caution that
nothing is as responsible for the way we fondly remember those days (and the
folks who were there) than a fading memory. Needless to say, for every one
of us, those days weren’t all hearts and flowers. I was reminded of that column
as I watched the moving new PBS documentary Fortunate
Sons which is based primarily on one-on-one Zoom
interviews and group Zoom sessions held throughout the pandemic by about 40
guys (all in their 60s) who were high school classmates starting in 1968 at the
Harvard School in California. The trailer is a good intro to the full film which
premiers in Chicago on November 6th.
The Zoom conversations
culminated in the group’s successful 50th reunion at the Harvard School
and in some more informal festivities that were attended in person by almost
all of the participants. The film captures the privileged backgrounds of the classmates,
the insane societal changes going on during this tumultuous time and how the
school itself was radically changed, and the very personal life experiences,
revelations and honest admissions of the various class members. We see the
sincere joy of old friends coming back together, new friendships being formed
(even at what seems to be such a late date), and how liberating it can be to
share with peers the past pains of family and foregone friendships without
shame or anger or any of the limitations or discomfort that kept so many of
these emotions, behaviors and concerns emotionally buried for decades.
Every business builder,
owner and operator I know will find plenty of familiar references and feelings
in these conversations, and no one who watches the entire film will be unmoved
or unable to find some comments valuable and applicable to their own situations.
It’s worth your time to watch at a time when so few things are.
One of the most striking
aspects of the very frank conversations is the realization by everyone of
exactly how little their family finances, social status, and connections did to
prepare them for the times ahead or really help them in the journey. It really
struck me that so few of the speakers had anything good to say about their
parents. There were plenty of complaints about indifference, abuse, alcohol,
suicides, infidelity and divorces, and insanely high expectations, but almost
nothing about unstinting support, love and caring, or even encouragement to
explore anything outside of their folks’ own experiences and comfort zones. One
Harvard School alum said what he learned most from his mother was exactly what
money can’t buy—like happiness. We hear constantly various fables about how
determinative family matters are in entrepreneurial success—like being the
eldest child—but it turned out for many of these folks that leaving home was
the best thing they could do.
Another interesting
omission (which I think every entrepreneur should take note of) is that there’s
almost no discussion about what any of these guys has been doing business-wise
for the last 50 years. It’s like—as they reflected and looked back on their
lives—the last thing they wanted to discuss or focus on were past business
activities or successes. There were interesting notes about flameouts,
addiction issues, and abrupt lifestyle and family changes, but very little
about their own ventures. There’s a fair amount early on in the film about what
studs and big deals their dads were but almost nothing about what the guys
themselves built or accomplished other than—with the rarest of exceptions—the
clear desire not to follow in their family’s footsteps.
On the other hand, the things
that were front and center and obvious sources of pride and comfort were those
they were doing now – charity work, teaching, helping with underprivileged
kids, and addressing health and social issues. A desire to do something that
mattered for the greater good. At the end of your career, the things you value
the most (apart from family) are those you’ve done for and given to
others. But clearly the most important thing to many of them
(assisted often by therapy) was what they were doing now to reconnect with
their own families and reach out to their kids and grandkids so they could make
up for past sins of omission or otherwise, and, as one of the guys noted, enjoy
the time they had left with the ones who mattered most. You learn typically too
late in life that there’s always more work, but you only have one family. Your
family is a much more important extension of yourself than any work you do.
But the real takeaway
for me from the film was the realization by so many of the attendees looking
back that their friends were the families that they chose for themselves and
that, in some cases, it was these very friends who were important parts of the
reasons they made it through some very tough times.
You see the joy at
getting back together and the sadness which is equally clear that so many years
apart had passed, that so many chances to reconnect and build on prior times
together had been lost, and that, while they were optimistic about the time they
had remaining, they all realized that it was the last few innings of the
ballgame. We all know what things we have, but we never know how much time we
have left.
