Every great organization has something special about it. Not every great organization has an oracle. At Walter’s firm, we had one! She was Delphi. Well, her real name was Bella, but we called her Delphi.
Bella came to the firm with Bill. Officially, she was Bill’s assistant. In truth, she was his right arm, the office confidante, resident therapist, comic relief—the connective tissue holding us together.
Bill nicknamed her Delphi, after the Oracle at Delphi, because he swore she had powers. She read palms. The sobriquet stuck. Everyone called her Delphi during that era. And lots of people asked her to read their palms. Me included.
But Delphi’s mystical side went well beyond palm reading.
One year, Bill was selling his house and was not even getting nibbles. No one was coming to look at it. It was a perfectly lovely house; he had readied it for sale—painted the interior multiple shades of vibrant beige and staged it.
Frustrated, Bill said, “Delph, I gotta unload this house. I don’t get why there is no interest. It’s a sellers’ market up there.”
She replied in her thick New York accent, “Bill, here’s what ya gotta do. Go and get a small statue of Saint Joseph.”
Bill looked at her skeptically.
“Bury him upside down in the front yard, next to the ‘for sale’ sign.”
He was perhaps skeptical, but he was compliant. In fact, he canceled his meetings that afternoon and ran out to search for a statue of “Saint Joe,” as he liked to call him.
He did exactly as Delphi instructed, and the house sold within a week.
He came to the office after the agreement was signed: “Delph, my man Joe, he come up big!”
“But Bill. I forgot to tell ya. Now that the house is sold, ya gotta dig him up and position him UPRIGHT in a place of honor in your new house. DO NOT leave him buried. You need to thank Saint Joseph for getting the job done.”
Again, Bill was skeptical but compliant.
There are hundreds of stories like this one about Bella. But it wasn’t just her predictions and superstitions that made her divine. It was Bella herself.
People were always stopping by her desk. Sometimes for advice. Sometimes for palm readings. But mostly just to hang out.
Bella’s name was never on the door. Yet she left a bigger mark on the firm—and on many of us—than people whose names were.
That’s the thing about an oracle.
You may not believe in her until you have experienced her. Then you come to rely on her.
Decades later, I still call Delph to read me. Not my palms these days. Just my thoughts.
— Monica Burton
This essay is adapted from The Heart of Leadership, a memoir in progress.
© 2026 Monica Burton. All rights reserved.