Embrace Uncomfortable

“And it’s NOW, right then in that moment, as you stand there that you understand the true power of Martin Luther King.”

The following is a small excerpt from a Martin Luther King Day KEYNOTE ADDRESS I gave on January 2020 that is eerily similar to our current times, circumstances and emotions. The full address can be read here on Casey’s Couch.

I was raised in a place and time that allowed me to believe in goodness, in kindness. To aspire to be great, and to step into leadership. As I was growing up, my parents held up John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King as examples of true heroes. We mourned their deaths as a family; staying home from school, gathered around the television for their funerals. I was old enough to comprehend the profound sense of loss, but too young to appreciate the pending sense of anxiety for the movement and the country. As I got older and watched the speeches and read the books, I understood the purpose, the history so much better; but honestly, never the raw, bone deep, gut wrenching emotion until I was invited to participate in the Preacher King Tour in 2018.

2018 marked the 50th anniversary of Dr King’s death. To commemorate his death and celebrate his life, Memphis planned a large ceremony with many key leaders of the civil rights movement as speakers. A local non-denominational Church in Durham, NC where I live, put together a trip to participate in the anniversary…The Preacher King Tour. A 5 day bus tour designed to follow in the footsteps of Dr King with stops in Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, Selma and Montgomery. It would occur during the 50th anniversary week and we would actually attend the official ceremony in Memphis. I jumped at the chance, thinking it would be super interesting and enlightening. It turned out however, to be a profoundly impactful experience that will remain with me for the balance of my life. I’d like to share a little bit of that with you today.

Over the course of the five days of the trip, we visited dozens of churches, museums, and historic sites. We heard stories about the infamous events from people who lived them; we saw and touched moments in time. We sat in the Ebenezer Baptist Church on the edge of our seat as a Church member and survivor walked us through the dreadful day that four young black girls, doing nothing more than getting dressed in their choir robes in the basement of the church, were killed in the infamous bombing attack. We walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, many hand in hand, sometimes singing, but mostly eerily quiet. We stood at the entrance of the Lorraine Motel room and looked out at the balcony, vividly imaging Dr King standing there, leaning against the railing, facing the very building where the eventual shot rang out and ended his life. We sat at the ceremony that both celebrated his life and mourned his death in Memphis as a crowd of thousands stood in absolute total silence while the bell tolled 39 times; slowly and dramatically commemorating each of the 39 years of his short life.

There is so much to say about what I saw and felt during those five days, but let me share just one.

The biggest moment for me in this trip was ..for the first time… feeling….actually feeling, the depth and breath of the hatred and indifference that lived side by side during this time. After five days reliving it all, it is beyond my brain, beyond my heart, to understand what I saw in those museums; what I heard from those who lived and survived it. How does one human being hate that blindly, that violently. And at the same time, How do others feel nothing; no sense of outrage or concern, but instead live their lives, blissfully ignoring it. I will share with you, that when you’re standing there in that moment, staring at all that evidence of hate and indifference, you would think that anger would take over and engulf you. But instead, there is this incredible sense of hopelessness that surrounds you. You’re confused and uncomfortable. You look around to see who’s watching you, as you watch them. In your head you’re thinking, how am I supposed to feel or act right now? And you wonder, if I feel this way, 50 years later, how was it possible that so many black Americans, having lived this daily, took to the streets to demonstrate not in violent resistance, but in peaceful, prayerful defiance.

And it’s NOW, right then in that moment, as you stand there that you understand the true power of Martin Luther King. He knew that feeling. And he used that feeling. He very intentionally used every word in his 450 speeches to get you comfortable with the uncomfortable. He told you how to feel and act in that moment by painting a vision of what comfortable looked like. It was a world where “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers”… where “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood”. He took normal acts…holding hands and gathering at tables…and made them normal for all of us.

I must confess, I’m finding it difficult to find the comfortable in the uncomfortableness right now. I am also asking myself, is there anything I’m doing right now, anything I’m saying, that would cause my grandchildren fifty years from now to be asking..”How could she have believed that, done that to someone?”…just like I am today.

We must all force ourselves to have an uncomfortable conversation today, and find the comfort in just listening, learning, thinking. No judgement, just comfort. Embrace the uncomfortable. Dr King would surely approve.

Beginning the New Year: The Significance of “21”.

The cry that was heard around the world last night…”Thank God for “21”. Unless you were living in a hut in some remote section of the rain forest these last 10 months, celebrating the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021 was an exercise in sheer mental relief. No reason to be anything but real here people; 2020 sucked! So the countdown for 2021 began much earlier than normal, and sounded much louder than prior years, even with most people hunkered down indoors.

I was going to begin this paragraph with…”and that got me to thinking,..” But that’s pretty redundant, since “everything gets me to thinking”. Instead let’s say, that should have ALL of us thinking about the significance of 21. Not the year, but the number. Especially in American culture, 21 is a big deal. For most of the twentieth century it was the legal age of adulthood. In the last four decades that changed, as 18 year olds are not legally allowed to vote, and can legally be tried as an adult in a court of law. However, much of America still personally defines adulthood…the age of maturity…. as 21. It brings with it that ever important gift of freedom. It’s that time in your life when you have the freedom to raise a glass of alcohol with friends; the freedom to begin choosing what career to pursue as opposed to job you need; and what car you want to rent today and start saving to buy tomorrow. But 21 also brings a much greater emphasis on responsibility. Society’s expectations for your life, your responsibility to that society, begin to become metrics of your success. Yes, I know that no one should set their goals in life strictly to adhere to what the “greater society thinks”, but reality is, in a democratic society there is an expectation of contributing. And studies and polls over the years consistency show our young adults do feel that pressure to somehow “attain adulthood” in their early twenties. To become both independent and responsible.

So what’s the point here Casey? If you combine that feeling of our desperate need to move out of the circumstances that 2020 has created with our belief that a year with the moniker of 21 will bring us freedom from all of that, you must also remind yourself that it also brings that same emphasis on responsibility. We have been at war in this country, especially this last year, over the idea that freedom and responsibility are somehow independent of each other instead of interdependent. That we somehow have the right to be free without accepting the responsibility that freedom commands. We don’t expect that of our 21 year old children when we lecture them on the responsibility of not drinking and driving; or getting a job and paying taxes or committing to love and support their eventual spouse and children. For most of us, 21 stands for freedom AND responsibility. We have every right to wish for a pandemic free year, a prosperous economy, and normalcy to our lives in 2021. We also have a responsibility to actively make that happen. Being an adult means you understand that it is the responsibility of the collective ‘we” to create the kind of community that the individual “me” gets to enjoy. Let’s embrace that and all be responsible in 2021 so we can be free of 2020. It’s the adult thing to do.

Try a TRIBE TRIP WALL instead

Every year on News Year Eve or New Years Day, a group of my girlfriends and I get together and spend the night vision boarding. What is vision boarding you ask? Well, in addition to an excuse to get together with friends to eat, drink and discuss the latest Netflix show (seriously, have you not seen Bridgerton yet?), it is the process of selecting and pasting visual images of what the next year is hopefully going to look like for you onto a poster board. It’s an exercise that forces you to seriously consider the goals that are really important for you this upcoming year, and create a visual depiction of those that you hang on the wall as a constant reminder. Lots of pics from magazines, coloring books, word cut outs, stick on letters and numbers…whatever your inter-artist self imagines. It is something I highly recommend.

You can think of it as the modern day version of setting your New Year’s resolutions, except for maybe the food, alcohol, laughing, and group sharing that goes on in this version. While on the surface it seems like an easy exercise to continue this year, the real spirit of the exercise is the annual gathering of your tribe of besties who you can count on to tell you exactly what they see as good or bad about your vision. It often times forces you to build it bigger, accelerate it quicker, or even rethink it completely. COVID has made that gathering impossible for many of us this year. Just another reason to kick 2020 to the curb. We can add it to the list!

I’m not suggesting, however that you allow COVID to force you to abandon the vision board concept this year. Instead let me share with you what my version of that activity looked like. Instead of attempting to replace my tribe with a Zoom Happy Hour…(why am I the only one actually drinking at those?)…I decided to create a Tribe Trip Wall instead. Because my vision for 2021 includes reconnecting with all my tribes (yes I have many), I took an empty wall of my upstairs loft office and turned it into my Tribe Trip Wall. I printed out a bunch of 4 x 6 pics of all the great trips and special get togethers with my tribes, put them in frames, and hung them on a wall. Now everyday, I will look at it as I walk by on my way to my desk. It will be a constant reminder that my vision for the 2021 year is to travel, and hug, and laugh, and bitch about 2020 with the people that matter in my life someday soon. Yes, I have work and health goals too. But this year, my people goals seemed more important to feature front and center. So while ALL my goals are on paper, my tribe goals…they’re on my wall for all to see.

SIP Series: Dime- Nickel-Quarter Circle of Friends

Excerpt from SIP TIPS Season One, Episode Three (click her to view)

Authored by Casey Steinbacher

Believe it or not, there is a lot of social science around the concept of relationships; specifically about how our brain is actually wired to accept and manage relationships in our life.

We all intuitively know that FRIEND relationships are important in our lives. In the work that Jes and I have done with many women in our workshops, the circle of support and influence that women have cultivated in their lives has clearly become one of the most important indicators for their success.

We’ve all heard the saying “your circle of friends”. We know that all of the friends we have in our life don’t fall into one big circle but instead into different levels of friend circles. In our “Finding Your Next” program we help you understand the difference and importance of each those friend circles so that you can intentionally curate each in a way that provides the most impact for your life and theirs.

We refer to this as your dime, nickel, quarter circle of friends.

For most of us, there are a few, very close friends that are the most important to us. They are with us through thick and thin. And their intensity doesn’t diminish with time or distance. These are our Dime Circle; our smallest but closets circle. Our ride or die squad.

The next circle is our Nickel Circle. This group is larger but still impactful and we work at maintaining a relationship with each of them. They may not go as deep or long as the dime squad and they may come in and out of our life at different times, but the Nickel Circle is always full of our raving fans.

Then finally, our largest circle is our quarter circle. A little more directly removed from our life, they still value the relationship. They provide support and influence, but more on an as needed basis. Their contribution, although more occasional, is provided with the same helpful intent and willingness as our other two circles.

I often times use this example to help people understand a little more clearly the difference between each of these circles. Picture something happening in your life that ends up with you in jail. And while in jail, you are told that you are allowed one phone call. If you chose to use your one call to call someone in your quarter circle, they would tell you not to worry because they know the very best defense attorney in the country and they will call them right away. If however, you chose to use your one call to call someone in your nickel circle, they would tell you that they’re running out the door, jumping in the car, got the cash for bail and they will have you out of there in the hour. BUT if you chose to use your one call to call someone in your dime circle…you would have wasted your one call, because your dime circle is already sitting in the jail cell with you. Ride or Die Squad, remember? Co-conspirators in everything.

So, ask yourself. Who’s in your jail cell with you right now? And if you can’t answer that question, let us help you discover and curate your Dime…at our Finding Your Next workshop this Fall.

Catch Episode 3 here. And register today for the upcoming fall workshop Finding Your Next before it sells out.

The SIP TIP Series: Sipping in Place while Sheltering in Place.

An introduction to a five part video series to help you think about Finding Your Next

An excerpt from SIP TIPS Season One; Episode One with Jes Averhart and Casey Steinbacher.

Normally, the three of us, Jes Averhart, Casey Steinbacher, and Esther Campi, would be putting the finishing touches on our two-day women’s empowerment workshop called Finding Your Next. But like everything else in this COVID moment in time, we’ve had to push the workshop back until September. Finding Your Next is a one of kind journey of self discovery, specifically designed for high performing women looking for what’s next in their lives. As the founders and instructors for this experience we know first hand the value of a guided process of reflection that challenges you to embrace your authentic self and encourages you to level up and Find Your Next.

So rather than wait, we decided to create a series of short, informative and conversational videos that will share some of the program’s content. And why not. You’re sheltering in place. We’re sheltering in Place. We might as well do it together.

And if we’re gonna SIP, we might as well really sip, and enjoy some wine while we’re at it.

Today we thought’s we’d introduce the concept and give you a quick high level look at episodes 2 through 5. In our next episode we’ll begin by giving you an overview of Crucible Moments: those moments in your life that you might not realize help create the next best versions of yourself. We help you find the Lessons Learned and the Lies You Tell Yourself in those moments.

Episode 3 will take a few moments to help you remember the importance of your tribe. Everyone needs that circle of friends that help shape and influence their lives. What most people don’t understand is that there are multiple circles of people and influence that are important for you to have. Understanding the difference in those circles is beneficial in helping you curate the people who will be part of them.

Episode 4 is a great lesson in personal branding. Many of us are extremely good at articulating the brand of the company or organization that we work for. But very few of us are comfortable at describing our own personal brand. Self promotion when done correctly is not arrogance but confidence. The kind that everyone wants on their team.

And finally episode 5 will try and get you a little bit more comfortable with this whole concept of the new normal. Uncommon times call for uncommon solutions. So getting comfortable with uncommon is critical to your success. Join us for tips on how you might get there.

We hope you join us for the rest of the series.

Here is a link to this episode 1 and to the registration link to the September Finding Your Next Program. The program is designed to be intimate and intense so slots are limited. Please register today to ensure you have a seat.

Economic Recovery Strategies for Winners, Survivors and Losers.

It’s important for everyone to understand your community’s recovery strategy.

As parts of the US start opening again people are finally starting to wrap their brain around what’s next. Leadership in communities all over the country have been working on Re-opening and Recovery plans. I personally would be working on Reemergence and Reimagine plans because I’m not sure recovering to what we had before was working for everybody, but that’s a different blog post. This is one is directed at helping you understand the purpose of recovery plans so you can assess your local plans against your business needs and you personally.

Recovery plans are designed to help a local economy rebound. In this blog, I’m going to address the issue of rebounding the economy from a recession, since there is no real context for a pandemic-led recession And a lot of pandemic rebounding will hopefully be addressed in the re-opening plans guided by health experts. So here we go, an overly simplistic description of the thought process in recession recovery planning.

Recessions usually produce three categories: winners, survivors, and losers. I fully recognize and own how harsh that sounds. But understanding this is a bit of a needed reality check, so bare with me. At this point in the recession timeline, you can typically start to project which of these each of your community’s industry clusters will fall into. Each category requires a distinct strategy to help them continue to be an important and contributing piece of your local economy. This is a really, really important point. They all need assistance coming out of a recession, but in uniquely different ways.

Winners. These are the industry clusters that will continue to provide jobs to some degree during the recession and quickly ramp back up coming out of the recession. All economies are local, but think biotech, health care, technology, logistics. So why are these important to help if they are already growing. Because you must FEED the engine that is growing. Failing to do so, will slow down their growth and subsequently the recovery. The strategy for this group focuses on getting these clusters the talent they need to keep growing. Actively preparing by working with them to identify employment needs, ensuring the training institutions have capacity to scale their training programs to address the needs, and creating awareness in the community to direct the employment interest quickly and appropriately. Funding here is awareness, training capacity and scholarships to ensure people can afford not to settle for underemployed positions.

Survivors. These are the industry clusters hit hard by the recession but are still holding on right now; but barely. In this recession think small business, retail, hospitality, consumer products and service. And for those communities where local business trumps chains, and entrepreneurs trump corporate, you will have a much higher number of businesses in this category. They often don’t have the longer term corporate assistance that many chains do in rebounding. The strategy here is much different. This requires immediate injection of capital, with plans for followup funding if needed. It requires local governments and communities to prioritize their survival with contracts for work and priority for supporting over the next two years. It requires prioritizing their employees, and contract workers, as essential to the recovery and aiding their employers in hiring or redirecting them to other options.

Losers. It’s harsh, again I know. But there will be industry clusters that just don’t make it as a result of a recession. And this particular pandemic recession has made that even worse. Most recessions are slow progressions over time. This one came fast and furious and there is still debate on how long it will last. This category hits all clusters to some degree because all have businesses that were still working on their sustainability prior to COIVD-19 and just can’t hold on. In most local economies, think entertainment and boutique hotels as two examples of hardest hit. The recovery plan here is two fold. First, if there are still true survivors operational in these hardest hit clusters, prioritize their assistance under the previously discussed Survival plan. But they must be true survivors. Again, harsh, but real none the less. Second, don’t abandon the industry. Put a plan in place to recreate it, reboot it. Recessions often spur entrepreneurial activity. Your community should have a plan in place to support and prioritize their engagement in recreating and rebooting. Your community will be full of quality talent in these business sectors. Don’t lost them!

These COVID-19 recovery plans are especially hard for local communities to develop when they are complicated by the lack of consistent, and sometimes contradictory direction from higher levels that govern and regulate re-opening. In the end, that just adds greater urgency and reliance on our local leaders to be responsive and act with foresight. This pandemic and resulting recession is proving that those economies with diverse industry clusters will bounce back quicker. That diversity of business sectors matters now more than ever. How quickly your local community develops and implements a plan that addresses all parts of the economy by meeting the specific needs of each business sector will determine how well your economy turns the corner from surviving to thriving.

COVID TRENDS SERIES: BUSINESS

COVID: What have we learned and what to expect: Business Insights

Welcome to my COVID TREND SERIES. Today’s post will talk about some things that we’ve learned during COVID about business and what might emerge post COVID.

Business has been hit hard during COVID in ways that we’ve never seen in this country since the great depression. COVID made its mark world wide, creating a supply chain ripple effect that has left no industry untouched. Below are a few things that I believe are important to think about as we try and identify what could help or our hurt local economies. Pivoting now to take advantage of these trends will help determine the winners and losers in this recession over the next couple of years.

MANUFACTURING: Good news if your local economy is looking for increased manufacturing. But bad news for your job numbers when automation comes along with it.

Just in Time Manufacturing is all but dead. While we’ve been moving away from this for awhile now, this pandemic has magnified the disadvantage of maintaining the minimum capacity necessary to meet demand on a just in time basis as it arises. While this crisis created an unprecedented demand that we probably would not have been able to fill regardless, our emphasis on lean supply production infrastructure greatly inhibited our ability to scale up quickly.
Redundancy is a fast rising priority. The disruption in supply chain created by uneven Shelter in Place orders worldwide will likely result in a movement back to creating multiple manufacturing locations for product parts, lessening the dependency on one location that might get interrupted.
Shelter in Place is resulting in development and utilization of digital tools that could have a side effect (see below) of accelerating automation in manufacturing that we all knew was coming.

TECHNOLOGY: This trend might also have a double edged sword: more entrepreneurship and local small business collaboration but obselesence of sales and customer rep positions.

Digital tools that support COVID solutions like contact tracing and telemedicine will both invigorate technology entrepreneurship again, and magnify the tension between need to know and personal freedom that most Americans struggle with.
The national movement to support local small businesses could ignite a new level of interest and development of technology platforms to support local take out and drive by service in a whole host of service industries. These platforms could allow local businesses to find alternatives too high cost national platforms like GrubHub and would resonate with local residents thinking local again, keeping take out a priority revenue generator.
Technology might also come to the rescue when consumers start trying to confirm that the restaurant down the street that just opened back up is complying with COVID requirements and is a safe place to eat.
There are some indications that COVID has forced a level of consumer comfort in the use of technology to purchase online products and services, that we might see the disappearance of middle men in some industry sectors. Consumers are getting used to making purchasing decisions without sales and customer reps. Direct online sales during COVID in industries like insurance and automobiles are fueling that speculation.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR THAT COULD HURT OR HELP BUSINESS:

Businesses are not the only one worried about supply issues; consumers will also be concerned about scarcity after COVID. There may be greater interest in storage capacity to hoard supplies and the products that make that easier, like freezers.
Home remodeling might refocus into higher priorities for home offices, remote learning spaces and storage capacity.
Interest in upgrading technology capacity will only increase and home systems that utilize that technology capacity might also see an increase, because working remotely just isn’t going away.
Recreation and physical exercise will be re-prioritized. When travel is allowed, much of the immediate travel will be focused on outdoor environments that allow people to experience an impressive change of scenery. Parks, trail ways, bike paths all become important because it will allow for appropriate social distancing movement with limited fear of contact.
Most consumers will more likely patronize “in person” businesses that adhere to COVID re-opening requirements, alleviating their fear of contact transmission of the virus. The cost of retrofitting these businesses to accommodate this will need to be recognized and subsidized including improvements such as temperature and hand washing stations, upgrades to HVAC systems, and reporting requirements.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a business owner, community leader, or economic developer; arming yourself with all the ‘What if’s” in times like this, is essential to inform the pivot you’ll need to make to reemerge fast and quicker.

Flipping The Switch: Crisis to Survival to Re-emergence

COVID: How do we move forward?

If you read my last blog, I walked you through how I personally have moved through the stages of the COVID Coma. We’ve all been living through it. And with limited personal interaction to talk and share our thoughts on this unique time we’re living through, it’s easy to get isolated and stuck. Stuck in the feeling of fear and hopelessness. Luckily for me, I have honed my self awareness radar over the years, and I’m pretty good at recognizing when I’m stuck. Doesn’t automatically mean I know how to immediately move forward, especially when no one’s there to say you should, but it at least lets me start thinking about moving.

While I go into it in more detail in the previous blog, lets just summarize it by saying in my life, when there’s times like this, I typically have three stages: Crisis, Survival, and Re-emergence. And if you think about it (and of course I do), it’s pretty much the three stages of the whole pandemic/recession time we’re living in. The initial crisis phase results in uncertainty, fear, and a feeling of hopelessness. It literally paralyzes your ability to do anything other than react. You’re reacting to the daily flow of information that for awhile just heightens that uncertainty, fear and hopelessness. Eventually your brain works hard to find some historical context to put all this new information into. You’re thinking, is this like 9-11 or the tornado’s or the tsunami or the great depression? At some point, you put this disaster into that same basket of disasters, and you move into the next phase.

The next phase is survival. Whether you now believe this is the worst disaster known to man, just another government conspiracy, or something in between, you have the basis for what you believe you need to do to survive. You focus hard on your need to continue to pay the bills and support yourself and/or your family. Your actions start to move you forward, but in the lane that your brain has built to help you make sense of it; to give you the context of what this is. Some of us focus on applying for financial help. Some of us start up side businesses. Some focus on family game nights and Zoom Happy Hours. And some of us storm the capital building to demand the return to what was.

Today, we can see that many places and people are moving into that final phase: Re-emergence. We have had time to process the crisis, attempted to survive with varying degrees of success, and begun to appreciate that there is progress towards an eventual solution. How quickly, how successfully, we re-emerge depends greatly on our ability to adapt to some new normals; to mourn the loss of some norms, while proactively helping to craft many new ones. This switch is the hardest to flip. We want the re-emergence switch to flip us to a point of comfortableness. But most of us know, there is nothing comfortable about our re-emergence. It is full of new challenges.

But in every challenge there is opportunity. The re-emergence phase does not dictate what we are re-emerging into; rather it simply says, “ok people, things can’t be the same, so what CAN they be?”. I have spent a lot of timing thinking about what we’ve learned about the old normal that will be different, and more importantly, can be improved in the new normal. Can’t wait to share them with you, and hope you reach out and share with me. It’s the best time for reinvention…reinventing yourself, your work life, your home life, your social life, your family life. OWN this COVID time to get comfortable with the uncommon…because you just might create a new common; a new normal that fits you even better. Time to hit your reset button and start over!

I’m Done With COVID Paralysis

COVID Musings because Normal’s Overacted Anyway.

It’s been awhile since I posted on this blog. Ok, Ok, it’s been 8 weeks. While I can’t blame the first two of those weeks on COVID, I certainly can blame the virus for the next 6. Luckily for me, it’s not because I was sick. So far, so good. But this whole pandemic, self quarantine, economic recession thing…yeah, that seriously blinded me to the creative inspiration I was looking for much of this time. But in the last two weeks I’ve emerged from my COVID created paralysis, and am itching to put what I’ve learned to paper. Let’s see if I can crank it up a few notches to catch up on those 8 weeks.

For today’s opener, I thought I’d share the insight I’ve gained in understanding the mindset necessary to emerge from this crazy COVID coma. In hindsight, it comes very close to mirroring my stages of grief. I have come to understand that any major grief related event in my life leads me to a very specific series of of behaviors. First I’m sad, and that eventually turns to mad. And that anger then morphs into this insane need to understand why I’m sad/mad, which then leads to my egotistical need to solve whatever the problem was that created my grieve in the first place. I now recognize all these stages when I’m in them, and even when I’m done with them. It’s almost instinctual at this point. The lesson learned is that my attempts to understand and fix the grief is just my way of moving on…out of the grief mindset and into a relief “what’s next” mindset.

So knowing that, I’ve looked back on the last six weeks to see if there were any similarities to my COVID progression. No surprise that the answer is yer there were.. BUT with some tweaks. In the normal sad and mad stages, I was instead feeling way more fearful. I was equally as paralyzed by the fear; maybe even more so. But because the information was so sketchy early on, my fear caused me to be incredibly reactionary. So instead of sad and mad, I was scared and cautious. That first stage lasted longer than normal for me and I spent days on the couch glued to the news, knowing full well I was hearing the same thing over and over but just unable to turn it off.

I lasted a little longer than usual in this early phase, before I entered the acceptance and understand it phase. But once I did, I quickly took back control. If I’m going to have to live in this uncertainty for the foreseeable future, l need to accept it and start learning to understand the why, the how, the what of it all. I spent untold hours reading, listening, watching everything I could get my hands on. Once I had a pretty good grasp on the pandemic and related recession, it became obvious that there was no immediate fixing this. But because my brain is somehow wired to see an opportunity in every challenge, I didn’t view the lack of a quick traditional solution as reason to revert back to fear or anger, but instead the opportunity to create my own solution, at least for me. Thus I entered my current phase, OWN IT.

I think we are kidding ourselves if we are sitting around looking forward to the day when we are going back to the way it was. We are in uncommon times that require an uncommon approach to how we move forward for at least the next year or two, maybe more. We all have to get comfortable with being and living in that uncommon. And that ladies and gentlemen will be the content that I will focus on in this blog for the next couple of weeks at least. What are the uncommon days we are living in now telling us about our future? I have always been comfortable with being uncommon..dancing to my own beat so to speak… and the opportunity to own and redefine what that is moving forward sounds right up my alley. So I am done being fearful of this new unknown and wishful for normal to return. Let’s explore and own the uncommon….Normal’s overrated anyway.

Guard Your Energy Wisely

Guarding your energy is way more important than guarding your time.

It took me a long time before I truly understood the importance of my personal energy. Maybe it was because I grew up in an era that for women to succeed in a career, they often times needed to acquiesce to the skill sets deemed more appropriate by their male counterparts. Of course we needed to be smart, but not too smart; what I refer to as demurred intelligence. And of course you had to be articulate, but not too articulate. And a team player, but never the captain. And positive and optimistic, but in a supportive kind of way.

So when referred to as the ‘energizer bunny” twice in my career by important men (both Presidents of their respective State Senates at the time), I was not honored. I was horrified. Could this be what people see? Not my sharp business mind, political savvy, or articulation skills. It took me a long time to realize my energy was how I commanded their attention and then developed our relationship. It was not a bad thing. It was indeed one of my superpowers. As you should know from reading my previous blogs, I am a big believer in discovering and utilizing your personal superpowers!

Like all superpowers, the trick is learning when and how to use it. I can’t tell you I have perfected that but I have gotten better over the years. And a comment made by Molly Fletcher at a conference I attended once really helped me with that. Molly is a phenomenal speaker, previously a sports agent; and talk about a male dominated business! In her talk she said “guarding your energy is way more important than guarding your time”. The instant she said it, I got it. While it’s not a good thing, wasting time is not near as damaging to your personal self then wasting your energy is. Using your energy in a way that is non productive, non reciprocated, can drain you and cause you to lose even more time just trying to get it back.

I reminded myself of that this morning. I was feeling anxious and drained. It started yesterday, but was still there when I woke up this morning. Luckily for me, I live the kind of life now that allows me the space to sit and wonder why. Wondering is another superpower of mine by the way. I LOVE to wonder. Sidetracked, see how easy it is for me wander while I’m wondering? Sorry. So in my thoughts I ran through everything that could be the cause. And when I couldn’t land on one thing, when everything seemed to be the cause, I took a deep breath and just asked myself why. But even then, I just didn’t even have the energy to think through this. And that’s when it hit me. Damn girl…what happened to my Energizer Bunny self?

There are a lot of reasons your energy gets depleted. And it’s easy to think it’s your fault. That’s often true. What is more difficult however is to accept that you have given more energy to your world than it has given you back. And that is only your fault because you let it happen. You did not guard your energy. You let people in who were energy drainers. It so typical of me, and many women I know, to ignore the lack of energy being reciprocated, and instead, double down on giving more. It’s like me saying…”Hey people, just take my positive energy and use it for yourself. It’s ok that you give me nothing in return; or give me negative energy back. It’s what I do. So go ahead. Enjoy it as I curl up on the couch trying to figure out why I can’t answer the door all the while believing you might someday give me energy too”. Seriously, it sounds so much worse when you put it in print. But it is what is happening!

And that was my day yesterday. But it is not going to be my day today. Today I will intentionally avoid the energy drainers that got to me this past week. Today I will re-energize and use that new energy to become “Force Sensitive” as they say in Star Wars. Today, “I am a Jedi. I am one with the Force and the Force will guide me”. Come on…it’s way cooler than being the Energizer Bunny, right?