37. Resilient Leadership

Things are feeling heavy right now. For me they are, anyways. I don’t know about you. But, there’s a lot of noise out there and inside of my heart and soul that I’m finding heavy, negative draining. It’s not filling me up. And so part of the question that, that raises for me in terms of leadership, well, okay.

It raises a lot of questions around leadership in the world, but we’re not going to go into that just right now. Part of what it raises for me is a question around how we cultivate the conditions for our own resilience. How do we do that right now? How do we do that? When times are heavy, how do we cut through the noise and rise?

How do we just not let it bring us right down to the ground? And you know, sometimes we do let it and we move through that. But the question that sits in my heart for today is: what am I doing to cultivate the conditions for my resilience? What are you doing to cultivate your resilience right now. There are challenges in this world at this time, that I don’t know about you, but that are suffocating me or creating a lot of noise and buzz and energy that I just don’t need.

And for many of us, it prevents us from standing in our powerful selves. Our knowing selves, part of what I’ve been doing is just coming back into my why. Right? Okay. What’s my why? I’m helping leaders rise. I’m helping teams rise to meet their possibility. To support and enable them to have the impact in their work that they want to have.

Right. I’m upgrading my website. It’s launching in March and I’m trying to stand in places where decisions, situations, experiences that they’re learning full, and I’m doing these different things to try and block the noise, trying to stay off social media and so on. And so as I’m seeing myself do some of this as I come into this space with you, my ask, or my question is how do you practice your leadership regardless of the environment?

How do you practice your leadership in a way where you have a sense of resilience right now? So that’s what I thought of playing with. And I just looked across my desk. What do I have on my desk right now that helps me stand in some places of resilience. Part of that is I have a picture of my dad. I have a picture of my dad who, when I come in and I look at that picture and this was probably taken when I was a little kid, less than 10.

He died when I was 13. And so when I have this picture of him in a picture frame that my mom bought in like 1988 or something, I don’t know, it’s got pastel pinks and butterflies, but when I look at that, I come into a place with someone who I knew loved loved and loves me unconditionally that sees my absolute essence, my essence, and not only loves me for that, but stands in a place of seeing my powerful self, even when I lose sight of it.

And so I have his picture on my desk. Another thing that I have on my desk is a bunch of cards from Louise Hay. And I pick from these cards you know, as often as I need, sometimes it’s three times a day, but you know, once a week, once a day, and I’m just choosing one card now, and here it is, I was born to enjoy life.

I just picked this just in this moment. I was born to enjoy life. Thank you for that reminder. So what artifacts do you have on your desk that help you just come in and go yeah, I was born to enjoy life and remember that. So there’s two artifacts on my desk coming into unconditional love for myself through my dad’s picture, coming into mantras, that help guide my way.

And then the other thing that I have on my desk is an article by Susie Orbach that was written back in 2018, called 40 Years Since Fat is a Feminist Issue. Oh my gosh. What a heavy article. It’s not positive and easy. But it gets my wheels turning in my brain to focus on something that matters for me and to find resilience in reading things and diving into things, into articles and books and knowledge that helped me make sense of some stuff that might get me angry.

Don’t get me wrong. The point of resilience in your leadership is not, not to feel emotion, but is to come into things that say, wait a minute, I find power in reading this and making sense of an issue that’s meaningful to me. So what do you have on your desk that you pick up and dive into that aren’t thoughts of your own, but that’s meaningful for you and helps you tap into things that you find powerful.

So when we talk about how we practice our leadership, regardless of the environment, when we talk about cultivating the conditions for your resilience, part of what we look at literally is just sitting on our desk, the everyday things that we see and how we tap into those things. Do you have artifacts on your desk, beside your bed, beside your toothbrush, wherever it is that you can tap into easily, that help you come back into yourself, number one.

The other thing that comes up for me is the very foundation of my purpose. I mentioned this at the top. What is my why? The place that I put my energy into that I call my work ties me to remembering my why, the essence of why I wake up in the morning and I, I take my energy, not to my boys. Right. Who deserve, you know, a lot of pieces of me, but I actually direct some of my energy into my work because it deserves the things that I do, the place where I put my soul, the foundation of my purpose and where it represents in my work is part of my energy and essence.

It’s part of my why. It deserves my energy. And so I need to remember that why sometimes, and come into that. What do I do? What is my why? It is to look at the world and say, wow, there’s a lot going on. That’s heavy. And for me, my bet is that if I can give any little part of me to help people in teams rise in their possibility, I’ve made a difference.

That is part of my why. That helps inform me of where I show up. I connect that with my values. I connect that with my word or two of intentions for 2022, ferocity and flow by the way, that when I put all of that together, that gives me a solid compass point to remember why I exist. Why I put my energy and where I do on a daily basis, it helps me cut the noise of all the stuff that’s going back and going on out there and helps me come into my space, my soul, I’m putting my hands like right into my chest, my heart, my gut.

It helps me come back into myself, my purpose, what I value. And then it helps me ask myself, yeah, what do I need to thrive? What do I need right now? What do I need? And then go get it. That is what helps me practice my own resilient leadership. When I’m trying to navigate the complexity of all that’s going on, the heavy energy, my best practice is to source from within myself.

And if I’ve got artifacts that help me do that. If I’ve got my why all clear to help me do that, if I get really clear on my values and I bring those up to my face, and remember those and I tap into my 2022 words that helps me remember, yeah, I’m in my ferocious ferocity flowing self and maybe I need to be meditating right now.

Maybe I need to be going for a walk right now. Maybe I need to turn off the social media. Maybe I need to cancel some meetings, whatever it is. Maybe I need to lean into some discomfort and sit with it. Maybe I need to come into some places of healing. Maybe I need to watch Netflix. I don’t know whatever it is for you, right.

Maybe I need to analyze some of the stories I’ve got going on and let them go because they’re just not serving me right now. Thank you very much. Whatever it is for you, whatever it is for you, how are you cultivating the conditions for your resilience right now and coming in to a place of practice?

Regardless of the environment, right. Coming into a place of practice that allows you to remember your why hook into your values and be your own solid compass to move forward in the world.

You are your own solid compass to be able to navigate what’s before you, and when you stand in your power, we all stand alongside you. We are inspired by it. Come into your resilient leadership, full self. We need you.