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Biggest Lesson of the Year.
Last year, I shared a biggest lesson of the year. As I aim to do the same this year, I don’t even know where to start. The past almost year and a half has been a true test of my hope and my faith. I have been able to label behaviors, see them in action, recognize patterns, and truly identify what is within my capability to control. As a result, I deeply questioned my relationships, my purpose, and my worth. I can’t even say I was shaken to my core, because my core was shaken too. It is soul crushing to feel your life has been turned completely upside down,…
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Silver Linings in the Storm.
It’s been about 8 months since I’ve been here, writing from the heart. My break was not due to lack of content. While it is not unusual for me to be vulnerably honest in my struggles, I didn’t like the tone of what I was creating. I didn’t want it to sound as though I was crying out for help or attention. Because neither of those were the reality. The reality is something I had never experienced before. This past year has made me question a lot in my life. The people in it. My purpose. What is fulfilling. When I quit my job last year, I had a feeling…
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Expectations vs. Reality in Public Service and Leadership
“Never trust a politician.” This was something I remember hearing growing up from nearly every elder in my family. With that firm belief tucked inside my brain, I never thought I would engage in politics as an adult. For better or worse, here I am, engaging with politics. Essential Qualities of Effective Leaders Begrudgingly, I have to give credit to those who choose to serve in public office. Just being on the peripheral, I find it to be, more often than not, infuriating and draining. There are many qualities that someone in a position of leadership should possess. Most leadership experts consider self-awareness to be the most critical. Empathy, humility…
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Persuasion, Communication, and Our Moral Obligations
What does ancient Greek rhetoric have to do with today? Perhaps we don’t recognize it with its official title, as it is more commonly referred to as the art of persuasion. Often, when we learn or reflect on history, we don’t look at it through a lens of communication. However, different forms of communication and their advancements over time have helped contribute to significant societal downfalls, which makes it worth paying attention to. In the early democratic cultures of Athens and Rome, citizens were afforded access to information and an open system of debate to prepare them for voting. But true to human nature, deceptive propaganda soon overwhelmed both cities,…
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The Humbling Kind of Hard.
“Choose your hard.” A phrase, I think, coined by Mel Robbins. While the obstacles we run into are typically not our choice, how we respond to those obstacles is within our control. A while back, I mentioned that I felt I was breaking when I quit my job. Several months later, that is more true now than it was then. I am not someone who typically makes unplanned decisions or doesn’t have a back-up plan. But I followed my intuition in that decision, and I know it was ultimately for the better. When everyone told me I was not going to have any trouble finding another job, I also knew…
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When Hindsight is 20/20, and the Future is Bright.
A couple of months before I quit my job, I was talking to a friend about a friend. The friend I was talking about made a big, hairy, audacious decision (I’m tweaking “BHAG“), and her life flourished afterward. I explained that is how life is supposed to go. Things are supposed to fall into place when you’re making the right decisions. Under tears, I asked, “What are the right decisions that I’m not making?” Because both my work life and my personal life had gotten much harder. Going into the new job in 2021, I was aware of some reservations. Ultimately, I chose to listen to my head rather than…