Sept 2021: Try to Have More Good Days

Most of my conversations with clients these days are something like this: "These past 18+ months have felt like running a marathon... yet when we approach the finish line, someone pops out and says, "KIDDING! You have 15 more miles to go! Dig deep, tiger." And then our natural response is to the effect of, "But I've already given it everything I've got -- I've got nothing left." 😩

Sadly, we are all figuring out ways to dig deeper and work out of reserves we didn't think we necessarily had. This month's resources are all related to those reserves. I hope you find them helpful.

🤔 Rethinking Our Relationship with Work (Back to Work, Better).  This quote from the podcast could be on a t-shirt regarding the pandemic:“This has been a big reset moment for each of us.” It provides an excellent discussion on purpose and fulfillment and also on mental health. I also greatly appreciated the exploration of the difference between “meaning” and “happiness.” I suggest that business leaders use this podcast with their teams to keep thinking through strategies for team-building and strategies for resilience as we press on through the pandemic.

☕️ The one habit you need to have more good days. I can't say I knew what a "keystone habit" was before I read this article, but I am happy to say I have one: I dedicate 30-45 minutes each morning to reading and journaling (with a requisite large cup of coffee, of course!) to get centered for my day. The article sparks some ideas as to what your keystone habit could be.

🤯 We Need to Talk More About Mental Health at Work. This is a MUST READ for every employer. (Note that it was written 18 months before the pandemic.) I am having more and more conversations with clients on this topic, and have given several workshops to groups on stress management and resilience. I appreciate these words from the article: "Mental illness is a challenge, but it is not a weakness... Research has found that feeling authentic and open at work leads to better performance, engagement, employee retention, and overall wellbeing." Continuing on this theme, I also strongly recommend this article, When Your Employee Discloses a Mental Health Condition. It feels like the rules of the road for employee and performance management are changing day to day... here are some pertinent pieces of advice for leaders.

🎧 Brené on Day 2. I'm preparing this month's edition of "Podcast Club" (as opposed to Book Club) for one of my clients, and we landed on this podcast episode from exactly one year ago from Brené Brown on -- get this -- making it through the HALFWAY POINT of the pandemic! How ironic (and tragic!) is that?! This is how she describes it: "[This is] a conversation on one of my favorite subjects (and least favorite experiences): Day 2! It sounds easy enough, but Day 2 is no joke. It’s the messy middle – the point of no return. Join us as we talk about navigating what’s next and why it’s always best to stumble through the darkness together." I've developed a worksheet to use for discussions on this episode ~ or you can just bring me in to lead it. Contact me if you want more info.

❝❞ Quote for the month. I recently finished the book Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United by Alex Ferguson and Michael Moritz. I was drawn to it by this endorsement from Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University: "Short, but nonetheless one of the very best books on leadership and also talent search.  You also don’t have to know anything about soccer, or care about soccer.  Recommended, and this one supports my view that the best management books are about sports and music, not 'business management' in the mainstream sense of that term." I believe Ferguson perfectly summarizes the difference between management and leadership:

“I slowly came to understand that my job was different. It was to set very high standards. It was to help everyone else believe they could do things that they didn’t think they were capable of. It was to chart a course that had not been pursued before. It was to make everyone understand that the impossible was possible. That’s the difference between leadership and management.” P239

Hope you are able to have more good days this month. Please feel free to pass this post along to others, and contact me with feedback or questions at kelly.soifer@ksleadershipdevelop.me.