Lessons of the 2010s to Carry Forward

The following post was first shared on Medium Jan 12, 2020

It may be 2020, but the end of the last decade moved so fast that it’s taken me until now to pause and look back. Here are the nine lessons of the 2010s that I’m carrying into 2020.

[Full Disclosure: These are personal eurekas; they may not be right or true for you. Take ’em with a grain of salt, or live by ’em. Either way, no judgments. Thanks for reading.]

“Showing up” is a step in a direction.

Check out an event where you can explore a new skill or topic without prep work.

In 2019, I challenged myself to “Just Show Up” — shed the urge to prepare (and over-prepare) for events, meetings, new opportunities — and just dive into them. This turned out to be a theme of the year. I love to run, but was avoiding a race because I kept telling myself that I wasn’t ready. In January 2019, I put a stake in the ground to run one race a month. It didn’t matter how short or how long the distance, how fast or how slow the time. By the end of the year, I ran six races across three cities with family and friends. While I ran half the number of races I set out to, I’m confident that re-framing to see the “show up” as a win in itself made it possible for me to run more races than I have since high school. Here’s to hitting the magical number 12 in 2020.

99% of the time, getting to done is better than getting to perfect.

Have an idea that’s been floating around in your head for a while? Get it on paper in 20 minutes, then share it with someone else for quick feedback & iterate.

For those perfectionists out there, hello! You’re not alone. In many facets of life, but especially work, it’s easy to get caught up in the details. Do you need to read that email you’re sending out 50 times, or is three times enough? Does that deck your making need to be *flawless* before you share it with your client? In most cases, the answer to questions like these are “no” — just ship it, and iterate! Yet, throughout the 2010’s I found myself in rhythms of trying to make every deliverable pixel perfect. (To be clear, that does not mean the email or the deck are not important; it just means that the margin of error in these cases may be low risk enough to provide an opportunity to continuously improve, rather than always get it “right”). But let’s also acknowledge that 1% of the time when striving towards perfection seems like a necessity. It is small details in an environment like a hospital that have the potential to impact life-or-death decisions; to make us healthier, happier, safer, and more secure. If we get better at identifying those details that need not be perfect, we can operationally free ourselves up to spend more time perfecting the moments that matter most.

Give yourself (and your teams) the permission to pause.

Assess what’s on your plate, prioritize, shift the load, set a cadence, build & reach out to your “support squad” of positive, stress-alleviating folks.

A year of many milestones crept up on me — getting married (love you, Shane!), changing jobs, part-time grad school, moving cities…the list goes on. There were moments (read: stretches of weeks, months) that it felt like complete chaos — cue “everything is fine” memes. Through these transitions, I learned that sometimes the best thing to do is pause, acknowledge that it is not possible to do everything at once, and ask for help — spend time putting the right resources in place to make the lift lighter.

When you have the privilege to lift others, start by passing the microphone.

Mic check: If you hold a mic, find someone to pass it to so that unheard stories and ideas have a chance to be heard.

In the 2010s, I had the privilege of making more than one job change that drastically scaled the potential for impact in my professional life. As I transitioned into each new role, I found there were more opportunities to speak up on the needs of others, provide a point of view of how those needs could be met, and lead next steps in a direction through positive influence. With a human-centered design hat on, I started to see that each of these chances to speak up are not mine alone; rather, they’re a chance to share the airtime I have access to with people who may not usually have the opportunity to speak up, who may come with lived experience that I don’t (and may never) have, and who have worked tirelessly to solve problems that others may not yet be aware of and could learn from.

Crush haters with compassion.

Pay attention to who makes you feel like you’re boiling vs. thriving. Throw compassion lightning bolts in the direction of Negative Nancy, and keep eyes forward.

As the wise musical adage goes, “The playas gon’ play/Them haters gonna hate”. Real talk: it’s a waste of your time, energy, and focus to be looking around at what everyone else is up to. And, in the age of social media, it’s easy to get lost in the noise. In the 2010’s, I felt like I started to hit my stride. As I pushed myself to grow physically, mentally, and emotionally, I had amazing supporters and mentors along the way…but I also hit some potholes — people and systems that were not so supportive. In the hardest moments, I would replay the words of others back in my head and overthink them; I experienced acts of sabotage and would then shy away from growth opportunities; I saw a competitive bar go up and I’d run the other way. To get through these experiences, I started to shift my responses towards — of all things — compassion. By identifying when the lack of support from others was indicating an insecurity of their own, and keeping my own responses to people in check, I realized it was possible to keep my eye on the prize and maybe even pass the positive vibes over to someone else who really needed them.

Show your work & let others see the sweat that gets the tough stuff done.

For each photo of a magical moment you post to the interwebs (i.e. promotion, house purchase) post a progress photo that shows what it took to get there.

In the last decade, I’ve observed the rise of the “no sweat” movement. [Sidebar reference for those who watch the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: remember that scene where we learn that Mrs. Maisel gets up super early to get her makeup face on, then gets back in bed and wakes up with Mr. Maisel smiling as if to say “I woke up like this”?]. In my opinion, this is not very productive. Everything takes work, and oftentimes the especially hard stuff takes hard work. When we romanticize what it takes to get in shape, start a new business, have kids and a partner and bring home the bacon (oh my), we make it look like it ain’t no thang. Yet, it’s more likely to have taken years to master The Thing and it’s more than likely to have taken a village to make it happen. Perhaps this has been less of a learning and more of a practice for me to carry forward: to be honest and open about what it takes and has taken to tackle challenges and reach for new goals. If enough of us show the sweat, we can help manage others’ expectations, so it’s clear that both the effort and the wins are worthy of celebration — and are possible.

Write and shape your own story, before it’s written for you.

Anticipate what happens when content is taken out of context, and be clear about what’s fair game and what’s a no-go to share.

In the 2010s, I started a science-inspired textile business. I had some amazing opportunities to not only share the story of the business, but also the “founder story”. Prior to the business, I hadn’t had experience getting interviewed about myself as a founder or general human (as opposed to a prospective employee or student). With each chance I had to talk about the business, as uncomfortable as it was, I also tried to put more thought into how and what I shared about my own story. I learned that it’s not about sharing every detail of your life that led up to a particular moment, but being cognizant of the fact that if you don’t shape your own story, someone else may take the liberty of doing it on your behalf.

Take note of environments where you thrive as a leader & a follower.

Make a list of leader/follower environments where you thrive, need to improve, and want to leap from follower <> leader. Identify actions to make the leap.

I vividly remember a lecture in grad school taught by an organizational psychologist who introduced the concept of “the first follower”. The intended takeaway of the lecture was that, to be a leader, you first needed someone to follow you. He went on to innumerate tools and tactics that get people to follow others. After learning about the first follower, a classmate leaned over to me and said quietly, “but what if I don’t want to be a leader? What if I want to be a better follower?” This question became a topic of class conversation. In a class on leadership, it seemed surprising that not everyone in the room wanted to lead — at least not in every context that they functioned. Rather, they also wanted to learn how to be that first follower to lift someone else who they believed in, and continue to exemplify what good followership looks like. I loved this lesson. It made me start to assess all the different environments where I thrive in supporting those who are leading, where I thrive in leading others, and where I can improve in both. There is such thing as too many cooks in the kitchen, and this often happens when too many people want to own or drive particular tasks (or don’t know what to focus on). This is a lesson that needs more emphasis, especially in educational programs and workplaces where we may focus so much on how to get individuals to lead, that we lose sight of the value in supporting everyone to become their best as followers and as leaders.

Every conversation is a chance to change the world.

Aim to leave spontaneous conversations with a smile or a kind thought that someone else may carry into their day.

Growing up, strangers would always come up to my mom and start chatting about anything and everything. To this day, I still observe this phenomena, and my mom continues to teach me that “you never know who you’re talking to, and you may see them again, so don’t burn your bridges.” I always interpreted this to mean two things: first, every person matters equally — speak to them as such; and second, you never know where a conversation may lead. In the last few years, I started paying more attention to spontaneous conversations I’d have, especially with strangers. I realized that almost every conversation changed how I continued on with the day, how I thought about a particular issue and worldview. Perhaps a weighty assertion, but I have come to believe that every conversation is a chance to change the world. It’s not to say that global conflict or economic fluctuations change at the sound of a quick coffee shop exchange — but then again, who’s to say they can’t? It is for this reason that I do my best to keep my ears and eyes open; and at the very least, make conversations matter.

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Do these learnings ring true for you? Share your thoughts & stay tuned for the next post on 2020 Resolutions.