Unfortunately, saying thank you seems to be an after thought more and more. So at least once a month, I will take a few minutes to publicly appreciate someone that has had an impact on me.
This round: me, myself and i
Ok, I realize that the spirit of this is to appreciate others. Trust me, I have absolutely no intention of altering this. However, I shocked myself enough recently that this felt important to share further.
My company, Agile For All has a quarterly multi-day offsite. We opened with a series of questions, such as proudest moment since last offsite, most looking forward to in the next quarter, etc. One of the questions was around appreciations. Obviously, I had plenty of reasons to appreciate my colleagues. In fact, the list is beginning to be never-ending, which I love! As my turn started, my answer shocked me. For those that know me, I think as I talk so I had no idea that this was about to come out of my mouth.
My answer was to appreciate myself. As much as everyone (family, friends, AFA peeps, Agile peeps, etc) has been incredibly supportive and helpful, I had a few new hurdles to jump. And in the end, only I could actually jump.
One was selling. Knowing I could add value was not the problem. Knowing how to sell, when to sell, and why to sell is a different story, especially when you are the product. In many ways, it goes against what I’ve practiced for so long…don’t put the attention on what you can do but instead what others can do. Now I am saying, this is what I can bring to the table. Despite feeling weird, I’ve become more comfortable in this balance I’ve found. No one gave me the answer and I have to stop and appreciate that I will never be a salesperson but I can sell.
Two was balance. I’ve always prided myself that since embracing an Agile mindset that I’ve had a pretty balanced lifestyle. I so didn’t. This role has afforded me true time off. At the beginning, if I wasn’t working with a client, I was finding some other work to do. I felt strange if I didn’t put in a solid week worth of hours/work. No amount of others telling me to not work, mattered. I had to learn this balance for myself. Slowly, I shut my computer and didn’t open it for a day. Then two days. Guess what? Emails and problems didn’t stack up. Even more, I actually relaxed instead of muling over eighty different things going on. My big moment was writing on slack, I did absolutely nothing today and felt no guilt. It’s amazing how hard it is to redefine what a work week looks like but I have opened my eyes.
So it’s only right to stop and appreciate me, myself and I for leading myself to an edge and succeeding.
However, since this post feels a little too “look at me”, let me share an image of me where I continue to fail at succeeding…in a kitchen!!! I’m smiling only because that’s all I can do at this point…
