Leadership Ladder

It’s a New Year! And I – like many – have rituals. 

Rituals that start right after Christmas and continue through the first week of a new year. Typically they involve sending New Year cards to friends and family (because I can’t seem to get my act together enough to get Christmas cards out on time)… assessing how much holiday weight I gained (and what I need to do to get back on track)… and thinking about what I experienced and learned in the last year.  

The year-in-review had me contemplating crossroads. The simple definition: where two or more roads cross each other… or… a place where an important decision has to be made. I thought about crossroads from years ago and those from the recent past. Where did those long-ago decisions take me? How have recent decisions played out? Are there patterns?  

One long-ago crossroad: stay in LA (where I have family, friends, a vast network, and feel comfortable)… or… take a chance with my career and move to Seattle (where it’s always raining, I only know Richard and Kurt, and is likely super-low on the glam scale) sight unseen?  

Risk won.  

What resulted was more goodness than I could have ever hoped for. My career accelerated. My friend circle grew to include Bill & Angie, Steve & Carol, Bavan, Sandy and others who continue to enrich my life. And my family – partner, sister and her family, as well as mom and dad – eventually came together in Seattle making this unexpected PacNW town “home.”

A more recent decision: get vaccinated and boosted… by any means necessary.

As a rule-follower who sucks at lying, I struggled when vaccines became available in early 2021 for front-line/high risk individuals. It didn’t feel right to “cut” in line… but… I really wanted to get back to “normal.” If a shot would give me that – then I’m all IN! With some help, I found a way to get all three shots as quickly as was reasonably possible.

With full appreciation that I speak from a place of privilege, being vax’d and boosted contributed to so many happy times and moments of relief in 2021. I could travel. I got to spend time with friends and family in fun places. And when omicron hit, it was a relief to learn that my booster could limit its impact to cold-like symptoms. While vaccination debates rage on, this important choice was an easy one for me… and a choice I was grateful to have.

So my decisions worked out – in some cases fabulously! If there were patterns, I would say that once I made the decision I was all in. It was about making a call… doing it… and seeing it through (take a peek at my #3normorethan5in5 video Ya Gotta Go DO.  

Being “all in” doesn’t mean you can’t make adjustments or course-correct. Things happen – usually stuff you didn’t anticipate or can control – so being ok with shifting gears is important. In fact that is one of tips Linda Darnell’s HuffPost article offers as a way to thrive through life’s crossroads:  move with the change.

2022 will not be 2021.  

For the good or the bad… it will be different. It will be a change. While there will be lots we can’t control, we can decide what to do at the crossroads. Whatever those decisions are for you, be bold… be brave… experience each opportunity fully… and… find the moments of happy as they come. Happy 2022!