Bingeing cupcakes & Leading Imperfectly
Meggie Palmer
Founder & CEO PepTalkHer - Supercharging Your Career Success | On a mission to closing pay &Leadership Gap (free App??) | Executive Coach ? | Speaker ?? | Angel Investor ?? | Tory Burch Fellow | Recovering Journalist??
Attn New Yorkers! If you’re in NYC - I’d love you to join me this week at our Networking event in SoHo this coming Wednesday 13th November - RSVP here - it’s free.
************
I’ve eaten cupcakes for breakfast twice this past week. ??
Stress eating while pondering the future of my adopted country America.
I considered myself apolitical and objective when I was a journalist.
I had to be.
That is part of the code of ethics of being a journalist. (Or at least it was when I trained…)
See both sides of the story.
Hear all opinions.
Report the facts.
But - this US election - I couldn’t sit on the fence.
I wasn’t objective.
I was deeply committed to a Democratic Kamala/Waltz win, a win for women.
I haven’t always thought of myself as political. And I’m not left leaning on all issues.
When I was 23 years old, I lived in Canberra and worked as a reporter in the Press Gallery of the Australian Parliament.
Friends, colleagues, roommates, and I used to debate, yell, and disagree about politics for hours and hours and hours over Chinese takeaway and cheap red wine.
It feels like a distant memory - having educated, intense and relatively polite (albeit heated) discussions with people from ALL political persuasions.
Occasionally you'd even (shock horror!) agree with someone who voted differently to you at the last election.
I really miss those days. Those days pre-extreme polarization.
Finding hope amidst the fear right now feels tough. But I really resonated with Darren Walker's recent opinion piece.
He's President of the Ford Foundation and talks about how now more than ever we need great leaders with moral capacity to:
"Take a stand for progress, even if incremental or imperfect."
I believed Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz would have - imperfectly - made incremental change - for the better. For all Americans. Not enough people agreed.
I’m still processing what this new reality looks like.
My share portfolio and crypto are up so I guess that’s considered a 'win'?!
Longer term, let’s see.
The real question reverberating in literally every conversation I've had the past week:
"What next?!?"
I have no idea… yet.
I’m no longer eating cupcakes for breakfast.
I’m almost ready to ponder the next steps.
In the meantime, an invitation to YOU - to take a stand for progress, imperfectly, whatever that looks like in your world.
Keep me posted.
Meggie
PS. If you want to debrief on the election further or meet interesting professionals in the NYC PepTalkHer community, love you to join our free event this Wednesday 13th November in SoHo. RSVP here.
Catering your business, family, or company events with James Beard Award winning menus & service since 1976.
2 周I wish I was in NYC! I've finished the hibernation/shock (albeit expected) part of dealing with the new reality and am ready to roll my sleeves up, and contain the madness any way possible.