How I got out to get up and rediscovered joy through gratitude.

Over a year ago, I got poached from a really great company to work in another great company in what I thought would be a great opportunity to get back to my start-up roots, only to be told 6 months later, in a broad brushstroke statement, that it wasn't a good fit. The first night I didn’t sleep. Literally not one wink. With my red eyes, I just kept replaying everything in my mind and asking what happened and why I didn’t see it coming, and what did I miss during interviews, what did they miss during interviews? I never got the answers but I still remember feeling really stupid alongside a large dose of shame and confusion. In short, it was awful, but in hindsight it became a smaller and smaller part of my thoughts and some days and weeks, not at all a blip on the brain at all, but it did redirect me in a way I didn’t expect.

While I had not been on this side of job loss in my career, I had gone through layoffs and terminations (on the other end). What I learned was invaluable not just in how companies should treat people, but also in perseverance and taking risks. Sometimes we choose what looks to be a really great path but then realize it’s not. Despite my ego urges to complain, and I was really really tempted, I didn’t, and thankfully had enough wisdom to look for lessons. It took place little by little over a year and what followed next is a testament that all things, even the messed up stuff can lead to great opportunities. Choosing to learn and find gratitude is such a powerful antidote to difficult trials that get hurled our way. Here are a few I found on my own journey.?

Work is not family. Family is family.?

We spend a LOT of time at work and the relationships are valuable on personal and professional levels, but we have to stop calling it family. I know many may differ, but watering down this special word to “work family” takes away from the value it holds. My opinion okay? I didn’t always feel that way though. Over 18 years, I spent a lot of effort to succeed in the corporate world but getting an entire summer spent with my 3 year old, 7 year old and 10 year old to be mom without meetings and emails was better than I could have imagined and it changed my perspective. The pay stunk, but the benefits were great.?

And now I can admit that I like being a mom, and if I’m being really honest, I’m a little jealous of other moms I see being a full time mom. Women are always being told to climb ladders and break glass ceilings, but sometimes we deny that it’s okay to not want that, or worse, we talk with veiled criticism by calling it “traditional.” Not everything has to be progressive and changing all the time, and it’s okay to want be a full time mom just as much as it is to want to work.? And for the full time moms out there, please stop saying “I’m just a mom.” “Just” is like saying “only” or “barely.” You aren’t just anything. We can all see through generations that our society has changed and for most people, it now requires two incomes to pay the bills. It’s okay to admit there’s pain of not having that choice. I guess the grass is always greener, but I cherish the moment I had to experience it myself.

It’s okay if your kids see you fall down but get back up again.

Since I worked at home, they unfortunately or fortunately also got to see me get fired through a viewing box that is my glass office door and promptly break down in tears pacing around in disbelief. In fact my 10 year old was so worried he grabbed my phone and texted his Nana the news before I could share. It was scary for him to see his mom freak out and sob, but I also got to show them that we can have those moments and then despite our emotions yanking us around, be brave and choose to find new opportunities. We had a blast that summer visiting family, going to water parks and enjoying river floats to escape the Texas heat. Since my husband had hit pause on his career to support mine, we were all together in what we called our “fake retirement” and we benefited from the most quality time we’ve had in a long while. That fall, our roles reversed, and he went back to work in October 2022 while I continued my newly found and slightly forced sabbatical.

School is fun when you don’t have to go.?

When summer ended, the kids and I all headed back to school. I pursued a passion in culinary by achieving a degree in pastry arts that led to my own cottage business and work at the most iconic hotel in Austin- the Driskill. This old lesson became new again - when we put our mind to something and follow through with an effort and a desire to learn, there’s not much we can’t achieve. It may not be quick but staying open to opportunity even if it’s something you’ve never done before can open your eyes to more new perspectives for life. We are fortunate to live in a place where this is even possible.?

Inward focus breeds insecurity.?

When I got too inward thinking about myself and my situation or started to play the victim card, I reminded myself of advice from mentors and to turn my attention outward. Insecurity feeds on inward focus, but confidence and joy comes from using your gifts to notice and serve others.? I volunteered in my community at church, at my daughter’s American Heritage Girls troop, gave rides to fellow classmates who didn’t have cars, and noticed more individuals in my life that I could give to whether it was a tangible need or just listening. I would not have noticed their needs if I had stayed tuned in to me.? When I saw a friend receive her first promotion, I was over the moon. It wasn’t me who caused it to happen, it but it felt so good to provide encouragement along the way and see someone else chip away at their dream and share in their joy.?

Revelation often requires an outside in perspective.

Stepping away from leadership showed me some interesting workplace dynamics I hadn’t seen firsthand in a while. There are some people who kiss up and kick down and may even get a lot of undeserved praise from leaders in their schemes, but lose the respect of their peers. Gossip fuels strife and quarrel among teams, and we as leaders can do a better job of noticing when someone is trying to climb higher on the backs of others instead of working as a team to achieve greatness. We can root out the rot and coach those people up or out. The true leaders I saw were often the quietest and cared less about credit and more about succeeding together. They are givers, not takers. They practice reciprocity and by definition aren’t entitled. It’s not necessarily a conscious choice, it’s who they grew to be.

There’s a lot of BS in tech.?

I mean this partly tongue in cheek because there are so many wonderful things too, but coming back to peruse linkedin and reading the posts on “knowing your customers,” NRR, GRR, churn, renueve, etc. was at times comical. I wondered how many people actually talked to customers and what customers would think about how we talked about them. How often do we actually listen, observe, or try to experience what they actually went through with our products and services versus just gabbing on in our corporate lingo to each other, and analyzing them on spreadsheets with health scores, funnel stages, and renewal rates. Sometimes it seemed like a lot of posturing but it also held a mirror to perhaps the times I did that too. It showed me the forgotten humanity in business. That people are people. We all have similar needs to be safe, liked and for the most part add and receive value wherever we are, but we can easily get stuck in ruts and metrics forgetting those around us as we get more and more inward within our organization and even ourselves.?

Shared values matter a lot.?

The people we choose to surround ourselves with are important. We’ve all heard this but it meant more after losing my job. In it, I found my true friends not just “work friends” and y’all know who you are! I’ve always been one to get along, but maybe lost sight of who I was in some of my misplaced desires to be liked. My identity is not a VP, a chef, a cottage business owner, a mom…it is uniquely Annie. I love things wrapped up in all those roles- data, planning, creativity, serving, compassion, nurturing, and seeing people grow as individuals. We talk a lot about groups or “cultures” around us, but despite all that, we are still unique and talented on our own. The rest are just labels of mostly outward things. Those groups may reflect certain aspects of who we are but it is not all who we are. It does not totally define us, and it is not worth trying to fit in no matter what perceived advantages it may offer. I’ve re-learned the biggest thing to achieve in this life is not title, money, worldly possessions, or “fitting in,” but true success is measured in how we choose to serve others with our own unique talents and gifts, even if no one ever knows it. Who we are when no one is looking is who we are. I’ve learned true leadership and am thankful some temporary pain gave way to this new experience.?