Humbled by the Pressure: My Growth and the Unexpected Rewards in 2020.

Last Friday, as our Hearsay Systems 2021 company kickoff sessions drew to a close, I was humbled to receive the 2020 Go-To-Market (GTM) Award for Most Valuable Player (MVP) from our CEO. I am incredibly honoured (Canadian spelling for my American friends who caught that). This led me to thinking about what "value" I gained and what "value" I delivered.

The entire year left me verklempt on numerous occasion and with the experience of being at the edges of my known limits just as so many of you have shared with me too. While I struggled to find healthy (or sustainable) integration between my work, wellbeing and personal life for all 12 of those months, it's also true that I ended the year unbelievably grateful and proud of what we accomplished together. I worked harder than I ever have in my career this past year and the challenges and adjustments were only rivaled by the year after my son was born. I leaned in though, on both occasions, when I wanted to lean back. I pushed myself when I thought I had nothing else to give. Being recognized by my peers with this MVP award is proof that imperfect action is better than none and that showing up consistently with what you have to give can pay off.

Looking back in review, I can see how the pressure challenged me to grow and rewarded me in turn...but not until I abandoned my original plan. Perhaps you're familiar with this Mike Tyson quote; if you're not though, you're welcome!

"Everyone has a plan 'till they get punched in the mouth. As long as we persevere and endure, we can get anything we want."

I will forever remember the year of the COVID-19 pandemic by this quote. I could have never imagined how much more I was capable of until my kindergarten aged son spent 6 straight months at home with my husband and I working in two separate businesses, from our 2 bedroom city high rise home, with zero childcare, zero virtual learning or viable options but to surrender and roll with it. I thought I knew what I was made of until I tried to lead, focus and deliver while being interrupted by change after change, and compounded by being yelled at by our sweet child dependent in front of my customers and colleagues. It began to feel like an eternity very quickly. He needed human attention too and he had to wait hours a day to get any. I needed more personal space. I didn't know my threshold for patience and compassion until I spent weeks without going outside over the course of months, without seeing beyond the narrow confines of our home ... while I did my best to manage paralyzing guilt about my precious child who was indeed being raised by highly irritating videos on the Internet at this point. I didn't realize how much I could fit into a day, a week or a year until I had to prioritize and execute on a scope of work well outside the parameters of my original job description. I didn't realize what truly mattered until I had to choose. I didn't know that my husband and I would need to revisit how we structured our life in the city to accommodate this new reality. The pressure was intense.

All of this would have been impossible without deep trust, a bigger why to ground me and an unmatched circle of friends, many of whom were colleagues too.

I know that I'm not alone. I also acknowledge outright that relative to the deep pain, violence, despair and injustice that unfolded last year and continues today, I am among a privileged few. I was present to multiple differing realities simultaneously that on some days left me defeated and mourning. This is why I want to take this moment to boil down the key insights from my year and carry these lessons forward into the new decade ahead.

SET & UPHOLD BOUNDARIES. I thought I had done this, but 2020 showed me and many others that we needed new ones. It turns out that I have leaky boundaries (thanks for the distinction Tanya). When I let this slide, it gets in the way of my leadership and impact. When I let my boundaries be negotiable, I and the people around me felt it downstream. This made 2020 harder than it needed to be, until I addressed this leak head on in the last quarter of the year. Often, we need to be interrupted to realign. Thanks for showing me the way, Lin.

HEALTH FIRST. Speaking of Lin, you and Angela showed me not just WHY but HOW to make health my top priority. I've been lucky to "get away" with the basics. But this year that stopped working. I needed to step it up to make it through and thrive, in-spite of it all. You were there in pivotal moments to reinforce this lesson and speak hard and necessary truths because you know that I want to live my life fully and you held me to account. Small actions compounded into big impact and I rearranged my priorities accordingly. Take a day off every month, just for you. Take your lunch, take standing or walking meetings if you have to. Just stop work even if everything isn't done. Unplug. You'll come back better. Period.

MASTER, CHANGE MANAGEMENT. I fancied myself "change resilient" before 2020. Then I didn't. I found myself experiencing the spin of "change saturation" and leading people through the uncertainty felt much more challenging than usual. I pride myself on being a stabilizing force so I needed to retool. I'm grateful to work at a company that invests in continuing education for each of us, and I leveraged this on a course called "Leading Through Change". The entire year was put into context through this course and I walked away with an enhanced toolkit to lead not only my team through uncertainty, but my life.

PRACTICE EMPATHY MANAGEMENT. Let me keep this real. I might not show it but I feel everything in HD. I feel what I feel, I'm attuned to what you're feeling and most days in 2020 I couldn't tell the difference. My superpower got in my way last year and my empathic approach to life was depleting me. I was carrying the weight of the world around with me and needed to put it down. Last year, through doing a bunch of research, through trial and error, and through reflective conversations with friends, colleagues and family, I was reminded of a more sustainable way. I'll sum it up like this with a truth bomb from Danielle LaPorte; "Open your heart. Then put up a big effing fence." I learned to protect one of my strengths so it can protect me.

SEEK AND CHERISH YOUR PEOPLE. Make time to laugh. Make time to connect. Make time to cry. Make time to question. Make time to rage. Make time to listen and to be heard. If you have to trade off doing the dishes or cleaning up toys, it will be worth it. Uncertainty and chaos is just so much better when you seek out good people and cherish them. They're everywhere, in places and communities we don't expect. I feel beyond enriched to have circles of trust in various pockets of my life and while I haven't always made time to maintain them, this year gifted me the chance to cherish my people.

EXPRESS YOUR GRATITUDE. As I close off the last decade, celebrate this humbling MVP award from my peers and consider what it took to work with the obstacles, I want to express my gratitude for one group of people who rode the rollercoaster with me last year: the Hearsay village and alum.

Thank you Clara for seeing something in me, for your vote of confidence, and for bringing me into your company. I'm a different and better version of myself today because of it. Thank you Chaun for hiring me and for having my back along with Bart, Tom and Chad. Thank you Gussy and Kelly for being my conclave sisters and for the incredible trust and solidarity that we created to weather the storm of 2020 together. Angela and Matt, our 'Bee Hive' will continue to keep me sane and gift me with tremendous amounts. Thank you to my direct team(s) which include(s) Alex, Dave, Linda and Shivam by extension. Thank you Steph and Cristine, Briana, Emily, Charly, Ed, Ariel and Elizabeth for your incredible grace, effort and success. Our customers are so lucky that they have you to partner with. Along these lines, I raise a glass of gratitude to each of our customers.

Thank you as well, to all the cross-departmental partners from Sales to PS, EPD to Marketing, from Support to Operations and to Liberty and Roz in particular for always being there with a solution. Finally, to Mike and JVR, thank you for your leadership and for helping me clear the path multiple times last year. Thank you all for being part of my life and the unpredictable year that capped off the last decade for each of us. Cheers to us, and to my husband, son and best friends for coming along this professional ride by osmosis!