Long-range forecast

How record temps, wildfires, naps, and LeBron James helped me break through my cloudy judgment

It’s early September 2020 in the Bay Area. I’m at home, robotically toggling between the weather and air quality apps on my phone, holding onto irrational hope that my every-two-minute screen refreshes yield improvements in either forecast. Coconut, our rescued maltipoo, is panting laboriously and lying prone on the hardwood floor. I lie down next to her, trusting that a creature with all that fur must instinctively know how to seek out the coolest parts of the house.?

On a normal day, I would open the windows to let the cool evening air in. But we’re experiencing a convergence of apocalyptic events—scorching temperatures and choking levels of smoke from nearby raging wildfires. To compound our misery, the exterior of our house is being painted—stalled now due to the heat and poor air quality—and the painters have sealed off all the windows to protect them during the painting process. So with the heat being trapped inside the house, no air conditioning, and places like coffee shops and libraries shuttered due to the coronavirus pandemic, my husband, teenage daughter, and Coconut pile into the car, experience the bliss of “max A/C,” and head to the grocery store for an extended visit amidst central air. It’s heavenly.

Earlier that week, I turn to meditation as a way to foster inner calm and balance as my mind and body struggle to relax in the suffocating heat and smoky air. On the aptly named Calm app, LeBron James leads me through sessions on mental fitness, the most relevant of which is called “Pre-Game Prep.” I imagine myself going head-to-head on the court with the 104-degree temps, air quality index of 172 (that’s bad), and life-size surgical masks. I doubt it’s the use case that the founders of Calm or meditation gurus had in mind.

What really takes me to a different level of flow are Calm’s nap stories. 26 minutes of a soothing voice affirming my decision to rest in the middle of the day, that I was joining the likes of Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein. Waking up refreshed feels like such a victory that I do what no other Calm customer has likely done: jump at a time-limited discount for a lifetime subscription to Calm—for the nap stories alone. As the daughter of immigrants, it’s in my genes to buy in discounts and bulk.?

The nap sessions become a go-to form of escapism during the ash-filled heat wave and pandemic lock down. With each out-breath, as I drift into my siesta, the gentle tones of Tamara Levitt coax me into leaving worries of microscopic soot and viral particles behind, “letting go...letting go...letting go…”

During my waking hours, I turn to decluttering to regain at least some of the control lost due to weather, natural disasters, and quarantine. Satisfaction washes over me as I clean out closets, sort the kitchen pantry, and scrub the inside of the fridge. Next, I confront a long-neglected pile of mail—tantamount to physical spam—and there, amidst the credit card offers, real estate fliers, and Costco coupons, is the renewal form for my medical license.

I never planned to return to practicing medicine. Yet every two years, prompted by the State of California, I dutifully renew my medical license. When I first made my transition to non-clinical work, I kept looking over my shoulder at my past life as a practicing doctor, like it was a parachute on my back, my hand gripping the rip cord tightly. Pull now? How about now? I got into the habit of holding on and never paused to make an intentional decision about why I was doing it. Rotely renewing my license was a way to keep the back-up plan and my identity as a doctor alive.?

It was a habit fueled by survival instinct, because, like an animal threatened by predators, I sustained scars. For years, particularly in the period immediately after I left clinical medicine, people admonished me, saying “you’re wasting all those years of training,” “you’ll regret it someday,” and “you should just buckle down and stop being foolish.” Also, there was no shortage of times when I’d struggled. For the right role. To get in front of decision makers. To convince hiring managers that I belonged. I don’t blame them.?

Well, maybe I blame them a little. But let’s face it. When learning about my background, people rarely know what label to give me, what bucket to put me in. Someone like me doesn’t fit neatly into the categories that make sense to most people—lawyer, engineer, business executive. But a physician who leaves clinical practice to pursue marketing? I could hear that Sesame Street song playing in their heads “One of these things is not like the other…”

These days, I’m comfortable with being different. It took a long time to get there, and it hasn’t always been easy. But for the most part it’s helped me, I can see that now. They’re not for everyone, the ways in which I’m different. But that’s ok.?

Robin Arzón, former lawyer and now Peloton and fitness instructor extraordinaire, says in her MasterClass, “Normalcy is an invisibility cloak….When you’re trying to leverage difference and when you’re talking about elements of swagger and you’re talking about reinvention...you want to leverage the ways you are uniquely magical in the world. Even people who misunderstand it or totally don’t jibe with it will...respect it.”

Thankfully, I discovered that the startup world is ideal for leveraging difference. It’s an environment where founders and their teams are often able to see what other people can’t—often the case with people who dream big— and so they welcomed me with open arms. Now, as the co-founder of my own business, alongside the best business partner I could ask for, we help startups turn their own differences into compelling stories and standout branding, distinct from competitors within a sea of sameness. And it all has nothing to do with my medical license.

In a recent interview, Larry Wilmore, the comedian, writer, producer, and actor known for roles on shows such as The Daily Show, talked about how Hollywood didn’t give him opportunities to achieve his vision as an artist and creative person, so he had to create his own. I consider this as I’m back on the cool hardwood floor, next to Coconut and my pile of mail. My medical license isn’t what paved the way for me over the years. With a throng of supporters and champions—all who saw what others couldn’t—providing the tail winds, I’ve learned to create my own opportunities too. It doesn’t mean that I will never struggle again or need a backup plan. But maybe it means that I can toss out my renewal form with swagger, knowing that whatever happens, I can adapt, find my way, and leverage difference. “Letting go...letting go… letting go…”

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