Top 10 Lessons Learned in 2021: The Only Way Out is Through

I've heard Jim Gaffigan describe 2021 like changing a baby’s diaper in the middle of the night… exhausted, burnt out, exasperated…and just as you're putting the baby back into the crib…you hear the unpleasant sound of the diaper filling back up again. While an awful, yet accurate description of the sentiments felt by many about this year, I do feel hopeful for 2022.

2021 was a year of ‘recalibrating’ for me. It has been a year of tough love learning and a year of big transitions, but it hasn’t changed why I love the work I do. I get excited taking entrepreneurs through the milestone of offering employee benefits and making the employee benefits experience one of strategic value, not pain. More than ever, I am also filled with immense gratitude due to the extraordinary nature of the LEGS board and community and the people who comprise it. Every day, I feel incredibly lucky to work alongside talented and passionate individuals who care so deeply about shared missions, goals, and love.

As the year comes to a close, I always like to sit down and reflect on the top 10 lessons learned, but to be quite frank, I don’t remember if it was 2019, 2020 or 2021…so bear with me, but here goes nothing…

1. Be Excessively Gentle with Yourself. I know I'm the only one that lives inside my head, so I might as well make it the most beautiful space ever. Despite this belief, I was guilty of being 'more negative than an undeveloped piece of film' at times this year....Have you ever woken up, looked in the mirror and immediately start beating yourself up??(i.e. focusing on the tired eyes, the zit, the dimples on the butt, the 'I'm not good enough-ness')

I learned that when you start the day in a shame shit storm like I mentioned above, you actually train your brain's RAS, Reticular Activating System, to constantly seek other reasons to confirm you suck. Here's some crazy Mel Robbins science that taught me to high five myself in the mirror every morning. (Silly, I know-but get ready for me to blow your mind.)

When you high five yourself in the mirror, your subconscious doesn’t physiologically know the difference between a high-five from someone else and yourself. So, when you give yourself a high-five, even if you’re thinking you’re a piece of shit who doesn’t deserve it, you get a hit of dopamine. It’s neurologically impossible for your brain to beat itself up and accept a high-five at once. You will experience a slight energy surge, because your nervous system knows what a high-five is and the gesture itself communicates for you. You are literally reprogramming your brain. So remember, “The most important opinion you can have is the opinion you have of yourself. The most important conversation you have is a conversation with yourself."?

2. Create a culture where everyone matters. When you extend the opportunity to make people feel like they belong…People show up!.Leading with love means it is always about people. It is about selflessly and unconditionally serving them.??I believe it’s more important to build something 100 people love not something 1 million people kind of like.?LEGS is all about believing in women so that they come to see the greatness in themselves; caring, respecting and valuing them for their beautiful uniqueness in all that they are and do; being there for them when they need someone.?Customer service is a?department?but customer love is a mindset

3. Be A Do-Or-Dier. I watched the movie, Serendipity this year, and I heard this memorable quote: “You know the Greeks didn’t write obituaries. They only asked one question after a man died: ‘Did he have passion?"??“Work fills a large part of our lives, so?I've made a commitment to be on fire with passion, never settling to be less than I dreamed I could be. So that at end of days when they ask that question of my life, the hills will resound with the echoes of a magnificent “Yes, she had passion!”?

4. Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu is an African proverb that means “A person is a person through other people.” It is through other people that we learn how to be a full person.” People who know me well know my #1 passion is people. My Mom always said, “Every single person has something to teach you,”?so before you’re quick to put someone in a box, take the extra time to get to know what’s unique about them, and you never know what you might find out...whether they like to run marathons, have a sick mother living with them, their husband died at age 25 or they make soap for a hobby. Find value in their uniqueness and remember, “To attempt to understand the world is to experience who makes the world beautiful, one human connection at a time.”

5. 100% commitment is a lot easier than 98% commitment.?

Action takers are money makers. When you have a “back-and-forth” decision-making process, you waste mental energy on decision fatigue, or as Lil’ Wayne says,?“The more time you spend contemplating what you should have done…you lose valuable time planning what you can and will do.”?You can know what you’re committed to from the results you’re getting.?Your identity becomes clearer and resonates with the future self you strive to become whether it’s working out, eating healthy, or being in a relationship. By watching yourself act according to desired goals, you begin to perceive yourself as that type of person. This I learned from the book Atomic Habits and brings me to the next lesson…

?6. When the why is strong enough, the how will come.?I heard a story on the radio this year about Beyoncé that resonated that went something like this…on an exhausting period of traveling, one of Beyoncé’s band members?happened to get on the elevator with Beyoncé and her mom, Miss Tina.?Beyoncé leaned up against the wall and sighed. "Miss Tina looks at her and said,?'Are you tired?' And she stands up and looks at her and?says?'I could run a mile.' That’s the attitude! You never hear her say,?I'm tired.?So, it is my goal to try to take that out of my vocabulary in 2022. Be like Beyoncé and do whatever it takes to reach your goals.

7. With great pain comes great wisdom.?I was on a plane this year when my boyfriend told me that airplanes take off against the wind, not with it. A good reminder for when everything seems to be going against you. Making good decisions comes from experience. Experience comes from bad decisions, and rejection is protection.

8. Friendships are Forged and?Strengthened at the 19th hole. Sociologists have narrowed it down to two ingredients for making friends in adulthood: 1) continuous unplanned interactions, and 2) shared vulnerability.?LEGS was founded on this belief that golf teaches vulnerability.?While all sports present their own learning moments, Golf, by its very nature, is a metaphor of life full of regular ebbs and flows. Playing two good holes of golf (translate: two good quarters of business performance) is often followed by two terrible holes, where people start questioning their skills and abilities.

The idea that despite your best efforts, the result is not always in your control is humbling and makes one open to both honest introspection and respect for others’ views and ideas to build learning, which is essential for building friendships and business.??

9.) Age is mostly a matter of mind. If you don’t mind, you don’t age. For the record, ya’ll, I’m 27 for life!!?

10.) As I always say, most things will work again if you unplug them for awhile, even yourself. I hope you have been able to enjoy the holidays with family and have had time for reflection on the year and what’s to come (offline).

May we all cherish this time that we are given and let’s go make the most of it! Cheers to 2022!?

Jillian