Brene Brown

“For many of us, our first waking thought of the day is, ‘I didn’t get enough sleep.'” (Brene Brown- The Gifts of Imperfection)

How many of us wake up and immediately have thoughts such as, “I’m still tired, I better stay here a bit longer,” or “I can work out later,” or “I have a big day, and need the energy… (AKA, I’ll just hit snooze again….)?”

DANG, I’m totally in that group. Those who study human behavior call this “scarcity” thinking… As in, we aren’t waking up with a focus first on the positive but with a notion of lack… “I am healthy. I am so blessed to wake up and have a purpose.”

You get the picture. I am TOTALLY feeling this one.

In the book noted above (which Brene recently re-released), the “not enough” thinking seems to saturate us early and often. Not enough exercise, work, money, power, time off, weekends, etc. “Before we even sit up in bed, we’re inadequate, behind…already lacking something.” We end the same way, thinking about what we didn’t get to… what remains… Ugh! Why do we do that? According to Brown (and boy is she right on point), “We each have the choice in ANY SETTING to step back and let go of the mind-set of scarcity. Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency…a knowing that there IS ENOUGH, and THAT WE ARE ENOUGH.”

We should all pay attention to our thoughts. Our ultimate goal is toward “abundant” thinking. The idea is that focusing on abundance directs us to think through the possible good in each situation. The power of our first thoughts of each day can set the course for the day, and propel us forward, or leave us still in bed, while the world is moving ahead. We are far more incredible than we ever give ourselves credit for. We are powerful and strong and even on those days when we feel we cannot be enough, THAT EVEN WILL BE ENOUGH!

I hope that this message somehow resonates with you as well. The power of the moment as we start our day, should be with some bravado…some touch of momentum and badassery if you will. We are all gifted and able to bring forth a positive movement for this very day. My prayer is that God will work on our minds and allow us to be all we are intended to be.

‘Bringing your point of view‘ should be a critical lesson taught early on! (As we know from personal experience, teenagers have one already, so learning how to bring forth a healthy point of view is the focus :))

What I have found is that the companies that hire us are paying us to bring forward our skills, our expertise, our gifts… in the form often of sharing our point of view. And of course, in any type of relationship, we need to be able to share our perspective (our voice if you will) in a healthy way. (I will throw in here that when we are advocating for someone else, such as someone who can’t speak for themselves, then this becomes especially critical.) Being able to do this in all situations can take enormous courage and is a hot topic with popular speakers and authors, notably, Brene Brown in her work Daring Leadership. When I was preparing for today’s blog post, I spent some time contemplating just why it does take so much courage and why are we sometimes not as bold as we hope? Here’s what I came up with….

1. I’m not even sure we know what a point of view looks like, nor how to bring it forward in a healthy manner in our conversations? Adding to that stream of thought: Maybe it’s that we don’t know what our point of view really is because is vacillates… it’s often not black and white and hard to pin down. I’m a moderate so I often find myself stuck here.
   
2. My challenge in my career has been in not understanding that others really do want and need my point of view. I learned this as a senior leader, and am good when sharing it with the folks on our team, but when sharing upward, that hasn’t been true. I finally realized that this is EXACTLY what is needed and desired. It often takes a lot of courage to take a position on a controversial topic, but it is absolutely essential to a healthy workplace. (Side note: I think this is precisely the reason people have not felt until this generation… (Thank you Millennials and Gen Z for showing us how to do this!) that we could address complex issues such as inclusion in the workplace. What a thrill it is to hear voices heard on substantial topics that impact us all.)
   
3. Capturing the above two points in a different way… the definition of courage is “The ability to do something that frightens one.” The entire process takes vulnerability and we flat out haven’t generally been trained to be vulnerable. (Side note: Here’s where I think we all need to train ourselves or advocate that our children and all future generations learn early how to do this well. Brene Brown’s work is a terrific place to start… perhaps start with her books, listening to her podcasts, or find someone else who speaks on the topic that you gel with better…). Regardless, it’s important… We can do a world of difference by ensuring this is a dinner table topic on the regular. I know I didn’t even contemplate this at ours until recently.

Here’s to always learning and growing. My hope and prayer today is that we can all get to bringing forth health perspectives and courageously sharing our points of view. God gave us all these brilliants minds, and we should share our stories and voice to ensure a wide understanding to heard.