2018: The Year of the Inhale; 2019: The Year of the Scream
The end of the year, while we sip our peppermint mocha’s and wrap those regifted peach candles, is often the time we reflect on the year that was. This season is no different for me.
2017 (yes I mean 2017) was a tough but transformative year for me. A close family member died weeks before the start of the year, I went through a divorce, I had disruptive housing changes, and I left a job I loved to start my own business (oh and of course, Trump, climate change, etc. etc.). So 2018 was a bit of a respite from change. An inhaling, after a year of tightly holding my breath and just trying to survive.
In 2018 I inhaled healing, self-care, time with my family and inspiration. It was in that space that I met and connected with some amazing and healing women. I had no idea how badly I needed to immerse myself in their energy.
One of those ladies was HR Rockstar Laurie Ruettimann. Any HR nerd like me has been following her work all the way back to her Punk Rock HR days. Laurie gave me, a fledgling consultant with big ideas but no brand, a platform. She really had no reason to take a chance on me, but she did, and I was, and am, grateful. In our subsequent conversations, she challenged me to think deeply about what I believe for my work and what I want for my year(s) ahead.
All I could summon, but yet could not say, is I want to scream. Scream in pain for all of what I see wrong in the world, scream in protest for all I want to change and scream for joy in the possibilities.
But a scream is an action. It is not necessarily a belief. What I want for the year ahead seemed more complex.
I work on work, meaning, my passion is centered around making the work experience better for others. What I believe, what I truly and sincerely believe, is that work can heal many of the wounds we all carry.
But I believe more than just that.
I believe that work should and can be a place of purpose, liberation, growth, and transformation. That work should connect you to your community and your passions, regardless if you are in a creative agency, or on a manufacturing floor.
I believe that our current work-life has been structured to only support the success of a select few (namely white, wealthy men), and in making workplaces that centered the needs of white men, it ensured that both wealth and power remained with them. I want to change that, and be part of dismantling that system.
I believe that I can do that by dismantling who work systems serve. If we broaden what success looks like and who our processes and workplace systems support, it would radically transform the world.
I believe I have an essential role to play in ushering in a more liberating future for work.
I believe that my scream can be best heard in my writing, my consulting and my speaking.
I believe my deep inhale has prepared me for my deepest most blood curdling exhale.
It feels lofty (and maybe even a little narcissistic) to say this aloud. But what I remember is, those women that I have surrounded me during this year of inhaling are screaming with me. Our voices are making a choir, that will be the anthem of this change.
We will transform organizations so that those that work within them are treated equitably, that they have a fair shot at growth and that they are not overworked and underpaid. We will untie the constraints companies have historically placed on their people so that those people can help change the world.
Join me.
