What do you know now - Leadership Curiosity

Today, I’m curious:

What’s one thing (or a few things) you know now that you didn’t know before the pandemic?

My suggestion is that you find a quiet place to sit, set a timer for 10 minutes, and write down everything that comes to your mind as you think about this question. No filtering. No analyzing. Don’t make your writing pretty, grammatically correct. No one is going to read it unless you choose to share (and then you can fix it up).

I recommend using pen and paper rather than a laptop, but whatever feels more comfortable and flowing for you is good.

If you find the timer has ended and you have more to say, keep writing. The good stuff usually comes at least 5-10 minutes into this exercise.

If you find yourself getting stuck with nothing to say, write that down and keep going.

The end result may surprise you.

and then feel free to share some of your thoughts with me.

And here’s my 10-minute reflection, that I feel a bit vulnerable about sharing but here goes:

I know how precious time with family is. What it means to spend time alone, with family, connecting and sharing life in the simplest way. I know even more how grateful I am for the family that I have and that we get on so well. We enjoy spending time together and appreciate the tender balance of when we want to be together and when we need space. We definitely learned how to do that well especially over the periods of lockdown.

I know the joy of takeaway meals and what a treat it is not to cook and have great meals delivered to my house and to continue to support our favorite local restaurants so that they can keep going at this challenging time. I now tip 12% (used to be 10%) because I’m super grateful for the privilege of eating out.

I know how the media and politics can sweep people up into a storm of panic, anxiety, and fear of some of the most basic, most important values in life. I’m devastated at people spending time alone when they’re sick, scared, anxious, and particularly the elderly, at a stage in their life when they should and can be surrounded by the people they love the most, the people they spent a lifetime caring for.

I know that as a human race we have enormous potential to do good and that in times of stress, that is what we want to do. My instinct was first and foremost, how can I help? How can I make a difference? We’re surrounded by small initiatives that mean a lot and don’t take that much time. We just need to give the time.

I know that when I go into my cocoon, it takes effort for me to come out of it. And that I need to make that effort because I can find myself getting quite lonely on my own, even though self-imposed, cocooning but that connecting, engaging, and being social is good for me and I love it too!

I know I can totally get sucked into binge-watching series and that I don’t want to. Sometimes, I need to fight the urge to zone out and watch. And I know I much prefer to read. Take a deep dive into a great book and get lost in the story or the lessons. Fiction or non-fiction – I love great stories and I love great learnings.

Whew, this exercise is tough. I think I knew quite a few of these things before the pandemic but the pandemic made it even clearer to me to be conscious of the choices I make every day about how I spend my time and what adds meaning to my life. I know what’s important and I’ve always known that but now I see how easy it is for me, to soldier on and keep doing things to keep myself busy.

I think the most important thing I know now is the importance of rest, taking time off (still a work in progress for me), being kind to myself, and how much I value 8 hours of sleep a night.

How about you?

And for today’s podcast episode, we have a live coaching session with Janet Du Preez about leadership and wicked problems.