Grit, quit and the middle ground of walking away

All saints should walk away. Do their bit, then—just walk away

Alice Walker, Meridian

This week I attended a panel discussion on grit and resilience. The speakers shared harrowing stories of health calamities, infertility, a failed marriage, debt, and unrelenting professional pressure. All have seemingly come out on the other side of their struggles to helm businesses and lead love-filled lives.

They defined grit as the drive to achieve a goal no matter how challenging, and resilience as the ability to rebound from bad news and challenges and keep moving forward.  I thought of the Kobe Bryant quote shared widely after his death: "I have nothing in common with lazy people who blame others for their lack of success. Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses."

I always wonder if I’m working hard enough, putting in enough, coming through in a pinch and being the one who solves problems and make things better. I don’t want to be scorned by the A-Team.

I grew up in a small enough town that you could do almost every activity – sports, arts, knowledge bowl, leadership groups, church – and make a strong contribution in all of them while getting your homework done. We were brought up to be generalists, not specialists because there simply weren’t enough people for us to pick a passion and drive at it exclusively. My brand became “showing up and doing good work wherever I’m needed,” and it helped me build a career I was proud of and a network that valued me.

But I wasn’t passionate about my career. I mean, I liked my job and put a lot of energy into it and got super charged about delivering for customers and helping my team grow, but I couldn’t honestly call it passion. Even worse, I often felt burned out or a little bitter that other people weren’t taking things as seriously or pushing themselves as hard as I was. I wanted to get through my work obligations so that I could get to the things I cared about: Loving my kids and husband. Nurturing my own wellbeing. Helping people like my kids know that they can do hard things.

When my position was eliminated in late 2018, I had a choice to apply for jobs internally or take a severance package. I hated leaving my team, and I hated having to give up the work I felt so proud of. Even worse though, was having no clear sense of what my professional dream was and what goal I was actually working toward, besides retirement.

I felt like a corporate quitter, but I’ll say it like this now: Somewhere between Intentionless, Masochistic Grit and Just Calling It Quits is choosing to walk away from one reality toward something else, after you’ve done your part or gotten what you needed from a chapter in your life.

“ I had the work hard part nailed but had completely missed the dream part. ”

Alice Walker’s line about walking away stayed with me for over 20 years, since I read Meridian in an undergrad literature class, and it was time to put the wisdom into action for myself. It was time to take the gift and go do the hard work of getting clear about who I am and what I want, and then organizing my career around that. I know it’s a luxury not afforded to everyone, but I wasn’t going to snub it out of a guilty sense of privilege.

Here’s what I’m realizing: Kobe only worked that hard for something that actually mattered to him. He says, "Dedication sees dreams come true." I had the work hard part nailed but had completely missed the dream part.

For the first year after I left my job, my work was to discern my dream by learning to listen to myself better, retraining my inner voice to be kinder and way less judgmental and fearful, and establishing some stronger rhythms in my family. I needed to create a way of working that allowed for that, and my work as an Authentic Brand fractional CMO and independent marketing consultant has absolutely given me the space to do that.

Now I see I don’t have one big Dream, but I do know what I want to do.

1. Practice my purpose every day: I’m here to put more love and truth into the world than I take out of it. I can do that in big and small ways all the time but only by being honest and loving myself first, and only by living in the moment.

2. Be an example of self-kindness and integrity to my children.

3. Appreciate my husband and revel in our beautiful, imperfectly wonderful marriage.

4. Understand what my faith is and how it helps me do #1-3 better.

5. Write a book about number four.

6. Keep earning money to support my family.

Alice Walker challenges me to do my bit and then walk away – rather than sacrificing myself unnecessarily. Kobe dreamed of basketball superstardom and worked his ass off to get there. I’m not an aspiring superstar. I a person who aspires to do all I can to ease suffering and bring light, truth and love wherever I can. That just might be by being honest and generous with my own story, in hopes it resonates with other people and helps them discern their best life too.