With the battle cry we would take off up the stairs of Fenway Park. Mid race, the course took us outside the stadium and we found ourselves standing in a parking lot at the spear throw. Oh, I had this. Aim with the left hand, rope attached to the spear over the fence in front of me so it doesn't get caught up in my feet, yes friends, I have made that mistake before, rear back, step and throw. Here we go, the perfect throw. Straight, headed for the target, yes I was a rock star. That is..... until the spear started to descend too soon. Despite the perfect trajectory and throw, there was not enough power to hit the target and it fell painfully short by two inches. Two freaking inches. There I was, face down in the dirt, hands in the gravel taking my burpee penalties in front of my entire team. Way to go captain. Burpee after burpee, gravel finding it's way into the palms of my hands, feeling the humility full force that went along with this moment.
Before carrying on with this story, I guess I should be addressing the elephant in the room...... my blog has been on hiatus. Let's be transparent here. Very few posts in the last twelve months, and you may be wondering why. Let me keep it real. Face down in the dirt burpeeing it out in front of all to see is probably the best metaphor for my life over the last few months. Personal loss, like two dogs and a cat dying in 8 months, leaving us with no pets. Professional struggles, other personal difficulties, accepting that yes, I am a COVID long hauler with a pile of pills to prove it. Yes friends, truly face down in the dirt. I found it hard to support my title as Mama Shark and be all inspirational when I was face down in the dirt for the whole world to see.
So, you can imagine my surprise when I was asked to give the keynote address for the Albany Women in Leadership Summit in May. I accepted immediately, as I just needed a win, secretly hoping they would not find out I really am, in fact, face down in the dirt. The topic? Know Your Worth and How to Increase Your Value.
I have spent the last few days thinking on this topic. You know, when I have given presentations before it has always been based on research of various things and presenting information in a concise and organized way. This is a different animal. This is my personal thoughts on self worth. I found myself thinking back to my gravel laden palms burpeeing it out in front of a crowd of onlookers, and how that didn't feel good. Why? What was the emotion that went with that? Worthless. The trials of the last few months..... worthless. Now facing down this presentation I had to figure out how to climb out of the hole.
I started to ask the question, who was it that told me I am worthless anyway? Oh wait. That was me. What evidence did I have? I didn't meet someone's standard. Wait. Someone. Who was someone? Well, there were lots of someones if I am being honest, but there's a theme here. I gave my worth to others to manage. I tied my worth to other people's vision. What if I didn't? What if I owned that. What if instead of face down in the dirt, I celebrated coming through two bouts of COVID, a broken hip, being in my 50's and out on the Spartan course anyway. I would call that grit. Grit is not worthless. I began to examine the other struggles, amongst the disappointment there were wins. I just had to look for them.
As I put pen to paper, I began to realize, we are not always going to align with others' visions and how we fit into any given scenario. In that crossroads is where we get to decide if that malalignment defines, or do we have the wherewithal to develop our own vision? Can we take that missed trajectory and reset to get back up and move forward.
I'm here to tell you, I did get up from my burpee penalty, as the strong hands of my supportive teammates pulled me right up off the ground. I did go back in the stadium for a couple more hard fought miles. I ran more than I walked and finished out possibly my greatest race of the year surrounded by people who were not focused on my failure, but instead invested in lifting me up in the hard times and cheering on my success. In the end, the penalty truly didn't matter, my vision for the race I set out to run and support system did.
I think the trick to this self worth thing is to develop your own vision and stop giving your worth to someone else to manage. Bring in the team that has faith in your vision and use that faith and support to build your worth. It's only in that space that you can go in the right trajectory, only this time with a little more power, allowing you to gloriously strike the target with staying power. When this happens I am certain that you will start to see the best is yet to come.
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