Esvienne

With Hurricane Irene miraculously veering away from Florida but unfortunately careening STRAIGHT towards where my family in NY is, I started thinking about natural disasters and how they relate to life.

Hate me if you want to, but I’m completely fascinated by natural disasters. The power and immensity of any kind of earthquake, hurricane, tornado, tsunami or whatever nature throws at us is pretty spectacular. There’s something about the chaos and destruction that just makes me sit back and think about how small we really are. And once one is coming, you really can’t do anything to stop it.

You can only try to save yourself.

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I came across this article on The 99 Percent about Hillman Curtis and it really inspired me and made me feel a little better about the fact that I’m interested in more than a handful of things and want to learn everything about whatever I get hooked and interested in. It took me a lot of Life ADD to get into my sweet spot right now where I get to pretty much devour everything I’m learning every single day.

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I’ve experienced a lot of change. Not only through my life, but through my [still young] professional career. One of the things I’ve learned through the years is that change adaptability is one of the strongest and best characteristics you can carry. Someone shared a TED talk with me yesterday in my normal night owl-ness and it got me thinking about where I was and where I am now… and how every little piece really does make up the big picture.

I’ve moved a lot. I’ve changed surroundings a lot. I went to middle school in Europe randomly cause of my dad’s job. Change used to leave me feeling unsettled. I’m sure you’ve all felt this at some time or another. You get used to the familiar, the normal… so much so, that you lose site of the inefficiencies and direction of where you were hoping to get in the first place.

Being stagnant is a dangerous and blinding thing.

You can’t push yourself to the limit without change.

When change comes now, I welcome it. It’s still an intimidating and scary thing, but in the end it’s the only way to grow, learn and thrive. You have to accept it with humility and trust that it’s the right thing.

Change, especially in my professional career over the past 2-ish years, has pretty much been a constant thing. And I think this is a blessing. While most people are just “doing a job” and trying not to claw their eyes out, I’m constantly learning and shape shifting somewhere with exponential room for growth and learning.

I started with solo work. Coming out of college, that was already a change. Before graduating, we spent months leading teams in building and pitching a business strategy proposal so coming into a small environment and only being responsible for ourselves was new to me. I started getting used to being responsible for my own work and working in a tight knit group, when BAM! Change.

This time change was another culture shift for me. And getting pushed into a fast moving machine is my specialty. I was fast tracked as a director and got to assemble and build my own team slowly through the months. Through this time we were also an extremely fast growing company, so learning to roll with the punches and adapting my team as quick as possible was a necessary skill that I’m glad I got a chance to work on. Without change, I wouldn’t know what exactly I was capable of.

Finding new talent and training was one of the hardest to do. Learning how to keep my team happy and motivated taught me the importance of patience and an understanding that each and every person is motivated by different things. Through this, I started to become a really good teacher, and really good at explaining things. I picked up on everything quickly and helped with cross communication between teams so we could streamline everything. Something else I acquired from change.

The next change that happened was a huge paradigm shift to help efficiency and process. Through this, we had to consolidate and restructure- my role had become obsolete and I was solo again- no longer leading but this time working within a team structure, ready to rock and roll. It was a humbling experience and taught me humility. Doing what’s right and best can be a hard decision but it’s one that had to be made. I seriously missed having a team and being that person who was responsible for performance and processes. I was used to doing things how I saw fit to achieve goals. But through this, I learned how to become more responsible and crack the whip on myself to meet the expectations of goals others have set for me. Change is scary, but you have to be able to see the whole forest to get out of the woods.

Now, I’m preparing for another change. This one is totally left field from anywhere I’ve been- and the one area I’ve been dying to dive in to. Another change where I’m shifting into a place where I can learn all the pieces I’ve been missing from extremely talented people. Finally able to stitch together everything I’ve picked up on over the years. It’s going to be awesome and will hopefully start laying the stepping stones for where I ultimately want to be to reach my goals; being able to innovate this space, and educate and inspire others. I guess I just have to get over my absolute morbid fear of public speaking. Seriously, if you want to see me end up on the floor, that’s probably the fastest way. I have a lot of areas to improve upon but the beauty of change is I know there’s always a way to fix them.

Change isn’t something to fear, it’s something to welcome. When we’re caught in the whirlwind of life and what we depend on and deem normal is pulled away, it’s easy to feel like you’re lost. But you’re not lost. You’re on the way to finding your ultimate and best self.