We live in a duality, on so many levels.
What does that look like for you?
For me, it’s reconciling a mass school shooting in Texas, after one last week in a grocery store in Buffalo, and all the shootings in Chicago in between. It feels like the world should stop. And yet the next morning I had to teach at 6:00 a.m. aerobics class and then head over to a local Chicago high school to film a promotional video. It’s horrific shootings in very normative situations in daily life, and then still having obligations of daily life.
I hear so often now on well-meaning posts that it’s insensitive to ask someone how they are feeling, that this has become too superficial a question, especially if one is not intending to dive in and sit with an honest answer. But I do what to know. How are you feeling? How are you reconciling the world right now?
Where to Start?
I’m going to share my mind shift in case it’s helpful. The train looks like this: Disruptor happens—it changes your sense of mastery of your world, your understanding of how things work—you end up floating or feeling ineffectual, not being able to influence or control things happening around you. Your nervous system activates and you fight, flight or freeze. (I’m a freezer).
Start with What You Know.
The mind shift for me is this. Silence = Complicity, so I have to do something. What are some of the core issues at play (sticking with the recent gun violence as one issue for now)? 1. Reasonable gun laws (write/call all your state and federal representatives.) 2. Access to mental health. 3. Ending hate and embracing diversity, equity and inclusion.
By identifying the core issues—those that resonate with you, you will likely be better able to see where you are already making a difference so that you can take action that builds on strength rather than starting from scratch.
What I know is that Intercultural Talk helps individuals align their values with their business (or life project), translates that into a strategic, actionable plan and amplifies it with marketing.
With this reflective process on values…
I can see that the clients I serve line up with my values: a mental health practice that is adding clinicians and expanding to new states to make mental health care accessible. Diversity and Inclusion practitioners who help combat bias and develop future leaders; others working to bring families closer together or provide career paths for youth.
This ultimately is a newsletter about business and marketing, hence circling back to that. I would add that it’s a business newsletter for deeply caring and sensitive business owners who yearn to make a positive impact on their sphere of influence if not the world. People like you, who believe you have the power to make a difference and won’t stop until you do.
How are you processing the world today? What’s your next step? What’s your idea that the world needs right now?