BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND

If you saw the video ‘the jig is up: soften into your humanity’ on IG last week, & it piqued your interest, this week’s blog share is for you. 

If you missed it, I encourage you to watch it first here & then proceed with the following read. It’s not required, but it will help with context.

In my video, I share with you that I have been the point person in client-facing positions most -if not- all of my life.

In high school, I worked retail at Abercrombie & Fitch - customer-facing.

Before graduating high school, I began working in customer service at Hollywood Tans. After high school graduation, this role converted into a full-time position while I was in college. It was also customer-facing.

After college, my 1st job was as a Marketing Analyst for a local health provider in downtown Pittsburgh, PA. This role was not only customer-facing, it also supported those who were. The sales team.

After about 9months to a year in the Marketing Analyst role, I was recruited by the broker of Major League Baseball to be their sole Client Manager. Not only was this role customer-facing, but I was also the point person in communication with 29 of the 30 front offices, HR generalists, & often the owners of ball clubs. In addition, I was also the point person for MLB’s Field Personnel, International Scouts, & Umpires, as well as liaison for their Medical, Dental, Vision, & Life Insurance carriers, not to mention responsible for office philanthropy. This was my most self-managed, self-responsible client-facing role to date at that time.

While working for the broker of MLB, I was hired as an adjunct professor for my alma mater to teach Communications & Rhetoric. This was a new kind of human-facing role. I was not only dealing with Professors 1:1 but now students. I was leading classes, fielding group-oriented questions, testing acumen & tending to inquiries in private. This role would be what pushed me to notice the following:

my sweet spot & zone of genius is helping others identify intent::problem::solution efforts. I help zero in on where there are personal obstacles or potential issues, to help individuals, business owners, & companies evaluate them to identify, & manage, authentically convicted, aligned, & individuated solutions. 

The next 2-roles I went on to tackle were also highly client-facing. First, I became a licensed Health Insurance broker for a private brokerage firm, & as the sole broker handling the company's primary book of business. This was followed by becoming a Tech company’s sole Project Manager for onboarding all new incoming business & acting as a liaison amongst all internal departments. 

The next one you know & I have been in for the last 7 years is COACH, public speaker, writer, poet, 2x published author & teacher.

I’ve shared with you recently that for the last few years, I have been on a self-love pilgrimage with Presence.

Part of the journey has been reviewing, consciously, who I am & what doesn’t support convicted authenticity.

I’ve been reconciling with every relationship, including what relationship my professional trajectory has brought me, how it has fulfilled me or not, & what it has revealed to me about me. 

In short, authenticity has shown me not only what Me-means, but that I’m a problem-solution kinda gal.

Reconciling all the people-facing positions I’ve had professionally over the years, has shown me that as a 15+ year project & people manager, I’ve always been the type to see the goal & then back into it. For me & For others.

I align to goals by addressing what could create interference, not to focus on the bad, but to keep a presence with the objective & what could derail it.

For me & those I work with, I EAT THE WHOLE ELEPHANT.

I identify the objective, & perform due diligence to understand what potential pitfalls exist, or COULD, before I dive in.

Keeping room for what is unpredictable, I am someone who needs to face what is known, get all the bullshit outta the way & get everything out on the table before timelines or approach can be assessed.

Intentionally, peering into the scariest, thickest of darkness to discover where ambiguity is perceived as overshadowing or has extinguished the light… that is my bag.

If what I’ve described above sounds like you, you reach goals by defining them, objectives, or desires 1st. 

After identifying the target or goals, next you tackle execution by sifting through all that is required to achieve it, which includes assessment of any bullshit or obstacles that could impede it. 

You do all of this problem work to create the best possible path. 

You make it your prerogative to assess pitfalls as a proactively responsible part of the action plan. 

You move thoughtfully with regard for energy, utilizing precision & a specifically harnessed intent that is equal parts analytical & tactical. In other words, you are someone who does not care to waste your or others mother fucking time.

As such, you understand nothing is ever entirely predictable & hardly does everything go wholly according to plan, but recognize that being prepared & informed about what obstacles you can assess or make known never hurts either.

As best as you can, you align yourself to goals by preparing, addressing what could go wrong, what could cause obstruction or create issues, & acknowledge interference not to focus on the bad but to keep yourself present to the task(s). 

This methodology of pinpointing an objective, noticing where & why it is or could be obstructed, and then face issues to move forward with clarity is known as going backward to move forward or beginning with the end in mind.

This approach makes progress more easily identifiable by considering what is or could fuck it up. 

The sticky with this thinking is that while assessing problems, we can forget we’re evaluating with good reason. Not to belabor issues. It’s to consider all parts, even setbacks or confusion, as a necessary part of wholly managing a process designed to lead to success. 

Taking care with a positive intention to assess what could fuck up progress, we can forget that facing a problem is a healthy, important aspect of how we process information.

We forget not everyone processes the same.

We forget we don’t like blind situations.

We forget WHO we are & HOW we best operate. 

We forget part of who we are IS how we operate. 

In all the planning, assessment, & proactive awareness that this methodology attempts to create, we can lose sight that our method to the madness, to facing the dark pitfalls of achievement & accomplishments, isn’t to disempower us or bury us underneath all that could go wrong. It’s not to invalidate, freeze, or condemn our approach & this effort. It’s to keep us astute & enlightened about what gets in the way of execution or could derail progress, happiness, or goals.

If you hear yourself in this & you’re like, “SAMESIES” or “Holy fucking shit, I’ve never seen myself so clearly before!” Awesome! 

I fucking love that for you. 

I fucking loved it for me when I identified it for myself & continue to love noticing it.

That said, my professional & experiential offer is to remind you to remember you are someone who Begins with the End in mind, so…

• proactively ground into an intent to help keep perspective about why you start

• learn to authenticate the intention behind what works or makes sense for YOU

• stay open to pivots, help or support, & nuance or new ways of approach

• don’t get too attached to processes, perception, or familiarity

• remain open, flexible & dedicated to what will achieve the best possible outcome

• remember that you are part of the solution to hold both tenderness & convicted respect for that

• develop a habit of reminding yourself that your efforts in facing hardship are for positive ends

• use retention & comprehension to recall that you can do hard things

• don’t become trapped or bogged down by the bigness of any issue/s or egos

• adhere to a healthy work-life balance & boundaries to sustain your-‘I get shit done’-passions

• don’t associate with yourself as the problem or become possessed by problematic energies

• master both graciously receiving feedback & the ability to stand your ground with gratitude

As COACH, beginning with the end in mind is how I bring clients to a convicted authenticity. It’s in service of maintaining awareness. Holding perspective. Remembering, that intentional investment in any process also means learning from what obstructs its intent.

If you’re reading this, nodding your head; 

identifying this essence in yourself;

garnering a deep awareness about how you problem-solve with the understanding of why it works for you;

but you’re also thinking, how the hell do I stop getting lost in the problems of my problem-solving methodology? 

Develop a practice of noticing it.

Recognize where you forget spotting issues ISN’T to become 1. It’s to know where they are, how they feel, & their impact.

Accept that you may have a habit of binary focus & a need to develop a presence with object constancy. Meaning, when you associate Self or circumstance as all-bad or all-good, reconcile where you lose sight that the objective of seeing wholly is to establish conviction, which supports declaring goals, achieving progress, & living authentic as well as manifesting what makes you happy.

Be good to yourself. 💋

With Blessings,