Necessary Endings
When I was making the decision to end cleaning, I read a book that really helped me find clarity.
The book, called Necessary Endings by Dr. Henry Cloud, challenges readers to identify what they need to give up in order to move forward. It’s a book about normalizing endings so that we can have beautiful beginnings.
My favorite part of the book is Dr. Cloud’s rose bush metaphor. Now, I’m going to preface this with the fact that I am so not a gardener and have a lot of trouble keeping plants alive, but it goes something like this: We each have a rose bush. Our roses are the things we love and that we do well: our passions, our superpowers, our gifts. If we are not intentional about pruning our rose bushes, then our roses can’t reach their potential—they don’t have enough room to grow. So, the question is, what are our roses? And what do we need to prune so that they can bloom to their fullest?
When I started to think about my own roses and those of our company, they immediately came to mind: teaching, coaching, and helping people become the best humans and leaders they can be. Then I thought about what was getting in the way of us being able to do that at our fullest potential, and that immediately came to mind, too: our cleaning business.
We usually know what our roses are and what might be getting in the way of their growth. But finding the courage to leave behind what is no longer serving us? Especially if we’ve been doing that thing for years and years? Especially if that thing is a part of our identity? Especially if there are other people involved? Hard.
Making the decision to end cleaning and go fully toward our passion was certainly not an easy choice. If I’m being honest, the reason I put it off for so long was my fear of what that choice would mean and the change it would bring. But now that we are on the other side of it, and now that I know how amazing it feels to be free to focus on our roses, I find myself wondering… Why didn’t I make this choice sooner? What could have happened if I had? What would we have been able to accomplish?
I think it’s important to talk about “what-if land” because I find that it normally follows tough choices. What-if land is a place where you ask yourself questions such as, What if I had done that? Or that? What if I had taken that path? Or that one? What if I hadn’t done that? What If I had made that choice sooner? And here’s the thing: We will never know the answers to these questions. What-if land isn’t a productive place to be.
In one of my coaching groups, a member shared a powerful quote by Peter Crone that has stayed with me ever since: “What happened happened, and it couldn’t have happened any other way because it didn’t.”
Think about that.
It’s powerful.
It reminds me that I can’t do anything about the past. But what I can do something about—and what you can do something about—is the now. We can identify our roses. We can make the tough decision to prune so that our roses can bloom. We can give ourselves grace for the past and the time it took to get the clarity and conviction we have now. This, we get the chance to do every day.
It took me 14 years of leading a company to get here, but I think I’m finally beginning to figure it out: Endings are necessary. They are a sign that we’ve evolved. We must have endings in our lives and organizations—big and small—in order to grow. May we all have the courage to prune when we realize there is something getting in the way of our beautiful roses.
Hugs through the screen,
Kristen
PS: Join us for our LIVE show this Wednesday (and every Wednesday!) at 11 a.m. ET, where our leadership team and I get REAL. We share everything from news and stories from behind-the-scenes of our pivot to what we’re learning, what we’re struggling with as leaders, and how we’re meeting this unprecedented moment in our history as a company. You can register here: https://bit.ly/3kWe2kT. It’s the same link each week. Hope to see you there!
