What I learned from one of the most challenging weeks of my career
Happy Tuesday!
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Okay, let’s dive right into this week’s post . . .
This is the story of one of the most challenging weeks of my career so far—and the biggest leadership lesson that came along with it.
It happened about a month ago.
It was a Monday. My teammate of thirteen years, Rachel, had traveled to my home in Houston the day before so that she could join me for a busy week on the road: Four in-person speaking events, three different cities, and three flights within four days.
On Monday evening, we were scheduled to fly to Memphis, TN, for a big event the next day. As we rode to the airport, we checked to make sure our flight was on time. We saw that our inbound plane was behind schedule, but so far, our flight hadn’t been delayed.
This was just three days after the global tech meltdown, and with all the flight cancellations it had caused, I started to get worried. There were no other flight options that night, so our choices were to either hang out at the airport and hope that our flight would get us to Memphis eventually, or find a different way to get there.
We were riding to the airport with Jamal, an amazing gentleman who has been driving me in Houston for years. I asked him if he or someone from his car service company would be up for driving us to Memphis that night if push came to shove and our flight got canceled. He generously said yes, and we joked that we hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
Well, 30 minutes later, it did.
Shortly after Jamal dropped us off, we got the news that our flight was delayed and now wouldn’t reach Memphis until 2:30 a.m.—which was the best-case scenario. Worst-case scenario was waiting all night at the airport only to have the flight get canceled with no way to make it to my event on time. I did the math: If we went by car instead, we would make it to Memphis around 5 a.m. It certainly wasn’t ideal, but it would get us there.
I knew I had to make a game time decision as a leader, so I did: I told Rachel we would get there by car.
Shortly after that, our hero Jamal was back at the airport to pick us up. Rachel and I changed into our pajamas in the airport bathroom and embarked on a NINE-hour car ride to Memphis.
By golly, Jamal got us there. We pulled into our hotel at 5:15 in the morning and had a couple of hours to rest before my event.
The rest of that day was a whirlwind. Have you ever been so tired that you feel so awake? I was on that level. We went to the event, I gave it my all, and it couldn’t have gone better. Plus, our client was blown away that we had ridden overnight to make sure we could be there.
You might be imagining that the story ends here . . . but after that, the week only got more challenging.
The next day, we were still in Memphis, and I was scheduled to do a virtual event from my hotel room. When I went to bed Tuesday night, the internet was working great, but on Wednesday morning, I turned on my computer and realized, oh no, I can’t connect to Wi-Fi.
The hotel staff told me the internet was down because of a firewall issue. They had been working on it for several hours already because they knew I had an event, and while they were hoping to have it fixed in time, they couldn’t guarantee that it would be. It was out of their control. (My favorite detail? The hotel’s Wi-Fi name was “StayOnline.” The irony!)
I had another game time decision to make: Use my Wi-Fi hotspot, which would have been risky; scramble to find another location for the session; or reschedule.
I decided to call my client so that we could make the decision together. Luckily, I’d been working with this client for a long time, so when I called and explained the situation, they gave me grace. They lovingly said they would prefer to have me at my best, so we rescheduled the event.
I was really bummed that I had to let them down. Two hundred people were supposed to be there. (I was even more bummed when the internet came back 15 minutes after the session was originally supposed to start.)
You might be thinking, That’s got to be it—this week can’t get worse!
It did.
On Thursday evening, it was finally time for me to fly home. We were in Chicago by then for our last event together that week, and Rachel decided to stay an extra night so she could have some fun in the city. I just wanted to be home in my own bed, and because flights had been so dicey with the outage, I booked two flights home. I figured that when I got to the airport, I would see which one had the best chance of going out.
Well, I chose the worst one. There was a maintenance issue, and I didn’t end up getting home until after midnight.
And then, when I got home, one of our carbon monoxide detectors kept going off. I happened to be home alone that night, and my first thought was that I was being poisoned and needed to evacuate. I called my husband, and he said that the sound meant the battery needed to be replaced. By the time he talked me through how to disconnect it, it was after 2 a.m.
It was a rough week, and I thought it was finally behind me . . .
. . . until Monday came around again. Little did I know that I was about to face a travel disaster even worse than the ones the week before.
I was on my way home after giving a speech in North Carolina earlier that day. My flight kept getting delayed, and by the time I finally made my connection, there was a ground stop because of weather. That went on for hours, and once it was lifted, we waited several more hours for a flight crew. The flight finally took off at 2:30 in the morning, and by the time I made it into my bed, it was 4:30 a.m. It was a 12-hour travel night after a full day of speaking.
As I watched that flight get more and more delayed, I had another decision to make. I was stacked with meetings the following day, and given my rough week on the road, should I keep them or cancel them?
Even though it was short notice and some of these meetings had been planned for weeks, I decided to cancel them. I completely cleared my day so that I could rest and recharge. I ended up staying in bed until 4 p.m. watching the Olympics on my phone.
It was a tough week, to say the least. But the point of this post isn’t simply to complain. It’s to remind you how important it is to be adaptable as a leader.
Even though this week was a mess, I can look back at it with a smile. I didn’t let it get the best of me. I was able to continue on with a positive mindset (with a couple exceptions) even though a lot didn’t go as planned.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 17 years of being a leader and entrepreneur, it’s this: Things don’t go according to plan, and that is the plan.
As leaders, all we can do is our best. There will always be things that happen that are outside of our control. When those challenges arise, they might be extremely difficult and come at the most inopportune times, but they are still out of our control.
The only things we can control are our mindset, how we treat others, and how we treat ourselves.
I want to focus on that last part: caring for ourselves.
I can tell you that five years ago, I would have never cleared a whole day of meetings just so I could rest. I would’ve pushed myself to keep the commitments I had made to others. And if I had done that, I would have ended up completely overwhelmed and resentful of my work.
Today, I know that first and foremost, I need to take care of myself. And sometimes, that means changing course and not showing up for someone else so that I can show up for myself. When I have challenging weeks like this, I listen to my body and take time to rest and reset, even if it means disappointing people. It’s better to disappoint them by rescheduling than to disappoint by not showing up at my best.
As hard as that week was, there were some huge silver linings: During that last long travel night, I found out that my friend from college was stuck at the same airport that I was, so we got to have a spontaneous meetup at 1 a.m. I also got to make a lifetime memory with Rachel—we will never forget that overnight road trip, I assure you! And I will always hold gratitude in my heart for Jamal, who was right there with us, and who helped make the impossible possible. (You can see the smile on my face in the picture above, which Rachel took shortly after we arrived at the hotel in Memphis. I’m standing in the rain with my blanket that I bought at a truck stop.)
I hope this post reminds you of the importance of adaptability. And that when the going gets tough, drop everything and take care of YOU.
Here’s to things not going according to plan and rolling with the punches!
(Do you have a story of a time when you had to adapt? I would love to know. Hit “reply” and tell me!)
Big hugs,
