M.Ecos Sustainability
Back in 1994, when an NLP (neurolinguistic programming) coach asked me, “Where do you see the future?”, he did not expect I would answer, “All around me”, with a shrug.
We had met at a Toastmasters meeting I attended at a library in Princton, NJ while training thoroughbred at a prestigious farm in a nearby town. One day, after he heard one of my stories, I he asked me to meet him at a coffee shop. When he asked me the where is the future question, he gave me the options of “in front of you or behind you”. Neither choice made sense to me so I stated, “all around me”. From the look on his face I was clearly missing something. I blame it on reading books by quantum physicists. Soon thereafter, I got kicked in the face by a one of the most talented fillies I was working with and the reality of the ‘future’ came at me point blank. Pivot one: exit equestrian career and return to school, write, make videos, and travel.
At the time my guiding principle was a cross between adventure, exploration, reading and work. Robert Pirsig was my muse. By the time I reached NYC pre-911 with a strongly budding career in film production, a well established talent scout told me, “Girl, you made it out of Maine, the rest is just icing on the cake.” Well, not really, not when the cake collapses. I was still living those unsustainable principles when I moved to Tahoe. Some would say my pre-frontal cortex hadn’t caught up yet. (Rich Karlgaard)
Fast-forward and, somewhere along my timeline, my ‘leader-self’ became less an adventurer and more a nauseating slave driver to both myself and others. When I look back to when the bricks that were falling as quickly as I was building I shake my head. I can recall, during what was in a long run was one of the projects that really had the most people impact in terms of ripple effect, driving and wondering, “Wait, am I okay? How can I tell?” Retrospectively, the answer was no.
Self-sustainability and sustaining self both were eluding me. I was essentially going up in the flames of the ‘future that was all around me’.
Then COVID hit in 2019, a catalyst of so much and then, finally I had to say to myself,
“It’s going to take as much time as it will take.”
Due to health, or lack there of, I have been grounded for nearly a year. During that time, between a heavy dose of reflection and introspection I had to accept where I am in a 360º view of my ecosystem; i.e. physical, community, social, personal and internal.
For me to start the real work I knew I wanted to do, I knew I had to slow down and listen to the lessons I had learned.
“Bam Bam” in the last lines of this silly video I created re: TEDxAmericasFinestCity 2012 states, “We all need find it within ourselves to do this thing.” It is not revolutionary as it seems. It is simply fact. Successful people learn how to learn and, hopefully, the intent is to make a positive impact, as much at home, in the community and in the world at large as at work.
