2 Years Later…

This is a reflective diary post to get my thoughts down after two years. My hope is that it connects with even one other person’s experience. If not, I’m thankful for the therapeutic experience and recommend it to everybody as an exercise.

Cutchogue, March 11, 2020

Like most historical events, I think we all will remember where we were when COVID was declared a global pandemic and everything shut down. It was early March 2020, I was sitting on our third floor with my three-year-old and one-year-old sons nearly 4 months pregnant with my third son. The news came that everyone needed to stay in place and shut down for two weeks to stop the spread.

Well, two weeks turned into two years.

About two months prior to this, my husband and I had made a huge life transition to change careers and move permanently from NYC to our home on the North Fork of Long Island. This had been our dream for years, but we could never wrap our heads around how to make it happen with demanding careers and no clear path out of the NY hustle. A surprise pregnancy and what I would consider being a divine intervention in work situations was the kick we needed to take the risk.

Suddenly, while I thought I was going to be rebuilding my professional life as a pariah from the workaholic world that I knew for so many years, it seemed as though everyone else was joining me. Work from home? Not strange! Children running around in the background? We’re all in the same boat! New business? Everyone is a solopreneur!

The desire of my heart to create change in the intersections of work and life, brands and meaning, leadership and stakeholders, consumerism and wellness were front and center in everyone’s lives. To be honest, the demand and relevance were overwhelming. What was supposed to be just two weeks of discovery through a moment of peace from external demands turned into two years of navigating the unknown and watching as pieces fell apart and then back together by a higher power, a creator, and the author of my story…our story.

Fall Apart to Fall Together

The best metaphor I have for the last two years is like looking at hundreds of pieces of a puzzle on the ground and thinking I know what the puzzle is supposed to look like. So, I spent endless amounts of time and energy picking up one piece and trying to put it with another only to realize the pieces didn’t fit together at all. Then, as I would consciously put each piece down and just let go, the pieces seemed to come together to form a completely different puzzle than my original vision. A much better picture! A picture I couldn’t have dreamt up even though the puzzle pieces were the same.

Things had to fall apart to fall together.

There are still plenty of puzzle pieces sitting on the floor that I am not sure of how they contribute (or if they ever will), and that’s ok. Perhaps some of those pieces are fragments from old pictures that don’t matter any longer.

Between my personal experience and what I observe in the world, it seems like this is happening on micro to macro levels.

I wrote a blog post on April 6, 2020, called Goodbye Normal. Here is an excerpt:

I don’t know what my new “normal” will be as I move on, but I do know it won’t be exclusively mine. It will be whatever is collectively learned as humanity moves through this pandemic and beyond it. Likely, there may not be a new “normal” and we may need to be prepared to evolve and grow through and beyond foundations of economy, society, government, etcetera. Perhaps “normal” will simply be the awareness that we are connected and that we need to work together to survive. We have to be willing to experiment to find the new ways of operating in life and work. This is a rare moment in history when humanity can shift into new methods of remote work, health care, public services, and so forth. We need leadership in global decision rooms who aren’t committed to getting back to “normal” because you are no longer possible.

Now, in a reflective state, I am wondering if we have found our way to a new normal yet? Or are we still fighting change to find some way back to what we thought was working? Are we allowing the pieces to fall apart in order to fall back together in a better design? Perhaps one that works for more people?

I feel a constant tension between those who don’t know how to move forward and those who refuse to go back. I believe generations play a part in this as well. Those who led businesses up until 2020 are getting a quick lesson on the preferences and power of younger millennials and gen z in the workforce and as consumers. Those of us “geriatric millennials” who may have climbed our way to the C-Suite before the world shut down have gotten a taste of a “new normal” that has the potential to alleviate some of the pain we have been experiencing for so long where dissonance was numbed by the dysfunction of all of the systems we were operating in. It was expected and normal to “lean in” and suffer the imbalance of work and home, the endless hustle, the wasted hours of life to commute, to be the first in and the last out, to prove ourselves to an older generation of leader who constantly reinforced “relentlessness” and the fight to “be in the room.”

Where Are We Now

Our priorities have shifted. Once people get the taste of change, it’s impossible to ask them to go back. No half-baked hybrid work plan will suffice. Free lunches and snack bars aren’t going to numb the awakened taste buds. People don’t want food or even money (alone) to go back to where they were. Of course, reality means we all need to work, but, more importantly, we all want to CONTRIBUTE to a better picture.

The puzzle we all were trying to hold together - even if it cost us way too much in our dimensions of life - fell apart over the past two years. The pieces shattered into a million pieces, and they can’t be put back into the same picture.

I’ve never been where I am now, and the world hasn’t either. It’s new territory. So, let’s stop trying to put the pieces back together with old lenses and thinking that wasn’t serving anyone. The intersections of work and life, brands and meaning, leadership and stakeholders, consumerism and wellness should not be intersections AT ALL. These should be avenues that go together in the same direction.

1. Work and life should complement one another. How can we live a life where work dominates every other dimension?

2. Meaning is the only reason brands are in business. Why, how, and what are businesses producing or serving to measurably improve people’s lives?

3. Leaders are only leaders for stakeholders! Since when does leadership mean anything besides the measure of what the stakeholders require from them?

4. We should only consume what is improving our wellness. For decades we’ve been running on hamster wheels trying to buy CRAP that doesn’t improve ANYTHING. (See point #2 to understand the responsibility business plays in our consumeristic society.)

In Summation

As I digest my daily diet of media every morning, I still read articles full of dated thinking and arguments against the future of work and life. It pains me to see how many people resist the journey between where we’ve been and where we are going. Patience is a virtue, and I am well aware that are never going to arrive at some utopia destination. There will always be room for change and room for growth, and there will always be backsliding and battles and disappointments.

We need leaders who are patient, strong, and wise through these transitions. Leaders, in business and in the world, need to be anchored to something deeper and show integrity in their actions.

Alexis means “defender of mankind” and that is what I believe I am here to do. To call out the things that are not serving us, to defend what really matters, to anchor to first principles, and to be honest about the messy, the beautiful, and everything in between. I am an advocate for people, and I contribute by trying to build good businesses that do good work.

My puzzle is still not a full picture in my eyes, but I know it’s a complete picture in the end. Just the way I know everything that is messy in the world right now, fits together somehow. Let’s just not try to go back to old visions. Progress is moving forward, not backward. Sometimes that means we have to let go of the pieces we can’t fit together any longer.

I’ll sign off with the amazing lyrics to Adele’s “Hello” because every time I hear this song I don’t think of a broken relationship with someone else. I think of me a few years ago, and every time I try to call, she’s no longer home.

Hello, it's me
I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet
To go over everything
They say that time's supposed to heal ya
But I ain't done much healing

Hello from the other side
I must've called a thousand times
To tell you I'm sorry for everything that I've done
But when I call, you never seem to be home

It’s a journey. Let the pieces fall where they may, and be well.