Happy Sunday Everyone:
It’s been almost a year and half since we lost my dad unexpectedly. Not a day goes by where I don’t think about him throughout the day. For my mom, I’m sure by the hour. Like anyone else that has lost someone they love so deeply, we’re never not going to miss him massively. We’re never not going to think about him.
In the past couple of weeks I’ve taken notice of a recurring theme. When people ask me how my mom is doing, it’s of total sadness, sympathy, and sorrow, the voice inflection leaves no room for an uplift. It’s so kind for people to ask but also so sad in how they do it. Thomas’s event for football two weeks ago at school, a friend of a friend walked up to my mom and told her how sorry she was for the loss of my dad, holding her hand, not letting go, it created more sadness. Fast forward to last Saturday, I was having a glass of wine with my mom, talking about how she was doing. I told her what I have been noticing with others asking about her and suggested we needed to change the narrative. Writing this, I’m thinking you might think I’m an ass for critiquing kindness, it’s truly not my intention. This isn’t about suppressing feelings, not dealing with emotions, or avoiding hard/sad conversations, it’s just to say we can change the narrative. A friend last night at dinner, asked how my mom was doing, it was a positive ask, same words, different question. I equate it to a relay race, when you’re starting off neutral or uplifting, you can pass the baton to the person and have them run with it. When you start off sad/down with your question, if you’re me, or my mom, and we want to be positive, or at least neutral, we have to stop the momentum of sadness and run the other way.
With this thought on my mind, I’ve also noticed in business, how many conversations are started with a bad narrative, a negative one. Imagine me calling you every morning at 8:00am, saying “this market sucks, I’m not sure how we’re going to make it through the day”. It’s not a great narrative to have in your own head and it’s not one you want to be responsible for passing on to others. Can you imagine starting every conversation with a client “brutal market, you sure you want to do this?”….Might sound funny but it’s no different than what we’re doing to one another on a daily basis, we need to change the narrative.
Hard to make my point here in a few words, especially on the personal example, but I think it’s important to consider the narrative you’re pushing out to the world and to the individuals in it. I think it’s important to ask how is this narrative serving me, or the person I’m communicating with. It’s healthy to recognize when a current narrative isn’t working and changing it to one that does.
Have a great rest of your Sunday!