Entry 3: The Power of a Good Song

Thank you so much to everyone for showing up here to learn a little bit more about me. I have been trying, for weeks, to get myself to journal and become better with reflection. By doing this publicly, it’s my way of holding myself accountable. As always, please comment, add, share whatever it is that you take away from this or that you’re journaling about!

What I’m reading and learned: This article https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/defining-the-skills-citizens-will-need-in-the-future-world-of-work/ from McKinsey, “These are the skills you will need for the future of work,” was fascinating to me. The article takes an in-depth look at the future of work and what skills organizations will need from their employees. My big takeaway, “the need for manual skills will decline, the demand for technological, social and higher cognitive skills will increase.” Overall, it was really interesting to hear recommendations and thoughts on how organizational training needs to evolve and adapt to changing times.

Self-reflection(s) of last week: Music plays a big role in my role and just listening to a good song can change my mood. I had a couple long days at work, and the songs I choose on the way home helped to change that mood. My two recommendations, “Good Day” by Nappy Roots in the morning and “Forever After All” by Luke Combs on my ride home. I usually push myself to use my commute as a time to learn from a podcast, but music was just what I needed last week. 

Goals for this week: Q3 is officially underway and this is usually our busiest quarter. I am excited about everything we have coming up from a work perspective, and we are now under 2 months away from the big wedding. I have a couple big proposals I need to put together that will take some time, and a bunch of exciting coaching calls coming up. I’m working on getting better at being present so my goal is to pay attention to that this week. Being present at work, being present at home, and being present in general. 

Inspiration, passion, or excitement of the last week: This past week flew by and I was grateful to connect with so many amazing people. I had my second in-person meeting in about 15+ months with Kathleen Mills and Amie Cofflin, de-briefed with my friend Sebastian Little on his DRiV certification, planned for an upcoming organization wide training with Nancy Daly and Paula King, kept the momentum going with this exciting EQ project with Russ Phelps, began preparing for an exciting EQ podcast series with Christina Eanes, had several insightful DRiV conversations with Kayla Burnside, Beth Shakespeare, Pamela Bradley, Shaun Baines, and others, continued our conversations around a really exciting program with Ben Risbeck and Beth Shakespeare, had a couple great EQi coaching sessions with individuals from the Federal Reserve Board in Chicago, and started to plan for a really exciting joint webinar with Lisa Banks and Catherine Germinario from Optify.

Gratitude: I’m grateful for the ability to see people and to do things I did before the pandemic. We had a relatively normal 4th of July weekend and it was so nice to not have to worry about social distancing and all the things that came with the past 16+ months. Being more grateful for the little thing and appreciating the little things is going to be my biggest takeaway of pandemic.