Not New: Practical

This morning I connected with a fellow consultant; we took the time to tell stories, build relationship across the miles, and talk business strategy. We named that diversity, equity, and inclusion will always be the core, the grounding, and the why of effective organizational development and leadership practice.

She shared her recent mantra: Help is coming from everywhere.

I shared these cards that I keep in my office:

Life Loves You Cards

We laughed together, lamenting that In these unprecedented times, can't we just have some prescedented times, already!?!

And we rested in this truth:

What we need right now isn’t always new. 

We need what is practical.

It’s life-giving to practice and re-practice previously learned lessons. 

It’s the work that helps us hold joy alongside sorrow, truth alongside uncertainty, connection alongside complexity.

We don’t need to reinvent the next perfect fix. We need to return to what is steady and relational. What has always sustained our communities through the hardest seasons: being in relationship, truth-telling, listening to each other, and refusing to live in fear.

This isn’t flashy.
It doesn’t trend.
But it transforms.

Because real change doesn’t happen in the spotlight of the next viral headline. It happens in the quiet, courageous moments when someone chooses to stay. To listen deeply. To show up again. To say the hard thing with love. To hold joy even when things are far from okay.

This kind of leadership is relational, not performative.
It’s hopeful, not naive.
It’s rooted in the belief that healing and change don’t require perfection. It just requires practice.

In this season, how can we slow down? Come back to what is practical, to ask:

• What grounds me when the world feels chaotic?

• What reminds me that joy is still possible, still present?

• What relationships are calling for more truth, more presence, and more care?

I'm grateful that my colleague/friend and I took time with each other. It was life giving.

That’s where leadership lives, where learning is present, and where thriving lives.

Not in blind urgency. Not in fear. But in the daily, honest, connected act of being human with one another.

Let’s stick with that. Striving for justice and peace.