A Farmer’s Mindset

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”

— Albert Camus

Covid-19 Note: After reading this morning’s New York Times, I’m painfully aware of how lucky I am to be safe and healthy. My blog posts are purposefully focused on finding the bright side amidst the fear we all feel in these surreal times. That said, I have become more aware of my own tendency to push difficult feelings away, and am trying to make space to acknowledge and accept the painful feelings in order to let them go. This recent HBR piece on processing grief was very helpful to me — perhaps it will be for you too.

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Here in Vermont, the first day of spring often prompts Mother Nature to surprise us with a big snowfall, typically after days of bright sun and mud season melt have lured us into a false sense of hope that spring might actually arrive “on time.” So yesterday morning, when I woke up to a wet and fluffy blanket of white all around me, I found myself reflecting on seasons, and growing cycles, and how the Vermont farmers around me leverage the quiet stillness of winter to prepare for a bountiful fall harvest. 

On a farm, Winter is a season of rest, recovery, and reflection about the future. With the long and fruitful days of harvest behind them, they lean into the opportunity to rest, recharge and to readjust plans for the growing season to come. 

Rest is finding time to reinforce healthy habits that are easy to sweep aside when work is at full throttle, or taking time away from the farm for a well-earned vacation.

Recovery is allowing time for beloved hobbies, creative pursuits, and opportunities to learn new skills. They recharge machinery with tune-ups and repairs to ensure they will be ready for the busy planting season to come. 

Reflection invites questions about the recently completed season, and room to plan for the season to come. Which crops thrived, and which struggled?  What crops should be eliminated to make room for crops that meet the emerging tastes and preferences of their customers? What wild seeds might they test for the thrill of experimentation? This process reminds me of my former colleague VG Govindarajan’s simple, brilliant Three Box Solution framework for leading innovation: manage the present, selectively forget the past, create the future.

With these thoughts in mind, I wondered, how might I embrace this slower time to prepare for my next personal harvest? 

Rest: Exercise is an almost daily habit for me -- it's the easiest, most effective way to manage my stress and mental health, and so I rarely go more than a day without a workout. The 180-degree change to my schedule given social distancing and school closures makes me crave the physical movement time even more, yet I find myself leaning into a slower, gentler pace on more days than usual, and my body and mind are thanking me for it. I’ve found that I’m craving more long walks and yoga flows, and impromptu dance parties with my kids to inject laughter into my movement time.

How might you find small ways to tweak your daily schedule/rhythm to allow for a bit more “rest” in the midst of the uncertainty and chaos? 

Recharge: As a child, I could read for hours on end. I’m pretty sure I smuggled a flashlight in my room so I could keep plowing through chapters of Judy Blume long past bedtime. Today, most of the reading time I have is dedicated to work or school, leaving little time for novels. Over the weekend, I decided to leave my work and school reading on my desk and immersed myself in a delicious book, from start to end, without guilt. Moving forward, I’m planning to prioritize time for more pleasure reading, just as I make time for the other to-dos on my list. 

How might you make more time for the simple pleasures you loved as a child (or as a grown-up), and give yourself permission to skip one of your to-dos in favor of a to-be?

Reflect: Social distancing has limited, if not halted, work as we know it for many businesses and organizations. The “lean startup method” popularized the idea of the “pivot” -- when a business changes one of the nine elements of their business model to become more profitable and successful.  

Within days, I’ve seen pivots all around me. Local yoga studios figured out how to quickly adapt and begin offering classes through online platforms. My children’s teachers adapted their fully in-person curriculum plans to a remote-based curriculum with only one week to do so. The Montshire, our community children’s science museum, is offering short video experiences in lieu of hands-on time in the museum. None of these organizations were doing any of these things two weeks ago. How many of them will incorporate some of these new approaches as a way to extend their reach when we go back to “normal?”

At Connection 101, we are excitedly building an online version of our in-person workshops, with plans to pilot it as early as next week. This work was happening at a glacial pace a month ago — our in-person workshops were gaining strong momentum and held our immediate focus. We embrace this opportunity to test and iterate a new way forward and are energized by the possibilities. Like our colleagues and fellow business owners, we are selectively forgetting the past and creating the future. 

Over the last several months, I’ve been on a personal journey to figure out my next chapter. I tend to make big changes in rapid succession and then settle into them -- in the mid-2000’s, I met my husband, married him less than a year later, left a job to start one in a new industry, moved to Vermont, and bought my first house in a span of eighteen months. Even now it leaves me a bit out of breath!

Over the last fifteen months, I started a doctoral program in addition to working full-time, made the bittersweet yet appropriate decision to leave a beloved organization that fueled deep professional and personal growth, started a company, and explored opportunities to re-engage with higher education in a meaningful way as part of my career. My personal spring felt just around the corner.

That spring is still coming, she’s just waiting for this extended “winter” -- or period of readjustment -- to settle down. When I imagine spring, I see new crops that will sprout from seeds I have yet to discover because of adjustments I am still to make in response to the changing world around m. Others may pop up like volunteers from last year’s tomatoes that dropped from the vines -- unplanned gifts from a previous growth cycle. And others may arise because of connections I am yet to make in my explorations of new opportunities.

This unexpected period we find ourselves in will yield abundant fields filled with the ripest and most delicious crops yet -- we just have to have faith, confidence and a little bit of hope to make it become our new reality. Writing this blog represents one such tasty crop, and I’m delighted that it has sprouted.

How might you use this time of reflection and readjustment to adjust your growth and development? 

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crave

/krāv/verb

To feel a powerful desire for (something).

CRAVE is:

Cook: recipes I’m trying and enjoying

Read: books, articles and blog posts of interest

Absorb: podcasts, movies, shows

Venture: something to try that might push my comfort zone

Exercise: a little workout inspiration

I’m hoping to make it a separate post each week, but am adding it on to this one to get myself started.

Cook:

This week’s recipe theme: “ways to use ingredients that turned up after I Kondo-ed my pantry”

Green lentils: The best lentil soup.  Easy, tasty, healthy. Mmm.

Can of red curry paste and half a bag of rice noodles: Thai red curry noodle soup. So easy and so good...just as delicious the next day. I plan to add this to my regular rotation!

*Modifications: I subbed leftover rotisserie chicken instead of cooking the chicken from scratch -- I started by sautéing the aromatics, and then added the already cooked and shredded chicken at step 5, reducing the cooking time by a few minutes. I also used a bit more curry paste to make it extra spicy.

Read:

Book: I read Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House over the weekend. I love her writing and enjoyed escaping corona-time with Maeve and Danny Conroy, the brother-sister duo at the heart of the story.

Blog: Thanks to my sister-in-law Jeanne for flagging this article on 6 daily questions to ask yourself while in quarantine/social distancing. I hope these become a lasting habit, too.

Absorb:

Movie: Our whole family enjoyed Ford vs. Ferrari. I loved that it was a true story, I loved the acting, and most of all, I loved cheering on the underdog.

Op-doc: My brilliant friend and Emmy-nominated filmmaker, Kate Novack, was preparing to release her new short film, Hysterical Girl, at SXSW.  When the event was canceled, the New York Times premiered it as part of their Op-Docs series. Enjoy the film in its entirety (13 minutes) here.

Podcast: In my Learning and Design in Context class with Professor Michael Neel, we recently explored the ways position, privilege and power influence participation in communities of practice. These have been challenging conversations that have drawn on a solid foundation of mutual trust and safety among my classmates. Today’s podcast from GOOP titled “Stepping Out of Privilege” pulled many of these difficult themes together in a thought-provoking way. Let me know what you think.

Venture: 

After a bout of tears triggered by the many changes around us, my daughter and I found solace in taking a joyride Monday afternoon. Aside from dropping a letter in the mail, the car ride served no greater purpose other than to leave the house on a mini-adventure. We turned up the music, opened the windows, sang at the top of our lungs, and felt free. It was glorious and I highly recommend it!

Exercise:

I’ve been a devoted fan of Peloton for over two years… and am excited that everyone who doesn’t already have the app or equipment can try the app for 90 days at no charge. Give it a whirl! There is a huge range of offerings: spin, run, walk, yoga, strength, meditation. Many do not require a bike. Here are two non-bike offerings I’m excited about:

The 4-week Crush Your Core program with Emma Lovewell. Join me! No bike needed! The workouts are either 5- or 10-minutes long and each week gets progressively more difficult. 

The just announced today Dance Cardio workouts! Anyone who knows me knows I cannot resist an opportunity to dance. I’m planning to invite the kids to join me for these.

Until next time, be safe, be healthy, and be well.