Part Four: Courageous Confrontations
A word from Susan
In this part…
Cheryl Beth’s Story: A Partnership Blows Up
What Brave looks like…showing courage…enduring pain or danger.
The breakup of my business partnership in June of 2010 was one of the most traumatic and life-changing events that I have ever had to navigate. I work in leadership consulting, executive coaching, and strategic planning for entrepreneurial and small to mid-market companies. I knew that I needed a partner to help grow my business, and create something lasting and impactful. I met John in 2004 through a mutual client, when I was first considering licensing CEO Think Tank® to others.
Initially John was very supportive of my desire to grow the company, and said that he would help me. He became my first licensee. We worked together to launch his CEO Think Tank® roundtable in 2006 and decided to create a partnership the following year. We were going to be the go-to boutique consulting company for small businesses in the Greater Philadelphia area (his words). Unfortunately, from the beginning we ran into challenges with alignment and direction.
While John initially claimed that he wanted to grow the business with me, his actions didn’t support what I believed was necessary for growth. I was spearheading sales and marketing, leveraging my contacts for what turned out to be a very lucrative contract early in, but those contacts weren’t recognized monetarily. I was also putting in more time, making the relationships and building a community for CEO Think Tank®, and getting push back constantly from the one person who should have supported my efforts. I suggested using a coach or advisor to help us mediate our differences throughout 2008, but he refused. When I finally said I was done at the end of that year, he capitulated, and we started to work with a coach.
Initially I believed we were making progress, putting our needs and desires for the company on the table, but looking back, I was fooling myself. I took John at his word, but it became apparent that we weren’t on the same page. He also wasn’t willing to practice what we were preaching by putting into place a buy/sell partnership agreement. This is a document that outlines how we would work together, and how the company would be divided if the partnership failed or dissolved.
In early 2010, he finally acknowledged that he didn’t want to grow the company. He just wanted the extra security that I provided him, access to my network, and my marketing and sales abilities. We broke off as partners in March of 2010, but it took another two months to negotiate the split.
The summer of 2010 and the ensuing year were two of the most difficult, painful and challenging years of my life. However, while I was grief-stricken and depressed, I found myself continually drawing on my own reserves of resilience and resourcefulness. I was determined to work my way through and somehow come out the other side. Although I certainly didn’t think of myself as brave at the time—it turns out I was.
I sought support, guidance and advice from others in my life—my sister, therapist, husband and numerous business colleagues as I rebuilt my confidence, my self-worth and my business. And of course, I relied on my faith in a larger purpose, and several monks at Holy Cross Monastery. Holy Cross is an Anglican monastery in West Park, NY where I go regularly to retreat and rejuvenate. The monks there provided insights to me during that time. I became an Associate at the monastery, and met several new friends and colleagues, like Jill Huentelman, Kathleen Stucy and Van Van who opened doors and became anchors for me over the next few years.
Big Brave Truth: When you refuse to let anyone diminish you, you inspire others to see their own worth.
Action Step: Think about how you define trust. Are the people you work with trustworthy? If the answer is No, consider why you’re still there. You may need to be, or you may have options. Write a list of pros and cons of staying in place.
Cheryl Beth is Founder and President of CEO Think Tank®, which provides Business Advisory and Strategic Planning Services for companies in Greater Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York.
Lisa’s Story: A Mortifying Moment, and What I Learned
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I think the back of your skirt is stuck in your underwear.”
The thoughts I had when a stranger offered that information in a busy store are too numerous to list, without turning this story into a two-hour read.
My hands flew to the area in question and, sure enough, a small piece of the hem of my flowing skirt was stuck in the waistband of my unmentionables, creating a triangular window to cheeks that would have blushed scarlet if humanly possible. I was horrified. I instantly hated everyone I’d encountered in the preceding five minutes I traversed the parking lot and massive garden shop of my local Home Depot. I’d bent over at least twice to survey flowers! How many lives were needlessly ruined that day?
When the stranger approached me to deliver this news, I assumed different intentions. Earlier, I noticed him watching me in the parking lot. He was getting into his truck to leave as I was entering the building. I could feel his eyes looking me over and it creeped me out.
He should have been gone by now, and even if he’d returned to collect something he’d forgotten to buy, there was no reason for him to be walking toward me. It was clear he was, though. This creepy person was going to talk to me and I was going to have to politely redirect his interests to potting soil.
Boy was I wrong.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I think your skirt is stuck in your underwear.”
I know I’ve shared that part already, but my brain has repeated the sentence with regularity for the past four years so I figure those reading this might as well experience the same thing.
After I sorted things out, he quickly explained he noticed the problem when I exited my car and had hoped I’d sense the situation. As he drove past the garden center, he could see enough of the inside (and enough of me—he was polite not to say) to know I hadn’t “sensed the situation,” so he parked his truck to come find me. He repeated an apology for having to tell me, and having done his duty as my guardian angel, quickly left. I suspect we were both grateful for the interaction to end.
And yet, here was one person brave enough to extend the ultimate kindness—honesty without malice.
I’m often the go-to person when it comes to getting things out in the open that are hard to talk about, or potentially upsetting. Being on the receiving end of that mortifying moment, I learned that when people approach difficult situations with kindness versus drama or malice, those on the receiving end—if they have the capacity to recognize it—detect the courage the moment required.
I am forever grateful to the stranger who was willing to confront me and make me aware of an uncomfortable truth. It was incredibly brave of him. Maybe someday I can do the same. But hopefully, it won’t involve someone’s undergarments.
Big Brave Truth: There is no wisdom greater than kindness.
Action Step: Find a moment to laugh at yourself today—in a kind, playful way. Laughter is great medicine, and we are all human!
Lisa is a former headhunter and current alumni relations professional, who values great questions, meaningful connections and finding the best in others.
Susan’s Story: Praying in the Closet
As we were creating HGTV, a talented woman named Alexandra Stoddard came to visit us in Knoxville where HGTV was based, as we were considering her for a series. Alexandra is a noted author and interior designer, and she had a vibe that I was drawn to, kind of like a female Yoda. She told a group of women I’d assembled about a piece she’d recently written—how each woman needs a room of their own, just like what Virginia Woolf had declared fifty years earlier. A place in their home that’s 100% their sacred space.
Praying in the Closet
I thought about that. We were fixing up a small home we’d just moved into, and there were no rooms available to be my own. However, there was a closet. Bill and I had converted a small bedroom into a walk-in closet for the two of us, and face it, with most of the clothes, it was largely my space. It would do.
I moved a chair and a small table into the tiny space, and placed a candle on the table. Most nights after work, I’d come home, visit with Bill and our son Drew for a few minutes then head into my “room.” I’d light the candle and reflect on the day, and my life. Aside from Bill sticking his head in to check for fires, the guys mostly left me alone.
Through this quiet, reflective time, I began to see, paraphrasing writer Anthony DeMello, that what I was running away from, and what I was yearning for were both found inside me.
Confronting Myself
I saw that what I was running away from and needed to confront was my whole, needy self. Why everything inside hurt. Alcohol helped to numb the ache, but I finally came to a place where I couldn’t live numbed-out anymore, yet I couldn’t imagine life without needing to be.
So, with some trial and error, I got sober.
There’s no real color to my sober story. No cop cars. No mug shots. Just a reckoning with some deep inner sadness and longing. I walked into the rooms of recovery, and someone reached out their hand and I took it. In those rooms I began the steep climb up to confront many ghosts from the past.
Bigger Maps
I’ve read how astronauts circling Earth see our planet in a completely new, more expansive way, and how it changes them forever. In recovery, I too started seeing bigger. Before getting sober, it was like trying to find my way around Chicago with a detailed map of Enid, Oklahoma. Too small, wrong map. I began to draw a new map for my life and discard the adolescent one that needed to please, perform and be perfect.
Others looking at my life during that time might have thought it idyllic. After all, I had a prestigious leadership job and a happy family. But the fact is, only the person living that life knows what’s true.
A whole new career emerged from the bigger map I began drawing. I left the corporate world, started writing books, speaking, and mentoring women and youth. And I came to believe in something no one could prove—an expansive idea which no map could contain.
A Love Story
As a child, I grew up with a punishing God. As an adult woman, I was now willing to place a few bets on things that were not hard driven facts. I began to see, or perhaps more precisely, to feel grace circling in the rooms of recovery. My old ways of defending, pushing, striving—in other words, surviving—grew to what is sacred for me today. Writing. Time in my garden. Sitting by the lake on summer days. Family. Girlfriends.
And quiet time with God. In my life today, every story about God is a love story.
Bill and I moved from that house with the praying closet a few years back. Now I use a spare upstairs bedroom. Each morning, I mount a few steps, light a candle, and sit in the silence.
And I listen.
Big Brave Truth: When you are quiet, you can hear Good Orderly Direction.
Action Step: Do something today that helps you to feel you’re a part of something bigger than you—a walk in nature, prayer, or stepping out tonight to gaze up at the stars.
Another idea:
Try Centering Prayer, a form of meditation I do each morning:
Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Think of a sacred word you can recite if you’re engaged in thoughts, like “love” or “grace”. Each time thoughts occur, move them gently downstream, as if watching a boat floating down a river. Return ever so gently to your sacred word, and breathe in. Then slowly out, opening again.
