Lesson in Diversity: Don’t Stop Being You

Hello, Cadre community doctor e here. Hope for your weeks are going fantastic. And as we close out one season and move into the next, I hope you are prepared mentally, physically, emotionally, psycho. Important is because you may find yourself in a situation where you might be the only person like you that other people have the opportunity to be around, to learn from, to share with, to engage with. And so that phrase, never stop being you, is kind of this mantra of liberation, this mantra of affirmation and, you know, this mantra of motivation that we all have something innately and outwardly that we can share with the world and that we should share with the world.

Now, why that's important is because your life experiences are your own. I have a story. You have a story. We all have stories. But my story isn't your story, and your story isn't my story. But if we share those stories, we can begin to see ourselves in the other story, and that becomes a platform which to build and make bridges. And so the more you're able to be yourself, the more you're able to share yourself, the more you're able to step into that space and not feel like you have to compromise yourself or that you should compromise yourself.

The more engaged, the more building, the more sharing can happen. And as leaders, we should be promoting spaces in that way. We should be promoting opportunities like that. We should be engaging others to share their otherness. So their otherness isn't this right? And this onlyness doesn't become a loneliness. And so if you are a leader, if you are a team manager, if you are any way, shape, or form, a facilitator of some sort of connection bridge building, you need to begin to think about how you can promote practice and permeate all of those kinds of sharing, of otherness and onlyness.

So you're stepping outside of those boundaries of loneliness. I can be honest and tell you, growing up, you know, as a young black male without a father figure, there took me a long time to be able to share that and to own that. And part of that becomes, you know, an identity inhibitor, right? How many people could I have really enlightened? How many people could I have opened the door for them to share their own story and their own narrative? If I would have just shared bind, or if I would have just simply opened up and let people know this is how I came up or this is how I grew up, and this is why I think and engage and act and move and behave in all of the ways that I do.

And it also allows folks a glimpse into what they might be witnessing or experiencing, but not yet understanding. And what I mean by that is, let's say you're a new leader. Let's say you are a new manager. Let's say you are stepping into this space of building teams or building people or all of these other kinds of things, and you've never had the opportunity to understand how to bring people together, how to build teams, how to make connections. If someone were to say to you as a mentor, as a supporter, the first thing that I learned as a leader was to be vulnerable.

That would be mind blowing for you. Because for many of us, that's the first thing we avoid or don't do, is to share vulnerability. Because for a traditional way of thinking, that is a sign of weakness. But, you know, if someone were to really sit with you and share with you why being vulnerable is so empowering and such a team builder, you might change the way that you lean, you might change the way that you approach your team, you might change the way that you approach your own personhood. And so that's why I'm saying, never stop being you.

People can always learn from what you have done, what you have experienced. People can always learn from what you haven't done and what you feel like you should have done and where you missed opportunities. So think about that in terms of all of these other ways to engage and shape and build, particularly when it comes to trust, particularly when it comes to transparency, particularly when it comes to team building. So that's my word for the week. That's my life for the week. Never stop being you.

Affirmation is confirmation, and onlyness only leads to loneliness if you don't have any of those things present and what you do. So I'm doctor E. I will see you next week and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and I'll see you soon.