The Year in Review: What matters?

Debra Feinberg
Principal and Founder, Jumpstart San Diego LLC
DFeinberg@jumpstartsandiego.com

Almost every week, I see a great article on leadership, the diagnostics industry, marketing, digital marketing, and artificial intelligence (AI). I usually save them, and when I have a quiet moment to read and digest the articles, I feel like that time spent - out of the daily routine - allows me to digest the concepts more thoroughly.

Now, at the end of the year, I went back to the articles I saved and realized I was particularly interested in two concepts this past year:  Empathy and Imposter Syndrome.

EMPATHY:

In a newsletter written by @GaryV from April 30th, he writes that one can have a culture of ambition, kindness, and empathy.

“Ambition and kindness and empathy can all co-exist with one another. Just because an employee is crushing it at work doesn't give them an excuse to make other employees miserable.”

Always be kind is a core value. I believe that the best leaders are tough, but kind. Brené Brown advocates that we need braver leaders and more courageous cultures. “Clear and kind.” Being kind does not mean you can’t make tough decisions or avoid tough conversations. It does mean you care how your decisions affect the people you lead and influence. The best leaders I work with tell the truth with a thread of compassion.

IMPOSTER SYNDROME:

@JamesWhittaker concludes a great article from June 12th in Medium with: 

“Once you step back from all the my-career-is-special nonsense, you’ll find the one and only place you really can be special. And that is with the people around you. Spreading daily love and joy to those closest to you won’t change the world, but it will change your world. And in the end, that is all that really matters anyway.”

It made me think: to whom are we measuring ourselves up? We strive to be the best version of ourselves independently. Granted, we measure wealth, status, position, intelligence, beauty, strength and more. It’s natural to compare, but in the end, like the final line in Candide, “We must cultivate our own garden,” everyone has the possibility of creating a life that is best for them.

I wish you a wonderful new year where kindness prevails, positive outlooks shine, business ventures thrive, and we learn to speak rationally to one another in our homes, with friends, colleagues, and all the people we come across.