SURPRISE! You’re in charge of 18 American expeditioners for 36 hours in Nairobi.
We had missed our connection by an hour, and the next flight to our humanitarian project in Malawi wasn’t until the next day.
I sat on the bus, food and lodging vouchers in hand, sulking. “I don’t want to do this. I just want to go to bed. I want to be there already. This sucks.”
Someone asked me what we were going to do, and I grunted…but they didn’t go away. They just stared at me, expecting an answer, which made perfect sense because I was the expedition leader.
This was a case of “sh*t or get off the pot” and getting off the pot wasn’t an option.
“I’ll let you know after we get all checked in.” then I gave myself a pep talk. (cuz I’m a motivational speaker! It’s super annoying when I turn that stuff on myself, but sometimes I need it too.)
Ok Skippie, time to accept reality. Facts are facts…we’re stuck here. How are you going to turn this into something that brings this team together because we’ve got 2 more weeks together, and if we start off on the wrong foot, it’s going to get ugly real quick!
And with my big girl pants pulled firmly up (I kinda gave myself a wedgie) I called some resources and set up a really fun bunch of activities around Nairobi. (Giraffes and Elephants and Shopping, Oh My!)
It was a good thing we didn’t go with my initial plan (sit around the hotel and sulk) because so many things changed throughout the next 2 weeks. CHANGE OF PLANS was yelled out so many times (followed by laughter and nods of knowing) that we all learned to say it in Chichewa, which our Malawian Project Managers thought was hilarious. (They’re much better at dealing with change than us Americans!)
In case you're wondering, CHANGE OF PLANS in Chichewa is
kusintha kwa mapulani
How often do we do that though? We resist reality. We refuse to accept what is, in hopes that magically it will spring back to the way we hoped it would be.
I was interviewing my old friend Bryan Martin for my podcast (@sealionbryan on FB and Insta…go there now, and just try not to smile. It’s simply not possible.) and he was talking about the tragic loss of his partner. “I had to accept that he was gone, and then I could finally move forward. As much as I wanted him to, he wasn’t going to walk back through the door, and the way I was living was not working.”
And from the sublime to the ridiculous, I drove through Wendy’s to get my favorite chicken sandwich in the world the other day, and they discontinued it. I sat there staring at the drive thru speaker, I guess hoping she’d laugh and say “Just kidding! They’re 2 for 1 today!” but that wasn’t going to happen either, and I had to accept the reality and pick something else before the Ford F250 that was practically in my trunk drove over my little rental car.
So next time you find yourself feeling a certain way when something changes or isn't as you hoped, ask yourself...
“What are the facts here?”
You might need to have a little session with the punching bag, or a box of Kleenex…because feeling the feels is important to move through them rather than smashing them down like lava in a volcano. Once you’ve got that behind you, grab the facts, and work from there.
Go get ‘em Tiger.
