For almost 15 years, I’ve selected a word to help build additional discipline and fun into my year. Although, “select” is a bit ambitious, as the word often finds me.
In early January, I had the opportunity to do a bucket list trip with my sister, and we spent time hiking in Patagonia. As I was on the most challenging hike of the trip, the word discovery came to my mind. I spent the next few days ruminating on the importance of discovery, or re-discovery, and how the word truly embraced where I am, both personally and professionally.
As I continued to ruminate, I thought about the clients that I work with, the coaching that I do, and how important discovery/re-discovery is in our work right now. I finally chose discovery as my personal mantra for the year after taking delight in a snorkel trip, finding awe after a first horseback ride in over 40 years, and marveling at sitting on the edge of a large waterfall after a brutal uphill climb. Each of these activities, through re-discovery, also brought great joy.
Even before the events of recent weeks (freezes to non-profits, questions around NIH funding, campus budget cuts, and the list goes on …), I see less and less joy in our work in philanthropy.
Our work has the ability to bring so much joy to so many people: We create connectivity, we make matches, we share mission, we inspire conversations that will truly make a difference, and we provide opportunities for people to have an impact for the causes they truly care about. And all of this can be driven by a sense of discovery – discovering funders whose values align with our institutions’ projects that can thrive with generosity, relationships that can drive that generosity, and so on.
And yet there is so much noise, so many distractions. I see in conversation after conversation that we are tired, we feel undervalued, we are burned out by being asked to do more with less. In each conversation, when I ask about what brings joy, it is the essence of our work. Not the worries, not the bureaucracy, not the unknown.
There are very real reasons to have concern, of course. But we cannot allow our concerns to drive our level of wellbeing. We must find a way forward — a way to build joy into our meaningful work.
I would argue that discovery can be one of those tools. Re-discovering our passion for building authentic relationships with internal partners and external prospects and donors; for learning about the values of others and aligning those with our institutions for generosity and impact; and for knowing that by doing this work, we all do our own part to help build a better world.
For me, working with you and providing energy is that joy. In a workshop last week, I was again reminded that we all learn from each other. And those learnings, those discoveries, are what motivate me each day. Doing more of that is going to bring my discoveries to life. What can you do to bring discovery to yours?
And on the really long days, ice cream counts too!
