What a big leak reminded me about leadership: or, what to ask yourself the next time a situation is draining your energy

Around 2:15 a.m. last night, one of my kindergarteners came into my room, standing about 2 inches from my face. “MOMMY? What’s that noise?”  he stage-whispered loudly. I murmured “Nothing, honey, just the... “ Wait a second--what was that noise?

It was a leak. The ceiling in the kids bathroom was raining for reasons that were not immediately apparent to me. I trudged downstairs and got the largest pasta pot I had, put it under the drip, laid a bunch of towels on the floor, changed my socks and pajama pants because they were both wet, texted my plumber while fervently hoping his notifications were off for the night, and read a little bit of my book to get back to sleep.

About four hours later, that pot was full, the towels were soaking wet, and the raining ceiling was the hot topic of the morning with my children. I noticed what I hadn’t seen the night before in a cursory investigation--in my very vertical townhouse, the 4th floor had an overflowing toilet, which dripped down to the kids bathroom on the 3rd floor. When I went to get my coffee, I noticed giant water bubbles in the painted-less-than-one-month ago family room walls and ceiling.

Fans!

Needless to say, I’ve had better wake-up calls. While I can now add “turn off the water supply to a toilet” to my list of skills, and we also inaugurated what I think may be a new tradition called “Make your own breakfast, kids”, rest assured that the damage did indeed go down all four floors, which I discovered when I opened the garage on the 1st floor to take the kids to school. What I had mentally flagged as a $700 problem in the middle of the night was likely several times that. I reluctantly called to cancel the exercise class I had been looking forward to, moved a few meetings and threw another round of towels in the dryer when I got home.

“As I deal with this situation that is taking from me, what can I do to give to myself right now?””

In leadership--whether at work or at home, this happens: something unexpected happens to throw our days totally off, and needs to be dealt with. In some ways, these mini-crises can be clarifying: what is the next thing that has to be done? It was clear to me I had to turn the water off and stop the damage, and when that was successful, it became about the next step--make sure the plumber can come out and fix the problem so it doesn’t happen again, and advise me on how to handle the water in the walls. Then, the next step will come--possibly contacting my homeowners insurance, arranging for the painter to come back, at some point reloading the game cabinet I had to empty out whose contents are all over my counter. This is going to take time and money to solve and it’s a pain. As the only adult in my house, 100% of that time and money was going to come from me. When these unexpected challenges occur, they can be really draining (plumbing pun unfortunately intended)!

Driving home, I thought “This is annoying, expensive and is going to take from me--is there anything I can do to give to myself as I deal with this?” Listening to E Street Radio, I realized there was! For awhile, my access to the Sirius app so I could listen to E Street Radio at home has been funky, and it’s been on my list to get that fixed for a long time. What if I did that today? What if, as I waited for the plumber and what was supposed to be my exercise class, I went online to see how to fix the problem or called customer service? That way, when I was drying towels again and again and paying a big bill and reaching out to the painter, I could listen to Bruce’s DJ’ed shows “From My Home to Yours” which are available exclusively on Sirius XM (not an ad or affiliate--I just love it that much). 

Lo and behold, I did just that. I’m sitting here waiting for the plumber to arrive, listening to a most excellent E Street Band cover of “Stayin’ Alive”--which seems appropriate, since stayin’ alive in leadership is really about making sure that we are giving to ourselves even when situations can take from us. 

The next time a situation is taking from you, consider: what could you give to yourself in return? Whether it’s doing something delayed, getting a bagel from your favorite place, giving yourself grace to delay a chore or task or a special episode of your guilty pleasure show--try to give to yourself even as situations take from your energy.

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How have you given to yourself at a time when a lot was being demanded of you? Leave a comment below!