Chapter 7
JUMP AND GROW YOUR WINGS ON THE WAY DOWN
As I just shared in the previous chapter, my mentor and coach Les Brown used to say to me, “Shirley, jump and grow your wings on the way down.” I didn’t understand what he meant at first, but he clarified after saying it to me many times. He explained that there comes a time when we’ve done all we can do to prepare, a time when we cannot remain in our comfort zone, when we should not continue to dodge the things that cause us to fear. He would say, “Shirley, you’re prepared—you have multiple certifications; you’ve taken all of the courses; you have a master’s degree, a Ph.D.; you’ve attended numerous conferences. I’ve been your coach for years; you’ve got the knowledge; you’re a phenomenal speaker; you’ve got what it takes to succeed—now it’s time for you to jump. You will figure it out.”
For years that advice haunted me, motivated me, and paralyzed me all at the same time. But it ultimately resonated with me. What I came to realize from that one statement was that I shouldn’t keep waiting and waiting for my wings to grow and expand before I leapt. I couldn’t keep waiting for things to be perfect. I couldn’t wait for all of the answers to be in place. And I couldn’t stay stuck on all of my “What if?” questions. I had to go do something; I had to take a risk if I was going to realize my dreams. And I had to make up my mind to jump.
Most People Are Afraid of Jumping
Most people are afraid to step outside their comfort zone to pursue their dreams, because they are afraid that something may go wrong, that all of their fears and “What if?” questions may come true. As I have shared in previous chapters, one of the greatest barriers to achieving our dreams is fear. That’s why we resist change, because it represents the unfamiliar, unknown, and uncomfortable. It was why I resisted pursuing many of the dreams I imagined for years. I had a lot of fears—fear of failing, fear of being broke, fear of rejection, fear of getting hurt, fear of the unknown, and fear that I couldn’t maintain success if I achieved it.
Additionally, I had to overcome my reasons for procrastinating, to avoid being stuck in present bias, to dismantle my disempowering “What if?” questions and replace them with empowering responses, to discover my purpose, and to formulate my life plan. By taking this journey, I adopted a new way of thinking and believing, a new way of declaring victory, and most important, I built the courage, confidence, and discipline to finally take risks and pursue my dreams.
Muhammad Ali was considered one of the greatest heavyweight boxing champions of all time and was known for his courage, confidence, and discipline. He faced a number of challenges throughout his career, and even when he was considered the underdog and expected to lose a fight, he talked so confidently about beating his opponent that he won many of his fights in the mind first, meaning he convinced himself and the public that he could win long before the actual fight.
He would openly declare that he was “the greatest” and that he could “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.” And it didn’t matter who he was fighting—his discipline, confidence, and public declarations never wavered. One of his most famous quotes was, “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”1 I learned to do the same thing. There came a time when, as I was faced with challenges—no matter how big or small—I would face them head on by talking to myself out loud, declaring that I could do it, and then taking the risks.
Taking Calculated Risks
When I refer to taking risks I’m referring to calculated risks. Calculated risks are the actions we take after careful consideration of possible results and outcomes. It’s been said that opportunities never look like opportunities. They come brilliantly disguised as problems and challenges. This means that in every situation we face, perspective is everything. It’s how we look at a problem that can make the difference between being stuck or moving forward. I learned that it’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you. When these opportunities come our way, disguised as problems and challenges, we have to believe that they are happening for a greater purpose and that if we lean into them we can hopefully come out a stronger, wiser, and better version of ourselves.
When we do something or face something we’ve never experienced before, we should take calculated risks. We have to count the costs of our actions by predicting all that could go wrong or right and then ready ourselves to face it and take the leap. I’m not just talking about waking up one day and quitting your steady paying job simply because you have a dream to start a new business. You should conduct in-depth research about the market, determine the need for your product or service, conduct a competitive analysis, and determine pricing. This is the development of a business plan. By developing one, your chances of achieving success are much higher than those who launch without doing the due diligence.
Using My Courage to Jump toward a New Opportunity
I experienced what I call a game-changing event early in my career when I was working in HR. I was pretty comfortable working over in the “ivory tower” of human resources. At the time I had a great job as a senior HR consultant and was really enjoying some of the projects I had opportunity to work on. They were really visible projects in that they utilized a lot of my key skills and talents, and I was really passionate about the work I was doing. I had the autonomy, mastery, and purpose that best-selling author Daniel Pink outlined in his book Drive.
One day I got a call from a colleague in Operations asking if I would consider moving over to his division to head up training and development. But I was comfortable; I was enjoying what I was doing and, quite frankly, didn’t think I needed to learn other skills. I enjoyed my nine-to-five schedule, rarely ever worked weekends, had the same clients I had built great relationships with, and had become quite comfortable serving. I can’t tell you how much consternation I felt when my colleague asked me to step outside my comfort zone and step into an area that was completely unfamiliar territory. To be honest, it was having to work different shifts that included nights and weekends that wasn’t appealing to me; plus, Operations spoke a whole different language, and the job meant a huge learning curve for me. Additionally, it meant having to make some major sacrifices at home because I was a single mom.
Despite my initial trepidation, I still gave it some thought, and I talked with a couple of my trusted colleagues and advisers about it. Eventually I agreed to jump and grow my wings on the way down. It was a risk to me because I was in uncharted territory and would have to build a whole new skill set, but it was a calculated risk that I was willing to take so that I could become more business savvy and expand my portfolio of experience. I jumped and it turned out to be one of the best career moves I made. The lessons in leadership, running a profit center, having a seat at the decision-making table in Operations, and learning the language of business all benefited me for the rest of my career.
When I built up the courage to jump and grow my wings on the way down, I asked challenging questions of myself and others. I learned that if we don’t question our reality, in the long run we end up succumbing to it. Then later we realize that our silence has conditioned us and complied with our circumstances. Once I started jumping there was no turning back. Over a period of seven years I jumped and resigned from my job and launched my consulting firm, jumped and wrote my first book, jumped and left a bad relationship, and jumped and sold my home of fifteen years and relocated to another state. Here’s how it happened.
I Jumped and Resigned from My Job
It was in the eleventh year of my annual ME-TREAT that I finally felt the pull (or maybe it was the push) to pursue one of the big dreams that I had put off for years—launching my own consulting, speaking, and training firm. I had tried it on a small scale many times before but had starts and stops and failures. I never could get it off the ground because I was still battling with the limitations of procrastination, stuck in “present bias,” and answering my disempowering “What if?” questions with the wrong responses. But after years of releasing the limits using the steps I laid out in previous chapters, I felt a liberation and a release. This ME-TREAT turned out to be pivotal. A peace, a calm, and an excitement came over me like never before. I had increased my confidence, faith, and courage to finally jump. And my first big jump was resigning from my job to launch my own business.
For more than thirty years I worked my way up the corporate ladder in Fortune 100 and Fortune 50 companies in nearly forty countries around the world and in various industries and sectors. At the time of this ME-TREAT I had been in my current role as vice president of Global Diversity, Inclusion, and Workforce Strategies for five years and I loved the work I was doing. It afforded me the opportunity to travel around the world, and I was thrilled to see the impact it was having on the profession and within my organization.
Under my leadership, the department had become known as a leading resource for workforce diversity and inclusion and had gained international recognition for providing cutting-edge strategies, development, and research for thousands of practitioners around the world. I had the pleasure of hosting an annual conference for more than a thousand industry HR and diversity and inclusion professionals; planning and producing a summit for more than one hundred global thought leaders, pioneers, and other business leaders; developing a number of education, training, and certification programs that yielded thousands of graduates and certificants; and initiating the development of the first ever national standards for practicing diversity and inclusion.
I was extremely proud of the results and successes I had achieved for the organization, but there was still something missing. There was a void in my heart that wasn’t being filled. I wanted to do more, not just for my employer, not just in my role. I felt destiny calling me to something greater—something beyond the job and the employer. It was speaking, training, coaching, and consulting, but not just on human resources and diversity and inclusion. I wanted to help people walk through their personal reinvention journey.
I wanted to coach minorities like myself on how to overcome obstacles and barriers, and how to get a seat at the table. I wanted to work with young professionals on how to navigate their careers and build life skills that would enable their success early on. And I wanted to work specifically with women on how to build the confidence and skills to succeed in a male-dominated workforce. After all that I had been through, I felt a special calling to reach back and help others.
It was one of the hardest decisions I would have to make, because it was risky and scary. At that time in my career, I had obtained a senior executive role, reporting to the CEO and executive vice president, and had earned a seat at the table with chief executives and the board of directors. I had built up a great name brand and reputation in my profession, and I was earning a six-figure salary with executive benefits and perks. The scary part was letting go of a steady paycheck, health and dental insurance, a retirement plan into which the company contributed a percentage to its value, and the sense of job security. The risky part now was launching something I had no guarantees would succeed this time, and the reality that I could end up broke, unable to pay my bills, and not able to send my daughter off to college.
Thankfully I had done the work while on my journey of self-development. I had confronted my fears (outlined in chapter 4), but I knew that some new and some old fears might return and this dream would be put to the test. But it had been a dream of mine for a long time, so I knew it was part of my destiny, and I couldn’t keep ignoring it.
Developing an Exit Strategy
Simply put, an exit strategy is a plan or road map for leaving your current situation and entering into your next chapter. It lays out the steps and strategies for how you will make the transition. It should also detail the financial implications, potential risks, and associated obstacles, as well as the expected outcomes and tangible benefits. In my work as an HR professional I had the opportunity to help develop exit strategies with several organizations. They used them all the time for mergers and acquisitions, for entering or exiting new markets, for discontinuing certain products or services, for releasing a strategic partnership with another business, and for selling or closing parts or all of a business. The strategies could range from three months to three years, depending on the complexity and size of the change.
When I wanted to move from one type of position to another in the same company, I created a well-thought-out exit strategy. For example, the first step I took was to research the types of jobs I thought would be a good fit for my skills, interests, and passions. Second, I would review past and current job openings in the company and find those that appealed to me. Then I would study the specific requirements, skills, and qualifications for the job and perform a gap analysis—what was required and what I currently possessed. Third, I would compare those requirements, skills and qualifications to my past and current job responsibilities, results, and performance feedback.
Fourth, I would have a conversation with my direct supervisor to discuss my interest and enlist his or her approval. When I received the supervisor’s support, the fifth thing I would do is detail a plan for closing the skills and experience gap, including time frames, the training classes I would need to take, whom I could request to mentor me, and what projects would give me greater visibility and experience.
Sixth, I’d get to know some of the staff with those skill sets and knowledge of the department so I could learn more about the culture and the people. This step also afforded those staff an opportunity to get to know me so that if and when an opening became available I was well positioned to be considered a strong candidate.
This exit strategy resulted in two new job opportunities in one company and enabled me to work there five more years. I used similar strategies when I pursued new opportunities with other employers, except I would reach out to my contacts online who could provide insights about the company with which I was pursuing employment.
In another role, I worked with a senior leader to devise an exit strategy for her to move from leading a team to being an individual contributor. She had received a number of complaints about the way she treated her direct reports and several of them had left the company. But she was a top producer and ran a profitable division in the company, so none of the senior executives wanted her to leave. Rather than terminate her employment, they decided that she should be moved to a different role, one that didn’t involve her leading a team.
I worked with her on identifying the appropriate role description in the appropriate division, and outlined a strategy for transitioning her team to another leader in a way that would save face. We specified timelines for her transition and implemented a communication plan. The exit strategy was executed with little disruption and ended up being a win-win for her, her team, and the organization.
The development and implementation of exit strategies is a natural part of life as we experience change and disruption. These strategies happen at work, in relationships, at home, and in other aspects of our personal lives. They may not be as formal as I have described, they may instead be informal and unwritten plans of action. For example, I developed an exit strategy when I needed to end a partnership/contract with a firm that was not providing me with the services that had been promised. When I knew the time had come to end a relationship that was not working for me, I thought about it for weeks and played out in my mind every scenario I thought would happen when I told him it was over. I even used an exit strategy when I felt it was time to find a new place of worship. I had been a member for a long time and was very involved in the ministries, but there came a time when I had outgrown it. I knew that my pastor would try to talk me out of leaving, and I rehearsed my response over and over.
There comes a time when you just know that you have to move on and pursue your next chapter. An exit strategy can assist you in mapping out the direction and plans to get from here to there. I have learned that in life not everything is meant to be forever; some things have an expiration date and we must discern when that time arrives.
After working in corporate America for nearly thirty years, my time arrived. I decided to finally take the leap of faith into launching my own business. The experience I had gained in my years of developing and implementing exit strategies at work helped me to gracefully make my own transition.
I Jumped and Left a Bad Relationship
When I developed my exit strategy to jump from my job and launch my own business, I knew I would have to address another area of my life that could determine my success or failure. I was in a relationship that I knew was going sour and not showing signs of improvement. The relationship was not helping me but rather hindering me and causing me a lot of anxiety, stress, and undue pressure. It was with someone who I knew could not handle my big dreams, because in my small successes he would minimize and criticize what I was doing. It got to a point where I wouldn’t even share great news about or successes in my job, my community work, or other things, because I could see how it would deflate him.
He was dealing with his own issues of insecurity, self-doubt, procrastination, pride, and regrets, and he was constantly comparing his success to mine. In heated exchanges the bitterness would rear its ugly head in the form of name calling, complaining, and belittling me. Yet on the outside he projected a false sense of success and confidence and had convinced a lot of people that he was someone he wasn’t. I had held out hope that things would change, but I finally realized that I was the one who had to change (my mind and my location).
Through a series of events and strategic moves, I cut off the relationship and lifted a huge weight from my life. That outcome alone was a big win toward accomplishing my dream, because with him I had begun to shrink, and I had delayed my dreams because of him. I didn’t want to outshine him, because he was already insecure about the level of success I had achieved so far. In the previous chapter I laid out the importance of having the right relationships around you and that you have to love yourself first. Coming to that realization while creating my exit strategy helped me to jump out of that relationship, move forward, and have no regrets.
I Jumped and Launched My Global Consulting Firm
After leaving my job I took some time off to rest, reflect, and shift my mindset. It was definitely an adjustment to not get up every morning to check work emails or jump on an early morning call, to not drive across town and sit in hour-long traffic jams, and to not go into my office and greet my team. Eventually I adjusted and began working on the final details of my business launch (including designing my website, publishing my first book, setting up my home office, hiring a CPA, establishing the business name, and updating my social media sites).
I had saved enough money to finance my business for the first year if I needed it, but I had also joined a boutique consulting firm on a limited contract basis so that I could build my business while maintaining a steady revenue stream. I also reached out to my many well-wishers and made a formal announcement about my new company and reminded them I was open for business and available to serve them. This step resulted in several new contracts, and that’s how I built my business—by leveraging my network, by referrals and repeat business, and from live events.
Over a period of eighteen months I built up enough business to require my full-time attention. I was able to end my contract with the boutique consulting firm and focus all of my time on serving my own clients (yes, I used an exit strategy for that too). I felt so empowered and proud of myself. I had not failed this time, after several other unsuccessful starts. I had learned that most businesses fail within the first three years, so I worked hard to avoid being that statistic again. I had not had to use my savings account, and I was on a steady trajectory of building a viable and profitable business. Jumping never felt so good and I had indeed grown my wings on the way down.
I Jumped and Wrote My First Book
After all that I had experienced over two decades, and after having done the work to overcome my own limitations I felt it was time to write a book and share the strategies and steps that had worked for me. I had been approached by a number of young women and other minorities, as well as by emerging professionals, to mentor and coach them. I did that for a number of years and all of them indicated how transformative my coaching was. I realized that I couldn’t reach as many people as I wanted. A book or a radio show would be the best avenue to capture my tips and strategies and reach a broader audience.
For years I would set writing a book as a goal for the next year, but I kept procrastinating and making excuses that I was too busy or it was too expensive. Finally deciding to start my business gave me the push and incentive I needed. Every expert I had consulted urged me to write the book and use it as an introduction to my other services, such as seminars, workshops, and keynote speeches. In chapter 2 I shared how I finally overcame my procrastination and got the book written by recording it as an audiobook first and then transcribing it into written format.
Once I released the book, Reinvent Yourself: Strategies for Achieving Success in Every Area of Your Life,” I also released the other services in my business, and enjoyed tremendous success. The book was also translated into other languages and I was thrilled that companies were even purchasing it for their staff and inviting me to speak about the stories and strategies contained in the book. Turns out that many of them wanted their people to reinvent themselves so they could bring fresh ideas and creativity to the company, and have a better sense of personal well-being.
I had the pleasure of speaking at conferences and conventions all over the world and hearing from attendees how impactful and transformative the book was for them. Today I still receive testimonials about how the book has helped people to change their thinking, change their circumstances, and change their lives. This was exactly what I intended it to do, so once I jumped and published that book, within a year I jumped again and wrote a workbook to accompany Reinvent Yourself. It has been a profitable companion product in my business.
A few years later I jumped again to pen a book about my journey to obtain a seat at the table as a woman and person of color. In that book I shared the strategies I employed to take back my power and move up the career ladder to get those seats at the executive and boardroom tables. I titled that book The Seat: How to Get Invited to the Table When You’re Over-Performing and Undervalued. It too has been all over the world and is having an impact on individuals and organizations. Had I not jumped and released those books, I’d still be coaching and mentoring a few people a year and missing opportunities to touch thousands of people all over the world.
I Jumped and Moved to a Place I Had Never Visited
I’m a big believer that when you put things out into the universe, destiny shows up. It is exactly how I found my new place to live. For years I had dreamed of living someplace tropical. I love the warm weather, and one of my favorite places in the world is by the water—not just any water, but clear aquamarine ocean water like the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, where I would get away for my annual ME-TREATS.
When I finally made the leap to leave corporate America and launch my own global consulting firm, I had been living in the District of Columbia (DC), Maryland, and Virginia area (affectionally called the DMV) for nearly thirty years. My home was in Maryland, I worked in Virginia, and I drove through DC to get to work and to serve many of my clients. The DMV was definitely a hustle-and-bustle filled with traffic jams, road construction, and impatient drivers. The DMV was also an expensive place to live, had brutal cold winters with lots of snow and ice, and offered a fast-paced lifestyle. I was ready for a change of pace and a better quality of life.
The fact that I had a consulting firm meant I could operate it from anywhere, so the sky was the limit, but I had some must-haves. First, I wanted to remain in the United States and on the East Coast. Second, I had to be near an international airport because I traveled nearly 80 percent of the time. Third, my new home had to have a warm climate year-round and be near clear blue water and beaches. Fourth, it had to have a lower cost of living than the DMV but be in a metropolitan area. And fifth, it had to have less traffic and congestion and a better quality of life than DC.
I have traveled to forty-eight states around the United States, but the state with the best beaches and all of my other must-haves was Florida. I was mostly interested in checking out Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Clearwater, and St. Petersburg, which all were on the west coast of Florida, were cities with lower costs of living, and had less traffic. When I narrowed my options to these four cities, I posted on my social media pages that I was considering moving to Florida and was seeking ideas about which city to live in. A classmate from high school sent me a message indicating that she was a real estate agent in the Tampa Bay area and would be happy to host me for a tour of homes. I immediately accepted her invitation and made plans to meet up in Tampa. Interestingly enough, I had visited Florida many times but had never been to Tampa.
Over the next few weeks I did some research on the four cities I had narrowed my search to and decided that the best fit would be the Tampa, Clearwater, and St Petersburg area. I found that three of the cities were less than thirty miles apart from each other, which made my decision even easier. Most important, they all boasted of award-winning beaches year-round.
A month later I flew to Tampa and spent my birthday week exploring the culture and happenings in the three cities. Each day I would meet up with the real estate agent and she would take me from one community to the next. They all offered so many amenities and I was sold on the home prices, the close proximity of the airport and all of the cultural events, and how much there was to do in all three cities.
By the end of my visit I knew I wanted to live in the Tampa Bay area, but the real estate market was booming so much that finding a place that week was impossible. I instructed my agent to keep searching until something became available. Two months later she messaged me that one of the communities I loved had an available rental. Thanks to technology, that same day she videoconferenced me and gave me a tour of the home. It was perfect and I signed the lease agreement that day.
One month later I put my Maryland home up for sale and moved to Tampa. I was excited about my next chapter and had no regrets, nor was I inundated with disempowering “What if?” questions. My first weekend in Tampa I drove twenty-five minutes to one of the best beaches in the country, Clearwater Beach. I was in heaven and affirmed that I had finally realized my dream of living in paradise. I have now lived in Florida for five years and I still feel like I did the first time I visited Tampa Bay—at peace. Who would have thought that a place I had never visited before, a place I had only imagined, would be my heaven on earth? This was perhaps one of the boldest moves I made when I started jumping, but it is certainly one of the best jumps I’ve ever taken.
What Jumping and Taking Risks Taught Me
If we are ever to get beyond our “What if?” questions, release the limits, and realize our dreams, we have to take those first steps—make the decision to jump, calculate the cost, and devise a plan. The first time I jumped and took a risk (a calculated risk), I built three things—courage, confidence, and calculation. Courage drives confidence and belief in ourselves. It gives us the motivation and inspiration necessary to achieve our purpose in life. Courage forces us to think differently, be doubtful, and question what we already know. It makes us want to go further and have our own opinions about things. Developing courage takes time and patience, but we must never be afraid to take a risk and release our limitations.
I have learned that anything worth doing is worth planning to succeed, because if we don’t, we are planning to fail. I have learned that life’s most rewarding experiences come as a result of taking risks on yourself and your dreams and believing that those risks are worth taking. Even when we don’t have guarantees, we have to rely on our determination, experience, and willingness to learn. I had jumped before and failed, but I learned what didn’t work.
I can honestly admit that for more than a decade I had more failed attempts than successes, but I didn’t stop dreaming. I’m so grateful for that because if I had I would have missed the opportunity to write this book in an effort to push others into their destiny. Most important, I would have missed out on the blessing of seeing some of my mentees and coaching clients successfully jump and grow their wings on the way down, and of seeing their lives completely transformed as a result of my support.
One of those mentees whom I am extremely proud of is Dr. Katrina Esau. When we first started working together, she was one of my most resistant mentees because she could not get out of her head and see her greatness. She was my truest example of what we call having analysis paralysis. With her permission, I conclude this chapter with the part of her story of how she took my advice to heart, and of how, when she finally jumped, she didn’t stop jumping. I couldn’t be more proud of how she evolved and the journey she is on today.