We are glad to have Orelle Jackson, President of Limitless Growth Strategies, returning as our guest on the podcast. This is episode 2 of 2 on Navigating Through Crisis. Episode 1 was published just a few weeks ago, and can be found here.

Orelle has over twenty years of executive leadership experience and is recognized for developing and optimizing strategies, delivering high-value solutions and building strong relationships. 

In her current role, she is guiding individuals and organizations to successfully maneuver through changes and transitions with the goal to help unleash potential, just like the acorn growing into a mighty oak tree. 

We are very excited to welcome Orelle and complete our discussion on unleashing our potential!

Orelle in our previous episode, we reviewed the first 6 principals in positively moving through a crisis. 

• Everything Worthwhile Is Uphill
• There is Always an Answer
• Allow Adversity to Help You Discover Who You Are
• Develop A Positive Life-Stance
• Feed Your Faith and Starve Your Fears
• Realize that Motions Influence Emotions

The various stages of crisis transition, continued.

Today Matters

This pandemic has been an extreme situation, and many are “lost”. How can we stay on track?

Reflect Instead of React to Adversity

Over the past few months we have had so much time on our hands. We often hear, “how would we describe our actions during this time – did we reach our goals, or did we waste our time”? What do you suggest we do next in our journey to move through adversity?

Adversity makes You Relatable to Others

This pandemic started as an “enemy” that we were all fighting together. Now it seems to have exacerbated many of the underlying issues affecting our world…fairness, equality, respect. What can we learn from this time?

Always Look for the Big Picture

One lesson we have all learned at some time is to realize the world is much bigger than just our own self and our immediate sphere. However, when we look at a bigger picture it can be frightening. What value is this “big picture” view?

Adversity Makes a Person Grow Strong (Mature)

We have moved through ten of the steps and have honed the ability to meet adversity. What has happened to us in the process? Can we continue to success through challenges and continue our personal journey?

Thanks to Orelle for her assistance in guiding us through this process and supporting you, our listeners, in your quest for personal growth. 

You can find out more by visiting Orelle's website, or find out more about her on her LinkedIn page.

We would love to hear from you.

Email us at hello@lookingforwardourway.com.

Find us on Facebook.

And of course everything can be found on our website, Looking Forward Our Way.

Recorded in Studio C at 511 Studios. A production of Circle270Media Podcast Consultants.

But I think one of the things that we can do is we can acknowledge that we've all lost something in this pandemic. Some people have lost more than others, but we've all lost something. And to approach one another from that perspective of being humble because we've all been impacted by it. But also knowing that my impact might not be your impact, may not be the same. And so this is not a competition. But just approaching it from the perspective of, I would just, for lack of a better word, from the perspective of being a member of the human race.

We.

Are looking forward our way. Hi, this is Brett, and with me is Carol.

Hi, Brett. How's it going?

Good. Wonderful. Part 2 coming up here.

We're excited. Oh, my gosh. Part one was phenomenal. And I am so honored to again introduce our speaker, Oral Jackson, President of limitless growth strategies. Oral has over 20 years of executive leadership experience and is recognized for developing and optimizing strategies, delivering high value solutions, and building strong relationships. In her current role, she is guiding individuals and organizations to successfully maneuver through changes and transitions with a goal to help unleash potential just like an acorn growing into a mighty oak tree. W e're excited to welcome Aurel back with us again today and complete our discussion on unleashing our potential.

Now, I would suggest if you haven't listened to the first part of this episode, do go ahead. But I think it'll be okay by listening to this one and go back to number one, either way, but definitely bring both these podcasts into your life because they will complete each other.

For sure. And it's great information in.

Both parts. And we'll have a link to that first episode in our show notes, so you don't have to go searching for it. Just click on it and play it. Well, in our previous program, we reviewed the first six principles in positively moving through a crisis. Let's begin with a quick review of those first six steps. First one is everything worthwhile is uphill.

Right. So this is really about focusing on the fact that your goals, aspirations, all the good things live on top of the mountain and you have to climb. And acknowledging that the climb is going to be challenging at times is important, but you have to keep going.

Wonderful. And then the next step is there is always an answer.

Right. So my favorite.

Absolutely. This is really about shifting the way you think to being solution focused and bringing that type of thinking to everything that you do and to your family and to the team that you lead.

Next is allow adversity to help you discover who you are.

I think here we talked really about the importance of digging deep to find what strengths, what talent, what expertise do you have that can really help you to shine and serve others in this time of adversity.

And then you're going to develop a positive life stance.

Right. So this, again, was not about being Polly Anna, but acknowledging the reality of the situation and then focusing in on what is positive and letting that dominate the way you think.

And then we went into feed your faith and starved your fears.

And here this was really about focusing in on what is important to you, focusing on the positive, focusing in where you can have an impact rather than living in that space of fear.

And the next step, which was one of my favorites, is to realize that motions influence emotions. Yes.

So we had a nice discussion about this, and I think this is a really great one to remember that we can feel the emotion, but we don't have to live in that space. By taking action, like setting into motion something, we can begin to influence and take control of that emotion, and being intentional about it is all of these things is really important.

Great. Okay, around the next step, I think is a big one and maybe another one of your favorites, but definitely today matters. This pandemic has been an extreme situation for all of us. I don't think anybody ever thought they'd have to go through this. Many people are really lost, lots of issues of loneliness. We certainly are seeing increases in violence and increases in drug usage. How can we stay on track?

Okay. So I think this is again about the pause and about understanding. If we go back to the principle of liminality, understanding that the future is uncertain and it's okay to feel concerned about that. But what you can manage right now is what's right in front of you. So I think it's trying to be as mindful about today. You can't change yesterday, right? You can influence tomorrow by doing what you can and doing your best with what you have today. And I think if we can really focus in on, sometimes again, just quietening our minds and saying, where are we right now? What impact can I make right now? What can I do right now? And I think I actually have taught an entire Mastermind series over six weeks just on this topic of Today Matters, because this is based on one of John Maxwell's books. He has a book called Today Matters, and he talks there about the importance of understanding your values and letting getting your values show up in your daily calendar or your daily agenda. And I think that sounds a little weird, maybe, but if you think about our normal calendar, it's populated with what other people want us to do.

And so often we get to the end of it and we feel a little maybe resentful even. We feel like, well, what I've done is like everything for everybody else. It's everybody else has impacted my agenda. And if you are very clear on what you value, you can reshuffle your agenda, reshuffle your calendar to ensure that whatever you do, whether it is for other people or for yourself, that is reflective of your values and aligned with your values. And so that could be as simple as, especially in these times, what is important to you? If family is important to you and you can't be close to family physically, if one of your values is family, put something on your agenda for today that reflects that value. So that may be calling your mother, emailing your brother, texting your niece, whatever it is. But do things that are reflective of your values and put that value based mindset into your daily calendar, into your daily agenda. And you begin to feel like you taking back a little control of your life. And when you can do that, when you focus in on what's important to you, and I'm not talking about material things, but the values, what are the values that are important to you?

You begin begin to focus mindfully. It's not only about the uncertainty of the future and grieving the loss of yesterday, but it's that ability to feel that you're living your values on a daily basis, and that today is what matters. The more preparation you do today, the less repair you have to do tomorrow.

Good point. So if I get this correctly, tell me if I'm on the wrong track. The last step was to realize that motions influence emotions. So if you're taking that to today, you're feeling sad today, realizing you miss family, calling your mom is the action.

That's the motion. So these you'll find actually just layer beautifully one on top of the other, like a compounding effect.

Right. And you're going to get to the point of where you don't even realize that you're going through all of these steps. They just flow with you as long as you're keeping that positive attitude, knowing that you're pausing and being very intentional about your actions to counteract negative emotions. Right.

Whoa, very cool. Nice. Our next is reflect instead of react to adversity. So over the past few months, I'm going to call over the pandemic time. We have had so much time on our hands. We've often hear, how would we describe our actions during this time? Did we reach our goals or did we waste our time? I've asked that of myself. What do you suggest we do next in our journey to move through adversity?

I think this is really about bringing intention to your life. I think it is very easy. I think many of us at the beginning of this thought, well, I'm going to walk every day. I'm going to.

Do this. That lasted a month.

Wow, I'm impressed. It didn't last a month for me. But I think we get to the end of any time and reflect and we think, what did we accomplish? I think being really intentional about this, and again, going back to the reflect instead of react, that's all about the pause. Before I fly off the handle, before I dissolve into tears, before I do something, I'm going to stop. I'm going to reflect and then I'm going to act. I'm not going to react. And I think that we need to do that in all aspects of our lives as well as how are we going to spend our time? It's very easy, as we all know, to get to the end of your vacation and think like, Oh, my gosh, I thought I was going to do all these things, or you do a staycation and you think you're going to clear out the basement and you got distracted on day one and a half, or whatever it is, or get to the end of the pandemic and all the things you were going to do as a family just didn't happen. And it's so easy because even though sometimes it feels like we've got a lot of time on our hands.

And I think if you've got kids at home that are going through this weird back to school hybrid online, whatever, you probably haven't got a lot of time. So whether you've got a lot of time, you don't want to fritter it away and have nothing to show at the end of it. But if you've got limited time for families who are dealing with different schooling and working from home and things, they have limited time. So use the time that isn't taken up with all those absolutely necessary things. Use it with intention as well. Actually scheduling family time and things like that and making the most of it. And again, you have to decide who's going to be the boss of you.

Well, it's so nice that we have the gift of time that you can start doing this tomorrow. You don't have to wait till the next adversity. Well, guess what? We're in the middle of one right now. Or once this is done, there's always another adversity of time. It always it will be minor, major, whatever might be, but there's always tomorrow.

And it's never too late to start, actually. Right. So can I say that acting, as opposed to reacting, so acting is the intentional steps we've been talking about, as opposed to reacting being the emotional outburst. Right. Okay. So now we think adversity also makes us relatable to other people. The pandemic started out as the enemy. We talked about this at the top of our discussion, and we were going to fight this together. We were a united front and going to make sure everybody was okay and we were all going to survive the pandemic and afraid to touch anything, but we were going to get through it. It seems, though, that we've run out of steam. We're a little exacerbated by so many of the underlying issues that are affecting us in our world, not only just masks or no masks or school hybrid or online, but also fairness and equality and respect. What can we be learning during this period of time and making sure that we do keep those connections with others. Yeah.

So I think you're right. We started off with a lot of energy around this, and it dwindled. And now there's a lot of... It's not just the pandemic, there's so many other things, and it can feel overwhelming. But I think one of the things that we can do is we can acknowledge that we've all lost something in this pandemic.

Some people have lost more than others, but we've all lost something. And to approach one another from that perspective of being humble, because we've all been impacted by it. But also knowing that my impact might not be your impact, may not be the same. And so this is not a competition, but just approaching it from the perspective of... I would just, for lack of a better word, from the perspective of being a member of the human race, how do we... Can we use this to have learned some lessons about ourselves, which make us more empathetic towards others? And I think this is a tough this is a heavy lift in this time when there's so much anger about all sorts of issues. And so if we could use this time to relate to one another because we've all lost something and to try to understand more about what you might have lost as opposed to what I've lost, not from a competitive perspective, but from the perspective of... We members of the same human race, you hurt, I hurt, it. We might hurt about different things. But because I've been hurt, because I've lost, I can try to be more understanding and approach the situation with more grace and to give you grace when I approach you.

I think this is important in families. I think it's important in the work environment, especially from a leadership perspective. And I always use leadership in the but not only from a business perspective, because the hardest person to lead is yourself. But from a leadership perspective, giving people, not giving into the fear, not giving into the anger, but using the pain and the hurt and the victories and the successes you've had to make yourself more empathetic, more compassionate, more understanding, and more willing to be curious about the other person's situation is really important. And I think that's when we talk about being relatable. I think one of the best ways to be relatable is to say, tell me more about you. Tell me more about what you're going through and not to want to be the one who directs the agenda all the time. I think we can do a much better job on this. This is, I think, one of the toughest ones is to be relatable because I think we're inclined to listen to respond and not listen to hear. When we listen to actually hear what the other person is saying, and not to come up with the smartest, best remark we can come up with, we actually then are able to become more relatable.

People trust us more. We trust them more, and I think we would have much better dialog and much more harmonious life.

That would be very welcome. I think it's interesting when I'm reflecting back on how the actions we were taking in the beginning and how that went downhill a little bit. And in some ways, I'm trying to bring those back up again. So doing a lot of reaching out to people, particularly older relatives and other friends. I had some folks contact me because they were concerned that I would be alone during the pandemic. And I laughed it off going, Well, I've lived alone for a long time. That's not an issue for me. I'll probably do better than you. I wasn't really listening to them, and I realized it. And I started becoming, number one, thankful that they were worried about me, but two, also realizing my situation compared to theirs and my situation compared to a lot of people people and realized I have a roof over my head, food in my refrigerator, money in my checking account, I'm okay. With or without anybody else in my house, I'm okay. And so that positive feeling got by the wayside when I realized I couldn't get my hair cut, all of those other really important issues in life.

And so now I think in some ways, seeing that we are making where people are pivoting, people are making things work, people are figuring out that it's okay to watch an old football game because the new ones haven't started yet, those kinds of things that it's coming back up, I hope.

Well, the next is always look for the big picture. One lesson I think we've all learned at some time is to realize that the world is much bigger than just our own self and our immediate sphere. I think the internet and news coverage and such has really brought that to light. But however, when we look at a bigger picture, it can be frightening, possibly overwhelming, too. What value is the big picture view?

So I think it helps us to set context. So I think we can feel like we are the center of the universe a lot of times, and we can become overwhelmed by our own problems. And I relate, Carol, to not being able to get your hair cut or whatever else you needed to have done. And it can seem like, Oh, my gosh, this is terrible. But when you look at it from the big picture, you begin to get perspective, you get context. And I think that's a really important thing, and I think this is a really important thing for parents to be able to do for children is to help them to see the situation within the context of the bigger picture. So that they become overwhelmed, but that they realize they're not alone. They're not the only ones having a tough time. They're not the only ones who can't access what they want to access or whatever it is. But to look at it from the perspective of, we are in this together. This is a big world and our problems to us today may seem insurmountable. But when we start to think from the big picture perspective, we can bring in things like gratitude for what we have.

We can become more compassionate because we then begin to see that while our problems feel overwhelming today in comparison to what other people are having to deal with, they're not that bad. So I think it gives us perspective. It gives us the opportunity to be more empathetic, more compassionate. But it also, I think, helps us to be grateful. And I think gratitude is a key driver. It's one of those really great actions that you can take to influence your emotions. Right.

One. One more. We're going to talk about, Adversity makes a person grow strong. We have moved through 10 of our 11 steps. We are honing our ability to meet adversity. What has happened to us in this process? Where are we going? Can we continue to be successful through the challenges and continue our personal journey?

Well, I hope the answer is yes. So I think we've got to, again, take time periodically to reflect. What have we learned? What lessons have come out of this? Because we're not going to go back to... And we talk about the new normal, but we really should be realistic. Do we want a new normal or do we want a whole new paradigm? Do we want a whole new framework? I know that's a heavy lift, but it's possible. We've put men on the moon.

Exactly.

I think when we start to limit our thinking, that's never a good thing. But I think taking the time to look back and say, What did we learn? We learned that we could live with a lot less. We learned that we could be creative. We can have Zoom meetings. Or fewer meetings.

Yeah.

We don't have to drive as much. We don't actually have to be in the office for a lot of the jobs that we have. Children, we also learned, are actually probably more resilient than we gave them credit for because they've dealt with us probably better than we have. I think so. And we've learned a lot of things about... We've learned that when we don't drive our cars every day, we can see environmental impacts. We've also, I think, learned the value of family. We've learned how much we might miss those relations that we thought were really... We wanted to take a break from anyway. And we've realized the importance of social connection. I'm hoping one of the big things we learn is that we realize the importance of the human connection and the importance it plays in our mental health. I think we really have seen the mental health challenges coming from the isolation that we've had to go through. And for us to begin to realize as we move forward, because I think we were starting to... A lot of us who are older were bemoaning the fact that everybody communicates by text and email.

And what happened to picking up the phone or going to somebody's house? Well, suddenly we had to resort to all of those means of communication, too. But what do we learn from that? How do we use those types of technology which have helped us and which will probably continue to help us as we go through situations like this? How do we use those while still maintaining that human connection that we so obviously need? The old experiment they did years ago with the rhesus monkeys that didn't have anything to nurture them, a mother to nurture them, and they failed to thrive. I wonder, if we don't have human connection even as adults, do we fail to thrive? Do we fail to be the best we can be when we are isolated? And quite frankly, we do, even under the best of circumstances, there are groups of people that we isolate in our society like older people. And so what are we going to do to change that? Have we learned the lesson that we as humans need to figure out different ways to stay connected and the importance of family and friends and community?

I think one of the greatest lessons I've seen is that notion that we can pivot quickly. Change happens quickly. We always talk about change, but not in the context of speed. That change is at least literally on a dime that we saw in this pandemic and just our ability to adjust. The other thing, too, when we're going back a couple of steps and you talked about reflecting, I think a lot of us are feeling like, number one, boy, it's been six months and for some of us it's been six years and for others it's been six days. But to go back and reflect to see what you really did do, because I'll bet you chances are pretty good you did more than you remember you did. Don't think it's less. Go back and really take a look and think about what that is. I'd mentioned to Brett, a friend of mine lives in Chicago, and we've been friends since high school, so decades. But don't see each other often. She never really liked email. And thank goodness she was into email before this. We have emailed nearly every day for six months, which we never would have done in the past.

And it's been a wonderful, freeing opportunity for both of us. She can complain what's going on in her end. I can complain what's going on on my end. But she has been part of changes in the theater programs in Chicago. I'm talking to her about podcasting. So we've also started something new, both of us, and been able to compare it together. So yeah, I think those are all great reflections.

Wonderful. Well, Aurel, thank you for your assistance in guiding us through this process, supporting our listeners in their quest for personal growth.

That's.

One of the main themes for looking forward our way was that personal growth in a variety of different ways and us laying some templates out and bringing resources, thought leaders, the people that know versus us just researching on our own. It's more fun to talk to people who know what they're talking about. So let our listeners know how they can contact you and even discover more on the principles of John Maxwell.

Sure. So your listeners can contact me at Orell, that's O R E, L L E, @limitless growth strategies. Com. My website is limitless growth strategies. Com. And my website is limitless growth strategies. Com. So there's a whole host of information there that can find me on social media, too.

Right. and we'll have that all in our podcast notes. And hopefully some good questions will come to you from this. Thank you so much.

Thank you.