Sunday Serenity - Tuesday Version

Happy Tuesday evening, Cadre crew. Give everyone a chance to jump on. And while we do, I will introduce myself. I'm Jason Lennox. I am your resident recovery champion. I usually come to you on Sunday evening. It's Tuesday evening. As you can see, I. I was in California Sunday evening, traveling near Oceanside and was nowhere near reception, anything like that. So back here with you on a Tuesday. But Sunday Serenity is the series that I bring you, you may notice. Yes, I'll share this with pride. The Boston Celtics, they're playing right now.

I am recording and anxious to get on and watch and see where they're at. I will also have you know, if you're from Minnesota, like many of us are here in Cadre, but I know we have people from around the country. I'm a Timberwolves fan as well, and I will be wearing my Timberwolves gear when I join you again on Sunday. And they will be playing on Sunday, hopefully have won a couple games. I'm really cheering for them. I'm minnesotan. I grew up here most of my life. Good evening, Sherry. But still claim Massachusetts as home.

That's where I was born. That's where much of my family is. So go Celtics tonight. But Sunday serenity. So what does that mean? I like to reset and talk about this a little bit and why I think it's important. As I said, resident recovery champion. And so what does that mean? I'm here to talk to you about all things recovery. And specifically, for me, it was all kinds of substances, alcohol, addiction. Those things ran in my family. I fell into that pattern and for many years thought that my life was over and didn't think there was another way out until I found, willingly, unwillingly, maybe landed in a hospital than a jail cell.

I was going to be locked up for a while, and I was in a lot of pain, so I opted to go to treatment because it felt like it had to be better. So that's a little bit of my backstory. And when I talk about Sunday serenity, I think serenity is so key not only to recovery, but just in general mental health and wellbeing. And I found that out. My life was full of chaos, and that's what drove me. That's what I was always running from. I never felt like I was okay with where I was, with what my life was.

And some of that stuff wasn't really my fault. You know, growing up and my perception and just the way that I viewed the world always had me in a state of. At a state of unease. And just, you know, not feeling like anything was okay. And that led to eventually, when I found drugs and alcohol, I realized that that feeling went away, and it went away quicker and easier the harder the drugs and the drinking got. So that was my pattern. And again, I think so much of that was based in the fact that I just didn't feel good about where I was, who I was, what I was doing, and my place in this world.

So I think serenity is key, and that's why I talk about it so much. That's why this is Sunday, serenity, even though we're on a Tuesday, because I think that continues to allow me to be in a place where I can live life free of those drugs and alcohol, which I have for 13 and a half years. But again, I think this is applicable to so much more than just recovery, because serenity really does equal wellness and well being. And so why serenity? Again, I think serenity equals. It translates to clarity.

And when I have clarity, then that translates to the capacity and the ability to move. So again, I'll start with serenity equals clarity. Clarity equals the capacity and ability to move. And what do I mean by move? I mean get up. I mean take care of the things I'm out to take care of. And that I say I'm going to do make moves in life, in business, in family. And again, that starts with serenity. So I want to tell a little story. I was, I have a colleague on LinkedIn and a friend, and she had posted something last week about, it was an article about presence and how presence made such a difference, and not presence in the sense that I'm present to the moment, but being able to command a level of presence in meetings and interactions.

And she really highlighted the importance of the ability to do that. And what that means in my comment was, yeah, the ability to influence decisions and relationships. And just generally, overall, there's so much more of that that comes with that presence. And I think that applies, again, to business, to family, to life. And so, again, commanding that presence and the ability to really get that attention and have people pay attention and listening and moving. And so how do we get there? I think.

I think three things. We study, we observe, and then we share selectively. What do I mean by that? Study? I study, I study the industry that I work in. I study what family dynamics I have. I just study, study, study. I'm always forever going to be a student in trying to learn all the things there are to learn. And if I can do that, I can be equipped with the knowledge, the wealth of knowledge that comes with being the student. And then I think, observe. So I'm in interact. I'm in meetings, I'm in conversations all day, most days.

And whether that's with family and business, with coworkers, with friends, I'm there, and I observe and I observe and I observe. And some people will point that out, maybe to a fault. I am observing and analyzing, and I am. And I'm looking, I'm reading the room. I'm understanding. Who am I with? What am I doing? What's the intention here? What is everybody after? What are their goals? What are my goals? And so I'm observing, so I study. I become a student. I equip myself with the wealth of knowledge.

I observe. What situation am I in? Where can some of this knowledge come in? And then what I do is share selectively, right? Because we all know we are in life with people, that everybody has at least one of those people in meetings that shares not so selectively, just shares all the time. And that's not a bad thing. That's just somebody who shares differently. Now, I opt to share selectively. So I sometimes am a little more quiet, I'm a little more reserved. But when I insert with that studying, with that observing, it usually means something.

And that is proven time and time again to work in the relationships, in the business and all the places that I've been. And, yes, Sherry, the growth mindset and learning to keep, that's key to life, continuing to learn. When I stop learning, I really think I got it all figured out. And some days I think that anyway, but I know that I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna continue to learn. So study, observe, and then I share selectively. And that makes a difference. And the feedback I get sometimes. And one thing, again, because the other presence and this serenity concept that I've been talking about allows me to show up in a way that's really cool, calm and collected.

So I think the question is, what's one takeaway? And if I could give you one takeaway, think about the situations in your life again, whether it's family, whether that's business, whether it's friends. Where do you notice that people listen to you? Because that's a good place to start. So notice where people listen to you and then study what it is that makes that possible. Why are they listening? What is it. What is it about the way that you are showing up? What is it about what you are contributing?

What is it about that situation that you've put yourself into that, has people listening, because that can be applied, you can grab that. And I've figured out for myself that my key there is I have this ability to slow things down. Startup world. I work with programs developing, getting going. And sometimes everything feels like it's on fire. You have work with the Department of Human Services, you have money that you need to figure out. Hiring. All these things feel incredibly urgent sometimes.

And if something feels like it's wrong, you get some feedback from, you know, regulators, from insurance companies. People tend to react to that. And one of the things I've always been able to do is just say, these are the facts, these are what people are, this is what these people are calling out. There's nothing wrong with that. They're just giving us a guide. They're telling us what, what it is that they expect. We have the ability to go back and we fix this and we make it right and we do it again and everybody's happy.

And I've had those experiences over and over where I know that that's true. Not everybody does. So my ability, the takeaway I've had and where I can look at where people listen is because I can stay at this level here. I'm not going to be way up here jumping around on cloud nine. I'm also not going to be way down here. I'm going to stay pretty steady. Right? And sometimes that scares people. Sometimes it just means I'm more reserved. Sometimes it means my doctor will send me on a mission to go figure out what's wrong with my heart.

Because my resting heart rate is sometimes in the thirties and forties, but that's a different story. That's nutrition and exercise and that's all a good thing, but nonetheless, the point being the ability to just slow it down and know that that's my takeaway, that's my key. And so if I can continue to do that with leaders and with programs and people in the programs and the people I work with and my family, let's just bring it back to reality. It's not up here, it's not down here. We're right here in the middle.

Let's just figure out how to keep this thing moving forward smoothly, efficiently. So I think if I could leave you with one thing I would ask as you go throughout this week, slow it down a little bit. Try my takeaway, try that on. Try the ability to just say, these are the facts. This is what we're dealing with. Take a deep breath and let's put the pen to paper and figure out what we need to do. But then observe yourself. This is the most critical component. I've already asked this, and I've already shared this.

Observing where people listen, where in your weeks, as you go out and interact with people, are they listening? You can tell that we know, we know when we get in these interactions, and all of a sudden, we can hear the pin drop. Right. We know that we've got the attention and we've commanded that presence. And what is it? Study that, think about that, and then replicate that, because that can be applied elsewhere. And a lot more people listen, and family and then friends and then businesses. So, yeah, I think there's so much there.

And share. Yes. Selective on what and who you share with. Again, share selectively. That was one of the three, the third one that I talked about. We don't always have to share and know everything and share everything and say everything. And when we do that, when we do practice selective sharing, when we do show up and we do share, people tend to listen a little bit more because they know that if you're holding out and this guy hasn't said anything the entire meeting, and then he shows up at an important moment, we probably should listen.

So those are my takeaways. Again, this idea of serenity and how that contributes to the ability to command presence and to be able to just get that attention and take situations that could easily escalate because you've got the wrong people taking that thing to the ceiling. All of a sudden, decisions are made, moves are made that aren't benefiting people and maybe end up backfiring in the end. So how do we slow it down? How do we get serenity? And I talk a lot about that, just in general, other life habits.

But how do we do that, and how do we observe our interactions, understand where we command that presence, where people are paying attention, and do a little bit more of that. All right, I'm gonna let y'all go now. I'm gonna go watch the Celtics. If you're not a basketball fan, you shouldn't have a problem with cheering for the Celtics, so please cheer them on with me. If you are a basketball fan, I hope you're a Celtics fan, or at least Timberwolves fan, or maybe an Indiana or Dallas fan. Either way, go Celtics.

That's who I'll be cheering on Sunday evening for. A return to Sunday, serenity, where we'll continue to talk more about how we do this. So look forward to hearing from you. Have great weeks, everyone. And again, go get.