Monday Motivation: Lean In Or Lean Out?!

Foreign Cadre family. Good morning. Good morning. I'm back from my Monday coffee with the buttered tin. I'm still here. C. and I just met up. It was fantastic. C. and I always spend a little bit of time Monday morning just checking in, saying what's up with each other. It's the best. He's such a wonderful human being. So here's my decaf. I am officially, gosh, do the math on this. 13 days. 13 days without caffeine now. Or I think 12. 12 or 13, but, man, it feels great. And mind's a little bit clear.

Brain fog's a little bit out now, so. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Good morning again. My name is Luke Wendtland. I've been with Cadre since day one. It's a game changer to see all the faces and people share what's working, what's not working for them in their personal journey, their mental health journey could be anything and everything that they're dealing with. And I just love, love, love listening to what people are passionate about, what drives them, what motivates them, and what makes them feel better.

For me, it's this. For somebody, it's this. For somebody else, it's this. And I think that's the power of this community and of this world. We're never gonna tell you that this is the thing. It could be the thing for you, or it could be something else, and that's okay. But regardless, awesome to be here. Got all my Cadre swag on now. It's like my daily ritual. It's just. It makes life really, really easy. I just get up and I put the same thing on every day. I order a bunch of shirts, bunch of hats.

It's great. I love it. It's like Mark Zuckerberg putting on the black. But no, it's awesome to be here. You guys love it. But my message today that I wanted to talk about was leaning in or leaning out. And I'm going to use this specific for the professional work environment. Okay, so I'm going to use this specific for the professional work environment, but you can take it probably a lot more places than that. But for sure, I just want to discuss it professionally. So who here has read Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In?

Who's here has read Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In? Raise your hand. I sure have. Great book. And again, while you're answering that or raising your hand or thinking about this to yourself, I just want to say good morning to all the folks that are here. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. I love that you're sharing and spending time with me, but that Sheryl Sandberg Lean in book is really, really a great book. And I think that there's so much credence into leaning in and what do I mean by leaning in?

Matching values, sticking up for what you believe in, going all in on a project, matching corporate responsibilities, lining up your have not read it. It's a great book. It's a wonderful book. If you get a chance, please do. But we typically hear about leaning and leaning and leaning and leaning in. And what I also wanted to share today, which I think is hypercritical, is when to lean out. Right. So I think just as important as it is to lean into companies and lean into your role and lean into your responsibility and lean into growth and professional development, personal growth, all of it, I think there's some really, really good times professionally to maybe take a step back and go, not for me.

So I'm going to share just a story and I'm going to share a story with you that I would say has probably been one of the most influential moments of my leadership existence on this planet. I was in a board meeting once, and in this board meeting, there was a group of individuals and they were talking about somebody's specific role. And the comment was, I think it's time that that individual finds their next level of professional excellence or their next role, professional excellence, to go on and find something different.

And I struggled with it, and I struggled with it all day, all night. And I immediately knew that it was time for me to lean out. Like, I knew in that moment of that board role, I knew that this wasn't the place for me. That's not how I want to talk about people. I've always been taught and told that if somebody can say something like that about somebody in a room, odds are they're talking like, about you like that in the room. And that just wasn't an energy win for me. My immediate thought was, how can we help them?

How can we support them? How can we lift them up? How can we drive them to be a better version of themselves? How can we support. I'm a firm believer that every single human being has genius. You know, to me it was like, hey, bored. How. How did we not see this? How could we put them in a better position of success, you know, taking ownership? And it was the exact opposite. And it was blame. And I knew, like, right then and there, like, I needed to lean out. And it wasn't. It wasn't rude it wasn't crass, it wasn't any of those things.

You know, when my board seat, you know, time came up, I just, you know, there was the renewal. I just said, you know, I'm out. Thank you. It was a great experience, but this one's just not for me. So my message to you is there are going to be many of times where you know it's right. You know it is at work. Things are going well. Your, your reviews are going well, you're feeling supported there, Your, your boss has your back. There's trust. Like the things are working. You can feel it. You can feel it.

But to the flip side of the coin, you can also feel when it's time to maybe start splintering or flapping your wings in a different direction. And I think as admirable as it is from Sheryl Sandberg's lens, to lean in, to lean in to the roles and to fight and to move forward and to go and go, go, go and find your next thing and do your next thing and continue to work for the company and the organization and go, go, go. I can't stress in my almost 44 years of existence that I think the opposite is just the same.

When do you know that it's not for you? When do you know that this doesn't feel good and 1% better? Love the story telling. They couldn't even say it. They had to use Corp code. Good call. Trust your gut. It's exactly right. And you know, you've seen things over the years for me, 20 plus years, right? Leadership, management, working with other individuals, leading people, being on boards, managing and growing folks. There's the right way and wrong way to do things. And the right way to do it is to be able to have that honest, real feedback to deliver the news.

Sometimes the news is perfect. You know, we always talk about the weather, Bell. You know that it's sunny and sometimes it's cloudy and sometimes you're in an absolute storm. But people need to know where they are. And, and I just, I really, really, really encourage everybody here to continue to find two things. Number one, when is the right time for me to lean in? Right? And when is the right time for me to lean out? And I'm just talking about your professional landscape and your professional experience experiences today, tomorrow, and your future.

Right? And so the life side, the personal side, the relationship side, all those things over here, they're absolutely relatable, 100%. Jules says this is very relatable all aspects of life, both personal and professional. I'm just using my analogous today professionally. But like I said to be start, like I said at the start, odds are you're going to find ways to connect the dots with this. And I also think some of you all are probably going to decide to lean out within the next 30 days of things by just listening to this.

And I also think the next 30 days you're gonna find things that absolutely serve you. Feel supported, feel loved, feel cared about, feel joy, feel positive energy, feel great friction. And friction does exist. Lean in, lean, lean in, lean out. I also talk about it from inspiration, desperation. So either way, this is on you and these decisions are on you. And I really look forward to seeing where this, you know, next 30 days takes you in this journey. So take care of you guys. Have a wonderful rest of your day.

I also want to share, there's one other thing. Cadre has been nominated by Healthcare Minnesota as the startup of the Year. I'm going to share that link and I hope you all vote and I hope you take a couple minutes to vote for Cadre. That's really exciting for us to be able to share as a team, you know, all the work that we put in to be able to do what we get to do and what we get the privilege to do every day as teammates as well as an organization is to be able to support folks. So, yeah, can't wait to see you all here in the Cadre sphere next.

But in the short term, are you leaning in or are you leaning out? And why, thank you. Take care you guys. Really, really appreciate your time and yeah, thank you. One percent better. Love the hat. Need to get one. I got you, Jen. Thank you, Luke. Yes, we'll vote. That's awesome. Love you, Jen. Appreciate you so much. Take care of you guys. Have a dynamic, dynamic week. And I know, I just can't, I just can't. I just can't keep saying this enough. There's going to be these decisions where it's like fork in the road moments where you need to go all in or leaning out.

So it's going to happen and that decision will matter. Take care y'all. Have a wonderful, wonderful Monday. Peace.