Rules of Engagement

Hello, Cadre. Welcome to Tuesday 11am here on the east coast in Silver spring, Maryland, and 10:00am Central Time, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for example. And I hope that you all are doing well. I am in the middle of my move. I'm not in the middle. We moved two weeks ago. Still in the middle of putting our houzz together. Is it taking longer than I want? Yes. Is it taking longer than I thought? Yes. Am I still trying to do it at a pace I can sustain inside my capacity? Yes. Are there signs of progress every day?

100%, yes. Have I found key clothing? No. Have I had to go to TJ Maxx to buy some key clothing? Yes. Did we have a day where the power went out? 100%, yes. But things are good and I hope they're good for you. That's just what moving is like for anybody contemplating it. Just to remember, it's complicated, but it's also worth it. I love living here. There's a lot of great things I can walk to from this building. Great people in the building. There's great people at the concierge desk. Packages are not getting stolen, which is nice.

So we are here to talk about rules of engagement and rule of Engagement number nine in particular. Good morning. Tremaine D. Pickering. Good morning. I am glad you are here. Rule of engagement number nine is very simple. Use what you have. And that means about a million things to me. A lot of these rules of engagement are rules of engagement because they are multifaceted and can be used a number of different ways, but all of them in ways that mean something, at least to me. And I'm just offering what I have to you.

Good morning. Speak Wonder. Greetings and salutations to you. Sorry to give everybody a little motion sickness with my moving of the camera. My setup here is not exactly what I was hoping it would be yet, but it will be there. Use what you have. So I'm thinking about this in this move. Why am I thinking about this in this move? Because putting all my belongings into a new space means configuring them differently. The space is different. It means I have. This would be an example. I have a lot of storage items that I was using for one purpose that I am, I think to myself, I don't need it for that purpose anymore because my bathroom is set up differently or because my closets are set up differently or what have you.

But I'm keeping all of them around until I feel like we're really settled in, because maybe I can put them to some other use. Use what you have before I go buy something else. And yes, I've mentioned it before, and I'll mention again, I can walk to a TJ Maxx and a Marshalls from. And a Michaels, for that matter, from my house. They're all in the same little mall in downtown Silver Spring. But before I go do that. And of course, there's a Target nearby and a Walmart nearby, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe use what you have.

For example, in my old place, I had a rack. It was a complicated rack. It had some shelving, and it had some rods for hanging things. And on some of those rods, I put. And it had shelves below. If you hear background noise, it's because they're working on the apartment next door right behind me. Sorry about that. I had some hanging shelves, you know, the fabric shelves. You can hang from a closet rod and you can store things. And they had three squares in them that I could put things in. And I used that to hold some T shirts, I think.

And I don't need that here. My closet is set up very differently. So I didn't need that in my closet here, but I kept it. And we have a front utility closet, and we've put our small chest freezer in there, but we need to store a bunch of stuff in there. And it is a closet closet. So it's got a closet rod. So I use it in there to hang things from the closet rod, notably paper towels and boxes of Kleenex. I use cloths that I've been using for years, basically handkerchiefs that I keep. But my husband really likes the Kleenex, so we store it in there.

And so then below that, we could put our cooler that we sometimes use when we go on picnics or road trips. You see what I'm saying? Use what you have. I had all of these plastic holders for cosmetics that I was using in these shelf units that I had. Not shelf units. They're like rolling carts with shallow drawers. And I. They're for people who craft. You know, it's like little craft cabinets. But I use them for. Because I used one for cosmetics in my old house, I had two. And here I'm using one for all my pens.

My pens did not have a great home. And colored pencils and stuff like that. And then stickers and postcards. They had not had a great home in my old house. And now I've repurposed that. But I don't need the dishes I was using. Well, I do for the pens, but not as many as I was Using. So I'm using those in the bathroom to organize stuff on the shelves. I'm using some of them in the kitchen to hold things that are small. Use what you have. You collect hankies? Oh, nice. Yeah, I have a bunch that were my mother's, and I use them.

But I also just cut up soft old sheets and soft old T shirts, and I just use those. I don't even hem them. I finally bought some pinking shears, so next time I do it, I can at least pink them. And they won't. They won't unravel so much. But use what you have. Also, I use to mean, what do I have inside of me? Sometimes I am tempted to feel like I should be some other way. Oh, in this situation, it would be great if this project had a person who could underline, you know, fill in the blank. And usually I fill in that blank with something that's not a top skill set of mine.

Maybe I don't have it. All right, I can be very blunt. For example, I don't have a poker face. Side note about my poker face, when I was in college, I had two majors. One of them was sociology. And one of the professors I had was David Karen at Bryn Mawr College. And Dave one time said to me, I can always tell how my lecture's going because if I'm not doing well, you're just not paying attention. If I am doing well, you're, like, right there, taking notes. I. I used to take notes in outline form.

I still do. I take notes in outline form, and I did in college. And that made me laugh at the time. I knew exactly what he was talking about. And I thought about him, and I thought about what he had said so many times in my life, including when I would be sitting in the mayor's office as the mayor and having a meeting with people who I did not perhaps care for and had to do business with them and partner with them regardless. And I remember thinking to myself, you know what? You gotta keep. Keep paying attention.

You don't have a great poker face, but this might be a time to at least look pleasant, you know? And my team started recognizing the looking pleasant look as distinct from my actually feeling pleased look. And that became a joke. But I thought about David Karen all the time. And I saw him for the first time in many years this past weekend. I haven't seen him maybe in 10 years. My beloved mentor, Judy Porter, we did a memorial for her at Bryn Mawr College. And I got to speak. Speak was very honored to Be one of the students, one of her students who spoke.

Sorry, I'm getting choked up. She was really great. And I got to tell Dave, Karen, by the way, you would not know this, but I think about you all the time. And he laughed. He's like, so basically anytime being a jerk, you think about me, which was great. But use what you have. I don't have a great poker face. And it would be useful. It would have been useful to have. It would have been so useful in politics. But then I would have to be. To do it, I'd have to live in a way that was so, so uncomfortable.

Hello, Lisa. You joined at some point and I didn't say hello. Welcome. So use what I have internally, you know, in. One of the things I really have at my disposal right now is that I do pretty well when things are somewhat chaotic. The environment in this office right now. I'm not going to show you, I don't want to show you, but the environment in my office right now. I have stations set up where I can do work and I have stations set up. I'm sitting in it where I can do my morning meditation time.

But there are still a lot of things not in the place where they're supposed to be not unpacked. I put up my floor to ceiling dry erase, post it so that I could do my weekly planning. Use what you have. Right. I have that because I knew that was important to me and it really has proved invaluable to have it up so quickly. Use what you have. I do pretty well in chaos so I really can focus on, like we talked about last week, the biggest problem that happens most frequently. Oh. You tuck your hankies into condolence cards or directly place them into the hands of a grieving friend.

Oh, that's lovely. You know, that may be. I like to go to antique stores, which my husband calls junk stores, and I like to go to those a lot. And so maybe I'll start looking for hankies and have them for that purpose or just to add to my collection because I use them a lot. I cry a fair amount. I think we've talked about here. Crying is the healing of the hurt. It's not the hurt itself. If I want to heal, I get to cry as well as shake and laugh. So use what you have internally. I am a pretty good public speaker, so I'm using that on behalf of the things I care about right now.

I am a pretty good strategic mind. So I put that to use on the boards that I sit on helping people Think strategically about paths forward. I am not. You know, I love, love a good personality test framework. Oh, I'm gonna. This book that I am reading right now. I'm gonna show everybody this book, the Decision Book. I picked it up at one of those stores that sells books like this and thank you. Speak wonder. And for some reason I was drawn to it. When I finish, I read a little something that helps me remember life is good or learn a skill in as part of my meditation time.

And I had finished the book I was just reading and decided this was the one that spoke to me. And I love it. It's 50 models for strategic thinking. And it's just. Let's see. I'm going to try and find one that has a drawing. Yeah. The gap in the market model. On the one page it describes it and then on the other page there's a graphic that helps explain it. And there's 50 of them. It's amazing. I love them. I love this book. My mind works really well like that. I will put these to good use for everything.

I'm already. Some of them have already spurred thinking about the project. I have to enroll white people in the work of racial equity and build a framework and have a theory about why that's so hard. Already putting this to good use. But it's just very fun for me to read. Your mileage may vary. It's not for everybody. But if you're interested, I'll post about it afterwards too. The Decision Book by Mikhail Krogeras and Roman Chopler and their initial run. They're from Europe. Their initial run, they did 500 copies of the book.

It was just like for them and their colleagues they thought would be interested in it and they sold millions worldwide. Secm. 435133 welcome. I'm glad you're here. They have sold millions of these books worldwide. I can see why. It's just for, you know, it's just very appealing. And I would imagine for people who don't love that sort of thing, it might also be useful to sort of get into the minds of people who do or to learn the skill a little better. It was just great. It's just great. Use what you have.

Use what I have inside of me. I think I've talked about here. I worked the steps on anxiety for about two years. And one of the results of that was I have these lists of all the ways my anxiety shows up. And my zesty list zest to me is an antidote for anxiety. Things that support zestiness. And things I can do to reset if I'm really anxious. And I had those posted on my wall at my other house, at the old house, and I had put them in a folder of valuable papers that I wanted to have access to right away.

And they're hanging up on the wall right over there. And I used it yesterday because my anxiety has been very high in the move. I can deal with some chaos, and I'm using the strengths I have to handle the move well. But anxiety, right. I'm out of my routines. I like routines. I like clutter, But I don't like not knowing where all kinds of important things are, which is why I moved a whole bunch of important things when I came here. But there are some kinds of clothing I probably should have thought to move myself.

So use what you have. Rule of engagement number nine, use what you have. Now, the other thing I want to say about it, though, is you don't have to make do with things that aren't working. That's not the point for me of use what you have. For me. It's turn first to the things that I have to see if I have a solution. And if not, then find a solution or find the people who do have a poker face so that they can be with me and sort of gently put a hand on my knee when they notice I don't have one. That was my chief of staff, you know, use what you have, but get what you need.

I suppose that would be the corollary, but get what you need, right? And if. And if what you have is not serving your needs, then you need a different solution. Because, remember, for every problem, there is a solution better than the one that didn't work. We talked about that one before, too, so we're at time. I'm very excited to be here with you all. It's so nice to have Cadre as an anchor at a time when things are in upheaval. I like, I don't mind the clutter, but I do mind the mysteries of unpacked boxes.

Most of the boxes are at least decanted. If not have things everywhere put in the place it's supposed to be yet. So thank you, Cadre, for being here, for being part of the tools that I use to stay, you know, to stay moving forward, to stay connected, to stay feeling pretty good, which is usually my goal. To feel pretty good most of the time is one of my key goals. And that's why I worked on anxiety for two years. And it really. And I can tell you I'll close on this thought it really worked. Putting that much focused attention on my anxiety, what it is, the shape of it and what to do about it really helped.

And part of the way I know is because when my anxiety's been spiking here and there for the last couple of weeks, I can notice it's been a long time since it's shown up in the forms. It's showing up right now. And that is actually a gift. I'm a little moved by that. That is actually a gift to notice. Oh, my gosh. I used to feel this way all the time, all day, every day, all day, every day. And I did not. And I. And whatever I was doing worked. And I know what I did. I have it listed on my wall and it works.

So I'm going to those things first and already I feel better. Remarkable. But thank you, Cadre, for being so awesome. And I really, really, really look forward to talking next Tuesday. I don't know what the topic will be, but we will talk about it together and I hope you have a great week.