Energy Work
I wanted to elaborate on something.
One of my very first memories in the beginning of my career path was at a company called 26Red Sugar. It was a women's action sports lifestyle brand in the late 90's. I was the Los Angeles sales rep's assistant, which also meant I was her slave, doing everything from cold calling to ordering lunch, picking up dry cleaning, and any menial task needed.
I was in the office doing some photo copying and gathering some line guides. I was a young 19 year old kid, and despite some of the 19 year old girls I see now (AHEM LADIES), I was always very happy and always made sure to say "Hello" to everyone in the office.
The VP of Production had come into the room, looking extremely stressed; I looked over and said "Hey, how are you?" She looked at me and said, "Erin, don't EVER lose your good attitude - no matter what."
It was a simple statement. Honestly, so small of a thing that I easily could have forgotten about it. But it left an impression. Partly because it was so genuine and partly because I didn't fully grasp exactly what she meant.
Flash forward almost 20 years (sobering thought) in my current role as Vice President of Global Sales for my last company, which to date was the most challenging role I have had so far. The challenge actually laid outside of my "spoken role" - it was a company challenge of personalities - a mix of burnt out, over worked and over stressed colleagues with inefficient processes mixed with new talent eager to flip the script and explode growth. I am proud to say that I was part of the new talent and built a sales team that was ready to change the game, growing sales and brand exposure in the midst of the internal challenges we faced.
However, as inspired and excited as we were, the negative and apathetic energy from the other departments invariably infiltrated my team. It was like ink in water - slowly but consistently, it started changing the color. I could see my team deflate, become over worked and over stressed themselves as they tried to take on problems and challenges from other departments, since the people in those departments really just stopped caring about giving correct answers...if they gave any at all. I myself, found my work tripling just from the sheer amount of follow up I was doing from an inter department level.
There are things you cannot change. I am not a superhuman. I cannot change minds, make people fall into or out of love, and I cannot control time. And I most certainly cannot make someone who hates their job decide to give one shit about it...or my team...or me.
But I could change my energy. I could make sure that every morning, I said "hello" to everyone in the office, crack jokes, and pick up on conversations from the previous day/week. Instead of blasting an email, I could tactfully go talk to that person and work with them on figuring out the solution and moving on to another project. I could make sure my team knew I supported them 10000%, all the time, every time. I could ensure that I was finding every silver lining, that from all the bad, I was seeing the good we were doing, and that I could positively sort out and improve on the challenges. I could never lose my good attitude.
It didn't solve all the problems. It wasn't pixie dust. But it did slow down the ink spill from a steady stream to a slow drip. My energy began infecting other people, it changed the feel of the office, it made people laugh. It made work (at least for that moment) a fun place to be.
Energy - whether positive or negative, draining or inspiring, is one of the most powerful things on this planet. To take for granted or ignore this inter-connected force is a dire mistake.
It was during this time that I started to write Workquette. And it's where the name came from. I wanted to mix work with workout (I am a HUGE believer that health and wellness is a foundation no one should ignore) and coquette - a definition to deal with something playfully rather than sincerely.
The idea to flirt with work is to always remember the upside. Stress and negative energy - they are real. There is no getting around them in life total. And stress in work is not just limited to C-Suite and Executive leaders - you can't tell me that a Starbucks barista working at 7:30am on a Monday morning in Manhattan when the electricity goes off and there is a line out the door is not going to feel an intense amount of stress (along with panic and remembering their back exits in case of a mob).
But in those moments, to remember to flirt and lift the energy - I promise you, the tension will ease. It doesn't solve the problem - you still need your brain and your problem solving intellect for that - but it will create an environment within and around you where the air will be nicer to breathe, the lights will be softer, and your colleagues will be grateful, even if they don't know why.
It's not something I can explain fully in one article - not sure I know it 100% enough to ever explain it fully. But I am planning on exploring it here. Because I have seen it and I know its power.
