The Importance of a Positive Community
At the time of writing this, I am 38.5 years old having been born in March of 1986. My birth was at the tail end of the 1985 economic downturn followed by the boom of the 1980's, the spread of the internet at home which would lead to the dot com boom and bust. I heard about the attacks on New York City and the Pentagon between band class and English class as a sophomore and would watch the early images of "Operation Shock and Awe" with a teacher during study hall shortly before my older brother was sent on the first of his two separate years at war.
I was sitting in the faculty lounge eating lunch watching as the 2008 "Great Recession" began to unfold in real time and I graduated at a time when it was predicted that there would be a massive wave of retirements that never ended up happening and I had to wait years for a tenure track position in teaching. I lived through New Jerseys "once a century" storm in Hurricane Sandy. There have been so many "Where were you when..." moments in my life, but one of the most significant is the perfect example of the importance of having a positive community around you when life is difficult.
In April of 2019 I was elected as president of my local teachers' union- I was ecstatic to be able to get in to that position and try to make a positive difference for an organization that didn't necessarily have a lot of feel positive about. My main goal for my three year term was to give people a reason to believe that the union would be there for them when if and when they needed it.
Fast forward to March 9, 2020. I was in a morning meeting about what to do if this new virus were to show up at RBR. I was with administrators from the district, the maintenance staff, as well as representatives from the custodial staff and it was a very lighthearted meeting filled with jokes along with a variety of "What if" solutions. Later that afternoon, a student-athlete of mine asked me in the hallway if I heard about the student that had Covid. I told her it was impossible, I was just in a meeting about the virus earlier that day and there was no indication that was accurate. Not ten minutes later all after school activities were cancelled and an emergency faculty meeting was called! My athlete was 100% correct- SnapChat didn't lie!
Everyone has a story about what Covid did and how it changed things, this just happens to be mine.
May in my school community were hurt financially by Covid, and thanks to a little inspiration from Navy SEAL David Goggins, I found a way to help raise nearly $20,000 for the families of some of our students who were in need. The picture above was taken from a gathering of people that were there to support me for what was my last run for about a week after running 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours (due to a mistake in planning, I actually went for 52 hours instead of just 48!).
Waking over night for my next run was exhausting and there were definitely times when I wanted nothing more than to sleep through the alarm and rest up- who would know if I skipped one? It would just be me knowing that I skipped the 4:00AM run, no one could blame me, right?
The thing that got me up and out of bed for each of those runs in the middle of the night and height of the May heat was the group of people you see in that picture who were all positive warriors that weekend. And for weeks afterwards! During one of the most confusing times in public health, there was a constant flow of people coming to cheer me on while I ran, text messages from coworkers and family members, phone calls to keep me occupied while I was running, and my social media accounts had never been so flooded with positive messages. Four years later I still get an occasional message from a stranger following the hashtags I used. And I am still living off some of that positivity too!
It was the most challenging time of my life, and I assure you all that I didn't maintain the same positive 'glow' I had going for me during the 4x4x48 challenge, but the tough times that we al went through brought me to reading "You Win In The Locker Room First" by Mike Smith and Jon Gordon, and led me to read all 20+ books written by Jon Gordon and to becoming what Jon refers to as a Positive Warrior. It is obvious to me now that positivity truly is one of, if not THE, biggest competitive advantage available to us all! Having positive people there to hold me accountable for my own positivity has been one of the biggest game changers for me and I simply can't stress the benefits of positivity for you, your team/organization, and your families.