A conversation with a pickleball friend leads Bernadette to a memoir that reframes how she thinks about holding hard things and good things at the same time. Instead of forcing every situation into a clean, resolved story, she explores what it looks like to walk between beauty and wound without picking one. Using the ARC Method, she breaks down why leaders who can't tolerate contradiction end up either faking optimism or drowning in cynicism, and what to do instead.
A conversation with a pickleball friend leads Bernadette to a memoir that reframes how she thinks about holding hard things and good things at the same time. Instead of forcing every situation into a clean, resolved story, she explores what it looks like to walk between beauty and wound without picking one. Using the ARC Method, she breaks down why leaders who can't tolerate contradiction end up either faking optimism or drowning in cynicism, and what to do instead.
Takeaways:
Fernando's Book: The Silence of the Gods
Connect with Me This week in the newsletter, I wrote about menopause finally getting legal protection, a chaplain poised to make history in Michigan, and Baltimore reimagining what calling 911 can do.
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PREROLL
A pickleball friend wrote a memoir, and that book was a great reminder about how to hold two contradicting thoughts at once.
(Recorded intro with music plays)
OPEN
Hey folks, I'm Bernadette Smith. I'm CEO of Equality Institute and I'm your guide to playful inclusive leadership.
THE IMAGE/METAPHOR
Over the summer, in between pickleball games, I was talking with my pal, Fernando, and Fernando mentioned that he recently published a memoir, and it was full of short essays from his travels, from his life. He originally published it in Spanish and had it translated into English. Now, as an author myself, I love to cheer on and support my fellow authors and dreamers, so I bought the book, and I found myself completely engrossed, because essentially, it was a book about his own journey, about his own spiritual quest. The book, by the way, is called The Silence of the Gods.
There's a line in the book that really stopped me. In the beginning, he's writing about his trips to India, and he shares a story of looking out his hotel room. In one direction is the Bay of Bengal, and it's stunning and beautiful. And looked out the other window, and it's abject poverty. It's people struggling. It's people begging. The caste system in full effect, he could see it from his window. As he was walking throughout the city, Fernando writes about how he didn't know how to respond to the pain he saw, to the begging he saw, as he was moving through the city.
But by continuing to look, continuing to feel, and stay open to the energy, by continuing to choose not to be indifferent, that's already a response. To hold this contradiction, the beauty of the Bay of Bengal in one hand, and the poverty and the hurt and the caste in the other, to hold this contradiction, to walk between the beauty and the wound without denying either one. So that's what he wrote, the phrase to walk between beauty and the wound.
It's been on my mind because it's something that I learned for the first time when I was 19. My sister-in-law was killed in a car accident, and it was a horrible tragedy for our family. She was only 33 years old. It was Valentine's Day. It was a horrible tragedy. Not much else to say about that.
But what I witnessed that week, as I went home for the funeral and all the rest, what I witnessed that week was tremendous beauty amongst the wounds. The beauty of neighbors bringing us food, showing up, asking what we needed. The beauty of family who traveled from overseas to come to the funeral through a blizzard, the beauty of all of us coming together. So what I personally witnessed the contradiction of the beauty in the wound on that day, and it's something that I've been able to really hold in both hands ever since.
THE COLLISION/PROBLEM
I know that it's not easy. I know most of us are trained to sort of pick one. Something's either good news or it's bad news. It's either a win or it's a problem, right? I know that we're looking for the clean, crisp resolution, not the messy one where both things can be true. But that's not actually how life works, and it's definitely not how leadership works.
THE LEADERSHIP PIECE
You know, I've been in leadership for a very long time, and I've been the leader who's been asked to hold two true things at once constantly. I've celebrated a win while someone was struggling. I stood behind a decision that maybe I shouldn't have, that I had doubts about. It can be hard to be honest sometimes about difficult things without turning that into cynicism, which is something, an energy, that I absolutely try to avoid.
So leaders who can't hold that kind of contradiction usually go one or two directions. Maybe they fake the positivity, or sometimes they just wallow in the hard stuff, and neither of that is actually trustworthy to those around us.
THE TOOL
So I'm going to bring this back again to my tool, the ARC Method, Ask, Respect, Connect. That's a proprietary tool we use here at Equality Institute.
So in this scenario, or in any scenario in which things are not always easy, Ask. That's the A. Ask what's actually true. It doesn't need to be the watered down, the simplified version. Ask what's actually true. And Respect that both parts of that contradiction are real, that the beauty and the wound are not mutually exclusive. They don't cancel each other out. Respect that all things, all of those different things can be true at once. And then Connect that to the reality of what this situation needs, what this moment needs, without forcing a resolution where one side has to win over the other.
THE APPLICATION
So this week, I want you to think about any contradictions you might be holding at work or in life. Maybe something you've been trying to resolve and tidy up that doesn't quite get there. It's staying messy. And maybe instead of trying to resolve it, just let both things be true at once and see if that shifts anything for you.
THE REFLECTION
So what contradiction? This summer, I committed to be present for the beauty and the wounds. And we know that there are a lot of wounds. But also, if we keep our mind open, if we keep our eyes open, if we maintain a sense of gratitude, we can see beauty everywhere, even amidst the wounds.
Alright, let's move into this week's Good Vibes to Go.
[HORN TOOT]
GOOD VIBE TO GO (delivered live)
Explore nearly 6,000 newly digitized photographs by Richard Samuel Roberts, a Columbia, South Carolina postal worker who spent his off hours from the 1920s through the 1930s photographing his Black community. This archive was recently discovered, and it is a great look into Black lives, Black community from the 1920s and 30s. Check that out. Good vibes indeed.
Alright, and if you want some more good vibes like this every Saturday morning, that's what the 5 Things newsletter is for. This week, I've got stories about Illinois putting menopause on the record, blindfolded grad students navigating a busy airport, and more. You can subscribe at 5ThingsDEI.com.
CLOSE
Alright, folks, that's it. I'm Bernadette Smith. I'm cheering you on. Have a great week.