Play & Book Excerpts
From Stuck to Unstoppable
(Amplify Publishing)
© Trish Hunt
The Power of the Pause
Flying back to Phoenix to tell my children that they would now have to grow up in a world without their father was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. But here’s the thing: I did it. I did it because I had to. I did it because, just as I’d mentioned earlier, not doing it was simply not an option. I was now a grieving new widow—but on a far more visceral, far more practical, even a far more primitive level, I was also, suddenly, the fiercely protective mother of my two small (and now fatherless) children who needed me to be fully present for them.
Of course, I was dealing with the shock, the grief, and the sharp pain of losing my beloved, but still, in the back of my mind, the more practical decisions I knew I was going to have to make very, very soon were already forming into actionable strategies. By that, I mean this: as bad as the situation was, I knew I had to take immediate steps to deal with it for the sake of my two innocent children.
I had a choice to make—the biggest choice of my life: I could choose to let this tragedy define my life and my children’s lives, where we would live our years in anger, pain, and regret… or I could push through the pain to stand strong for my children, to survive for my own sake, and to work towards the goal of not just surviving, but thriving again, one day.
Still, the questions swirled: Was I going to crumble? How would I put bread on the table? How would I find the strength to walk into my office on the first day of my new job? When would this pain end? Would I be able to protect, provide for, and nurture my two children in the way that they needed and deserved?
I already knew the answer to that last question, about protecting and providing for my kids, before I even asked it. The answer was that I must protect them. My love for my children and my instinctive desire to protect and provide for them was deeper even than my grief. But how would I make it from one moment to the next without the one other person in the world with the same vested interest in them as me?
Looking back on it now, I realize that I already knew the answers to all of these questions, even as I was asking them. I knew that I had to push forward, to move past stuck, to propel past my pain… but I still had to allow myself the luxury of sitting in my brokenness for a moment. I still had to allow myself the sensation of knowing what it feels like and what it looks like to stand still, for a minute, in the midst of my grief.
This is important for all of us. It is perfectly acceptable to take a momentary “pause” in the midst of your crisis—just be sure the pause that you take is just that: momentary.
In our rush towards success, towards continued ascension in the corporate ranks, or to whatever victory we hope to achieve next in our professional or personal lives, we should always try to remember the power that is held within that all-important pause. That pause is what often gives us the perspective we need to plot our next steps and push through our crisis with renewed strength.
For those first several weeks after my husband’s death, in those heavy, grief-filled days after we said goodbye to him forever and I flew back to Phoenix, I took that pause. I put my kids in daycare, which helped establish a sense of normalcy and routine in their own little lives. I called my boss and told him I’d need a little while longer before I started my new position. I turned inward. I isolated. I reflected. I stood in the center of what it felt like to be bent and heartbroken. I spent quiet, contemplative time with myself. I journaled. I hiked. I prayed. I prayed some more—and, yes, I paused. And eventually, it was within the quiet places of those pauses where I gradually found the strength I needed to keep pushing forward.
The lesson here is that we must take time to understand and absorb what it feels like to be stuck before we can take definitive steps towards becoming unstuck. Even as leaders, we are not automatons. We are not perfectly designed. No. We are flawed, we are human, and we must remind ourselves (and remind each other, as well as our team members and employees) that it is important to take time to contemplate, to reflect, and even to stand in the stillness of being stuck, at least momentarily.
We all have moments and days when we feel anxious. Overloaded. Isolated. On edge. Set apart. Afraid. Let’s learn to honor those feelings—they are real, after all!—without letting them paralyze us. Let’s also take the time to figure out where these feelings are coming from, to discover their root source. This requires a purposeful pause. But after we take that pause, we move forward. That is what this book is all about: moving forward to become the architects, the artists, and the sculptors of our own masterpieces, of our own outcomes. The choice is totally and completely up to us.
You get to choose to be positive instead of negative, to go left instead of right, to become the victor instead of the victim, to move from a place of fear to a place of faith. That choice is always yours.
Forgive the repetition, but I am moved to write these words again, simply because they are so important:
The choice is always yours.
Flying back to Phoenix to tell my children that they would now have to grow up in a world without their father was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. But here’s the thing: I did it. I did it because I had to. I did it because, just as I’d mentioned earlier, not doing it was simply not an option. I was now a grieving new widow—but on a far more visceral, far more practical, even a far more primitive level, I was also, suddenly, the fiercely protective mother of my two small (and now fatherless) children who needed me to be fully present for them.
Of course, I was dealing with the shock, the grief, and the sharp pain of losing my beloved, but still, in the back of my mind, the more practical decisions I knew I was going to have to make very, very soon were already forming into actionable strategies. By that, I mean this: as bad as the situation was, I knew I had to take immediate steps to deal with it for the sake of my two innocent children.
I had a choice to make—the biggest choice of my life: I could choose to let this tragedy define my life and my children’s lives, where we would live our years in anger, pain, and regret… or I could push through the pain to stand strong for my children, to survive for my own sake, and to work towards the goal of not just surviving, but thriving again, one day.
Still, the questions swirled: Was I going to crumble? How would I put bread on the table? How would I find the strength to walk into my office on the first day of my new job? When would this pain end? Would I be able to protect, provide for, and nurture my two children in the way that they needed and deserved?
I already knew the answer to that last question, about protecting and providing for my kids, before I even asked it. The answer was that I must protect them. My love for my children and my instinctive desire to protect and provide for them was deeper even than my grief. But how would I make it from one moment to the next without the one other person in the world with the same vested interest in them as me?
Looking back on it now, I realize that I already knew the answers to all of these questions, even as I was asking them. I knew that I had to push forward, to move past stuck, to propel past my pain… but I still had to allow myself the luxury of sitting in my brokenness for a moment. I still had to allow myself the sensation of knowing what it feels like and what it looks like to stand still, for a minute, in the midst of my grief.
This is important for all of us. It is perfectly acceptable to take a momentary “pause” in the midst of your crisis—just be sure the pause that you take is just that: momentary.
In our rush towards success, towards continued ascension in the corporate ranks, or to whatever victory we hope to achieve next in our professional or personal lives, we should always try to remember the power that is held within that all-important pause. That pause is what often gives us the perspective we need to plot our next steps and push through our crisis with renewed strength.
For those first several weeks after my husband’s death, in those heavy, grief-filled days after we said goodbye to him forever and I flew back to Phoenix, I took that pause. I put my kids in daycare, which helped establish a sense of normalcy and routine in their own little lives. I called my boss and told him I’d need a little while longer before I started my new position. I turned inward. I isolated. I reflected. I stood in the center of what it felt like to be bent and heartbroken. I spent quiet, contemplative time with myself. I journaled. I hiked. I prayed. I prayed some more—and, yes, I paused. And eventually, it was within the quiet places of those pauses where I gradually found the strength I needed to keep pushing forward.
The lesson here is that we must take time to understand and absorb what it feels like to be stuck before we can take definitive steps towards becoming unstuck. Even as leaders, we are not automatons. We are not perfectly designed. No. We are flawed, we are human, and we must remind ourselves (and remind each other, as well as our team members and employees) that it is important to take time to contemplate, to reflect, and even to stand in the stillness of being stuck, at least momentarily.
We all have moments and days when we feel anxious. Overloaded. Isolated. On edge. Set apart. Afraid. Let’s learn to honor those feelings—they are real, after all!—without letting them paralyze us. Let’s also take the time to figure out where these feelings are coming from, to discover their root source. This requires a purposeful pause. But after we take that pause, we move forward. That is what this book is all about: moving forward to become the architects, the artists, and the sculptors of our own masterpieces, of our own outcomes. The choice is totally and completely up to us.
You get to choose to be positive instead of negative, to go left instead of right, to become the victor instead of the victim, to move from a place of fear to a place of faith. That choice is always yours.
Forgive the repetition, but I am moved to write these words again, simply because they are so important:
The choice is always yours.
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Trish Hunt is the president of a division of an S&P 500 drug and consumer health global manufacturing company. She is also the producer and host of the national television and radio show The Hunt with Trish Hunt.
With more than 30 years of progressive operational and leadership experience at both Fortune 500 and startup-stage companies in a range of industries, she has dedicated her life to helping individuals, teams, and organizations break out of ruts and achieve unstoppable momentum toward their goals. She holds a master’s degree in organizational change and leadership and a bachelor’s in hospitality management. She recently added empty nester to her resume, with two kids successfully launched into the real world while the youngest continues to joyfully make his way through college. |
Photo Courtesy: Trish Hunt
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