Note from Jo: Oblivious, for better or worse

You are so oblivious sometimes.

Recently someone very close to me texted me that. Texting is the best and the worst for a million reasons. In this situation, it proved to be the worst. I read the message and felt defeated.

I re-read the text and started to feel defensive. I thought, "am I oblivious?" "Is she insulting me?" "How dare she say that!" I did not respond. I sat on it and felt the feelings and then I did what every other 42 year old woman with two sisters would do. I texted my sisters, my therapists, my rocks.

Me: "Do you think I am oblivious and if someone called me that do you think that I should be offended?"

Sister 1: "Maybe it's a good thing?".

Sister 2: "Agreed".

Text over. Eff yeah I thought! Maybe that is a good thing! So I went on with my day and did what every other person working from home in a pandemic does. I poured my cocktail and started talking my partner's ear off while prepping dinner. He agreed that it was a good thing and let me run through conversations with him.

The words did not leave me though. Over the next few days I started to play things out in my head. What else am I oblivious to and why? If you know anything about me, you know I like to be involved as much as I can, but like to stay away from the drama. If you tell me something and it does not serve me, I try not to feed it into. Not my monkeys, not my circus. I like gossip and people watching like the rest of them, but I am a busy working momma who knows to move on from sticky situations and to do so quickly. As I have learned to do that, maybe it has forced me to become a little oblivious and maybe that IS a good thing

So, what have I done about this and what do I plan to do? Since that text I started opening my eyes more to all the people and situations around me, professionally and personally. I try to see the good, while weeding out the BS. I try to not feed into the negative vibes and to learn when I should be paying attention. It's a work in progress, like everything else.

I ask you to stop and take a minute to reflect. What have you been oblivious to over the last few months? Has a special person in your life stopped reaching out or has someone in your life been acting differently? Have your margins dropped, so you haven't been dealing with that  reality? Has your favorite client stopped asking you for help on projects? Have you stopped making time for the things that bring you joy, stuck with the day-to-day? Shake it up a bit! Stay oblivious to the things that do not serve you and open your eyes to what you have not been paying attention to. Maybe it's time to start attending all those educational webinars you keep adding to your calendar and then skipping. Maybe it's time to listen to a podcast and take notes AND follow through with them. Maybe it's time to create your own webinar or your own podcast. I can't help you decide what you need and want to do, but I can help share some great industry resources to get you there. Stay curious my friends, and try not to read too much into your last text.