Our theme is Wildly Original

Who are you?
What makes your heart sing?
What, even when it’s difficult, is worth standing out for?

Being Wildly Original is hard, every aspect of being Wild is hard, they all take courage in different ways. Personally, I think that being Wildly Original takes the most courage. Many of us have been taught from a young age to fit in a certain box, don’t rock the boat. Don’t make too much noise at work or you will not succeed. It takes courage to stand out, stand up, or do something differently.

Wildly Original is different for every person, it’s about having the courage to stay true to who you are, even if it’s uncomfortable. There are many ways that each of us can lean into our Wildly Original selves in our work and our personal lives. Today I am thinking about a specific time that I was Wildly Original in the workplace. This form of “Wildly Original Allison” comes in the shape of caring deeply about people, even when it’s inconvenient, and often when it gets in the way of business as usual.

I used to work in the office of an apartment building. There were many times where my caring deeply for residents as people, not apartment numbers, took great courage. I went out of my way to get to know every resident who wanted to talk to me. There were many folks who came to talk to me every day. Sometimes I would have to stay at work an hour late to catch up on tasks that were set aside when residents needed to chat. This paid off in so many ways.

One example is when I knew that for someone in recovery our usual fix of “Sorry about that issue in your apartment, here’s a gift card to the local bar!” was not a great idea. It took courage to fight for a different solution. In the end it was worth it to help the person the way they needed, not the way that we had always done it. In this case it was as easy as a pack of Mountain Dew! I know it’s surprising because it seems so simple, but there were practices that we had to look at in order to make that happen. In fact one of my co-workers was quite angry with me for a awhile afterwards. Funny, right? So much upset can come from a small change. No wonder we struggle with the courage to make those changes!

Because I did the job in my own Wildly Original way, I was able to provide a better level of service than if I had not taken the time to get to know the people living there. And I got to do my job in a way that was authentic to me.

So, Wild Ones…

Who are you?
What makes your heart sing?
What, even when it’s difficult, is worth standing out for?
We’d love to hear your thoughts or stories of your Wildly Original adventures big and small.
Send us an email or share on facebook.