The Post Labor Day Sprint
Written by Derek Mulhern, PCC
As leaders, we know how to gear up. Labor Day passes, and something almost automatic kicks in. The list gets longer, the pace picks up, and the finish line starts to feel like the only thing that matters.
What we don't always catch is the moment the goal stops being something we're chasing and starts being something sitting on our chest.
That distinction showed up clearly for me in a coaching conversation last fall. A client of mine was running a year-end campaign with real stakes, and somewhere along the way the number became a verdict. On him. On his leadership. On his worth.
That's what this one is about.
Happy reading!
Two Things Are True About This Tuesday
Two things are true about the Tuesday after Labor Day.
First, according to Serial Mom (one of my favorite movies), you should not wear white after Labor Day.
Second, and more to the point, we pick up the pace and start sprinting to the end of the year.
Finalizing new policies and processes.
Fundraising, fundraising, fundraising.
New programs neatly organized and ready to be launched.
When the Campaign Starts Running You
Last fall, I had a client running a year-end fundraising campaign.
One with significant goals and real stakes.
The kind of campaign that impacts an organization's whole year.
He wanted it to go well, and that's fair.
At some point, the campaign stopped being something he was doing and started being something running his life.
For four months, it sat on his chest.
Every conversation and every gift that came in slower than he'd hoped got run through one question:
Am I failing at my job?
It cost him sleep.
Worse, it cost him altitude.
The ability to see the rest of his leadership, the rest of himself, the rest of his life outside that one number.
Stepping Back Into Himself
Eventually, it became too much. Something had to change.
Through our work, he stepped back into his own sense of who he is as a leader.
Separate from the campaign's outcome.
Separate from all of the circumstances.
He realized he could do everything right and still land $10,000 short, or $45,000, or $85,000, for reasons entirely outside his control.
None of that would make him bad at his job.
None of it would make him a bad leader.
The Number Was Never the Verdict
He ended up raising well above the goal.
But that's almost beside the point.
The goal was never actually a referendum on him to begin with.
The campaign was real.
The verdict he'd attached to it wasn't.
What This Season Can Cost You If You're Not Careful
That's the trap this time of year.
Budgets, board reports, and year-end goals.
They matter.
But they are also not measuring what we think they're measuring.
