As we wind down 2018, I want to share with you a cathartic moment I had many, many years back.

It was a moment that fundamentally changed my “co-op life” and nothing has been the same ever since.

I had been working along in my management job getting unhappier and unhappier.

There were so many challenging employees and dysfunctionalities that it made my job almost intolerable.

I was reaching my wit’s end. Moaning, groaning, complaining, blaming.

The stress, the complicated interactions, the sheer insanity of it all was more than I could take.

I really felt I couldn’t go on and I wanted out.

I just couldn’t take seeing the co-op that I loved so much being held hostage to a challenging group of employees.

Then my cathartic moment happened, it was fierce…bam!

I’ll be darned if I’m going to let this difficult and toxic situation continue!

If anyone’s leaving it’s going to be those who are hurting the co-op – taking rather than giving.

This co-op is too valuable to the staff who want to contribute, to the community, to me and many others.

I am not going anywhere – I’m staying, and things are going to change.

I may not have the skills and capacity, today but I am going to develop them.

This began my process of starts, stops, missteps, wrong-steps, strong steps, but for me never a side step.

I guess from that moment on I was on a mission….how do I turn around and manage when things are in a mess like this…. how do we make it better – for real.

So, I’m still learning and still here. Lots of things have gotten better, and my insides feel better too.

So, I guess the moral of my story is:

If I can do it, you can do it.

I have no more innate talent than anyone else.

I have made lots of mistakes along my development path and have just kept walking – learning as I go.

That’s my encouragement to you.

Keep walking. If it looks dark…. OK, dark happens…just keep walking and developing.

Don’t surrender to it.

We walk, grow and learn together.

Together, darkness doesn’t have a chance.