Adjusting to Change
One of my favorite things to do on a Sunday is take myself out for brunch at a local bar. It falls second to taking my dog for his Sunday walk on the greenbelt. We love our Sunday mornings and have been holding this “tradition” since I started my undergrad program back in 2015. So, 10 years now! I started this because I needed an outlet from my full time job and full time school and Sunday walks followed by Sunday brunches sounded like the perfect solution to giving myself time to decompress and do something just for me.
Over the last few years that tradition has fallen by the wayside. I still take Mr. Frodo for his Sunday walk on the greenbelt, but I don’t often take myself to brunch. There’s always so much to do. But this morning, I brought my “so much to do” with me. I’m enjoying brunch and doing something for my business - blogging.
It’s Super Bowl Sunday and there are few people here this “early” in the morning. It’s before 11am as I write this and for a Sunday, that’s early. For Super Bowl Sunday, that’s super early. There’s a guy at the bar who sounds like he’s here to start his Super Bowl now - PBR and a shot. Go for it, dude! There’s a woman here with her young daughter, celebrating her 10th birthday. Yes, this is a sports bar, but it is also a restaurant, so it’s not that inappropriate. There’s a guy here who lost his phone last night and is wondering if he lost it here. They still haven’t found it. And then there’s me. About to start blogging about a super heavy topic, before I leave the bar and the Super Bowl revelers arrive. Country music playing on the loud speaker.
DEI - Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. I’ve spent the majority of my last several years studying DEI and how important it is to our lives, our community, and us as a people. I’ve created DEI content for clients and proudly hang a photo of a pride flag in my studio alerting anyone who steps foot into my space that we are a safe and inclusive space for all. I received my Human Rights Certification from the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights in 2020, which helped lead the way to my own personal and professional DEI efforts.
As I consider our political landscape, I do wonder if I should change my mission, vision, and values statements. Should I change who I am as a person? As a business? As someone who intrinsically believes in diversity, equity, and inclusion?
One of my clients contacted me this past week. Three different people from the same company whom I’ve created content for in the last couple of years. “Steph, we need to update our videos.”
I don’t need to explain to you why. We all know. They are an exceptional company who believes in and fully supports diversity, equity, and inclusion, and yet they need to update their wording for reasons that are not mine to share. Honestly, I was waiting for them to contact me. I knew it was only a matter of time.
I keep all client projects for moments such as these. From stupid unnecessary political changes to necessary internal changes that occur no matter where you work. Projects are stored both on a hard drive and on a cloud server in the event that my hard drive kicks the bucket or my cloud account gets hacked. And if both happen, I’ve got one more hard drive for us. And if something preternatural occurs to that hard drive, then it’s time to find a new storage system.
These are all processes for change within my landscape of video creation. But the change that is being forced on us from our current administration? While we may have been prepared for this - it’s called risk management - none of us actually thought it would come to pass. And now, content needs to be updated, missions, visions, and values, need to be reconsidered, and how we present ourselves personally and professionally needs to be examined. Should I even write this and publish it to my website?
As I close this blog post and put my thoughts to rest, at least for a moment, the country music over the loud speaker in this bar starts reentering my consciousness. The woman and her daughter have left, the early Super Bowl celebrator has been joined by a few other people, and I think the guy who lost his phone just decided that continuing to look for it is less important than enjoying a drink at the bar. And me? My laptop battery is about dead, I’ve enjoyed my bloody mary, and I need a refill on my water. It’s time to take my Sunday routine home as I continue to consider: should I even post these thoughts?