After a full day of chronicling my “dry spell” thoughts in journal form, while simultaneously reframing those thoughts as Substack Notes, at the same time I’m writing commentary about the process of thinking and writing this as a means of processing the dry spell itsself? Yeah, that’s about how my brain works normally.

So walking back over the previous four big Notes, let’s see: silence, drift, networks, work, identity, community, utility, exhaustion, value, reinvention, self-worth, drive, motivation, desire, intentionality, purpose, the weight of expectations, the light of opportunity…. Geebus, I think I finally reached the end of my journal chapter and thoughts. Honestly, this Part #5/5 took the most out of me. Not because it’s the loudest or longest. Just because it is what it is.

Throw in some peach cobbler or peach melba, vanilla bean quark, and a shot of bourbon on the side. That would make this day complete. 🧠 🍑 🍨🥃

_____

I say this with optimism and confidence. The work and referrals I’ve been receiving recently are coming from real-world serendipity more and more compared to my familiar online spaces. And it’s increasingly less from past clients who recommend me, and more about people who discover what I write, who I’ve trained or taught, or just a chance encounter.

I rarely use anything beyond LinkedIn, and am still trying to escape Facebook. In the past year, any feelers I’ve put out have largely been met with silence. I don't take it as an insult. I accept it as a given among people who are transitioning on to next things. As I myself do.

Surprisingly, I’m starting to gain some traction in my business development because of Substack. Beyond the subscriptions and donations, I’m sensing a real space for nonprofit consultants of all stripes and social impact consulting of all persuasions to do more than we can here, than on other current platforms. And to engage as much or as little as we choose, without FOMO FOGO FOPO FOMU etc.

I can say purely anecdotally the clients I think I’m aiming for now are reading, if not active in the space as participants to some degree.

_____

The usual nonprofit spaces and NGO circles have been in a continuous period of redefinition, redrawing of identities, and revaluation. Political winds, economic forces, social dynamics, and cultural attitudes are all part of that mix of course. But I suspect there’s also many other real transitions happening. 

More organizations are suspending if not closing their operations. Mergers and collaborative consolidations are happening. Funders are shifting their priorities and working methods. And the professional workforce that I would have found in any given nonprofit or NGO even two years ago are moving on. Many are leaving the sector altogether. Many are shifting to fractional or part-time roles instead of full-time work. Many are shifting their efforts to direct action, activism, and service instead of advocacy, policy, or research. Some people are rediscovering lives to be lived away from work altogether. 

You can’t begrudge change and the disruptions that accompany it when it allows a reckoning and reshaping that’s been long overdue.

_____

With a lot of time on my hands for perspective, I finally admitted to myself recently that I’veI resisted change for too long.I’m not immune to ego, male pride, the lure of regenerative youthfulness, and a desire for legacy building. I always figured I was, but I’m not. And I’m grateful for the reminder that I’m human.  And I’m not uncertain that my present dry spell is a consequence (or manifestation) of those forces.

I need to remind myself that I’ve done more during my wild, rambling, shambolic madcap social impact journey over the past blankety-blank decades than my parents, grandparents, and ancestors were ever able or permitted to.

I was gifted the time, space, and horizons to try and fail and learn and relearn with a level of support that many of my peers and friends never were.

And yet, I still always view my successes as modest, my failures as humongous, and my lessons learned (if any) incidental coincidences. I’m told repeatedly I need to check myself more frequently. And this year, I finally did.

_____

A lot of hard knocks and pounding realities decked me cold during the past two years. I learned that I honestly have nothing left on my professional wish list. In large part because I never had an actual career path with goals. That’s just not me and likely never will be.

I accept that too much of my time has been spent on trying to keep up with a pack, in a game I already helped to shape when I was in a similar pack decades ago. It’s time to stop the chase on a playing field I truly don’t enjoy or want to be.

Valuing freedom and distance comes at the cost of stability and certainty.  The danger of always being able to roam and float among clients at a certain level means you will keep your options too loose and too open. Nothing will ever satisfy you or suffice your curiosity and drive to do more. It makes you less inclined to stay rooted, grow a solid base of activity and supporters, and know what it is you’re actually accomplishing. Not achieving, but actually doing with the all that you’ve been given and all that you give.

Rambling and roaming too much can also lead you to losing your sense place— and the ability to gauge whether you’re in the right space at all. Staying too long where you’re essentially doing little of nothing that feeds your spark, your talents, your energies, your anything… that’s there’s a danger of becoming irrelevant and frustrated in those spaces.

I’d rather not enter my next stage on such terms.

_____

Earlier this year, I made a slow, quiet, philosophical shift away from work that's quick and easy but less sustainable and less satisfying. I'm putting myself out there to do larger-scale and longer-term work as I used to do, but on much different terms. And with a greater awareness of what I bring to any table and what it’s worth now.

It took me a lot of stepping back to accept coaching, mentoring, training, therapeutic pokes  to realize I've been deliberately cutting myself off from the clients I really enjoy and who actually need the services I offer. 

And the more I’ve actually put myself— my full real genuine unhinged intense authentic self— out there in everything I do, the more I find interest at the level I want and need. 

_____

I’ve stopped answering the question ”what do I do”. The slow drift away from what I say I do, with granular specificity, into something more fluid and flexible but on a larger scale has been building for a while. It's not new. 

Instead I try to think of each potential or prospective client connection as a chance to drop pretences, and just say aloud here’s where there's interest on both sides, curiosity, and questions. It makes the meeting much shorter, less convoluted, and frankly more interesting.

It takes  fewer meetings now to know if a client and I are going to  have good chemistry and achieve good outcomes, because they’re doing most of the talking and I’m doing most of this listening. Even before we’re meeting or scoping, I’ve worked hard to clear their pain points and my solutions as one option. If there’s another they wish to pursue, it genuinely does not gut me. 

People who are actually engaged, actually reading, actually thinking about things at a level that produces a different kind of professional conversation entirely? That forces a rethink and a reset on how you present yourself and where. And at times we’re already overloaded and overwhelmed, simply saying “If you need this, here’s what I can do” is more than enough and even refreshing in its directness. 

Instead of quotas and targets, I’m shifting into a different quality of work coming through the door at a different rate and volume. I don’t want so many clients or too much complexity. I’m being picky about whom I place myself in frog of, and what I accept for consideration. Age, experience, perspective and distance grant me that courtesy. 

_____

My most recent prolonged spring dry spell forced upon me to stop and pause. The silence and absence during this dry spell created enough space for me to finally accept clarity and focus. And to truly embrace it.

The dry spell didn't cause my pivot in progress now. It was just pointing at it and lighting the way the whole time.

#SpringDrySpell 5/5