Lisa Endersby – Canadian Student Affairs professional working to topple pedestals and create paths for student success.

Thanks to Dana McNulty for giving me a subtle push to write this post. 

(Only) two weeks ago, I had the honour of attending the wedding of Joe Ginese and Robyn Kaplan in New Jersey. I still occasionally pause and reflect on how a conversation, built 140 characters at a time, has turned into a friendship that saw me attending one of the most important days of Joe’s life. Putting aside (for now) any jokes about the Student Affairs professional ensuring their event was appropriately diverse (I think I was the lone Canadian in attendance), the journey from follower to friend is an interesting commentary on using the power of social media for good.

When asked about why I use Twitter, my response is consistent. I always refer to the people behind the information – the articles, the pictures, the announcements and the blog posts. Like most news sites and feeds, Twitter offers a drink through the information firehose. Ideas and resources are available 24/7/365 for us to read, ignore, dive into and make our own.

The first time I logged onto Twitter, I was absolutely intimidated. There was so much to see and so little time! I was also unsure of how to start a conversation. Someone would post an interesting article and I wanted to tell them so. Someone else had a hilarious and/or intriguing bio, and I wanted to get to know them. Do you just tweet ‘hello’ or ‘great bio’ or ‘thanks for sharing that article’? How exactly could I start a conversation in 140 characters or less? I can barely answer a question in that many words.

Funny enough (though not entirely surprising now), it really was all that simple. While there are a few privacy options available, the majority of people on Twitter want to see and be seen. They are looking to connect and will readily respond to an invitation to do so. With someone like Joe, I quickly realized that one tweet was all it took. The poor guy never knew what he was in for …

While I began to have many conversations on Twitter, I realize now that I was making far fewer connections. Conversation topics and partners covered a broad range, allowing me to pick and choose areas of interest as my own preferences and needs changed over time. Twitter was a fantastic way to collect and curate information for a certain task, at a certain time and for a particular purpose. These conversations were challenging, enlightening and inspiring.

Connections, however, were much more rare. Connections for me meant not only keeping a conversation going but expanding the scope of a single conversation beyond a solitary topic. Connection was about depth, not breadth. It meant taking advantage of other technologies (Skype, Google Chat and Hangouts, email) to learn more than the 140 character glimpses into each complex person.

Connections were rare because they had to be. They require work; an investment of considerable energy in being authentic and a bit vulnerable. Joe, and others I have grown close to over time, no longer saw my censored, condensed 140 character reactions. Never one to entirely separate my public persona from my private thoughts, I still needed a brave space to share more of myself. I found that in these followers turned friends – building trust over time.

I will continue to promote Twitter usage for professional development, perhaps a bit biased from the awesome opportunities I’ve been able to access through the conversations initiated there. What I don’t often reflect on, yet am eternally grateful for, are the personal connections that have pushed beyond any professional growth to a set of truly life changing relationships. From a single tweet to a wedding ceremony, it is awesome what can happen, who you can meet and who you can become 140 characters at a time.

I’ve walked around the outside edge of the CN Tower (twice), I’ve ziplined, hang glided, given a TEDx talk, asked for what I needed, said no, said yes, and jumped out of a plane.

You’d think by now I’d be used to risk, change and new beginnings. I don’t think it ever gets easier, but I truly believe we all get better for the experience(s).

I’m nervous, thrilled, overwhelmed, honoured and so very excited to share that as of June 10, 2013 I will be taking on a new role as Manager, Student and Campus Life at Seneca College. This role is an amazing opportunity to build on the successes I’ve enjoyed over the past two and a half years, while also offering brand new challenges that will push and stretch me in ways that frighten yet exhilarate me all at once.

In taking the time to sit with and sit in this change, I remembered a post I wrote over a year ago when I made the transition from career services to student development at UOIT. In that post I shared lessons learned from “jumping in the deep end and learning how to swim.” In reviewing these lessons now, with the benefit of another year of hindsight and the anticipation of a new path to follow, I wanted to share what is perhaps an updated set of insights into what it means to not only leap, jump or dive into change, but to dance your way right through it.

1. It’s still not okay to avoid change, but now it’s even more okay to be scared of it. 

At the start of this journey, and all the way through it until sitting down to write this post, I was scared. Terrified. Very afraid. Petrified of everything and anything. But, you know what? That’s okay. Change is scary. It’s ripping the familiar out from under you and uprooting everything you worked so hard to plant. It’s emotional whiplash that strikes when you least expect it and when you think you’re not ready (more on that below). But what was actually the scariest part for me wasn’t the change itself, it was how I felt about it. I’ve mentioned before my own struggles with anxiety, and this was by no means an exception. Finally, after a particularly intense round of shadow boxing the fear demons, one single thought emerged as I lay KO’d on the mat:

I do not need the extra and unneeded burden of blame and shame for feeling what I feel. This is the way I feel, and this is enough. There is no ‘right’ way to feel about what’s happening because no one else can feel exactly what I feel or walk the exact same path. Who I am, where I’ve been, what I’ve done and what I’ve felt make me, and my feelings, unique. I will stop wasting energy on being mad for being mad, or sad for being sad, and instead focus my precious energy on sitting in the change, working through it, and learning from it. I am enough, this is enough, and I will be okay.

2. There is absolutely  never, ever (and I mean never) going to be a ‘good time’ to do anything. Period. 

This truly hit home for me after I said ‘yes’ to the new job. Waiting kills potential and is a thief of opportunity. You’ll never find a perfect moment or the best time because ‘perfect’ and ‘best’ are ever changing ideals we put on continuously growing pedestals. The more we keep them out of reach, the easier it is to avoid doing things that scare us. Yes, I was waiting for perfect but I kept changing the definition of what perfect was so I never had to get there. I was fooling myself and you’re doing it too. Stop. Right now. Right now is perfect. You are the best person at the best time. The world needs you to dare and try. Today.

3. “You can’t jump out of a plane until you’re at 18,000 feet.” 

My good friend James (the one who went sky diving with me), texted me this amazing piece of advice when I got nervous (again) recently.

I have been gifted with so many awesome moments and experiences over the past five months of 2013, and I have relished every single one. Each moment, however, is preceded by a series of smaller moments filled with anticipation. Will I? Won’t I? Should I? Why now? Each little question takes away just a bit more energy until there is nothing left for the moment itself. Even worse, each question robs you of the chance to experience the journey, to walk the path and to celebrate all it took to get you on that path in the first place. You’re going to have to walk the path, climb the stairs and maybe even go through hell to get there, but jumping out of that plane (or, in this case, accepting that job offer) is going to be amazing. Let’s stop getting stuck in mental purgatory and learn to love the (mental) limbo.

To paraphrase the great philosopher and scholar David Bowie again, I don’t yet know where exactly I’m going from here, but I absolutely promise it won’t be boring. Expect lots of questions, insights, bad jokes, even worse musical references from the 90s and a whole lot of awesome. I’m so excited to see what’s next, and I’m even more excited to share in it with you.

… and I didn’t say a word.

Yesterday, Tuesday April 2, was World Autism Awareness Day, and the entire month of April is Autism Awareness Month. This is perhaps the first time ever where I have so much as acknowledged it.

Why?

My brother, Sean, is 21 years old. He has a very diverse taste in music, ranging from LMFAO to Marianas Trench to Buddy Holly to Sesame Street. He eats just about anything, but only when he feels like it (which is just about all the time). He loves basketball and hates loud noises. He’ll talk your ear off if you let him (the Endersby siblings are quite alike that way), but you may never quite understand what he’s saying.

My brother Sean is autistic.

Sean: Age 20

Sean was born with a series of physical challenges. He had a club foot that required a cast and special shoes for the first few years of his life. (Ask me about how cute I thought it was to get to sign his itty bitty cast when I was little). More seriously, Sean was born with a variation of Craniosynostosis, where the plates of his skull were fused together (rather than being held slightly apart in a more normal newborn’s skull), changing the way his skull could develop as he grew. Before Sean was even a month old, surgeons opened him up and worked to separate pieces of his skull, giving him a chance at a more normal development. He had a pretty rockin’ headband of staples and, as my earliest memory of my little brother reminds me, wires taped all over his tiny body.

We’ll never truly know (and it doesn’t really matter) if that operation so early in his life caused or triggered his autism. All I know now is that Sean is different, very different.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Becoming “fluent in Sean” (if you ever need a star player on a Thomas the Tank Engine trivia contest, just call) has taught me frustration in the bigger moments and joy in the small victories. I’ve seen pain, sure, but I’ve also seen incredible triumph.

But I didn’t speak up yesterday when a whole day was devoted to raising awareness about my brother Sean and this community I don’t think we as a family ever wanted to be a part of.

Because I’m tired.

I’m tired, like Sean is, like my parents are, of explaining away Sean’s differences and advocating for his sameness. It’s exhausting to live in a world where you can feel like everyone knows but no one understands.

And then I thought, if I feel this way, if Sean might feel this way, what about all our students who carry that same burden? Autistic or otherwise, every student we see and every colleague we wish a good morning to has packed their backpack, briefcase or purse not just with pens and wallets but with burdens and demons we may never see. We may see strange behaviours, actions or words that seem ‘weird’ or ‘different’, but those are only symptoms of an often bigger battle being waged just below a smiling surface.

So I let yesterday go without a word because championing awareness of something I still struggle to understand myself didn’t sit right. But I can’t, and probably will never stay silent when it comes to reminding you that we are more than what we say, or don’t say. We are much more than what we do, or choose not to. Stop and think before you tell me my brother is ‘different’. He’s more like you than you may ever know.

Photo Credit: Imgur

Blog title taken from Frank Turner’s ‘putting Lisa’s life philosophy in verse’ song Photosynthesis.  

“Most of all, I will not grow up.”

It’s like Frank Turner was singing about me. I often make comments starting with ‘when I grow up’ and poke (gentle) fun at friends who celebrate the more traditional rites and rituals that signal the passage into adulthood (marriage, the birth of a child, getting a ‘real’ job – whatever that is).

As I continue to gladly suffer from Peter Pan Syndrome, I thought it would be important to clarify what I mean when I say I refuse to grow up.

•  I won’t be afraid to make mistakes and get messy (thank you Miss Frizzle). Children and those young at heart often shoot first and aim later, delighting in the art of discovery and remain curious, not cruel to themselves or others, when things don’t go according to plan.
• I hope to always enjoy the ride – the bumpy twists and turns of life. Children are endlessly fascinated by adventure, and while holding on tight with one hand to a parent or other guardian, they still reach out with the other to seize the day. 
• I hope to always be ridiculous. Ridiculously optimistic  Ridiculously enthusiastic about opportunities and ideas and adventures. Ridiculously supportive of everyone, whether I’ve known you for years or we’ve just met. A child is trusting but ultimately, in my mind, not naive. They are quick learners and given the chance will use their ridiculousness to inspire, motivate and energize others to step out, step back, and step into something new. 

What about you? What does it mean to never grow up? Tell me in the comments below or tweet me your answer.

*Blog title taken from a favourite Great Big Sea album. 

Most of you know by now that February 2, 2013 was the day I gave my TEDx talk. It was the day I dared to teach, standing on a stage sharing more of myself in 18 minutes or less than perhaps I’ve done over the past twelve months.

What you may not know is that February 2, 2013 is also the day where everything changed.

The morning of my talk, I was all the colours of the emotional rainbow. Scared (okay, terrified), excited (alright, hyperactive), and nervous as heck (yes, nervous.as.all.get.out).

The memory of the talk itself is somewhat of a blur (I’ll try to make some sense of that experience in a future post). I had turned off my phone right before, doing my best to stay focused on centring myself and preparing to speak.

Once I turned on my phone after the talk, my own tiny version of hell broke loose.

I had known for the past couple of days that my Avo, my grandmother on my Mom’s side, had been sick and was in hospital under observation. What I didn’t know was that at almost exactly the same moment as I was delivering what I consider to be one of the best talks I’ve done to date, my mother was learning that my grandmother, her mother, had taken a turn for the worst … and she needed to get on a plane. To the Azores. That night.

Frantically, I started making calls, making arrangements and asking every event organizer I could find how early they thought the conference might finish. I was able to enjoy the rest of the talks from the day, some in the green room and some from the audience, with my ears tuned to some incredible new insights and ideas, and my head a million miles away – or at least 2664 miles away to where my Avo was, seemingly fighting for her life.

So, after perhaps one of the best days of my life, I spent much of my evening in the airport, helping my mom sort out her revised travel itinerary (she was originally planning on heading back home in late March) and doing my best to reassure her that everything would be okay, even though I couldn’t and wouldn’t let myself believe that to be true.

I’m still getting daily updates from my mother, and the situation back home is touch and go. I don’t know day to day when I’ll get the call that I always knew I’d get but still never want to hear. I have only now begun to disentangle the evening of February 2 from what I got to do that morning. In all the highs and lows, in the hard and the easy, what have I learned?

Life goes on. (Borrowing heavily from Robert Frost).

Life doesn’t just go on. It marches on. It sprints, spins and spirals at its own speed no matter how much we try to slow it down (or speed it up in some cases). As the world keeps turning and we keep racing between moments, life has a way of reminding you that time is precious and finite. Sometimes, life reminds you with a fleeting whisper that you can miss if you’re not paying attention. Other times, it whacks you upside the head with a single text message.

Looking back, I know that I gave that talk not just for myself, but for my Avo, for my Nanny, for my brother and for everyone and anyone in my life who has dared in their own way to teach me what it truly means to live. There is a somewhat cruel irony in giving a talk that advocates for the celebration of doing, process, and continuing while at the same time being confronted with the near end of a life. While I still argue that we overvalue the product at almost the exclusion of the wonders of process, I was presented with an opportunity, under unfortunate circumstances, to reflect on the summation of a life that has taught me more than I can currently and clearly articulate.

Saturday February 2, 2013 reminded me, yet again, that the only constant is change. More importantly, it taught me to not only embrace the change, but to use it, to be fuelled by it, to enjoy the ride but to also grab the steering wheel and pull off to the side of the road to pause and take it all in. I can’t go back to what I used to be or how things were. One major constant in my life is slipping away just as a new, post TEDx chapter, is just beginning.

On February 2,2013  everything changed. 

“Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”

“There are only two times in life. Now and too late.” – Terry Hawkins

“Slow and steady wins the race.”

“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right”. – Napoleon Hill

So which is it?

I have always seen value in planning, waiting, and waiting to plan. As a Myers-Briggs ‘J’ I make lists about lists that reference other lists. I have an electronic calendar and a moleskin. I hoard post-it notes like I’m preparing for a worldwide paper shortage.

My almost compulsive need for plans and structure, however, has been continually and thankfully challenged over the past few years, to the point where John Lennon’s keen observation that “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans” reads more like accepted fact rather than looming omen.

So what’s changed? I still have the same number of hours as everyone else, to plan for, structure, and fill as I see fit. I have the same, if not more, demands on my time that make prioritizing and planning an Olympic sport (task juggling in 2020? I’m thinking yes).

What’s changed is not time itself, but my relationship with it. 

The quotes and adages I opened this post with imply that our relationship time is linear, finite and a one way street. Now while I can’t claim with any solid proof that time truly is a ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey … stuff (I’ve been watching a lot of Dr. Who recently), I can say that I’ve begun to shift what I do with time, how I use it and how I talk about it.

You may have heard the often quoted advice that it’s not our situation or circumstance that matters, but rather what we do about it and how we respond to it that counts. The same, I think, is true for time.

We measure our own time and how we’ve filled it by standards, tools and ideals created by someone else. The milestones we look for are larger than life and often in the seemingly distant future, creating the impossible challenge of trying to catch up to a marker of achievement that we ourselves keep pushing forward and away.

Beyond dividing our lives into hours, minutes, and seconds, we’ve segregated goals, plans, successes and even failures into defined, impermeable segments, to be finished and done with before moving onto the next. In this way, time marches steadily, and quickly forward, our paths obstructed by closed doors and locked windows of opportunity.

What if we gave ourselves permission to reach backwards for a minute? To stop, think, and reflect on what happened and not just what might, what is, and what will be? Instead of trying to climb the pedestal toward an undefined distant point of success, what if we created paths from past moments and present opportunities? How might we use our time then?

*As an aside, I’m starting to move away from saying I ‘spend’ time like currency or another commodity. No one is ‘time rich’ or ‘time poor’ these days – we all have the same number of hours to spend, it’s all in what we do with them. For a more eloquent and musical way of understanding this, start here.

These thoughts, just like me, are a work in progress. Leave a comment below or tweet me your thoughts. Let’s talk about this.

I’m trying something new to keep me motivated and inspired to write. I’ve been collecting a ton (almost literally, if you printed them out and weighed them) of quotes, words, ideas and images over on my Pinterest boards. I’ll be picking a new one at least once a week and writing some of my thoughts about it. Feel free to borrow some inspiration and/or share some with me. Check out my ‘Happy In My Heart Place’ board, tweet me @lmendersby, or email me at lmendersby@gmail.com

Freedom from? Or freedom to?

Freedom from doubt perhaps? Freedom from whatever it is that holds us back, or pushes us in the wrong direction.

Perhaps, then, freedom from feels like a burden lifted, but will this new lightness propel us forward or see us travel more aimlessly, for without an anchor we can be carried away by even the slightest breeze.

Then, it is freedom to. Freedom to say yes when we want it, and no when we mean it. Freedom to act, to move – to take the next, purposeful, intentional step. Fear has not left us, it is simply walking behind to motivate rather than in front to

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.” – Mark Twain

Perhaps it’s the sense of optimism in the air with the start of a new year, or perhaps I simply have too many awesome friends (I’m leaning ever slightly toward the latter), but I’ve found myself speaking (typing) this phrase with increased frequency and renewed conviction.

“I’m proud of you and proud to know you!”

Of course, once I start doing, thinking or saying something a lot, I am gripped with an overwhelming urge to understand what I mean, or, at least, what I think I mean.

 What does it mean when I’m proud of you?

You’re saying yes when you would have said no.

You’re saying no when you would have said yes.

You own your failures, but are not paralyzed by them.

You celebrate your successes, but again you keep going.

You give more than you take, but still take what you need.

You are scared, and you tell me.

You are strong, and you share that with me too.

You do not hide from a challenge, nor do you shrink in the spotlight.

I do not see perfection, I see potential. 

I’ve tried for the past two years to create and keep a one word new year’s resolution. In 2011, it was ‘YES’. Last year, I chose ‘NOW’. As you can see, I was particularly action oriented over the past couple of years, wanting to do everything and anything – all, not nothing.

2012 was a particularly life-altering year for me. At the risk of hyperbole, 2012 pulled, pushed, challenged and changed me in ways I could never have predicted. Life is indeed what happens when you’re busy making other plans Mr. Lennon.

This year, I find myself unable to commit to a single word. Living through and in so much more grey (you’re welcome Eric Stoller) has caused me to focus less on a single word and more on a guiding mantra for 2013. These words actually found me in late 2012 thanks to a tweet from Tom Krieglstein. Tom quoted Troy Tanner, a former Olympian and coach to Olympic athletes. Troy had a particular set of words that he would share with his athletes before each game that resonate with me now more than ever (wannabe Olympic athlete and otherwise):

Breathe I need to slow the heck down. Period. While I doubt I’ll ever fully give up my excitable, exuberant nature (and really, would you want me to?), I have learnt much and gained more in those brief, often rare moments of pause and quiet reflection. Stopping, pausing, spending five seconds to step back and (re)assess are major strategies for my 2013 game plan.

Believe I talk a good game, but I’m my own worst critic and my favourite enemy. If a friend talked to me like I talk to myself, we wouldn’t be friends for long. I’ve surprised myself a number of times in 2012 and it’s about damn time I listen to the quieter yet stubbornly insistent voice that says yes, I can. This will most likely be one of, if not my biggest challenge this year.

Battle Building on ‘Believe’, this word strikes close to home on a number of levels. As I continue to train in the gym for new and longer races, I will be battling through physical pain and fatigue to move farther and faster than ever. On a deeper level, 2012 saw me through some major dips, outright crashes and blinding breakthroughs related to my long standing struggles with anxiety. I have indeed battled through some tough times and appreciate the intensity, conviction and outright badassness of the word as I push, stretch and leap my way forward.

As Anthony Rapp sang in ‘Without You’ – “the only way out is through”. Whether out of my comfort zone, out of a rut or just out of the house to the gym, ‘Breathe.Believe.Battle’ are the three little words for 2013 that will get me there. To once again quote David Bowie “I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.”

Postscript – These three words will also form my next tattoo that I am rewarding myself with after my next couple of races. I’ve been wanting a second piece of art for years and could not be more excited to finally have a way to keep these words, and these ideas, with me permanently.