Soledad O’Brien Explains Why Management of Energy is Your Essential Career Growth Skill
Issue 145 — October 18, 2020
A physicist friend once told me that everything in the world is ultimately just energy particles. In my non-scientifically trained mind, I visualized tiny pieces of matter dancing around amiably and without focus.
While my friend was referring to the physical world, the principle that everything is ultimately energy applies as well to leadership and to our individual career arcs. That’s because everything we give our time and attention to takes — energy.
Now, living in a dual pandemic of coronavirus and racial injustices laid bare for 9 months is taking its toll on even the most naturally optimistic and flexible of us. Feeling loss of control. Loss of human contact. Perhaps loss of jobs and even loss of the life of someone near and dear. Pent up fury at the murders of Black men and women by those deputized to protect and defend us. Dealing with having to teach children at home and the uncertainty of whether or when in-person school will open and whether even then it will be safe to let our kids go. This is a very hard time. Make no mistake about that.
As I talk with women in Take The Lead’s courses such as 50 Women Can Change the World, I am more often than ever hearing words like:
Exhaustion
Burn out
Overwhelm
Stress
Feeling Drained
Anxiety
Organizations as well as individuals can have these characteristics. They are real. But how they affect the individuals in the organization and the organization itself is determined by how its leaders manage and deploy their energy. And you know my definition of a leader is anyone who gets things done. We can all think like leaders even if that’s not in our titles.
The feelings I listed are reactions. The question we have to ask ourselves is how do we take the energy we are spending on those absolutely legitimate reactions and turn it into forward movement for change. How do we not let it derail us? How do we not let negative events take over our energy fields? Instead of letting them use us up, how can we use them to focus on the world or career or business or social movement that we want to create?
One thing I’ve learned is: Power and energy come from moving out into new spaces, doing what the world needs from you, never from standing still doing what you’ve always done.
I recently had the opportunity to talk with one of my own most admired television journalists, Soledad O’Brien when she generously did a zoom fireside chat to which we had invited both our 2019 and 2020 cohorts of 50 Women Can Change the World in Journalism.
Soledad is an Emmy and Peabody award winner, and executive producer. She is the host of Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien, a nationally syndicated weekly talk show produced by Hearst Television, and has previously worked with several major networks including NBC, MSNBC, and co-anchoring CNN’s “American Morning.” I was fortunate to be interviewed by her a few times in those roles.
Soledad O’Brien, from her website Matter Of Fact, with Soledad O’Brien.
So it was a special pleasure to turn the tables and ask Soledad, whose Soledad O’Brien Productions multi-platform media production and distribution company she founded and helms, how she has been able to create her career with such seeming intentionality. She works on her own terms, despite having experienced the racism and sexism in newsrooms.
Like all of us, she was working from home, at her dining room table she said, and she fussed at first about whether the blouse she was wearing was too colorful. I said that given the times we are in, nothing can be too colorful. We can all use a little cheer. She shared that in her pandemic life, having four older children was a gift in some ways because each one of them could help with her work and family life. Her 19-year-old son was shooting her programs last summer since she couldn’t go to the studio and he couldn’t go to college, and her daughter had learned to make amazing meals.
A philanthropist who devotes both her time and treasure to helping young women succeed through her PowHERful Foundation, Soledad is a mosaic of America. Daughter of two immigrants, her father is white from Australia with Irish and Scottish heritage and her mother is Afro-Cuban.
I noticed in our conversation that she referred frequently to her use of her energy, especially in response to questions about how she had gained the courage and self-esteem to thrive even in newsrooms where racism and sexism were prevalent. She said that a great deal of her energy and effort to combat racism had started when she was asked to host CNN’s series “Black in America.” She noticed that individuals of color were described by focusing on their deficits whereas suburban white were described by focusing first on their assets and agency.
But there was a more personal event that occurred early in her career that made her realize how she was wasting energy when she let negative comments deter her from her own intentions.
You can listen to Soledad explain on this podcast.
She says, “I think it’s about being more strategic.” She related an event that occurred early in her career had made her realize how she was wasting energy when she let negative comments deter her from her own intentions:
“When I worked in local news, WBZ in Boston, there was a guy who we had a morning meeting. Started at 7:00 AM. But I did the show that was on before the Today Show. I was an associate producer. So, our show ended at 7:00:00. I would leave that show, leave the control room, run to the bathroom, come to the morning meeting, but it meant I got to the morning meeting at like 7:05, 7:06. So I was late every day because I was doing the show. And there was a guy in my meeting who used to make cracks about, ‘Oh, Soledad’s running on colored people’s time’…I’d go home and I’d think, ‘When he says that, here’s what I’m gonna say. He’s gonna do this and I’m gonna do that.’ I spent so much time thinking about this guy. I never saw him again when I left that job. Do you know how much psychic energy I put into that bull? So much. And I literally tell people, ‘Don’t do what I did. Focus on growing your career. Focus on opportunities. Focus on staying late, making your writing better, making your reporting better. Focus on getting to know your boss. Focus on understanding how did that person get hired? What skills do you need for this? Don’t focus on those stupid, catty, racist, unpleasant, dopy things, misogynistic things that people say.’”
What a waste of energy. I think certain things do rise to the level of being this has to be a conversation with HR, or this has to be a conversation with my boss. A lot of stuff in newsrooms does not rise to that level and you have to really make sure that you’re protecting your psychic energy and working on projects that will grow you, and not getting stuck in those things that are gonna suck you under.
The extent to which we deploy energy intentionally and strategically — or not — determines how we show up as leaders.
It contributes to our success, or the lack of it, in building our teams and coalescing people, including ourselves as individuals to achieve our goals. Or to pivot and innovate when faced by something as potentially devastating as a tiny virus that causes big disruption in everything we do. A study by James G. S. Clawson, published in the International Journal of Organizational Analysis concludes that the very definition of leadership is managing energy.
It’s also true that when you fight an adversary for a long time, you can become its mirror, locked into a Kabuki drama that sucks your energy but at the same time becomes your comfort zone because it doesn’t require intentional action. The only way to stop the cycle is to decide enough, stop, we’re changing the story. I mean, why do we need the devil to fight when we could be calling upon everyone’s higher angels to accomplish the next big steps for women and all BIPOC individuals?
Too many women’s initiatives operate from a position of reacting to gender based discrimination rather than redesigning the systems of oppression within which they operate. The success of Black Lives Matter is a tribute to the bold statement of their name: a positive solution, a change in thinking, a direct challenge to the status quo. That’s why it has been able to foster a more widespread reckoning across the usually controversy-shy corporate community as well as get the most diverse group of people ever on the streets in support of racial justice.
So, I have lots of tips for you this week!
1. Take out a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle from top to bottom.
On one side list: What gives you energy? What gives you joy and allows you to live your authentic values? On the other side list: What sucks the energy from you?
Then ask yourself honestly: how can you do or get more of the former? How can you do or get less of the latter? And if you are in a situation where you can’t get less of what takes energy from you, how can you create and pursue options that will take you out of it? You may benefit from having a coach to talk these things through with.
2. Pay attention. Do one thing at a time. This is really hard for me. I feel like I always have ten tabs open in my brain all the time. It’s often said that women are great at multitasking. We’ve wired into our brains the behavior of taking care of children while taking care of business and making dinner and getting an MBA. That’s a real skill to be sure but it is also a drainer of energy from the most important work at hand.
3. Exercise early and often. Physical movement doesn’t drain energy, it builds energy, fills you with happy hormones. Your mind works better when you are in motion; more ideas flow. You can unplug from the daily grind, leave work behind. For me, exercise first thing in the morning is best whenever I possibly can do it. Or, going out for an hour’s walk in the late afternoon feels like a reward from getting work done earlier in the day.
4. Manage energy, not time, is the advice of many leadership experts. Time is granular, transactional. Energy is strategic, long term. Managing energy is working smart not necessarily hard, or not as hard at least. I find that actually even if I am working hard, I don’t get tired because of it and I feel energized because I am accomplishing something meaningful. You’ve probably witnessed an artist or craftsperson who works many hours but never seems to be tired. Energy enables us to be the best version of ourselves. And when we are the best version of ourselves, we can give our best to others.
5. Focus on the long view. Creating a long term vision enables you to let go of the worries of today and project an exciting future. Power and energy come from moving out into new spaces, not from standing still or defending the territory where you are today. Brett Steenbarger, Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY, writes in Forbes: “The key takeaway is that effective leadership transforms people emotionally, but also cognitively. In the environment energized by the right leadership, we tap into hidden strengths and become better versions of ourselves: seeing more, doing more, learning more. Whether we’re operating on the trading floor, in the corporate suite, or on a military mission, it is the energy of leadership that enables us to move to a faster battle rhythm.”
6. Don’t let the turkeys get you down. Actually that old saying probably unfairly discriminates against turkeys. Let’s start in our own thinking from a position of believing we deserve equality, and create a new narrative based on the possibilities for solutions with which we can shape a future where all women and men can thrive. Let’s give the nay sayers and adversaries not one bit of our energy. Let’s instead embrace wholeheartedly this truth: we’re powerful as hell and we’re going to take our rightful place in politics, work, and personal relationships now and forevermore. I loved Soledad’s answer to a question about how women of color in the newsroom can navigate the racism they encounter without getting exhausted from the extra burden it places upon them. She advised once again to manage one’s energy and take a break when it gets too hard. “These conversations are emotionally grueling,” she said. “So go pet a puppy when you need to… At the end of a long career, you don’t want to be joyless, because that’s [your joy in your work] what drives them crazy.”
Are you ready? Let me know your thoughts.
And to see the entire interview with Soledad, here it is.
P.S. Please share my podcast with Soledad and this article with anyone whom you think they might help. Listen, subscribe, and let me know how it goes for you.
GLORIA FELDT is the Cofounder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker and expert women’s leadership developer for companies that want to build gender balance, and a bestselling author of four books, most recently No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power. Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she teaches “Women, Power, and Leadership” at Arizona State University and is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Tweet Gloria Feldt.