#citymanagement #leadership #localgovernment

Work has always been hard. But something shifted. Now it's harder to tell what's real and what's just amplified noise. Harder to know what deserves urgency and what's anxiety talking. Harder to find solid ground when everything keeps moving.

This episode opens a new conversation about resilience. Not the grit-your-teeth-and-power-through kind. The kind that helps you stay oriented when the professional landscape feels like standing on a Pogo ball while drinking from a fire hose.

The conversation explores funhouse mirrors and how distortion makes it harder to trust what you're seeing. Echo chambers that amplify what you already want to hear. The exhaustion of showing up every day when clarity of purpose has disappeared. The choice between short-term pain and long-term consequences when neither option feels good.

From what normal used to mean to what grounds you now. Walking dogs. Reading books. Making dinner. The small rhythms that anchor you when everything else spins. The anxiety visible on faces across this profession. The admission that knowing what to do next isn't as clear as it used to be. The experience of having already survived professional rupture while watching others go through theirs.

This episode doesn't offer solutions. It offers something more honest. Recognition that it's hard right now. Permission to acknowledge that maybe it will be hard tomorrow too. And a preview of where the conversation heads next—building the skills and tools to handle what gets thrown your way before the crisis hits.

The ideology inherited from previous generations said if you're just loyal and work harder, everything works out. That's not true anymore. Change isn't going anywhere. Learning to be adaptable and resilient means learning what to say yes to and what to let go of carefully.

January was disruption. February moves into resilience and what comes after. This is where that shift begins.

00:00 Introduction to Resilience and Community Dynamics

08:50 Navigating Distortion and Echo Chambers

19:00 The Impact of Anxiety on Decision Making

26:37 Finding Balance Amidst Chaos

27:24 Navigating Anxiety and Nostalgia

28:42 The Impact of COVID on Mental Health

32:39 Finding Resilience in Chaos

34:29 Permission to Pause and Reflect

35:28 The Guilt of Taking Breaks

37:36 The Role of Consistency in Leadership

40:11 Learning from the Past

41:12 Generational Shifts in Leadership

44:39 The Drive to Make Things Better

49:14 Community and Change

51:32 The Pain of Change

55:19 Building Resilience for the Future