Audacity in the Face of Crisis
Most of you who know me, know I’m a postpartum SCAD heart attack survivor.
On Wednesday April 13, 2011, I woke up to my husband, Brian, presenting me with a steaming mug of half-caff coffee and some triple-berry muffins. He’d baked and cared for our newborn while I slept in between feedings. . At eight days old, my new son and I were finally getting into a routine. I cradled my sweet little Cam and ate my breakfast. I knew it was going to be a good day.
Two hours later the pain started. My back was burning, as were my triceps. My chest was being crushed by an invisible weight and I couldn’t catch my breath. After a call to my OB/GYN we rushed to the ER. We left the house without the diaper bag and I was still in my nursing pajamas and slippers. I endured a heart attack behind curtain #7 for six hours before medical professionals realized I was suffering from (which at the time they thought was rare, but is actually wildy underdiagnosed) a Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection. I was quickly rushed into a cardiac catheterization lab where two stents were placed in my LAD - the “widowmaker” artery- and I was sent up to the cardiac ICU.
The next morning, I opened my eyes to nearly twenty people in my room - cardiologists, ICU nurses, medical students, pharmacists, a psychiatrist, and cardiac rehab staff. As they began to “present” my case, it was quite clear that while I’d slept, this team of medical professionals had been up all night trying to figure me out. They were navigating something they’d never experienced before - a 28 year-old woman with no pre-existing conditions who suffered and survived a massive heart attack. A woman who now needed a “new normal.” And these smart, amazing people had no answers - they could not even explain how I’d survived when their research only turned up autopsies.
This absolutely chilling feeling settled across my body - I knew quite deeply that I was never, ever going back to “normal”. Later that day, I was allowed to get out of my ICU bed and walk to my room’s window. It had rained and the roads were wet and the sun was setting and rush hour looked like a watercolor painting. As the whole world carried on, I felt that mine was over.
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Earlier this month, I celebrated my ninth “Heartiversary.” - the day my “new normal” began, the day that audacity took root in my janky, healing heart.
Audacity is one of Gladiator Consulting’s Core Values and is at the heart of our work. We believe in a willingness to take bold risks and challenge the status quo. We will push you to explore innovative solutions to old problems. We embrace failure as a key step in finding sustainable solutions. We intend to play a role in destroying the nonprofit industrial complex.
And, well, we committed to this Core Value in 2017 before we knew that a global pandemic would sweep in and force our collective hands to jump into the deep-end of change-making. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be a heart attack survivor before my 30th birthday - and, most of us never thought we would be grappling with the uncertainty of this new chapter of our lives and work.
But here’s the thing, friends. We aren’t going back. Even if we could go back, there’s nothing waiting for us there. The past does not have tools we need to thrive in our collective new normal.
Across our work with nearly 80 nonprofit organizations, we have asked communities and leaders to lean into our core value of audacity and imagine a different reality; a reality where mission is not harm reduction and vision is not just an aspirational statement. We have sought to co-create, test, and fail fast at innovation to identify the next right solution.
Overnight, our nonprofit clients have gone from fundraisers to micro-grantmakers. Siloed organizations who have operated from a scarcity mindset have begun allowing the walls to come down and have opened the gates to community-centered collaborations. Organizations have pressed pause on raising funds in hopes that donors will direct charitable dollars to direct service and immediate need. Traditional funders have relaxed their cumbersome application and reporting expectations and are expediting their financial support.
With all of this happening, who even wants to go back?
At Gladiator, our team has spent our last two team meetings in strategy triage. We’ve recommitted to a set of current emerging priorities.We’ve put a few things on pause. Perhaps most importantly, we have held space to honor and let go of the work whose time has now passed.
We look forward to sharing some new opportunities for engagement with our community in the next few weeks. Learning to survive a new normal is damn uncomfortable. We will seek your honest feedback and ask for your radical collaboration. Until then, please remember that we are offering complimentary 90-minute strategy sessions to any individual or organization who needs a little holistic-nonprofit-therapy love in their world.
It is a choice to make the best of our new normal - we hope you’ll stick with us.