Complexity of Clarity

Oh man, so much that I want to talk about, but where should I start? December 2024 is the twelfth month of my year-long celebration of turning 50 and breaking the family curse. This has also been a year of major health complications, and I am healing and feeling so much better thanks to time, stretching, supplements, and a tiny white pill. This is also the last full month of the Biden administration and the last stop of the Eras Tour (which I never got to go to!).  I have had a very successful book launch (thank you to all of you who helped appease the Amazon Gremlins with Almost Doing Good!) and really look forward to learning from the book discussion group in December (please register and come!).

I am at the point with a new book, at least based on the last book launch experience with Good Enough Now, where I need to listen to, or even worse, follow, my own advice.  Yep… it is rough.

 In my experience, the book bursts out of me, and then is followed by the generosity of many close friends’ time and energy paired with my swirling big ideas until I am banned from reading anything else or touching the document. It then goes to an editor and a graphic designer, then to a producer and publisher. Then it isn’t even close to the end of the journey.

 Once my name appears on the cover of a physical object, the beginning gets started. As a speaker, I have to figure out how to package all of the research and work that results in a 300-page book into a single sentence or, if I am lucky, maybe a 100-word description. Evidently, screaming, “READ MY BOOK!” isn’t actually persuasive to strangers on the street, so I have to craft something for seated audiences.  

With the last book, I started working with the most interesting element of my research, the Head, Heart, Action model, and created a self-diagnosing survey that participants can still take (jesspettitt.com/survey) and then build out how these variables show up when we feel the most challenged. I even created a bonus deeper dive application for the model on how to best work across differences and power dynamics once you know how others are utilizing the model. Fascinating stuff!!! At least to me.

Turns out this is the “boring academic” part of the book and my audiences actually really resonated with the skill-building aspects of how to have more conversations that matter to result in better connections. Yes, out of almost 300 pages, and two editions, it is page 192 that most resonates with my audiences. <insert eye roll here> Don’t worry, this part is on page 127 of the new book!

What I learned from the almost 10 years of working with the content of Good Enough Now is that Almost Doing Good will now have a life of its own and it is up to me to listen to its readers as if they are wise because I know WAY too much about content that didn’t even make it into the final book. They will tell me what resonates and where they need to slow down and learn so that they can take responsibility for themselves or their organizations.

I often tell other speakers to remember that we will never be in our own audience nor be our own buyer.  I spend money to get away from me! So it is your turn. I will actively build out opportunities to disrupt what I think is interesting or important to see what leads those outside of my skull to ask more questions. I want to normalize this process for others, and that is why I wrote the new book.

My go-to answers are my biggest weakness because they are comfortable and familiar, and I am even pretty good at them. It is hard to reflect and ask more questions from a place of contentment.

So the process begins. The book is out in the wild and I am testing and listening. I have invited a number of local non-profits to work through the new book’s cultural identification processes so that they can better implement initiatives (DEI or otherwise), am facilitating external book club discussions as their monthly focus, and inviting folks from all over my network to openly read and discuss the book together this month.  I am listening for what resonates and is important to others and then who those others are and what patterns exist across industry, community, and demographics.

I am also working on a new keynote and deep dive workshop title and description that would resonate with conference attendees before they even meet me and learn about my Almost take on our collective responsibility.

Today, I hit the jackpot because I got to read program reviewer feedback that said, “I have no idea how this session relates to DEI. I'm confused if this is a Health & Safety related session or a "listen to everyone's voice" type of session.”  Why this is so important is that it does two things at once for me: 1) I definitely do not do kumbaya (is that even how you spell that?) DEI sessions, so hard NO on that one, and 2) DEI is a health and safety-related session. I am disrupting the assumed DEI approach while normalizing the complexity of doing good work. YES! Though this YES is VERY satisfying, my audience and, more importantly, my buyer doesn’t see this connection, and my current working way of describing this disruption for good approach needs a clearer explanation to those lucky enough not to live in my head.

So yeah! AND back to work. I am super clear I have work to do, am learning from my past reactions and responses (there is a difference), and am asking more questions so that I can listen. I am crystal clear that the next five to ten years of my business is going to be complex. To normalize the complexity of my work allows me to try, learn, relearn, unlearn, and build out something I and my buyers can understand that disrupts where we have all been to build something new with my audience – TOGETHER. 

Together is the only way we are going to get through whatever is yet to come before us. Remember, it is never too late to learn from history; we can literally start anytime.