Originally published by Kat Cole on LinkedIn: Building Resilience, Inspired by Amazing Humans
I am often asked the questions, “Who do you admire? Who motivates you? My answer is: humans who are dealing with adversity and find a way to persevere: my mom, ordinary people dealing with unexpected loss or bad environments, and the extreme cases of those dealing with some of the worst trauma – refugees.
When I was nine years old, my mom came to me, the oldest of her three daughters, to let me know we were leaving my father. My father was and is a good man, but at the time, he was an alcoholic and a bad husband and father. My mother, the youngest of 6 kids whose father had died when she was very young, had an entry level administrative job, not suitable to support three kids. After years of trying to just accept it, ignore it, or make it better, she found herself in a situation where what she believed was (or would be) her life (a happy, safe home for her and her children) was just not possible unless she made a change. Option A was gone.
Despite people encouraging her to stay (my father had a good job that provided for the family), she was more concerned for our safety and way of life than she was worried about her standard of living. She came to the conclusion, despite the feeling of impossibility of making it work, that her only option, out of obligation to her family, was Option B – to leave, with three kids aged 3-9, and go out on her own.
I could not do justice in one post to the complexity, compromises, tradeoffs and risks she had to endure. What I can honor is the grace, dignity and commitment with which she, with little resources and support, pursued this new chapter in her life. She did not allow herself to be trapped by her ideal option not being possible, she did not allow her circumstances, despite being real, to define her. She focused on what was needed and what was possible, not on what was no longer possible. We left, and that created a better life for all of us.
She worked multiple jobs for many years to make ends meet. She fed us on a food budget of $10 per week for three years. I took on a leadership role with my sisters and started working at a very young age. Despite those challenges, I seem to only remember her being happy and focused on our education and being good people – although I’m know she had her dark moments.
That is the leadership example I grew up with – my mom set the bar for how to deal with adversity. She used to say – “you just figure it out and make it happen”. Which is a humble, over-generalization of how tough it was for her (and is for all of us) to adjust to Option B, but spoken like a human that has been through sh*t and come out on the other side.