Lead Not a Life of Imitation.

“That bitch.” My Grandma would say, with a nod of her head from the small, mid-century kitchen table, where she held court daily. The cramped kitchen was only to be entered by children if necessary, as navigating in the tight space interfered with very important adult business occurring in that room. To be fair, she was usually talking to or about the award-winning collies she raised, groomed, and judged as DonnyBrooke Collies - a grooming business so named because she admired a good fight as she was very blunt, fearless, and completely herself. Very fitting. We all loved, feared, and admired our matriarch.

As I grew up hearing her sharp, unfiltered words, steering the ship of her life without hesitation or apology from that kitchen table, I learned from her what it meant to be unapologetically real. And I would think, That’s what I want to be when I grow up.

And so, forty years later, have I?

Who am I?

I am a single woman in her forties, at a coffee shop on a Saturday morning. My kids have moved out and I find myself very time-rich. Today, I want to spend it sitting with other humans, drinking over-priced coffees, and being part of humanity.

As I relax in my chair, my back to the window, I objectively watch the lines of impatient customers and the flurry of the baristas. I enjoy analyzing the conversations around me and musing on the business model and customer touchpoints I see, reflecting on how they all come together evolutionarily - sometimes for the better, and sometimes not. But at this moment, for me, I have time to reflect on who I am and what landed me here today, at this coffee shop, watching humans at work.

If we don’t know each other, allow me to share that I consider myself a fairly discerning individual, adept at navigating conversation, fearlessly and cautiously as circumstance dictates. My career skills are largely centered around how to talk and lead initiatives across personalities, projects, and competing agendas. As it is, I am a constant work in progress.

An evolutionary moment.

To my left are two elderly women, to my right a young man with his headphones on, and across from me a family between sporting events getting a snack, and all around the hum of conversation and espresso machines creates the current atmosphere. My coffee may have cooled enough to take my first sip — I cautiously raise the cup and savor the Americano I so enjoy. Suddenly, from the table to my left —

“What the hell were they thinking!”

“She’s off her fuckin’ rocker!”

“The shit doesn’t do it for me…”

I nearly choked on my coffee. Wiping my chin with the napkin, I use the opportunity to glance at the two elderly women on my left, where the expletives were emerging.

They are scrolling through posts on Facebook, sharing their phones, swearing up a storm, in a very animated fashion, waving their hands about. My eyebrows climbed higher up my forehead as their conversation continued.

After a moment’s hesitation, I leaned over and said, “So, I hear lots of swearing over here.” Yeah, wasn’t my best opening line.

Immediately they started apologizing hands fluttering as if they had been caught doing something wrong. I hastily corrected myself. “It’s just…you remind me of my Grandma!” Which I felt was appropriate (or worth the risk) to say, given our relative ages.

They exchanged a look before bursting into laughter. "Well, she sounds like she was our kind of lady."

I told them how much I admired their authenticity, and we both turned back to our tables and coffees. But something inside me was turning over, shifting. I felt an evolution happening in my mind and it took me a moment to unpack what I was learning in the moment.

The importance of being earnest.

I truly appreciated the genuineness of their personalities, conversation, and presence at Starbucks. But they were older like my grandparents were when I was younger. But my grandparents didn’t waste money on $4 coffees. My grandparents didn’t spend time scrolling on Facebook. Who were these ladies?

And, what would my roadmap to authenticity over the next twenty, or thirty years look like, if the person I was modeling after in part was just being herself? For years I had measured myself against the matriarchs on both sides of our family — each having a strong influence on me as I aspired to be them. In part, my identity was wrapped up in their attributes which I so admired.

What I hadn’t truly considered before, was that it wasn’t about becoming bold because I admired boldness, it was about becoming me and if I wasn’t bold, it wasn’t a flaw. I didn’t need to swear at the kitchen table to be authentic. I didn’t need to swear at the coffee shop to myself. I needed to sit there and quietly observe people because that is what I chose to do, and because that is who I am.

As that simple and profound truth hit me, I began thinking more about perception, impact, and motivations and how critical it is to be still and listen.

Time to read the Oscar Wilde play again — this time, as an adult. The Importance of Being Earnest.

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