On Being Tight and Light
Hey you, how are you doing?
Scared? Strange? Ready to come out of the fog and take action? All of the above? That makes sense. We seem to be in a moment of gray and many contradictions.
Me? I’m doing weirdly well, most of the time. My energy is high, and I’m 100% on during the week, and then on the weekends I crash and feel hungover. (And may I say, it’s pretty annoying to feel hungover when you’re not drinking alcohol). Yet, I think that’s okay too.
Late last week, a friend and spiritual adviser gave me some guidance. She told me, “For the next 13 days, go inward, yet be a light outward.”
Whatever this friend tells me to do, I hop-to without question. Her wisdom is far beyond mine, and I do really believe that she’s one of those humans truly in vibration with the Universe. But at the same time, this feels like such strange direction for me; I certainly don’t think of myself as “a light.” In fact, often I act like an extinguisher, with views rooted in reality, practicality, and action.
So I’ve been asking myself the question:
How can I hold these contradictions alongside each other during this time? How can we all be tight and light?
For me, this makes me think of two areas: my personal outlook and business resources.
First, the outlook. Over the weekend I reached a breaking point. The news, social media, and overall screentime were crushing me. I whined to my husband, “I cannot take in any stuff.” My mind was foggy and cluttered, and I could literally feel bad energy stuck in my body. I knew that if I wanted to be light, I had to get tighter on what I allowed in.
Respectfully, I asked friends to not send me any more articles, and I stopped scrolling through Instagram. I promise that I’m informed, not ignorant; I have a system to proactively stay connected to my global network, and I and Ellevated Outcomes are doing our part to be leading citizens. But I realized for myself that I need this filter – this tightness and discernment – so that I can be light. Calm, steady, opportunistic.
But what does being “tight and light” look in business look like? Well, not to be too nerdy, but simply said, creating a clear, crisp strategy is tight and light. You’ve heard me quote a former boss before: “strategy is the allocation of limited resources to the highest priorities.”
If that’s not a description of being tight and light, I don’t know what is. And allow me to build on that even more: to me, that’s the fun, energizing thing about being a – and working with – small businesses. We work work limited resources all the time! We’re always thinking, “How can I get creative with my resources?” This situation is old hat for us!
In fact, when we say that we grow small businesses with integrity, this is an example of how that looks. We ask “Why?… What else could it be?… Is there a sharper, better way to do this?” at every decision point. For us and our clients, there’s not much to reduce; we haven’t let ourselves get to a place where there’s fat to cut.
We operate with a tight mental mode and P&L to match. And because of that, our people are in a great position, relative to the market. I’m so proud of our people and the discerning, critical decisions they’ve made along the way. It means that when something like this happens, we’re fine. We have the freedom to be light. As one former client brilliantly said to me last week,
Your clients are making choices right now because they have choices to make. Not everyone is in that position.
Because we have woven this into the fabric of how we do things, it’s a powerful reminder to take in. Many of our friends and colleagues don’t have a choice. They are not physically or financially able to be light in this moment. And so no surprise that my friend was right afterall. Those of us who can, not only should, but have a responsibility to be light. Hold the two attributes together, side by side, to lead the way. Being tight and light.
