Hey Friend,

A quick time-travel disclaimer: I’m writing this on Tuesday afternoon, before a single poll has closed. By the time you read this, you may already know how things turned out with the election(s). Or you may be refreshing a screen while the counting drags on. Either way, I’m writing from yesterday, and I don’t know what kind of morning we woke up to.

Maybe you’re relieved. Maybe you're excited. Maybe you’re heartbroken. Maybe you're angry. Maybe you’re too tired to feel much yet. Maybe you're feeling EVERYTHING all at once.

Whatever you're feeling, it makes sense, and I invite you to hold those feelings without judgment or defensiveness. Oh, how complex this human experience is!

The last few weeks have been loud. My feeds have been full of urgent reminders and passionate pleas to vote, mostly from people who care deeply about this country and the people in it. I understand the urgency. I too feel the urgency. AND I also have been noticing (really, continuing to notice) how much of our discourse runs on fear and scarcity and otherness.

Today, I’ve found myself wondering what we’re left with when the ads stop, the results come in, and we still have to live/work/dream/be next to each other. Here’s what I keep coming back to...

Most of us are fluent in what we want to get rid of and who we want to defeat. Ask someone what’s wrong with their workplace, their city, or their country, and you’ll get long soliloquies and very tall soapboxes (guilty as charged).

But ask what they’re building toward or yearning for, and very often you’ll get a long pause, a few generalized platitudes, a sigh, or an “honestly, just something better?” And if you do get something specific, it's often delivered with a tint (or tidal wave) of righteousness or an unspoken, “and anyone who disagrees with me is the problem.”

That matters because we can’t build what we can’t describe.

Saying you want “a better workplace” or "a better country" is a great aspiration, but it doesn't give you something specific to do or hold onto.

On the other hand, saying something like, “I want people on my team to say the hard thing in the meeting instead of in the parking lot” gives us a lot more to work with because you can notice it, ask for it, practice it, and build toward it.

When all we can name is what we’re against, we get very good at opposing and not very good at creating something new. Opposition needs an enemy, and we seem to have many of those. But building? Building needs a picture. And a picture, even the blurriest one, gives us an idea of which small step to take next. That's why leaning into hope and possibility is so critical in "times like these."

So today I’m asking us to practice saying our hopes and dreams and manifestations out loud.

Here are a few of mine.

• I’m manifesting a world where each of you has true freedom and liberation to be who you are (for real).
• I'm praying for a future where we all trust the power of love and community and where we all have access to both.
• I'm building towards a reality where we can each serve the world without sacrificing the people doing the service.
• I’m dreaming of a world where we can disagree out loud and still eat lunch together without getting into a food fight.

I don't just want to defeat hate and scarcity and injustice; I want to actively replace them with love, abundance, and justice. A few things I'm doing right now to BUILD toward these ideas...

• Creating regular spaces where leaders can tell the truth and be held, seen, and valued while they do it
• Generously sharing my ideas, frameworks, tools, and downloads, with as little gatekeeping as possible
• Pricing with a sliding scale so cost isn’t the only reason someone can’t be in the room
• Helping organizations look honestly at and actively disrupt the systems and unspoken rules that wear people down or perpetuate harm
• Showing up as a present wife, daughter, sister, aunt, and friend
• Smiling at my neighbors

Now I’d love to hear yours.

Whatever reality you woke up to, however you're feeling, finish this sentence:

In the world, workplace, or community I’m building, I’m manifesting/praying for/building towards/dreaming about ______.

Big or small, personal or collective, short-term or long-term. There are NO WRONG ANSWERS.

Advocating for yourself or disagreeing with the boss without a knot in your stomach
Joy that doesn’t need justification
A town where neighbors talk to each other
A community where children are safe to play
A family group chat that doesn’t make anyone dread the holidays
Rest without guilt
​[Insert your specific hope here]

Write it down and reply to this email with what you come up with.

Just remember this is about naming what we're building towards, not what we're against.

My guess is we want far more of the same things than the news would have us believe. I’ll take what I get and anonymously share our collective dreams next week.

***

A few small things to try this week, whatever the headlines say:

• Check on one person. Skip the politics and just ask how they’re doing.
• Say your manifestation sentence out loud to someone. Writing it down is a start, but saying it to another person makes it real.
• Ask someone what they’re building toward. Then listen all the way through, even if their picture looks different from yours.
• Write your sentence down somewhere you’ll see and remember it.

***

Finally...A thank you.

If you voted, thank you. If you worked a polling place, knocked on doors, ran for something, gave a neighbor a ride, or stayed up late waiting for results, thank you. Democracy is a bold, messy experiment, and even on its hardest days it gives us a way to change things.

Here’s one more thing that gives me hope: No matter how this election turned out, I know my mailing list is full of people like you who make their teams, organizations, and communities better anyway. You do it in meetings, hard conversations, casual interactions, and thousands of unglamorous moments no one writes headlines about. That’s the work I’m counting on, and it doesn’t depend on who won. We all win when we can depend on each other to show up.

I depend on you.

Whatever your beliefs and however this turned out, I’m grateful you took part, and I’m grateful you’re here.

With gratitude and a lot of hope,
Marissa

PS - If you're wondering about why I'm writing about this in a work and leadership newsletter, it's because work is where many of us practice shaping the world, even if we don't realize it. Who gets a voice, who gets resources, who gets protected, and who decides are questions leaders and organizations answer every day. We don't have to wait for election days to use our influence. Every day, we cast small votes, and knowing what we're building toward helps us cast our ballots with more confidence and courage.