Shane and Cathy

Shane Riley currently serves as the Digital Experience Director at the Association Office. He shares his thoughts on personal and professional growth in our current situation.

Looking to and planning for the future is so difficult when it seems like we can’t even expect the next week to go as planned. With so much uncertainty that we’ve come to expect over the last year and a half, uncertainty has become one of the most consistent aspects of our daily lives. Though uncertainty is definitely scary, I see it as an opportunity.

Complacency can be a pretty terrible thing. I’m definitely guilty of becoming complacent in many aspects of my personal and professional life. When things are going well, or well enough, it’s super easy to go with the flow. Going forward the same as before – the same process, the same goals, the same ideas. Because being good enough is a positive thing, right? But then, the drive to do better is lost. The question, “can we do better?” turns to the statement, “stay the course.”

For instance, in my personal life, both my wife and I have been working from home for quite some time now. It’s strange seeing her almost all of my waking hours and can honestly become difficult to be excited to do things with her since we’ve probably already gotten on each other’s nerves by that time anyway (sorry, Honey). At first, my outlook was very negative as I would never have alone time, but I quickly had to adapt in order to not go crazy (again, sorry, Honey).

I had to change my outlook on our situation and see opportunity where I couldn’t see it before. Whereas before, we would kind of just spend all day indoors, I began to say, “Get up, let’s go for a walk” on our lunch break. It was simple, but broke up the monotony and got us out of our zones so that we could enjoy our time together. It’s been a bit harder to go for walks with recent weather, but it’s been nice just talking to her outside the monotony of the day. It reminds me why we fell in love in the first place.

Like personal relationships, the same goes for professional life. It’s easy to do the same thing – if it ain’t broke, why fix it? But, what if it can be done better, more efficiently, or generate a larger impact on those we serve? With adversity, comes innovation. Of course, the caveat to that is having the willingness to innovate. A change of attitude to adversity from, “I can’t believe this happened” to, “how can I overcome?” can help us grow.

Because, at the end of the day, we care deeply about the Y, its staff, members, and its mission. That’s why we’re here. From my perspective, we should seek change because we care. In the words of the great one-hit wonder, Fine Young Cannibals, “She drives me crazy, like no one else. She drives me crazy, and I can’t help myself.” Though this can definitely apply to my wife (don’t tell her I said that), it also applies to the Y. Even when times aren't ideal and it's easier to walk away, you stay and make things better because you see something special in it and you want it to grow. The Y is a light that the world needs even during the darkest times. Kind of like my wife (you can tell her that part). Thus, we must change to make it better so that the Y can continue to change peoples’ lives for the better.

If there’s one thing to take away from my ramblings, it is this. Opportunity can come from the bleakest of times. It’s up to us to seek it to take an active role in improving ourselves and our organization or to try to do the same thing over again and hope for the best. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.  

Shane Riley