Kelli King-Jackson, ACC

Coaching for Black women leading in white spaces.

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Kelli and Martha’s Top Ten Coping Strategies

I am thrilled to share today’s post with a beloved colleague, Martha Ann Toll. Martha and I met while serving on the board of Funders Together to End Homelessness. At that time, I was Vice President of Programs & Community Engagement at the Simmons Foundation in Houston, and Martha was the Executive Director of the Butler Family Fund.

After 26 amazing years running the Butler Family Fund, a social justice philanthropy, Martha left to write full-time in 2020. I transitioned earlier this year to solely focus on my coaching and consulting. We’ve stayed in touch about our new lives. Martha has been a wonderful support to me, giving me entrepreneur tips and sending me client referrals, and I’ve been fangirling as she prepares for the launch of her first novel. I am deeply grateful for her friendship.

Last week we were chatting in our LinkedIn DMs about how to cope with the relentless onslaught of horrifying and hope-crushing news. We discussed our strategies and wanted to share our list, in case it’s helpful.

  1. KKJ: Start a text thread with BFFs and incorporate TikToks, memes, and animal videos and not just the bad news of the world.
  2. MAT: Go on a serious news diet.

  3. KKJ: Have outdoor wine meetups with my people (fellow introverts will understand the italics). 
    MAT: Eat lunch with your girlfriends as often as possible but not so often that you feel overscheduled.
  4. KKJ and MAT: Start with exercise time as a repeating calendar item vs. fitting it in each day. 
  5. KKJ: Take 30-minute random brain breaks and choose from a menu of things you like (nap, read, neurofeedback, a casual walk, etc.)
    -Exercise with what you love. [Kelli is a “Gen X Peloton nerd” and a walker; Martha swims and walks, and when she can stand it, does the elliptical.].
    -Save administrative work for outside your peak hours.
    -Try delegating.
    -Most emails and texts can wait.
  6. KKJ and MAT: Eat dessert.
  7. KKJ and MAT: Get rid of any toxic people in your life.
  8. KKJ: Be intentional about ‘dates’ to FT with grandchildren, call your mom, and have a virtual paint party with your adult daughter.
    MAT: Hug your loved ones.
  9. MAT:  Give a charitable donation, or, at the very least a compliment and some love, every time you get a rejection.
  10. KKJ: Move at the speed of grief.

(Special note: Martha wrote and published this post first on her blog, and it has been slightly edited for mine.)

CLICK TO share your top coping strategies with us!

Grounded

Are you grounded?

What does that even mean?

I visualize grounding as the moment when dirt and plants connect to create the environment needed for something to grow.

Survey Results

When I recently wrote about the distress I was seeing in my coaching clients, I didn’t know if my readers would relate. I was curious enough to send out a survey in my newsletter and LinkedIn asking folks to tell me how they were REALLY doing.

Here’s what y’all said:

two surveys that use emoji faces to vote

Only 14% of the folx who took my survey had a smiling emoji. Everyone else ranged from 😐 to 😩.

I mean, I wasn’t shocked but then again I was.

Let me speak in I statements. I can say that MY life has totally gone off the rails since then. My fatigue meter went waaaay up and my capacity to take action went way down. Add in my perimenopausal symptoms and it’s a wrap.

I’m stuck.

My clients too.

What about you?

At What Cost?

Recently I started asking ‘at what cost’ anytime a client starts talking about being over-committed/burned out/exhausted. I get curious about how they gauge their capacity as leaders.

How did you get to an eight-day work week?

What will happen if you don’t respond to emails during your vacation?

What are you willing to drop to say yes to that new committee role?

I hold the coaching space for clients to explore. No judgment. No shame. Just a lot of openness for folks to slow down their pace long enough to self-determine what they want for themselves and their leadership. I like to ask questions that are not about the client’s calendar and or strategic plan.

What do you want?

What are you willing to let go to have it?

If having it all is not an option, what will you choose to pursue?

These are not thinking only questions. They are feeling, touching, and listening to questions, too.

Right now many of us are in cerebral land. Thoughts swirling around. Replaying conversations. Retraumaziting ourselves as we think about all the things that can and have gone wrong.

Turning off the loop is possible.

Isn’t it?

What if we collectively commit to stop the spinning and get grounded again?

Ways to Get Started

Here are some things I’ll be doing over the next 30 days. (Maybe something on this list will call you to it. 🤔)

  • Daily walks on my Peloton.
  • Drink more water.
  • Realign my calendar to my goals.
  • Re-engage with tools in my toolkit (Therapy, Tapping, Music, etc.).
  • Time outdoors (alone and with humans).

Full disclosure: Nothing on this list is new to me. I know that doing the things on this list will help me. Unfortunately, when in distress, rooting down to be present with and for MYSELF is the last thing on my mind. Instead, I flail around fighting, fleeing, and forgetting that I already have the resources I need to realign. Our human nature is strange that way. That’s why collective actions work. They create the energy needed for transformation to occur.

We can do this together, y’all. We certainly can’t do it alone.

Join me.

Share 1 or 2 commitments you will make to help get yourself grounded again.

Black at Work: Overproducer

I have a brown thumb. I cannot grow a plant to save my life. My downfall is that I am an overproducer. I go above and beyond for the plant so that it can be the best. Sure, I do the typical things like making sure the plant is getting the right amount of light or the best soil. But I don’t trust the plant or Mother Nature so I keep working to make sure the plant has everything it needs until one day I look up and the plant has gone to the light.

The plant could not thrive under the pressure.

Truth be told, neither could I. But overproducing is what happens when you overwork. And that’s a scene I know all too well.

This past month multiple clients have joined me in OVERland. They come into their coaching sessions fatigued. Burned all the way out. It’s only the end of April and I am seeing the type of exhaustion that is more common in the fourth quarter of the year. My clients are overproducing – tending to all the needs, real and perceived – and they cannot thrive.

Here’s what my clients are telling me:

  • I can’t push anymore.
  • I’ve been doing two people’s jobs for the past year and have not had an increase in compensation.
  • I know I’m tired but I have to show up for this important work.
  • We used to honor boundaries but now my boss calls me in the evenings and on weekends.
  • After this next meeting/conference/training I will take a break.

And the list goes on.

It doesn’t have to be this way, y’all.

I believe we can stop overproducing and still have an impact and meet our goals.

Imagine this:

You choose to be average at something you don’t need to be excellent at.

You take a break. Decline an invitation to serve on yet another committee. Use all your PTO.

For my readers who can’t even imagine what I’m suggesting, here are four baby steps to slow your pace enough to stop yourself from overproducing:

1️⃣ Check in on your goals/workplan weekly. Doing this will give you regular opportunities to see when you are in a lot of meetings and examine if those time commitments are aligned with your goals.

2️⃣ Organize your task list according to your goals/workplan. Is one goal getting more attention than the others? Does everything on your list have to be done right now or can they wait for a later time?

3️⃣ Audit your calendar. Do you have thinking space? One way to avoid overproducing is to take time away from your to-do list and meetings to strategize.

4️⃣ Delegate. A key way to stop overproducing is by lifting up the leadership of others on your team, especially your direct report(s). Giving others a chance to grow and get visibility is a sign of a good leader.

Overproducing does not have to be your norm. The unlearning of harmful practices doesn’t happen overnight. It comes with a deep longing and listening to Self at the highest level. I hope this list helps you create the space in your schedule and mind to be a leader who saves something for Self. When you have something left for you, growth is possible.

Are you in?

Comment below or message me on LinkedIn to let me know what you’ll willing to do to stop being an overproducer.

Group Coaching as Collective Leadership

Real talk. I have been saying I was going to start group coaching for the past two years. Each time, I have backed out because of fear. It’s taken me a while to unpack the root of the fear and as I’m moving through it, I thought I should share in case you’re wondering if group coaching is for you.

As a coach to Black women, I am always unlearning ways of being I picked up over decades of leading in white spaces. Those ways of being are also biases that I didn’t realize had become part of my unconscious way of leading. Let me know if you can relate.

  1. Leadership is a personal journey and is better when done one-on-one.
  2. Making sure everyone gets attention is a lot of work.
  3. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. AKA change is hard.
group of Black women in colorful clothes sitting together

Y’all, I was wrong. In this month of celebrating women, here is what I know to be true when I move through my doubt and negative self-talk.

  1. The idea of privileging leadership as solo journey is such limited thinking. Black communities are familiar with collective leadership. Whether it’s the usher board or the sorority chapter. We do groups.
  2. Black women know sisterhood. We know how to take care of each other. There is nothing more dynamic than watching a group of Black women vibing and connecting. IYKYK.
  3. While I LOVE coaching Black women one-on-one, there are some Black women who would benefit from a collective expereince. This change would be an expansion that will welcome more Black women into a community of support and growth.

So…I’m adding groups, y’all. Coming to a virtual space near you. My groups will be a space for folks who are tired of the isolation of climbing the leadership ladder and who are looking for community as they grow. This group will explore how Black women can lead from a place of authenticity and still have an impact, meet their goals, and get the bag. Let’s build something new together.

Group Coaching
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