The Treasure Chest: Gems, Compliments, And Scrooge McDuck
Sharing Is Caring. Hearing Is Endearing. List-nin’ Is Better Than Whistlin’ 👂🏼 > 😗
I learn so much from the people I work with. I cannot stress enough how important it is for leaders to give teams a safe space to share their ideas. Even ideas that seem simple or crazy can have a huge impact. I still use one of those ideas to this day. It came from a brilliant member of my team when I was at Salesforce, Kendall Odom (links below).
Sometimes You Reach Into Your Pocket & It’s $20. Sometimes It’s A Melted Butterscotch Candy With A Hair Stuck To It 🍬
Being a community professional means you have some good days and some bad days. Some angry community members and some happy ones. Some entitled community members and some grateful ones. And some community members even go through the whole spectrum (they are people after all).
Kendall Odom Is A Gem 💎
Kendall taught me to keep a treasure chest. The treasure chest is a folder she keeps on her desktop called “Stay Inspired/Team Love.” When a member of the community sends a nice note, a thank you, a shoutout, or any positive feedback, she takes a screenshot and puts it in her treasure chest. Whenever she’s having a rough day or dealing with an unhappy member of the community, she’s got a trove of gems she can pull out at any time to reinspire herself.
Note: Tiffany’s also known for great gems and jewels. Those are stories for another time. #SoPunny
I decided to create my own treasure chest, and it has been AWESOME. I save notes and shoutouts from:
- The community about the community experience
- The community to/about me (related to my community work)
- From coworkers/leadership about the community
- From coworkers/leadership about me (related to my community work)
Diamonds Are A Community Professional’s Best Friend 💍
Whenever I’m having a down day or even moment, these treasures inspire me. They help me remember why I do what I do and the impact my work has on people. If I screw something up (and yes, I surely do), I use it to remind me that while I might have screwed this up, there are so many sparkling diamonds to be proud of in my treasure chest. I can get past the tough days and appreciate the amazing ones.
Show Them The Receipts 🧾
Besides the treasure chest being an incredible source of inspiration, it’s also an arsenal of qualitative data that you can use in your role and in your career. If you need to show someone qualitative examples of your success, you’ve got the greatest ones handy. I also believe strongly in creating an accomplishments list, but that’s something different that I’ll share in another blog post.
Might Solve A Mystery! Or Rewrite History! DuckTales! Whoo Hoo! 🦆💰
Build your treasure chest! Make time to continuously be adding these treasures, and when you eventually move to a different company, take your treasures with you! Besides making time to put your treasures into your chest, don’t forget to take time to look through them. Either one or two here and there, or when you really need it, block off a chunk of time to swim in them–Scrooge McDuck style.
