Push in Current Events

I talked it out with my coordinator about him shrinking the program. If he wanted, he could be an authoritative, totalitarian, dictator. Nobody would stop him. Instead, he creates space for me. I need a lot of space. I get to have a lot of freedom which is what I need to thrive. It is what I need to get job satisfaction. I don’t think anyone was ready for that. I understand his decision a bit more. I’m going to support it as it is only for two weeks. We will stop group programs and just focus on our one-on-one time with the participants to reestablish our expectations.

I was thinking about our dynamic yesterday. Why does it work so well? My coordinator is very good at the philanthropy side of what we do and I am very good at the big business side of what we do. We are learning from each other. He has the big vision and I go make it happen. I’m a Capricorn, this kind of building is just a good fit. Not to mention that I have an Aquarius Jupiter in the 10H. This kind of work is exactly where that belongs.

I’m more like a copilot but a backseat driver about it. I was overwhelming him yesterday, I was able to tell. We have 99 problems and they are due at the end of the month. I can tell when his avoidance is trying to seep in and I make him push through it. I saw that he was at his limit and brought up that I could see that he was cooked. I gave him space for an hour. He disappeared for that hour so he could decompress.

I noticed a pattern. He avoids these one-on-ones. He hasn’t done one all year. He tried to get out of it yesterday. We’ve seen all of our participants this week. We only had two left and there are three of us mentors. There was an opportunity for one of us to clock out. He asked me to do the one-on-one but I refused. He is the one who needs to reestablish expectations with our participants. I have an obscene amount of banked time anyway so I clocked out.

On Wednesday, we had our private boxing session for our boys. When my other mentor arrived with DJ, he ran up and gave me a big hug. He almost knocked me over, most of our boys are tanks. I missed you! He said. When my coordinator was with OH yesterday, he had to call me about something. Then he told me that OH wanted him to tell me that he misses me. When did I become the favorite? I am the mom of the group. That is the dynamic. Our elder told us to lean into that. It can be a bit menacing. Imagine a bunch of kids running around yelling mom! But instead it is Tom! Tom, I’m hungry. Toooom, the game isn’t starting. Tom! I’m thirsty! Tom! Can I do this? Meanwhile, the other mentors are beside me lol.

I got confirmation from our Youth Director that our program is allowed to have more than one funder. I have the director who is in charge of funding sending me a copy of our last proposal for funding so we can update it. I have a friend who works for the city that distributes funding. She offered me funding. She also offered me land… I’d better get a raise.

To be frank, when we met with our Youth Director to get her approval for our expense plan. The plan was all mine. Almost everything is all mine. This is what I mean by I don’t think they were ready for me. I almost always get to have my way. I just have to try and get my coordinator and the other mentor to keep up with me. I am trying to get more participants into our program. My coordinator is still checked out, I can tell. It is like pulling teeth sometimes. I don’t want to have to nag but I have to nag. I have to get him to reach out to our funders to source more participants from them. Half of our participants have to be from a program that is run by Child Family Services. The other half has to be from community. I have him reaching out to other coordinators from other programs within our organization so we can campaign and pitch our program to them. They will have kids who could benefit from being in our program. Especially the program that sponsors families of missing and murdered Indigenous women. It’s win-win.

The content in my previous entry, I am thinking about bringing it to a podcast. There is a studio that I can have access to. My program is actually going to build our own. I am going to talk to some of our elders about it. Not necessarily on a podcast but I want to pick their brains. The one I hired to work in my program, I can’t wait to hear what he has to say. When I talk with the elders, we could go for hours. The conversations get deep.