Climb Every Mountain

A few days ago I walked into my mom’s living space (our renovated basement) for the first time in nine weeks. It was an occasion and she treated it as such.

It wasn’t that I had been avoiding her; she’d been up to visit me many times. And it wasn’t so much that I walked; I can really only hobble in my giant Frankenstein boot. It was just that I broke my right leg in mid-November and, after many weeks of being confined by my injury, I was finally able to tackle the stairs between us.

The past few months of my life have been defined by milestones that would have seemed laughable prior to the night I slipped on ice: leaving the house for the first time; being at work alone; finding out which movie theaters really care about their disabled patrons; cooking from a wheelchair; relearning every day how to climb stairs with crutches; taking a shower without my husband’s help. The big one is yet to come... driving!

As happens so often, my personal life informs my work life and vice versa. This experience has been a validation of EPI’s mission: empowering people to accelerate performance.

My boss and coworkers have empowered me by being flexible with my work environment and schedule while I’ve been physically hampered; they’ve also been there to cheer me on as I face each new challenge. Last week I decided to venture outside the office alone, wheeling myself backward up a long asphalt incline to Starbucks. Nobody tried to deter me. In fact, they encouraged me.

It’s easy to overlook the power of encouragement with your employees, but it can be the most effective weapon in your arsenal as a leader. Encouraging a struggling employee to head up the hill either literally or figuratively may not seem like much, but you can bet that as she’s sailing back down it she’s thinking: “I’m glad I work here.”