As a result of the pandemic, what fuels me differently is my perspective on pausing and pivots. As a social entrepreneur, I was always on the go and conditioned with my lists, timeline, and calendars. For as long as I can remember, I have defined success with hyper-productivity, accomplishing every task on my Asana board and/or successfully meeting every grant outcome metric. But the pandemic completely rocked my Type A personality and forced me to reimagine my relationship with work. It forced me to pivot and reimagine alternative benchmarks to success. The benchmarks became less about the quantifiable numbers and lists, but the quality of how we showed up for our community and ourselves. I learned that there is great power in pivots and even greater power in allowing an intentional pause to align the pivot. In practice, we have created avenues for the children, youth, and families we serve to lean into radical joy and rest by bridging resource gaps for mental health, and extending grace whenever possible. I implemented mental health days for my team and we took our first-ever management retreat to build, reflect, strategize and pour into ourselves, as we champion our community. These small actions have given us greater clarity and confidence in service delivery and how we show up as a team. Personally, I have a deeper resolve in the sacredness of reflection and rest — the two coupled together make me a better leader, social entrepreneur, and Good Person.

— Courtney Smith
Founder and CEO, Detroit Phoenix Center

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