I admit that I watch a fair amount of TV.
This past week, I watched the season finale of Ted Lasso (spoiler alert!–if you haven’t watched it, turn back now!) and I loved every minute of it.
One of the most incredible scenes is Nate’s with Ted where he has a full meltdown and unmasks his crazy. High-level: Nate has made Ted the source of his anger and pain when it’s really tied up in his complicated relationship with his father and his own self-esteem.
So often in fundraising situations, we bring all of our baggage and trauma into the conversation even before we’ve had the conversation.
We may have complicated feelings about money, about people with money, about not having enough or having too much. We may have past experiences that color our interactions with donors and expectations about what they want, how they’re going to behave and how they’re going to make us feel.
None of that has anything to do with the person in front of you.
What you carry–your history, your narrative, your interpretations, your thoughts and your emotions–are yours alone. For us to enter into healthy partnerships of any kind (funding, professional, personal), you have to know what baggage is yours and what to do with it.
Or you risk being like Nate and barfing up the contents of your baggage on other people.
Every conversation, every interaction, every moment creates an opportunity to make choices.
