Graced to Lead
The Graced to Lead Podcast is an empowering space dedicated to women, designed to inspire, equip, and nurture their leadership abilities in every aspect of life. We are here to remind you of the extraordinary God-grace you possess to lead with confidence and Biblical wisdom, whether in your professional endeavors, at home, in your business, or within your ministry.
Join us weekly for a journey of personal growth and empowerment. Each episode and post is crafted to challenge and inspire you, providing insights and tools that propel you forward in your leadership path. Graced to Lead is more than a podcast; it's a call to embrace God's grace to lead, even if you feel unqualified. Here, we believe in your power to gracefully, boldly, and effectively lead God’s way!
What to expect: solo episodes, conversations with guests, and even a few giveaways.
Graced to Lead
Ep. 13: 3 Tips for Embracing Uncomfortable Leadership Moments
Do you ever find yourself feeling out of your depth in leadership situations? Picture this: an early speaking engagement where I faced an unexpectedly large audience while grappling with physical and emotional challenges. Join me, Belinda Gaston, on the Grace to Lead podcast as I recount these moments and offer practical advice for women leaders who find themselves in similarly uncomfortable spots. We'll discuss the importance of perseverance, adaptability, and how embracing these uncomfortable moments can lead to significant personal and professional growth.
Additionally, hear about a particularly memorable event where an overly tight shaper forced me to ditch my prepared notes and speak from the heart during a panel discussion. Through this experience, I uncovered hidden strengths and insights that I never knew I possessed. This episode highlights how discomfort can push us to discover our true capabilities and emphasizes the tools that God has already provided us to navigate such challenges. Let's explore the divine lessons and opportunities for growth that can emerge from these trials, helping us become better leaders in God's way.
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Welcome to the Graced to Lead podcast. I'm Belinda Gaston, your host, and listen. If you are a Christian woman who leads at work, in your own business or even in ministry, you are in the right place here. You'll find practical advice and encouragement as you lead through real conversations that will challenge and inspire you. So join me on this journey to becoming better leaders, god's way. Are you ready? Let the journey begin. Welcome to the Graced to Lead podcast. I am Belinda Gaston, your host, and listen.
Belinda Gaston:If you are in a place of where you are leading from an uncomfortable place, you need to keep listening. This means if you've been used to doing things one way and all of a sudden, things are different, or maybe you're placed in a position where you have to do something that you aren't used to doing. Maybe you have a difficult decision that makes you uncomfortable, aren't used to doing. Maybe you have a difficult decision that makes you uncomfortable. Maybe you've had some challenges in your leadership and you're experiencing something that is just making you uncomfortable. I want you to keep listening because that is the place I'm in right now. I am in an uncomfortable place. I have had some very difficult, some challenges. I'll say I've had some challenges in leadership, this in the last few weeks that have caused me to be uncomfortable, and when I say uncomfortable, what I mean is that I've had to do some things I'm not used to doing. I've had to figure out how to say some things that I'm not used to saying, and I really had to have a perspective that I'm not used to having, and so it's made me. It's really been uncomfortable, and so I was sharing this with a friend of mine earlier today, and she reminded me of a story that I'm going to share with you. I can't believe I'm sharing the story with you first of all, but I'm going to share the story with you about an experience I've had when I was in an uncomfortable place, and after I share that with you, I'm going to tell you some tips for leading in that uncomfortable place, some things that I encourage you to do that's worked for me in this time and worked for me at this time that I'm going to share with you. So, listen, she was telling me that. She reminded me about one of the times that I sat on a panel for women and I was uncomfortable, and I have shared this story, I think, before on an old blog I used to have. So if you've heard it already, if you've read it already, then just bear with me. But so here's I want you to envision this. I need you to listen so you can understand where I was and what was happening at the time.
Belinda Gaston:So it was my one of my first invitations to sit to speak at a women's. It was a women's leadership and empowerment event before I became a minister, before I was ordained. It was not ministry at all. This was a leadership event to empower and encourage other women leaders, and I was invited to be a panelist by somebody that I really admire, and the other panelists were people that I looked up to. They were you know. Some of them I consider to be people I take advice from. They've been at leadership for a lot longer.
Belinda Gaston:I was a newer leader at the time, but here I was on this panel and a friend of mine at the time told me listen, if you're gonna be on this panel, you need to show up the right way. I mean, you need to make sure you have everything together, and she was hyping up like you have to make sure your hair is right, you want to make sure that your clothes are right and girl, you are a little pudgy in the middle, so you might want to go ahead and get yourself some Spanx or something. Now let me pause here. For those who don't know what Spanx is, spanx is a like a shaper garment. It's an under shaper garment. They're much more popular now than they were then, but nonetheless it was. They're used to kind of smooth out the bumps and the lumps and make you look great, right? And so she convinced me y'all that I needed to go and get these Spanx before big day. So I was like fine, I'll go and get them, you've convinced me. I get to the store and there's a whole wall of these things and none of them said Spanx. So it wasn't the Spanx brand, it was something else.
Belinda Gaston:But I ended up finding this shaper. It was like an all over shaper. It's tucked in your tummy and lifted up this and lifted up that. Oh, this is great, I've got it. I got my, my shaper. I checked the size on the package. Everything was great.
Belinda Gaston:And so on the day of the event that I was, I mean, I felt like I looked flawless. I had my hair was just right, my makeup was perfect, I had on amazing suit with an amazing color and underneath it all was my new shaper right. But I had some challenges with this shaper. I had some challenges. So I get to the event. I have been, I've been dressed now for a few hours. I get to the event. Everything is fine.
Belinda Gaston:But once I get into the like theater where the the event was going to take place, I realized one that the audience was larger than I expected. I was expecting this. It was described as this kind of intimate discussion with different women leaders in different spaces, in different parts of their career, but it was larger and I started looking at those chairs and my heart started beating fast. I thought, oh, I got really nervous. And so when I come in, the person who is in charge of the event is like great, everyone's here. I think I must've been probably late. I think I was probably later than the other panelists because when I came in, she said, okay, everybody up on the stage, we're gonna do like a sound check. And so the stage had these stairs to the left of it that you walk up to get on the stage to sit on the panel.
Belinda Gaston:And as I started walking towards the stairs, I realized that something was not quite right, and what it was was this shaper. This shaper was starting to get tighter as I walked, and so I'm walking towards the stairs and at this point we're in a line, the panelists are in a line, getting ready to go up the stairs just to have seats on stage to test the microphones, the lighting and all of that. So I line up and I think I may be third or fourth in line, and I line up and I'm looking at these stairs and it's not very many stairs. I want to say it may have been four stairs, five stairs, it wasn't a lot of stairs. But I'm looking at these stairs and they look enormous Like, for some reason I don't know if it was because I was nervous, most likely because I was nervous the stairs look like abnormally large, high stairs. And so I'm watching people the women in front of me gracefully go up the stairs. Some of them had on stilettos. They're going up the stairs on the stage and they on stilettos. They're going up the stairs on the stage and they're getting ready to take their seats, and they're wonderful.
Belinda Gaston:And as I started to walk to the stairs, I swear that shaper started to constrict on my thighs in a way that I did not expect. I mean, when I tell you constrict, I could feel my thighs tightening as I walked. So by the time I got to the first stair and lifted, tried to lift up my leg, that's when I realized, oh my goodness, I can't lift up my leg to get on this stair. So I'm standing there thinking this in my head, not realizing that I had really, truly paused, and there are people behind me and the people that were in front of me had already gone up. So people are waiting on me to go up these stairs. So I lifted up my right leg to put it on the stair and that's when the thought my thighs started throbbing with every single step going up these. I'm telling you, these stairs seem abnormally large, but as I was going up these stairs, with each step it felt like the shaper was tightening around my thighs. That's okay, I was uncomfortable, but it's okay.
Belinda Gaston:I made it up to the top of the stairs. I'm like okay, I made it to the top of the stairs, so everything should be fine. She led us all to. You know, everyone had a chair with, like where they were supposed to sit. And here was my next challenge. So I realized you know how you go on panels or you've seen people on panels and they have those like if they're on a stage they have those high kind of bar stool looking chairs you kind of just slide up on and you kind of you know, their feet cross neatly at the ends, all that kind of stuff. That's what I had imagined in my head that this would be like. But no, for this event the chairs were low and soft. I think that the event planner was trying to go for this like again, she had said this was an intimate conversation and so I think she was trying to go with like the loungy kind of you know loungy experience. But these chairs y'all were so much lower than I anticipated.
Belinda Gaston:So now that I had made it on top of the stairs and I had walked to where I was supposed to sit, my thighs are now throbbing because this shaper was so tight. I had to figure out how to sit in this low chair and I was saying now I don't know if I can even bend because as I'm doing, as I'm moving, the shaper is getting tighter, tighter to me. So I didn't even know if I could bend, let alone sit down in this low chair. And I remember thinking there was like there's no way that I'm going to be able to sit down in this chair. Now I was. I wasn't even wearing tight clothes, it was the shaper. The shaper was tightening. But again people were waiting on me, everyone else was doing what they were supposed to do. So I had to kind of it's like okay, I'm uncomfortable, but I got to keep this going, it's just practice, it's going to be okay.
Belinda Gaston:And I sat down in that chair and as I sat down in the chair, the shaper the shaper went up my left leg, just the left part. The left part went up and as I sat it tilted my bra kind of a little, cause it was an all over shaper. So I had like the. It had like the, the straps on the top and it went down into like what do you call it? Kind of shorts at the bottom. So the left part rises up, which tilts my bra up.
Belinda Gaston:And so now I'm sitting in this chair I need y'all to imagine this. I'm sitting in this chair, my thighs are throbbing, the shaper has moved up my left leg, my bra is kind of tilted a little bit to the right or the left, I don't remember where, and I sit down and I'm sitting there and I'm like, whew, I sat down, but at that moment I realized I could not feel my right butt cheek. The shaper had now constricted my right butt cheek so I've got throbbing thighs. This thing has risen up on the left. My bra is tilted, I can't feel my butt, I am uncomfortable and all I could think is okay, we just need to get through this and I will be able to quickly go to the restroom and just take the thing off.
Belinda Gaston:I just decided I'm taking the shaper off. People are going to have to see the lumps, the bumps, whatever's there. They're going to just have to see this thing, because I cannot sit here and go through my notes and deliver these questions, because we had the questions in advance, so we were each allowed like little folders so you could put your notes in and talk to these people and ask these questions. I could not do that and be uncomfortable, right? So we're sitting there, we're going through and for some reason, the lights and the sound the sound, I think it was the sound was taking way too long. It was taking longer than expected.
Belinda Gaston:People are starting to now come in, and so my moment of opportunity to get up and go quickly passed and the host was like we're just going to go ahead and move forward, I'm going to have, I'm going to introduce everyone and then we'll get started. And I think, oh crap, I can't, I have to sit here in this uncomfortable place for this panel. I wasn't having any trouble breathing or anything like that, but I'm telling you that the tingling and thriving it was awful. And so you know, you never really know when you're uncomfortable. You never really know what people see, you know what you feel, but you don't know what people are seeing on the outside Right. And so I'm trying to smile through it and just like, okay, lord, help me. I remember praying like, lord, just if you would just get me out of this, help me, lord, that kind of thing.
Belinda Gaston:But the woman to my right clearly knew something was wrong and she said to me are you okay? And I said, well, I really need to take a quick break. And she said, oh, we're about to start. Is there, are you feeling okay? And I was like, well, I'm all right, I'm not the best you know. I mean, how do I tell this woman no, I'm not okay. This shaper eyeball over shaper eyeball is constricting my blood flow in my body. It's like, in hindsight, the mature me, the leader that you see before you, would have just said listen, I need to take a break. I'll be right back and know that. That would have been okay.
Belinda Gaston:But at the time I was uncomfortable, I was out of my element. I didn't really know, I just didn't do it. And so she says to me well, you know what you need some water. She motions to the host to give me a bottle of water. I opened up the water and I took a sip. I instantly regretted taking that sip of water because I took that sip of water and that water literally just sat in my chest because I guess the shaper was doing his job, I don't know.
Belinda Gaston:So now I am very, extremely uncomfortable and the panel starts. She introduces us all. We have to speak. I am so uncomfortable that I can't even open up my folder to answer questions. I'm just answering. People are asking questions If they turn the question over to me. I just answered on the top of my head. I surprised myself y'all with some of the things I was saying because it wasn't in my notes.
Belinda Gaston:Now I will say that as the panel went on, I started to relax more and as I started to relax more, it felt like the shaper loosened up. I got the feeling back and my legs, but I was in an uncomfortable position. Now I'm not saying that this is an uncomfortable position that you are in right now, because hopefully you are not in the shaper game. I mean, if you are and you can do it, do it. I have not done that since that was my lesson. I don't do shapers, but I know that people look amazing in them.
Belinda Gaston:But the point is I was in an uncomfortable place and that experience showed me three things and that's what I want to encourage you with today. If you are in an uncomfortable place in your leadership, there are three things I just want to point out to you quickly, and then I will be done. The first thing is to embrace the shift. So remember, I'm on this panel, I'm very uncomfortable and I told you that. You know, once I said, okay, we just got to get this done. The water's in my chest, I can't feel, my right butt cheek, my thighs are tight, my bra shifted. I think I looked okay. When I look back at the video, you couldn't see any of that. You couldn't see any of that, thank God. But I was in this uncomfortable place.
Belinda Gaston:But at some point I remember the shift when I maybe the second question I got I was like you know what, let's just answer these questions and move on. And I started to answer and I started to relax and things started to change for me, physically, in my physical comfort. Things started to change and so once I embraced like okay, this is where I am, this is what's happening, it just seemed like things changed for me. This is what's happening. It just seemed like things changed for me and the reality, and I didn't even know, I didn't even realize how comfortable I had become until I watched the tape, watched the video sorry at the end.
Belinda Gaston:So, embracing the shift when you are in an uncomfortable place, it's okay to say I'm uncomfortable and just embrace the fact that you are uncomfortable. Now, you, as a leader, you may not be able to tell that to anyone, but you can accept that within yourself. Now, I could have easily told the woman to my right listen, I'm having a wardrobe malfunction and she would have supported me through it, but in this case I didn't. What I'm saying for you is as we, you know, for some of us if we continue doing what we always do. We do. We continue doing what we always do because we're comfortable, and if we never have a crisis or a sudden change or an uncomfortable place, we don't really know what we can actually do. There is more of you, leader. There is more you can do. You can lead in a different way, you can lead in a better way. There's so much in you, but you may not know that because you have been comfortable and you haven't been challenged.
Belinda Gaston:And so when you start to embrace that wait, this is an uncomfortable place, I'm just going to embrace where I am you may find that in your uncomfortable place, it begins to help you break free from your routine and accomplish something new, accomplish something different, and you can allow that to happen and embrace what's happening and say, wow, this is something different, this is something new, and not stress about it, not be afraid of it, not be angry about it. But OK, this is where I am. What is it that I can do now? And for me, quite frankly, if I had not been in that physically uncomfortable place and again, I don't recommend this because that could have been a medical emergency? So let me just stop and say if you are having a medical emergency, please seek help.
Belinda Gaston:But what I'm saying is in that if I had not been physically uncomfortable in that space, I would have relied on the notes that I wrote and given out the answers in the way that I kind of written my notes and missed an opportunity to see, oh my goodness, I can do this so much better. Some of those answers that I gave surprised me and that gave me confidence to know, wait, I can be on this kind of platform, in this kind of space and I can be confident in it and I can do things that I didn't think I could do. So that was the first thing. The second thing that really surprised me is remember I said I had created these talking points. We each had these folders and I had these talking points and my discomfort again, it kept me from opening that folder.
Belinda Gaston:I had found a position, a physical position in that chair that I could tolerate to answer these questions, and so everything I had to say in response to the discussion, to participate in the discussion, it came off the top of my head. It was things that God brought back to my attention. Sometimes God will bring stories, examples, experiences back and you're like, oh, I hadn't thought about that. And you're like I hadn't thought about this story in a long time until my friend reminded me of it. But so, as you embrace the shift, the other thing I want you to do is to recognize that, as a leader, god has already provided you what you need to make it through your uncomfortable place. God has already provided you what you need to make it through your uncomfortable place. You may not know how good you are at something until you're forced to do it. You may not know what's inside of you until you're forced to use it. But if you're spending your energy again, when we talk about embracing the shift, that means you're fighting against where you are. If you take the time to embrace that I am in this uncomfortable place, I have to deal with it, and then you allow yourself to stretch in those places, you'll be amazed at what's already inside of you. It's amazing, already inside of you. It's amazing. When I listened to that, when I sorry when I watched the video, I was amazed at what I had to say, amazed. So, then that so, embracing the shift, recognizing that God has already provided you with what you need to make it through your uncomfortable place. And then the last thing that I want to share with you is to look for God in every situation as you lead. I know that we are taught to leave our faith and our leadership separate, and so I'll say to you to look for what the lesson is in this place.
Belinda Gaston:Honestly, after that panel, it was a while before anyone really invited me to participate in anything else. I mean, it was a while and that was okay, because this was new for me. I didn't get caught up in the oh, I could have done better, because I know that people had spoken to me after the event and said that I encouraged them. I watched the video. I know that it was a really great panel, but here's the thing because of that panel, I met some women that I had never met, and some of those women ended up deeply impacting my life because of that one uncomfortable position. The woman that sat next to me on the panel that I mentioned to my right ended up being someone who poured so much wisdom into my leadership journey. She was an executive of this company and she literally took time to, over the course of the next year, to mentor me. I would have never met this woman had I not been in that place. If I had left that stage and said you know, I can't do this which is what I felt like doing, because I was so uncomfortable I would have missed that moment. There was another woman who was in the audience and she came up to me afterwards and she said oh, you know, I really appreciate some of the things that you said. We exchanged numbers. I didn't hear from her for a couple months and all of a sudden she called me out of the blue and she said hey, I'm having this event I want you to participate in, and so it's almost as if she opened doors for me that I would not have been able to access because she was in the audience.
Belinda Gaston:Sometimes you are placed in an uncomfortable position that will not only show you that you can do something new or show you that you have things in you that you didn't realize you had. But also that uncomfortable position could be a catalyst for something different, something better For me. My uncomfortable place was really a meeting place To me. That panel was a meeting place for me that God ordained so that I was in the right place at the right time. And so, from that moment on, when I began to realize, as I reflect on that place, and even in the place that I've been in recently, I am uncomfortable.
Belinda Gaston:But now I'm asking the question what should my attitude be like in this space? What should I be learning right now? What is it that I need to see that I'm missing right now? Show me, lord, what it is that you have for me in this position. Yes, it's uncomfortable. Yes, it can be frightening. Yes, it can be frustrating. Yes, it can be frustrating. Yes, it can be overwhelming, but I am embracing the fact that this is where I am. It's uncomfortable. I know that God has already put in me what I need to make it through this situation, and now I'm looking to see what it is that I need to learn, what it is I need to grow from. What is it I need to see, know and learn in this moment. What is it that I need to see, know and learn in this moment? If you are in an uncomfortable place in your leadership right now, what is it that I need to see, learn and know in this moment? And I guarantee you that you will make it through it, because, guess what? Things don't last forever, and that's what I have to tell myself. Things don't last forever. I'm uncomfortable right now, but things don't last forever.
Belinda Gaston:Listen, at the end of that panel, I was able to hop off that stage, take off that shaper and then meet the audience right. Take off that shaper and then meet the audience right. Meet the audience and my whole focus on how I was dressed and all of that kind of stuff. The reality of it is that I was probably the most dressed up. I think there was a couple of people, everyone looked lovely, but there were people in jeans and blazers. I had on a suit, right. Nobody. The people that I stay in touch with after that event and this has been years ago they don't remember what I was wearing. They couldn't even see that I was uncomfortable.
Belinda Gaston:Sometimes we're in uncomfortable positions and we're trying so hard to hide it because we're like what are people going to think and as a leader, I have to lead and what will people say? And they're not even. They don't even notice, they're not even paying attention. They are just. If they are watching you, it's because they are trying to model themselves. If they, if you, have influence so remember, a leader has influence If you are influencing other people, they are watching you to see how they should respond should they be in the situation that you're in, if they know the details. Many a times they don't even know the details, but we can get so caught up as women who lead in appearance and how things are perceived, and what I'm saying to you is that that's not what this is.
Belinda Gaston:You're uncomfortable leadership place. It's a place that may be the catalyst for something better for you. It's a place where, if you embrace the shift, it can help you break free of your routine and accomplish something new, and accomplish something new. It's a place this uncomfortable place is a place where you may have learned that you're really good at something that you didn't know you were because all of a sudden, you're forced to do it. You may also uncover challenges. Maybe you're not as good as something as you thought you were because you're forced to do it, and that's okay, right, it's okay because it's not failing. It's just learning that, oh, that didn't work. Learning how to do something different. Your uncomfortable place is a place where God may be trying to meet you and show you something that you should see, something you should know or something you should learn. So if you are in an uncomfortable place, if you are leading in an uncomfortable place, embrace it. Recognize that God has already provided you with what you need to make it through your uncomfortable place, and look for God in every situation. That's all for this week.
Belinda Gaston:I hope that this encouraged you. I have not shared this story in a long time, so I'm hoping that, for those who have heard it before, it reminded you of the last time I said it, and those who have never heard it, then you've learned something about me. I don't know what that is. You can judge me if you will, but until we meet again. First I want to say this is episode 13. I want to say thank you for listening. Thank you for listening to the Graced to Lead podcast. I appreciate you. I don't take you for granted. I want to encourage you to continue to listen. We are planning for season two and some great things coming down the pike. So I really do hope that you continue to follow, to listen, subscribe and share and, as always, remember that you are indeed graced to lead. Until we talk again next week, have a wonderful, blessed week, bye-bye.
