When You Have to Start Over (Again)!

When You Have to Start Over (Again)!

I don’t know about you but I am tired of starting over again and again and again! It seems like my entire life has been one restart after another. Sometimes it has been financial restarts and other times it has been relationships. I remember restarting in new jobs and even new careers. Life is definitely about change, but why can’t that change be moving me forward more instead of 3 steps forward and 2 steps back. It can be frustrating and depressing, provoke anxiety and anger, or even create a sense of hopelessness. If I am honest, though, sometimes starting over was exciting. When relationships or a job had become so toxic and unhealthy, anything seemed better than where I was at. But then a few years down the line I found myself in similar situations. At some point I started asking, “What is it about me that causes me to continually find myself in these restart situations?” And then I discovered something. Something that you have probably already discovered in life — I am just a slow learner. Everyone experiences starting over in some way and many times it helps us reevaluate life, leadership, love, and a bunch other “L-words” I can’t think of right now. In other words, depending how we view restarts, they can be good and beneficial to our lives, even though painful at times.

Well, here we go again! Another restart, not a do over (I like do overs). So, I have to start over from the beginning and try to figure out something new that could not be figured out before. And here is the problem: the first time sucked! It was expensive, time consuming, painful (physically, mentally, and spiritually), and defeating. Bottom line—I DON’T WANT TO START OVER — I WOULD RATHER QUIT! But my doctor asked me, “But what if I can guarantee you (as much as humanly possible) that I can solve this for you?” Does that change the way that you would look at your restarts in life? If I could guarantee you that on the other side of it, life would be better? It probably would, if we are honest. We might not like going through it, but at least there would be hope and a silver lining.

So, I finally got the phone call from the Mayo Clinic and they wanted to see me in about 10 days. Great! I think? The scheduling nurse on the other end of the phone then started to tell me all the tests that they wanted to run on me to get a base line while I was there for two days. As I listened, my anxiety started to skyrocket. She was listing off all of the tests that I had just had over the past 6 months that they wanted to do in 2 days. 1) They did not feel good—at all! 2) They were expensive—even with insurance! 3) They were embarrassing to have done—even after hugging the nurse and exchanging phone numbers with her just to try to feel a little bit more of a personal connection if she was going to be up in my business. 4) And if I didn’t mention it, it did not feel good.

After the nurse was done talking, I asked a simple question—“I just had every one of the tests done you just mentioned. Can I just send you my results?” She told me I could, but we still needed to re-do them (restart) at the Mayo Clinic because their equipment and resources were better than most others and it gives a more accurate reading (see previous chapter on this). If I am honest, a part of me was angry that I couldn’t just have started at the Mayo Clinic and been done with all this! However, it appeared we were just back to the starting line and we just happened to be on a bigger and nicer track. The good news was — at least I knew what to expect. The bad news was — at least I knew what to expect.

So the big day came to head over to the Mayo Clinic. I chose to drive myself due to being highly independent (some would say at an unhealthy level). I didn’t want to make anyone take off work to drive 5 hours and sit all day in a hospital, to then have to sleep in a hotel bed, only to get up and do it again the next day before getting back in the car for another 5-hour trip home. So, I took myself and had a nice quiet road trip. The only catch to this was that for one of the tests I had to have, I had the option of taking a Valium before the test to calm my anxiety and relax me. The catch was if I took a Valium then I had to have someone drive me home. So, I decided to put on my big boy pants (right before I had to take them off for the test) and just “take a shot of whiskey”, bite down on a stick, and gave a pass to the Valium! BIG Mistake!

The drive over to the Mayo Clinic was nice, except for how tired I was. I had to stop like 13 times on my way to Jacksonville just to stay awake and about 7 of the 13 times were to go pee. Good times! I had gotten pretty good peeing in a cup with the car on cruise control at 65, but wasn’t feeling as sure of myself on this trip and wanted to try to keep some type of resale value for my vehicle. Plus, I could tell you about a couple mishaps I had—but you can just imagine worst case scenario and then multiply it happening 5 different times (by the way I have traded this vehicle in)! Trader Joe’s is always a must stop to pick up items that I get to haul around for several days, and that appear to be cheaper than other places (I am not convinced, but at least they have nice restrooms and a Starbucks in their parking lot). Not far down the road from there at exit 183 is the gas station of all gas stations—THE BUSY BEE! You can pretty much do all your Christmas shopping here and people would be happy. The gas costs more and so does everything else, but it’s clean and they have used great marketing to suck me in every time. A few other stops along the way and I finally arrived in Jacksonville to go check in at the Mayo Clinic for my exciting two days of exams.

I checked in at the information area and they printed out my schedule for the next two days. My first appointment was in about an hour and a half and before that I had to go give a urine sample and get my blood drawn. I did that and then swung by the snack bar to get a coffee and protein bar. I returned to the third floor and sat waiting for my name to be called. I was pretty proud of myself for only dozing off twice while drinking coffee as I waited for my appointment. Finally, I heard my name called and looked up from my chair to see my newest nurse. She was an African American woman who was about twice my size. Now, I was not only worried about the test, but I am now worried if I act nervous or begin to have second thoughts that my nurse could very easily hold me down and make me do it anyway. On our walk back to the exam room (a walk I like to call the Green Mile) she let me know that she had a great sense of humor. She told me her mom and dad’s name, where she went to high school and college, her favorite color and food, and the type of flowers she preferred. She then told me if she was going to be doing the things she had to do to me, I ought to really know her more personally.

She had the joy of giving me my second Flow Test (Please see previous chapter on ALL the joys of this test). In short this test places a catheter in both sides of your body (I think they touch in the center of your body and shake hands—at least it feels like it), they then stick electrodes all around your “private parts” and then you drink and get filled up with fluid until your bladder can’t stand it anymore. Throughout the test, as you sit there naked in a reclined chair with a stirrup like footrest, you have to tell the nurse how you are feeling. Words like, vulnerable, embarrassed, cold, and cheap are not words she is looking for I found out. I had to be able to differentiate the fullness of my bladder and the level of urging I had to pee. Well, since I went to bathroom over 30 times a day, it always felt like I had to pee, but I played along so hopefully this would be the last time I would ever had to do this test. This test took about an hour and a half, so my nurse and I had more than enough time to get to know each other. She had a 12-year-old son who acted much like my 13-year-old son, so we swapped parenting advice and failures. We relived some of the goofy decisions our sons had made and laughed (although I couldn’t laugh too hard as it might make me start peeing and I would have to start this test over).

Finally, I was full (or at least what I thought was full). Now the next stage of the test is the weirdest part. I had to pee through the catheter into a container that measured my “volume” while my nurse watched me to see how much I discharged, time how fast I can do this, and to monitor my flow strength. If you didn’t know, it is hard to pee on command (try it sometime). To complicate this, it is hard to pee on command with someone watching you (especially a semi-stranger). To make it worse, try doing it sitting down (especially guys), somewhat reclined, with the added pressure that if you flunk this test, the next one is going to be worse. Well guess what? I flunked! Not only did I flunk, but my nurse’s comments and facial expressions told me that I didn’t even come close to passing. I felt like I needed to apologize for not doing well and ALMOST offered that if she gave me one more chance I knew I could do better! (I really need to go to more counseling for being such a people-pleaser).

The nurse left for a little bit (probably to go tell the other nurses about my utter failure) and then came back in the room to pull out the catheters (good times), peel of the electrodes (awkward), and clean me up (at least she used warm wipes), so I could get dressed and go wait for my next embarrassing appointment. The nurse offered to give me her phone number if it made me feel better, but I told her we were good as long as she would never talk about this or make eye contact if we ever met each other on the streets. She agreed and we locked eyes, both knowing this was our own little secret and that we would always have the Mayo Clinic in our lives, and then I left.

Starting over is never fun but many times it is necessary in life. Sometimes we have to do the exact same thing we just did and other times it feels like we are just pushing reset and although the destination is still the same, the journey getting there is going to be different. I remember growing up and playing Pac-Man for the first time. It was awesome and the graphics (back then) were incredible. They actually looked like little square ghosts and Pac-Man’s mouth even moved! I loved the game, but when I found out there were patterns you could memorize to win the game I became obsessed. I don’t know how many quarters I put into the video game over the next year or so at the Rapid City, South Dakota YMCA, but I was excited to start over every single time because I got a little bit further each time.

Strange how we approach our life so differently when it is so similar to a video game. To really get in there and play hard in life, we know it is going to cost us money, time, energy, talents, emotions, strength, etc. Yes, it is going to cost us a lot! Every level of life is different and getting through each level is going to take different skills and abilities. There will always be adversaries (ghosts) that will try to run us off course and cause us to fail. Sometimes those are people and other times they are circumstances. Sometimes it is the ghosts of our past that we have never dealt with or we tried to contain them to a little box in the center of our lives, hoping that they would not cause us to fail. But ti seems every time they end up escaping from that box we put them in. Other times, it is the decisions we make in our present that are making us fail to even see the right way to turn in life. Like in Pac-Man, there are many things that we need to go pick up and some are worth more than others. In life (like Pac-Man), it is not our goal to get and take everything we can, but to create the clearest and best path through the maze of life—avoiding the roadblocks as much as possible—to get to the next level. And every time we do, there is always something to celebrate if we stop and look and push pause long enough before we keep going. (If you are confused, go play Pac-Man and then come back and re-read this paragraph).

However, in life whenever we have to go through a test that we did not enjoy (and that we were still getting over physically and emotionally), it is never as joyful or easy as playing a round of Pac-Man. However, we are all still going to have to do it at some point in life. It may not be a medical test but it could be something testing your occupation, your character, your marriage, a friendship, your mental capacity, your training level, your WHATEVER. It could be a million different things but know that at each level of life you will have to start over. Some restarts are bigger than others, but all of them still have an emotional and physical toll that you need to plan for. The change of a career could be a very exciting thing and produce energy in your life that you will put towards your new occupation, but at the same time, it may pull you away from your children or a hobby that you love. At the end of a couple months at the new job you could be feeling thankful for your job but emotionally disconnected from your family and like you need to reconnect with your hobby so that you can release stress. OR… you could have a restart in a relationship. Let’s, say your marriage ended in divorce after years of trying to make it work, and although you are mourning the loss of the relationship, you are also looking forward to the freedom it brings. You are emotionally, spiritually, and physically exhausted but the thought of a future of removing the conflict that had erupted in your life gives you joy. However, you feel guilty for feeling good about the future even though the present is so painful. Plan for it!

As leaders we have to plan for every one of these pattern changes in our lives and hundreds of others. Even though we can’t plan for every twist and turn when those adversaries come into our lives, we can take time to plan before we jump back in and start doing it again. We can also take time to evaluate and celebrate at the end of each level. There are three areas that I see so many leaders fail in (myself included at times): Planning for the future, celebrating and evaluating the past.

Right now in history as I write this, I am sequestered at home during the Covid-19 Pandemic (it’s April 2020 if you were wondering). I don’t know how we will look back on history and see or define this time, but I do know that we all need to be planning now for the reopening or the restart of society and our lives, whether it is one month or one year away. In fact, we need to plan for both time frames and even make a plan for what happens if we reopen/restart society and four weeks later we have to close back down because of another surge in cases. As leaders, we also need to be evaluating whatever it was we were leading prior to the Covid-19 outbreak and learning leadership and pattern/system lessons from how we led then compared to how we are going to lead in the future. Everything has changed! It usually does every time we start over. It may look and smell the same, but everything is different. My medical test was an identical test and I could have told you what was going to happen next in the process, but it was totally different at the same time. I was in a different town, at one of the best research hospitals in the world, with a new nurse, new equipment, new doctors, new eyes reading the results, and I even got a new fancy gown that I got to wear that opened from the back AND front (don’t be jealous)!

I hope that each of you as leaders (you are all leaders, by the way) will realize that starting over is a part of life. It will happen. How we approach these times in our lives will many times determine how we will position ourselves for the future. I know that starting over is not easy or fun most of the time. But it will be necessary to prepare yourself to start over. Let me encourage all of us as leaders to 1) Plan harder for the restarts of life (this will make future ones go smoother), 2) Evaluate what you are leaving behind differently (this will give you a better outlook on your future), and 3) Celebrate longer (no matter what you are leaving behind, there are plenty of things for you to celebrate from the experience. If nothing else, you lived through it!