Vacillate

I need a shower.  Not to clean off the sweat and mud from the 7-mile trail run my racing comrades ambushed me with this morning, but to rinse from my soul the foul residue lingering from the venomous venting to a female colleague and friend I did yesterday; the simmering pot of unfairness in the workforce finally boiling over and scalding my ever-hopeful heart.  Like the hangover that follows an evening of raucous overindulgence, I woke up this morning, hurting in a shameful guilt, wondering how I could have let myself get so out of control with such selfish narcissism. 

I find myself swinging between the desire to fight tooth and nail for more, justified in the name of equality, and the will to exercise humility and gratitude for the privileged life I lead.  I have enough, do I really need more?  The uncharacteristic, deliberate and pointed lashing out I did while consciously avoiding all attempts to see the situation from any vantage point other than my own has embarrassed me.  My behavior reeked of disappointment in myself for my repeated failure to fight successfully for what I believe is my due.  Yet there is this feeling that I have so much more than others, I should be quiet, thankful and somehow content. My pain over yesterday’s outburst stems from this unbroken tension.

My faith tells me I should just continue to work hard and not worry about the rewards; I will be taken care of. The fighter in me says that if I don’t speak up for what is fair I’ll be viewed as a weak and ineffective advocate.  If I don’t stand up for myself, who will?  Will inaction or resignation send the message that the situation is fine the way it is?

I’ve been in this space before, attempting to balance letting it be with taking action.  When I find myself here, I often refer to Ken Follett’s “The Pillars of the Earth”. An epic novel set in feudal times, it’s the story of the building of a cathedral.  Follett’s Prior Philip says this when faced with a similar conundrum:  “Having faith in God did not mean sitting back and doing nothing.  It meant believing that you would find success if you did your best honestly and energetically.”

I’m fully aware that Pillars is a work of fiction built around spiritual beliefs that everyone does not share, but there is something in this statement that has a real world application for me and so aligns with my moral compass that I am cleaved to it. What it says to me is that we do have some obligation to help ourselves along; we don’t have to submit to the fates that surround us; we have voices because it’s presumed we’ll put them into service.  What is it my oldest son says?   “If you give me freedom of speech you need to expect that I will use it.”  Out of the mouths of babes; my babe, actually.  Can you feel my pride?

Venting the toxic thoughts in my head yesterday to a friend who creates a safe environment for that to happen is, in a way, me exercising a sort of kindness to myself.  Her sympathetic ear and validation gave me the courage to say out loud that the inequity and exclusion I am faced with in the workforce is real and hurtful to me explicitly.  I get to feel bad about it.  I get to make it personal. More than that, I don’t have to submit to this like a rug people continue to traipse over. We all need to accept that which we can’t change, but acknowledging it is unjust is far different than trying to make it okay by saying it doesn’t matter.

As ugly as it was, purging the hurt leaves me better equipped to see more clearly my next move. I’ll have the meeting the head of our D&I council requested after reading my e-mail on inclusion. I’ll be able to leave my personal pain at the door, and speak intelligently and emphatically on why this matters. I want to be solution-oriented even though I know the solution will not make a material difference in the time I have left in the workforce.  I’m slowly becoming resigned to this reality.  But it’s an injustice that sears. 

I recently devoured a blog post that challenged the readers to consider who they surround themselves with.  Are you spending time with people who push you to be a better person?  There was nothing I needed more this morning than a good, long, challenging run.  While I hadn’t planned it, I found myself pushing hard to stay in it.  It’s just good for my soul. 

When I sent the text of apology to the girlfriend who listened to yesterday’s rant, I was rewarded in her riposte with more validation of my feelings.  We are kindred in our pain, but she’s been doing something about hers.  She speaks up, out and often to make visible the injustices and exclusion in the workforce.  I admire her bravery.  She inspires me to stand next to her in this cause.  She makes me better.

Arbitrage

I had an epiphany today.  Those of you who talk to me often may say something like “what now?”  I have these fairly regularly.  Today’s ah-ha moment was being able to put into words what is in between me and career satisfaction.

I have worked extremely hard, over the past eight years specifically, to get to where I’m at today.  I have an executive-level title and all the responsibility to go along with it.  I have exposure to senior level leaders in my organization and have cultivated and maintained a personal brand that is respected, admired and preferred over others. I am sought out for the most challenging projects, for counsel on a broad area of expertise and very quickly instill in my teams a belief that they will be empowered, supported and heard, in spite of the fact that my tenure has been severely truncated in my most recent assignments.

Sounds good on paper, right?  So what’s the problem?  It’s this:  I don’t “feel” like an executive.  I put the word feel in quotations because it’s such an imprecise and unprofessional way to describe my frustration.  Or is it?

Since returning from the women’s summit my company held last week, I can’t stop thinking about the inclusion aspect of diversity and inclusion.  When corporations talk about their D&I programs, the focus is very heavily on diversity.  It’s the part that is easily understood, with a solution that readily presents itself.  Just add more diverse people and we’ll be a diverse organization. The problem is we’re not so well versed in inclusion.  Once our diverse team members are on the payroll, we don’t leverage them to the fullest extent.  This is especially evident at the executive level.

Corporate America has been male-dominated since the beginning of time.  Business practices, protocol and perspective are all filtered through the male lens.  It’s so ingrained in both sexes that most of us don’t even realize the extent to which gender bias has permeated our culture. 

Women are literally shut out of a huge piece of the relationship-building component, which is key to success at the executive level, because it is socially acceptable, expected even, for  business to be conducted on a golf course or at an after-hours social event.  I’ve often asked myself how I’m expected to connect with my married, male client when I am a single woman.  Especially when the most visible example of another woman’s attempt to bond with her married, male client fed the rumor mill for months, culminating in an assertion that the two shared a hotel room on a business trip.  A friend told me recently that she is vigilant about her behavior in the few social situations she’s included in because she doesn’t want to give anyone a modicum of fuel for that fire.  Sadly, the people around us are making their own assumptions, regardless of what we put out there.

What’s happening is that the women who make it to the top surrender themselves.  They assimilate into the male culture in order to break the glass ceiling.  Only the really tough ones make it.  It takes a certain caliber of woman to transform herself, mastering the rules of the male game. I have nothing but respect for these women and the personal sacrifices I imagine they’ve made to achieve their stature.  But it’s not who I want to be.

“Feel” is the right word.  It’s the right word for women.  How women feel about the work they do and perceive their value in an organization has everything to do with why they remain with an employer.  I don’t feel like an executive in spite of my skills, my title and my ability to complete the most challenging of client deliverables because I’m lacking equality in compensation and the social connection that comes naturally to men.  You’re not truly an executive without the complete package.  At a time in my career when I should feel on top of the world about my accomplishments, I feel empty, wondering what all the hard work was really for.  The rewards that go with the hard work, which are the money and hanging out with the in crowd are out of my reach.

Deutsche Bank published a white paper in 2010 on gender balanced leadership that says this:  “Employers eager to capitalize on their investment in women allow women to get to the top staying themselves, not having to borrow the style of their successful male colleagues.”  This is a very astute observation that gets to the heart of inclusion.  It’s acknowledging that some very common business practices are inherently exclusive in today’s world.  It’s recognizing we can’t just title women without addressing the imbalance in rewards. It’s finding ways for our diverse talent pool to contribute on their own terms. Improving diversity at the executive level by promoting more women is a temporary fix.  Attrition will be right behind us on the ladder if we don’t address inclusion.  Employers figuring this out will be the employers of choice for women.

This is a complex problem that remains unsolved in the business world today. It’s also the next place I’m going.

I sent two e-mails on this topic today:  One to the man who heads up the diversity and inclusion council at my company, the other to the woman who runs the leadership development consulting business where I’ve been mentoring women.  One of these avenues is going to put me in a position to lead an effort to create inclusive environments that put women on a path to get to the top just by being themselves. 

I will feel like an executive.  I’ve worked too hard not to.

Lexicological

I’m a big fan of the current marketing campaign Athleta is running.  This company sells athletic wear for women, and quite honestly, it makes me drool.  It’s practical, colorful, durable, fashionable, and branded with the super cool tag line “Power to the She”.  I’m sure I own way too much of this apparel, but I can’t help myself. The advertisements in magazines and their product catalogues are a clever play on words that encompasses the essence of today’s women, and they never fail to catch my eye. So here’s my ode to Athleta. Rock on, girls.

Be brave.

Brave the cold.

Fuel the fire.

Fire on all cylinders.

Speak up.

Speak out.

Take nothing for granted.

Grant grace.

Ruminate.

Illustrate.

Collaborate.

Validate.

Show the love.

Love what you do.

Do what matters.

Matter to others.

Make space.

Make time.

Make cookies.

Pull out the thorn.

Pull back the arrow.

Step on the gas.

Break the glass.

Break open.

Open doors.

Spin the big chair.

Be giddy.

Giddy up.

Finish what you start.

Start your engines.

Start dinner.

Feed your soul.

Set the table.

Set the stage.

Stage a coup.

Coup de grâce.

Power to the She.

Ferment

The past two days I’ve spent my time at the Women’s Summit my company hosted for sixty of the talented women leaders in the burgeoning officer ranks within my organization.  Meant to demonstrate the commitment the firm has to diversity and inclusion, we were granted access to the most senior executives and treated to presentations from four high-powered women outside of our business, all sharing the insight and experience they’ve garnered on their journeys to the highest levels of leadership in their respective industries.

The information was, as you would expect, invaluable.  The perspective was thought provoking and inspiring.  The speakers were dynamic and passionate. And while plenty of brainstorming was encouraged in an attempt to solution the glaring problem of underrepresentation of women in leadership positions within our organization, I walked away more cleaved than ever to my belief that the power to change this lies inside each individual woman.  It comes down to believing in your value and asking for what you want.

As women, we can be blind to our worth and mute when it comes to expressing our wants.  We seem to have an endemic and perpetual aversion to self-promotion. I’m not sure where exactly this comes from, but it is so prevalent that on the surface it appears to be inherent, somehow embedded in the X chromosome.  Yet this can’t be the case, and here’s why:  The successful women who spoke to us over the course of these two days made it clear in their mannerisms, their presence and their achievements that they have no trouble asking for what they want. We’re underrepresented because there simply are not enough of us speaking up for ourselves. 

The statistics will tell you that in today’s world, women and men are entering the white collar workforce at the same rate.  Yet attrition of women is fast and furious, quickly plummeting to the dark side of 80 – 20.  We leave, or worse than that, we plant ourselves in safe, stagnant positions, believing the constant juggling of work and life needs to remain invisible to our employers in order to preserve our hard-earned reputations, and even, sometimes, our jobs themselves.  We sell ourselves short, many of us working heads down, pencils up in silent apology for our outside obligations.  We don’t ask for what we want because we tell ourselves we should feel fortunate that our employers are tolerating a need for flexibility.  Seeking a balance to nurture our families, we make ourselves believe that we’re being granted concessions we should gratefully accept in exchange for promotions and fair compensation.  Until we get out of this damaging mindset, we will never be able to use our power to propel ourselves forward.

I’m trying to come up with an example of at least one women out there who has seriously pressed for a leadership role and been turned down. It seems unheard of to me, but it could just be my organization.  If this is the case, than I consider myself fortunate.  I certainly have never been refused a request for additional responsibility or opportunities to stretch myself and learn new skills.  Every time I asked to be considered for promotion my request was granted, and ultimately achieved.  Looking back, I really believe I could have had the promotions sooner if I hadn’t waited to ask for them until I was confident I had more than mastered the required skills. 

Over coffee with one of the younger women at the summit, I was enthralled listening to her talk about her business, an area I know little about.  She was confident, knowledgeable, authoritative, and I have no doubt she is a valued advisor to her clients.  Her business line has seen reductions in staff; she is doing the work of more than one person, allowing her business to realize healthy profit margins.  Yet, when she talked about herself, she spoke in terms of being grateful to have the flexibility to hold down her job and raise her young daughters, of not wanting to “rock the boat” and ask for what she wants.  And she’s not alone.  There are women all around us undercutting their value, bartering away promotions and pay in one-sided, phantom negotiations with themselves.  Ladies, stop it!

What I told this extremely talented and engaging young woman is that she proves her worth every day.  She wouldn’t be at this summit if our company did not see her talent and believe she is a great investment.  All the power she needs to move forward is inside of her.  She just needs to find her voice.  I advised her to look at herself through the lens in which she analyzes her clients’ operations, to speak of her value in the same terms she does her client’s assets, to advise herself with the same confident, objectivity she unleashes in her consulting role.

Yes, we should continue to look for ways to create more inclusive environments where women feel comfortable being themselves.  Yes, we should support employee resource groups for women and minorities.  Yes, we should require senior executives, both male and female to sponsor talented women, ensuring they receive opportunities to grow.  But the single, most powerful step we can take to get more women in executive positions is to coach the leadership pipeline to believe in their worth and speak their minds. 

While the meeting was packed full of valuable career advice, what resonated with me were the simple words:  “Ask for what you want.”

Diapason

Ever thought about why you were put on this earth?  Okay, I know that sounds like a deep and possibly unanswerable question, but it’s not meant to be rhetorical.

A friend of mine attends different churches periodically to feed her curiosity about faith and spirituality.  She says I would have loved the service she attended last weekend. The congregation was treated to a video clip called “Joy in the Congo”, aired last spring on 60 Minutes. Watch it here:  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57410920/joy-in-the-congo-a-musical-miracle/?tag=contentMain;contentBody.  

It’s the story of a pilot who found himself at a crossroads twenty years ago when the airline he flew for folded.  He decided to follow his dream to assemble a symphony orchestra.  He lives in the Congo. This is a pretty lofty dream in and of itself, choosing to make it happen in a third world country ravaged by poverty and war seems like an impossibility. When he started not a single person, including the pilot himself, could read music or play an instrument. Yet somehow through his determination and sheer joy for music, he created enough interest to seat a complete orchestra, teach and provide instruments to every participant.

The message conveyed at this church service, and the reason my friend thought I would find this so compelling, is this:   Follow your passion, be the best you that you can be.  When you are doing what you love, you can positively impact the lives of those around you. That’s what you’re here for.

When put in those terms, it almost seems too easy.  Do what I wake up every morning craving to do, the things that I’m naturally good at, the stuff I would rather be spending time on more than anything else in the world and I’ll be fulfilling my life’s purpose?  Where do I sign up?

It’s that simple.  And it’s not.  There are those who will get caught up in the practicality of it all.  Somehow there needs to be a way to make a living, to cover the responsibilities we all have in life which can’t be ignored.  I’m sure if this pilot had told his mother when he was eighteen that he wanted to have a symphony orchestra she would have said words to the effect of “over my dead body” and sent him to college instead.  When the dream seems a little too impractical or risky, those who are responsible for guiding us tend to steer us in a safer direction.

But the part that is simple, and should be considered, is the idea of carving out space in your life for what you truly love, no matter how impractical or implausible it feels. It doesn’t necessarily need to be how you make your living or consume every waking moment.  But it could be. Start by making some room. Find ways to incorporate more of what you love into your work. Develop your outside interests to the point that they could become a career or your Plan B when you find yourself at a turning point. The most important aspect is to get into the habit of feeding your own interests.  At a minimum you’ll be a happier person.  At a maximum, you’ll change your life.

We tend to think that in order to make an impact on others we need to do for them.  We have this mindset that we’ll put what we’d like to do on the backburner while we go be someone else for the people in our lives. This is what they need and want from us, isn’t it? What’s hard to wrap your head around is the idea that by feeding your own soul, you feed the souls of others.  This orchestra sits in the middle of a war torn country where just outside the parking garage some of the musicians use for practice, there’s mayhem.  But in the moments these people play their music, they are transformed.  By doing what this pilot loves, he has literally changed the lives of those who practice his craft with him.  If he hadn’t taken the lead, if he had not made this possible, where would these people be?

Sometimes we give up before we start.  We think that if we can’t foresee a huge impact we shouldn’t try at all.  We think that if we can’t envision our passion influencing anyone other than ourselves, it’s not worth doing. It’s selfish and we’re just better off continuing to serve and support those around us who are pursuing their own dreams, right? 

The thing is we can’t ever predict the outcome. We need to put ourselves out there to find out what will really happen. I sometimes wonder if I should keep writing my blog.  The readership appears small, and it does take away from time I could be putting into other things. Is it serving a purpose if it hasn’t gone viral?    

I think it is, and here’s why:  The first step toward a dream could be made when one reader reads one blog post. Who knows where that will take her and those around her impacted by her gift?

What the minister at my friend’s church service was trying to say by telling this story is that this man is doing nothing more than what he loves. He couldn’t possibly foresee the power following his dream would have on those around him.  All he knew is that it made him happy.  That’s enough to start anyone off and running.

It’s what you’re here for.  

Chispa

The Harvard Business Review Blog caught my eye once again with this recent post entitled “Solving Gen Y’s Passion Problem”, read more here:  http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/09/solving_gen_ys_passion_problem.html?cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-weekly_hotlist-_-hotlist092412&referral=00202&utm_source=newsletter_weekly_hotlist&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=hotlist092412

When I saw the words “passion” and “problem” in the same sentence I knew I needed to click on the link.  The author, a member of Gen Y, explains that he and his peers have grown up with the concept of “following your passion” when it comes to deciding on a career.  This entitled generation feels misinformed; however, sorely disillusioned because they expected to love their jobs fresh out of school.  Apparently they didn’t realize there would be so much hard work involved to build a rewarding and fulfilling career.  Now they’re looking for some solid advice on how others have fallen in love with what they do.

As one of the youngest Baby Boomers, it’s hard for me to even fathom that this group didn’t know they’d need to do grunt work for a while, or that the assignments would not always be glamorous, that there are dues to pay.  I feel like the only thing I knew at that time in my life was that I could expect to work hard. If you’re making broad generalizations, Baby Boomers and older Gen X’s seem to possess a humility that is absent in Gen Y.

What I find myself telling the super-talented, ambitious Gen Ys, and even some of the late Gen X’s, is that they just need time.  No matter how badly you want to ascend in an organization, you can’t rush experience.  When I think about raising my own Gen Z’s, I’m certain that once they get over the sloth that is their adolescence, nothing in the working world will move fast enough for them either.  These are digital natives, born and raised on the internet and smartphones.  Patience might as well be Sanskrit.

But I can offer advice today to these bedraggled Gen Ys, and someday to my beloved Gen Z’s, because the making of careers really doesn’t change much through the ages. It’s a slow growing love affair, building over time as expectations move into alignment with achievements, becoming more satisfying with age.  Fulfillment has as much to do with where you are in life as what you’re doing at the time.

When I think about the story of my own career, I could characterize it in the same vernacular as the search for true love or a soul mate.  Some of the relationships were great, some not so much.  There were hook-ups and multi-year marriages.  I garnered valuable insight from each encounter. And every experience has made me who I am today. 

I’m not so different from Gen Y.  I started following my passion, going to school for design.  My first three jobs were brief affairs, lasting no more than two years each. Two amicable partings that sandwiched a messy falling-out:  I knew it needed to end but couldn’t bring myself to make it happen, so it was ended for me.  I had been unhappy for a while. 

Not long after, I settled into a seven-year relationship at a big architectural firm.  We dated for a few months; I was a temporary employee they soon decided to hire permanently. We had good times, for the most part, but I realized eventually that I wasn’t what they needed me to be. I guess I was cheating on them for a while with another company, but they were the ones who pushed us together, sending me off to a client site to be a project manager.  I ended up leaving them for my client, and a completely different career path.

And here I am today, fourteen years into a very satisfying relationship that has absolutely had its ups and downs.  I’ve had assignments that I loved and some that I couldn’t stand.  It hasn’t always been easy.  We’ve weathered many storms, and I stuck it out in some very dark times because I believe in the core values and culture fostered here. They’ve supported me in tenuous situations and demonstrate an unwavering commitment to me.  Because of this, I’ve unearthed passions that I didn’t even think I possessed. Somehow along the way I’ve fallen deeply, madly in love with what I do. 

If I could write a letter to my younger self, I’d tell her she has no idea what she will be capable of down the road, or where her dreams will take her.  

But Gen Y doesn’t seem to lack for confidence and courage when it comes to embarking on the pursuit of what they love.  Reading the HBR Blog, I thought for an instant I might be misleading my readers, thinking that I am making it sound too easy:  Just decide on your passion and go for it.  Am I feeding Gen Y’s problem? 

I don’t think so.  I like to think I do a decent job of acknowledging obstacles and supplying encouragement to work through them.  I hope I’m sending a positive message to keep moving through the mess because there is greatness all around us.  I want others to see that we need to find ways to enjoy the journey, not hold all happiness in check until we get our desired outcome.  And that it’s okay to change your mind, but only if you really want to, not because someone else thinks you should. None of this comes easily.

What’s sometimes absent in us all is Gen Y’s spark to launch fearlessly in the direction of dreams.  It’s the embers of the youthful independent spirit I’m seeking to ignite. Gen Y may think it’s the falling in love that’s the hard part; but anyone who’s been through it knows the real challenge is in staying in love.

Avail

The other day as I slathered my Justin’s all-natural Honey Peanut Butter on some crackers, I noticed that Justin took a moment to script on the label of the jar a few words about how he feels about his product.  He says, “Some people may consider my single-minded obsession with nut butters to be a waste of time, but I disagree.”  Amen, Justin.  I’m with you. 

This is a man who has found a way to do what he loves, and he’s pulled out all the stops.  This is what we are supposed to do when we hit on our passion.   If Justin had worried that by pouring all of his energy into peanut butter people would be thinking he was some kind of oddball, or nut (who could resist the obvious pun?), he may not have moved forward to realize his dream.  The world would be deprived of his tasty creation, and Justin would be deprived of the satisfaction and pure joy that come from bringing his passion to life.

Think about the potential if every person in this world was able to hone in on the art or science that she or he absolutely loves to do and find both the courage and means to pursue it.  The world would be filled with individuals capitalizing on the gifts they’ve been given.  The quality of everything produced, every job done would be improved exponentially.  The world would be overcrowded with happy and fulfilled people.

This is what happens when we encourage and support others to embrace their differences, those qualities that make them unique, the single-minded obsession. 

How many times have you found yourself telling someone to approach a task the way you would do it, dictating without even considering there’s another way, supplying the answers instead of asking the questions?   Every time we impart our own methods on another, we take a little away from the uniqueness of what she has to offer, watering down her essence, slowly chipping away at her pride and confidence, adding another degree of separation between passion and peanut butter.

It’s like doing your kid’s science fair project for her. 

We’re conditioned as leaders to have our direction accepted and followed without question.  We count on the power of a reporting structure to ensure our troops fall in line.  In fact, lots of us believe it’s our job to tell people what to do, not coach them to the answer that’s within.  And it’s easier this way.  It’s easy to get lazy and forget to ask for differing perspectives, especially when our teams are filled with people who see things the way we do.

When we surround ourselves with like-minded individuals we don’t need to work as hard.  The ideas we gently lob out are caught immediately and enthusiastically by followers who admire our success, and coveting it for themselves, eagerly jump on our bandwagons.  Our orders are so happily followed to the letter of the law, those around us can actually fail to realize they haven’t really had a say.

When you find yourself faced with overseeing a diverse team sanitizing the product with your own personal mandate becomes a real challenge. This applies whether you’re leading employees who approach tasks dramatically differently than you do or leading your children who seem so diametrically opposed to you that you need to keep reminding yourself they did in fact come out of your womb.  If you don’t accommodate different ideas or ways of doing things, the environment decays into disappointment, defeat, or dissention.  

I can’t continue without saying that, in my opinion,  diversity and inclusion is really in its infancy in Corporate America, and maybe even in life itself.  I think we set our expectations extremely low in this area.  If organizations truly understood the power of creating deliberately diverse teams and how that can’t help but translate into increased productivity which is the natural output of confident and empowered people who feel valued, instead of pleading for tolerance, we would be complaining about the “unfair” advantage diversity brings.

Diverse personalities initially confound us.  We’re so conditioned to acquiescence in our cookie-cutter worlds that we’re taken aback momentarily, forced to retreat to consider how we respond when a foreign position or concept is now on the table. We can get caught up in attempting to coerce others to see things our way, instead of listening to understand their way.   

If you take the time to really listen, you’ll find out there is in fact another way, room for a different approach.  And if you take a risk by allowing someone else the freedom to take her own risk, you just might change the way this individual feels about herself, infusing her with the confidence she needs to go after her own single-minded obsession.

Justin differentiates himself further by distributing his peanut butter not only in jars, but in 1.5 ounce packets, perfectly sized to stuff in a pair of running shorts, an accessible and tasty energy boost when you find yourself wilting in the middle of a half marathon.  His niche packaging is how I found him in the first place.

I’m an unwitting beneficiary of the generous person who launched Justin in pursuit of his dreams.  Who knows, without his product I may have passed out 8 miles into my race.

Justin makes Almond Butter, too.  I’m just saying.