The Art of Accidentally Finding Yourself

by Molly Cain

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I’ve spent the last several months — as I assume many thousands or millions of other people who are finding value during these obscure times of life in a pandemic — reflecting on absolutely everything. It’s been a lot of thinking for me lately.

• I turned 39 in March — two days after my business suffered its biggest loss ever, and in the presence of a stranger who I met because my calendar was suddenly flooded with nothingness. In only 4 months, that stranger is now one of my favorite humans, someone I’d never have met otherwise.
• How do you re-invigorate a human-centric and very in-person business model that was going to shift into the black on the very day pandemic hit, instead taking a total dive into the red?
• How do I not give up? How do I get excited about things that have no direction because how can you even define direction in this extreme unknown?
• Who is me in this pandemic? Who is the me that entered it, and why do I not want to be her anymore?
• What is upsetting me, what is bringing me joy, what do I want to do to alleviate the world’s hurt right now, what will fulfill me, why do I crave any kind of connection and I’m withdrawing from specific types, why do I not want this, and how do I get more of this other thing?
• What’s the best way to deal with the frustrations of betrayal, the people who left my side when you have nothing to offer them, and the anger inside of you for investing energy in all these wrong people?
• How do I translate the gifts of love, compassion, listening and just SEEING that I was given these past few months? Why am I the recipient?
• How do I ever remove the guilt while concurrently finding lifelong appreciation of the lessons that are flooding in with discovering how many old and new faces who were always there and swooped in during the emergency? And follow-up…how do I handle this analysis of “how did I ever earn and actually apply this bizarre skill to build such an incredible network, and how do I make sure to not only preserve it, not abuse it, and never forget that this is all that I need?”
• How do I make sure I never return to who I was on March 5, 2020? How do I always remember how I felt at midnight on March 9, 2020 and the waterfall of change that came and is still barreling at me to my delight?
• Why has the pandemic been the best time of my entire life? What does it mean that I needed the ultimate destruction of everything I’m familiar with to become who I was supposed to be?
• And the biggest question…..

How did I, at brunch just now, just circle around to rediscovering who I’ve always been? And how am I so fortunate to have awareness that she’s running into a me, after four months of complete reconstruction.

Here’s what happened.

A few months ago, I began advising a government agency (or a few, don’t worry about that) on their engagement and futures strategy. I didn’t invent their popularity and goodwill, they already had it. But I am helping them realize the power of their incredible network and together we’re working to understand more about what that network needs from them. And because this is incredibly important to me when I’m trusted with a project like this, I’m working really hard to make sure they’re adding value — — not noise — — to the already overwhelming (and growing) mosh pit of “government innovation.”

As part of that process we’re exploring different platforms, together. We’re also reconfiguring their approach on platforms you’re familiar with. In four weeks, we’ve increased their LinkedIn followers by 66%. That’s insanity. But that’s just applying the audience that loves them, and adding value to that community. It’s neat to watch their own ecosystem lean in to who they already are. We aren’t gaming it, we are just magnifying it. Perhaps one of my most rewarding and fun experiments to date, actually. And it’s all in the name of good.

Many times I’m exploring platforms for my clients, and for GovCity, and all the time, I’m teaching myself. If it’s a real business strategy, I rarely want to suggest a tactic in seriousness to the C-levels before I test it — I take accountability on anything I tell my clients to believe in. I will not offer a strategy to a client without first kicking the tires myself, no matter how messy it may be — and messy it usually always is. You’d laugh if you knew what I’ve been doing for the past two months. One day I’ll post the stuff. haha!

If I do suggest something I haven’t dabbled in (which happens all the time), it’s usually to the boldest ones who want what my wild brain will throw out in real-time. If we go for it, it comes with a huge caveat of, “I have no idea if this will work but all signals point to yes,” because I’m familiar enough with them and have tested out other things that I AM familiar with it. And then we dive into the deep end together with full eyes open that it could be a royal f*ck up. (those are the most fun projects for me, to be honest, hah!)

I’ll share more about the platforms I’m experimenting with in later posts, because there’s no way in hell I’m going to send you there to see my mess. Sorry, I’d rather strangers see my train wreck before I send my friends. If you called it vanity, you’d be right. I have run a ton of experiments during the pandemic, your head would spin.

In fact, Substack is an experiment — as you can tell and I’ve been open about. I’m trying this platform myself as a longtime writer and in the spirit of my love for experimenting. So far, I’d say 12 subscribers is about right for people who would like to witness this in motion.

hey guys! <waving>

Okay, I’m being long-winded as usual. So let me get to the point.

I’m also experimenting in Medium, and have been for a few weeks. It LIT UP when I did it for my client. So that was great news, and an indicator that this is a platform their audience is into and comfortable with — which I think is very valuable. I do have a thesis that LinkedIn is turning into a dumpster fire, and until others begin to agree, I would prefer to route my customers and my own business of GovCity, into spaces with thoughtful and meaningful conversation and insight. I do not like the game of publicity by those who are unqualified to do it — and don’t understand why they need to. It’s unnecessary and frankly, an abuse of digital investments we ask others to give us.

You’ll see a lot more of me veering off the “traditional” social media because of this. And I’ll support my clients in whatever they wish, but they will be getting advice to veer off with me. We’ll leave it at that. If you’d like more on that, reach me directly.

So while I’m exploring Medium for the executives I advise, at the same time, I started to form my own Medium blog — let’s call the timing of this mid June. This was an effort for me to begin to understand the growth mechanisms and not how to game the system, but rather learn the community that is Medium so I can make sure the executives and organizations (including GovCity) in my care are adding real value into the space. As a bonus, I’m finding my voice again, and wanted to link it to my Substack, because I think there’s value in that marriage.

So I went this morning to write another Medium post. And I realized the URL for the personal Medium I had created was the randomly assigned one, Molly-blahblahblah1234 kind of URL. That’s like nails on a chalkboard for someone like me.

So I go to the settings where I can edit the URL and take the gamble to see if I can secure @MollyCain.

“Damnit. Someone already has it.” I say to myself. Not a surprise.

I actually KNOW one of the Molly Cain’s on the planet, she’s an incredibly cool story that maybe I’ll tell one day about the time we officially met. So I actually assumed that Molly owned the Medium.

But I was curious. So I typed it in to see what was at www.medium.com/@mollycain.

WTF.

I OWN IT.

Not only did I own it, but I stopped writing there in November 2016, when I started working in innovation for the government. The exact MONTH, actually.

With nearly 1,000 followers on that Medium site (with full awareness there are SO MANY who have forgotten they were following me as much as I forgot I was writing there, so I’m certain it will drop dramatically). But it seems, I just dropped everything and willingly walked my ass right into an echo chamber where I’ve now lived for four years. I completely forgot all of the me that I brought with me into the government to work on innovating it. The all of me that the government asked me to bring. I was so overwhelmed with how different I was in that ecosystem, that I leaned into the famous social garbage that demands you become intimately familiar with something before you work to improve it. I don’t believe that and never will — but its clear I allowed it.

I’m mortified for a lot of reasons, but perhaps the biggest is that I sacrificed the history of me that was least welcomed in the new space of government as I transitioned out of startups, to fit in. And that’s the last thing I’ve ever wanted to do. I only didn’t realize I had lost myself until the pandemic struck and gave me full rights to begin asking myself questions and deciding once again about who I want to be.

So here’s the actual point of this post.

Don’t forget that there are some great parts of you that you have forgotten, they’re just waiting for you to log back in.

Let us not be so obsessed with who we are today to forget it.

Love, M