Virginia Arrington

Life does not always go according to plan. Sometimes the career you thought you were building changes unexpectedly, the door you expected to walk through closes, or you do everything you believe you are supposed to do and still find yourself wondering, What now? I recently found myself in that position after being impacted by a company-wide restructuring. After years of building my career, leading people, and considering the next professional step, I suddenly found myself facing a much less certain future.

Surprisingly, uncertainty does not frighten me the way it once might have. Over the years, I have learned that two plus two is not the only way to get four. There is rarely only one path to the life we want. Sometimes the road we planned works beautifully, and other times life closes that road entirely and forces us to find another way. Right now, I am in a season of rebuilding and reinventing myself, and I am beginning to realize that may be one of the most exciting places a person can be.

I learned how to adapt long before I ever entered corporate America. I grew up extremely poor, and there were times when we did not have reliable heat or air conditioning in our home. My mother was in and out of my life, while my father struggled with alcoholism and spent periods of time in jail. Setbacks were not something I encountered occasionally; they were part of the environment in which I grew up. Somewhere along the way, though, I decided that my circumstances did not have to determine my future.

I wanted better for myself, and when I became a wife and mother, I wanted better for my family as well. My husband also grew up facing his own challenges, and together we fought hard to build a life that looked different from the ones we came from. When I look at what we have created for our three children, I often think of a phoenix rising from the ashes. I wanted my children to have opportunities and stability, but more importantly, I never wanted them to wonder what it felt like to have a loving mother and a family that was there for them. Breaking those cycles is one of the accomplishments of which I am most proud.

Those experiences also shaped the way I eventually learned to lead people professionally. One quote from Richard Branson has stayed with me throughout my career: “Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” It captures so much of what I believe about leadership. I passionately believe that good employees are assets, never liabilities, but valuing employees requires more than simply saying that people matter. It means investing in their growth while also creating an environment where they feel valued enough to want to stay.

For me, that starts with taking the time to actually know them. I learn about the people I lead individually because no two employees need the same thing from a leader. More than anything, I want the people on my teams to feel like I see them.

Before someone is an employee, they are a person. They may be a wife or husband, mother or father, sister or brother, caregiver, student, friend, or any number of other things. They have responsibilities, fears, dreams, goals, and circumstances that may never appear on a performance report. Only after all of those other roles are considered are they an employee. I learned the importance of that distinction because there was a time in my own career when I desperately needed leadership to see me as a person, and they did not.

I had been involved in a serious car accident and suffered a concussion that temporarily left me unable to drive. At the same time, complications with my short-term disability created significant financial uncertainty for my family. I asked whether I could temporarily work from home while I recovered, but my request was denied, and I was told that accommodating me would be giving me “special treatment.” I remember being terrified about my income, my home, and what could happen to everything my family and I had worked to build.

What stayed with me most, however, was how unseen I felt. I needed someone in leadership to recognize that there was a human being behind the employee, and I did not feel that happened. That experience changed the way I lead, and I made myself a promise that no one on one of my teams would ever feel the way I felt in that moment.

That does not mean there should be no accountability. Leadership still requires expectations, coaching, performance standards, and sometimes difficult conversations. I believe that accountability and humanity can exist in the same room. In fact, the best leaders understand that they must. When employees know they are valued, supported, and respected, they are more likely to care about the organization they are helping build.

Good leadership also requires perspective. I sometimes use an unusual analogy to explain this: if you look extremely closely at a walnut, its folds can resemble a human brain. Take a step back, though, and you can clearly see that it is simply a walnut. Life and leadership can work the same way. If we focus too closely on one difficult day, one performance metric, one mistake, or one inconvenient situation, we may completely misunderstand the larger picture. Sometimes we need to step back before deciding what we are actually looking at.

That same lesson applies to the way I view success. Before any professional title, I am a wife of 17 years and the mother of three wonderful children. I love cooking, baking, making a home for my family, and homeschooling my youngest child after difficulties within the traditional school system led us down a different educational path. I also absolutely love what I call the “BER months”—September through December. The smells, colors, foods, music, traditions, and especially Christmas bring me an incredible amount of joy.

Those things may never appear on a professional résumé, but they are every bit as important to my definition of a successful life. I do not believe there is one correct way to be a successful woman. One woman may want to reach the highest levels of corporate leadership, another may want to build her own company, and another may want to be a stay-at-home wife or mother. Someone else may want a combination of those things at various times in her life. I believe women should be allowed to follow their hearts and determine what success means for themselves.

Whatever that life looks like, we have to remember to include ourselves in it. We cannot pour from an empty vessel. Self-care does not have to be elaborate or look the same every day. Sometimes I need to read, sometimes I want to play a video game, and sometimes I need to go to the gym. Admittedly, sometimes a really good spreadsheet, checklist, or planner is enough to make my world feel more organized again.

My faith has also played an enormous role in the way I approach both life and leadership. I often take time to appreciate the life I have and recognize how different it could have been had I chosen another path. I am incredibly thankful to God for carrying me through seasons when I could not clearly see what was ahead. I believe there is always a rainbow at the end of a storm. Sometimes you have to go searching for it, and other times it is right there in front of you, but it is always there.

My relationship with God has also influenced the way I treat people who do not share my Christian faith. I have had people on my teams with different beliefs and traditions, and I have made a conscious effort to learn about those beliefs so they could feel included and respected. For me, faith should never be a reason to exclude someone. God calls us to love everyone, not only the people who believe exactly as we do.

As I look toward the future, I cannot tell you exactly what the next five years will look like, and I am learning to be comfortable with that. I would eventually love to be my own boss. I have enjoyed working for large organizations and remain passionate about developing and leading people. Still, I have realized that working for someone else is not the only way to fulfill that passion.

In approximately five years, my husband and I will also become empty nesters, which has made me think more intentionally about what we are building for the next stage of our lives. Entrepreneurship may be part of that future. I am also exploring the possibility of becoming an officer in the United States Navy, which would allow me to combine my passion for leadership with the opportunity to serve our country. I do not know which path will ultimately become mine, but I want the next chapter to have purpose.

For any woman standing in the middle of a change she did not expect, my advice is to give yourself permission to stop for a moment. Take a breath. Take a walk. Take a long, hot bubble bath with your favorite drink and think about your next move. You do not have to know the entire plan immediately, and taking time to rest does not mean you have surrendered.

I sometimes think about toddlers learning to run. They fall, may cry for a moment, then get back up and continue moving. Somewhere along the way, adults begin treating falling as evidence that we should stop trying, when sometimes falling is simply part of moving forward. We have to remain persistent, but we also have to allow ourselves respite. Again, we cannot pour from an empty vessel.

Most importantly, do not convince yourself that you have missed your opportunity because of your age or because your original plan did not work. Whether you are 20 or 70, you will never be this young again. There is still room to learn, grow, change your mind, pursue something new, and become a version of yourself you have not met yet.

The door you expected to walk through may close. The road you planned may end. Take a moment, step back, look at the whole picture, and decide what your next move will be.

Because two plus two is not the only way to get four.

And sometimes, you just have to keep swimming.