Kerry Wekelo, COO of Actualized Consulting

My name is Avil Beckford, and I'm the host of The One Problem podcast. There are tons of problems in the world, but we will face them one problem at a time. Why would we want to get overwhelmed? So today, my special guest is Kerry Wekelo. She is the COO of Actualized Consulting. Over to you, Kerry.

Kerry Wekelo

Hi Avil! Thanks so much for having me. And thanks, you're right. I always tell people you can go smoothly through life, but you're always going to have challenges. So, it's really how do you deal with those challenges? I'm going to share a strategy that I use and walk you through a current problem that I am currently facing and working through right now. So I like to use it's called my three Ps method. And it is pausing in gratitude. So taking a moment just to pause. What's going on?

Evaluating what the challenge is in front of you. What are you grateful for at the moment? And then you're pivoting to a positive possibility or a lesson learned. When I am going through this, what I've learned is that it's kind of a cumulative impact. Because we have so many challenges. If I go immediately to that strategy, I can work through it a lot quicker instead of spinning and like the negativity of the actual challenge and issue.

So a recent problem that I've been facing is that my son has some learning challenges. And he was at a private school and they were not helping with all of his accommodations.

Kerry Wekelo Using the 3 Ps to Resolve a Challenge

Kerry Wekelo

We tried to work with the school. Last week‌, we pulled him out of the school, asked him what he wanted to do. And he said, I just really want to go back to public school. I'd say when I was pausing and the gratitude, I was really grateful that we have learned so much about how he learned. And I think he's really set up for another opportunity. I was grateful for the teachers that had lifted him up. So there were some negative things going on. So I could have chosen to really focus on that, which I did. I had a little adult time out there, which I think is important to have at that moment. But helping to focus.

And even sending emails to those teachers that had a very positive impact on my son. And then pivoting to asking my son what he really wanted to do. I think his dad and I were more about, let's try to get him into a different, more specialized school. But they were smaller. He's extremely social. And I just don't think that would have been a good fit. But I didn't know if he wanted to go back to the public school because it's super big.

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Kerry Wekelo

But that's what he wanted to do. We honored that and then moved into the resolution. We made that decision and then I could kind of network in because he had been in public school before, but network into, okay, I had new teachers there. How can we quickly make this transition for him? And so luckily, I could fill out all the paperwork. And he's starting in less than a week of us submitting the paperwork.

We're super excited about that. Then he just had a meeting, and he could meet with a counselor. And work on, OK, what are the classes I want to take? And she was really listening to him. So I think us listening to what he wanted, having him advocate for himself. That really helped with the positive resolution and the lessons that we're learning along the way is that he really needs to be a part of his journey.

Even though he has some challenges, he also has a voice. And he's a very intelligent kid. And just really focusing on that and how do we continue to lift him up?

Kerry Wekelo

So that is my latest challenge. I'm happy to announce that we moved quickly using this 3P method of pausing in gratitude, pivoting to the positive possibility in this situation and then learning some lessons along the way. Also, back over to Avil.

Avil Beckford

I love it. And that gratitude piece is so important. And if anything the last few years has taught us, it's that you're not guaranteed life forever and you need to stop, be grateful for everything, the surrounding people. So thank you so much.

Kerry Wekelo

My pleasure.

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