Playing through the pain

Winning Words

matter how much it hurt, we had to rise to the occasion and play through the pain for those around us.

in charge to come up with a better plan and get things moving in the right direction?

We start playing through the pain.

Will this smooth the renewable highs and lows?

Holy Cross Energy aims to distribute 100% emissionfree electricity to its 55,000 members in the Aspen, Ri e, and Vail areas by 2030. How will it do that?

Tri-State Generation and Transmission, Colorado’s second largest utility, has a di erent but related problem. It wants to best use infrastructure associated with its coal-burning operations at Craig after the last unit closes before 2030.

One clue may lie in Pueblo. ere a pilot program testing a new technology for long-duration energy storage will be deployed by Xcel Energy and Form Energy by the end of 2025. e new ironair batteries will be able to use chemical processes to store electricity and then discharge it for up to 100 hours.

e new battery technology has been reported to be 10 times less expensive than lithium-ion batteries. Iron is abundant in the United States, and the batteries are non- ammable.

In announcing the pilot projects, Bob Frenzel, the chief executive of Xcel, said the 100-hour batteries at Pueblo and at a coal site in Minnesota “will strengthen the grid against normal day-to-day, week-to-week, and season-to-season weather variability, in addition to extreme weather events, including severe winter storms and polar vortex events.”

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Michael Norton

If these last few years have taught us anything, they have taught us that things in life are broken. Education, healthcare, the economy, relationships, things at work and just about every other part of life. Some things just aren’t working the way we would want them to. And it becomes frustrating as we do our best to muddle through only to hit the wall again and again. We think that there must be a better way. We believe that there must be someone somewhere who has the insight and intelligence to x the problems in our government, in society, in the workplace, and even at home. We ask ourselves, who is that person or where are those people who are supposed to have all the answers? And what can we do while we wait for those

Soon enough we will realize that the people who we believe have the solutions to our problems and challenges might be struggling themselves. And it’s not that they don’t know what they are doing, it’s simply that the problems and challenges require more time, money, resources, planning and processes to get some resolutions and to turn things around for the better. And while that is going on, we need to do our very best to do what we are in control of doing, making a play, even if it means playing through the pain.

We can remain optimistic in the face of negativity and pessimism. We can look at our stack of to-do items and get after it without looking over at others who are paralyzed by the dysfunction. We can help those in our community who need help and do it generously and cheerfully knowing we are serving the greater good. Now don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t mean we don’t also feel the frustration and the challenges.

It doesn’t mean the pain and the problems aren’t just as real for us. It just means that we have a choice to make, we can choose to get sucked into the vortex of doom and gloom, pointing to all the reasons why we cannot be successful, or we can choose to do our part in playing our position as best as we possibly can, even if it means playing through the pain at times.

We are all part of a team somewhere. At work, home, school, church, in our community and in society. And it will never be perfect and will often be frustrating. As a part of a team or family, I would love to hear your story of how you deal with staying motivated in the face of frustration at gotonorton@ gmail.com. And when we can grit and smile, and play through the pain when we need to, it really will be a better than good life.

Michael Norton is an author, a personal and professional coach, consultant, trainer, encourager and motivator of individuals and businesses, working with organizations and associations across multiple industries.