the one spot i didn’t protect

Picture this. I'm at the beach, being the responsible adult I am, carefully applying sunscreen everywhere. Arms, legs, shoulders, the back of my neck. I felt very thorough.

I missed one tiny strip. Right where my swimsuit met my skin, on my bum. (Am I the only one?!)

You already know where this is going. That one forgotten strip got so burnt I could not sit down without wincing for days. Days, y'all. All that careful coverage everywhere else, undone by one small spot I didn’t check.

SPF stands for something else in my world

I've started calling SPF something different. Instead of Sun Protection Factor, I call it Self-Protection Factor.

Look, most of us are actually pretty decent at protection. We shield our teams from office drama and politics they don't need to carry. Our numbers get watched. Our client relationships get guarded like they're the whole business, because let's be honest, half the time they are.

And then there's the one small strip we forget to cover. Maybe it's the constant weekend texts answered without ever setting a boundary. Maybe it's the emotional weight carried from every hard client conversation, with nowhere to put it down. For a lot of leaders, it's the fact that they haven't taken a real day off in months because taking one feels like letting people down.

These small unprotected spots they never got around to covering, because it seemed too minor to bother with, is often the thing that takes us out.

And just like sunscreen, this isn't something you apply once you're already burnt. By then you're just managing pain instead of preventing it.

This Week's Challenge

• Okay, be honest with yourself for a second. Where's your own unprotected strip?

• What has skipping that spot already cost you? Even the small stuff counts.

• Pick one tiny thing you could do this week to start covering it.

Here's to covering the spots you can't see in the mirror,

Jena

P.S. I've never been bum-burned since. This lesson only needed to be taught once. ;)