’Tis the Season: What’s Your Plan to Get Results While Prioritizing Joy?
- Marcy Stoudt
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
December has a funny way of pulling leaders apart.
You want to savor the season — the lights, the gatherings, the quiet moments that remind you why you work so hard.But at the same time:
half your team is taking PTO
deadlines don’t care about holiday schedules
Q4 goals feel heavier, not lighter
and every project suddenly feels like it’s slipping
It’s that impossible mix of wanting joy… while feeling stretched thin.
And if you’ve ever ended a year thinking, “I’m giving everything I have, and it’s still not enough,” you’re not alone.
Here’s the reset most leaders miss:
You don’t need to lower the bar at work to feel joy in December.But you DO need to manage the energy you bring into the month.
This is the exact lesson that shaped how I lead today — and it started with a moment I’ll never forget.
The Year My Procrastination Caught Up With Me (and Everything Changed)
Seventeen years ago, I was leading strategy and marketing for a $3B company, TEKsystems.
I had a five-year-old.
A three-year-old.
And I was pregnant with my third.
Life was full, nonstop and Santa was coming. Or was he?
One week before Christmas, I finally sat down to order gifts to get delivered to my parents home in Florida … only to realize I had missed the “deliver by Christmas” window by exactly one day.
The second I saw that red “arrives December 27–29” message, my entire body sank.
I called my mom — hands shaking, holding back tears — and admitted it all.
I was too busy to prioritize buying gifts for the kids.
Too busy to get cute matching pajamas for Christmas morning.
Too busy to feel like i was a good mom.
I let her know every ounce of my (unnecessary) guilt.
And she responded with the line I will never forget:
“Marcy… I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you leave all that stress in Baltimore. And decide that your present for us will be your presence. And, my present for you is your dad and I will buy all the gifts for Santa so they are wrapped and ready for Christmas morning.”
I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear that.
And what happened next?
It still gives me chills.
My parents created a full treasure hunt for my kids — handmade map, burnt edges, secret clues, the whole thing. When my kids stumbled across this map on Christmas Eve, they dragged us to the beach following the clues to find this treasure box. Once they dug in the right spot and found a box filled with coins and dollar store jewelry they created a memory we’ll always cherish .
That is the moment they still talk about.
Not the missing gifts.
Not the forgotten pajamas.
Not the chaos I was drowning in.
They remember the magic.
They remember the adventure.
They remember that I was present.
My presence became the present.
And it changed how I think about presence over perfection.
(If you want to see that moment — the actual video of that treasure discovery — it’s in the first few seconds of the workshop.)
So Let’s Bring This Back to You and your Q4 Stress
If there’s one leadership reset worth making in December, it’s this:
Your stress is contagious.
Your calm is contagious.
Your energy is the gift you give your team — whether you mean to or not.
So ask yourself:
What type of energy are you giving your team right now?
Red Energy (Below Center)?
Or Green Energy (Above Center)?
Because giving your team Green Energy doesn’t require hours of extra work.It requires intentional choices — the same way my mom asked me to choose presence over perfection 17 years ago.
Here are a few simple ways to lead tomorrow’s meeting with Green Energy (Above Center):
Green Energy Leadership Behaviors You Can Use Immediately
Start with a grounding question instead of diving straight into the agenda
Let someone else kick off while you take a beat and enter composed
Use a 60-second icebreaker to reset the room (especially if the energy is tense)
Begin with clarity: “Here’s our purpose and what matters most today”
If you’re running behind, send a quick reset text: “Starting at :15 — still ending on time”
Ask: “What’s working?” before “What’s missing?”
Model calm — because people take their cue from your tone, not your words
If you want two practical, real-world examples you can apply today, they’re in the workshop video — it’s only 17 minutes, and it makes this shift simple to understand and even simpler to teach.
👉 ’Tis the Season: What’s Your Plan to Get Results While Prioritizing Joy?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqPHVj5DhgA
Share it with your team.
Use it for a coaching conversation.
Start small — and watch the energy shift.
Presence is still the present.
And it can change everything.
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Marcy Stoudt is a seasoned sales leader dedicated to shaping the future of talent acquisition and executive coaching. As the founder of Revel Search and Revel Coach, Marcy collaborates with corporate clients to develop innovative strategies for attracting, advancing, and retaining top-tier talent.
During her 22 years at Allegis Group, Marcy was TEKsystems's first female Vice President. She led a team of 300 producers and delivered four consecutive years of revenue results at 18% CAGR, averaging $320 million annually. While at MarketSource, she established the Customer Experience Strategy for the Target Mobile outsourced sales team at 1,540 Target locations, fostering executive-level relationships with Target and Apple.
The Revel Coach™ Blog is provided for educational and informational purposes only and is not mental health, financial, business or legal advice. The information presented here is not intended to diagnose, treat, heal, cure or prevent any medical, mental or emotional condition. The information presented here is not a guarantee that you will obtain any results or earn any money using our content.