The Bamboo Project

Attention is All

Our instinct is to try to ignore what’s going wrong so it doesn’t bring us down all the time. But really, the key to improving what we don’t like in our lives is to pay attention to it. By paying attention we can’t help but make it better.

                            --Penelope Trunk

For the past several months, I've been avoiding mirrors. I noticed my clothes getting tighter, but I didnt' really want to see this, so I pretended that wasn't happening. If I didn't give my rising weight attention, then maybe it would go away. This weekend, though, I was forced to pay attention because I needed some new clothes for a big training I'm doing this week. And let me tell you, the image is burned into my brain. Now when I think about dessert, it's been replaced by the picture of me in that mirror. 

Why am I talking about the fact that I need to lose weight and what does this have to do with careers? 

It clicked for me when I read Penelope Trunk's post this morning on paying attention to problems. This is something we do in our careers all the time--pretend that things aren't as bad as they really are. We avoid looking at what is really going on, both the results and all the behaviors and choices that have brought us here. Just like I've been avoiding paying attention to my creeping weight gain, we avoid paying attention to our creeping career unhappiness. Until that day when we're forced to confront reality. Usually it isn't pretty. 

Our days are made up of a million small choices. When we go on auto-pilot (as I've been doing with food, mindlessly eating when I'm not really hungry), we stop paying attention to what's really going on. That's when things get away from us. 

Change starts with paying attention. 

The Hunger for Conversation

One of my current projects involves managing an online community of practice for professionals who help people with disabilities find employment. For the past year we've struggled to get folks engaged. Often it feels like I'm throwing information into a digital abyss. 

This is a grant-funded project and I'm in the last year of the grant, so decided that we needed to try something different. Going for broke, as it were. So I proposed to the funders that we begin experimenting with face-to-face conversations, what we're calling "Connecting Coffees." These are one hour networking events at local coffee houses that combine networking with conversation on professional development topics. 

Earlier this week I put out an announcement about our plan. Since then, there's been more discussion in the group than we've probably had in the last 6 months combined!

What it made me realize (again) is how hungry we all are for opportunities to connect in the real world. To sit down and have real conversations about topics that matter to us. The digital world and social media can help us find each other and connect when we aren't able to be together face-to-face, but in the end, we are human and we long for that opportunity to sit around a table, break bread together and just talk. 

We need to find more time for this, recognize and accept the importance of informal conversations in the larger world of our work. We need to intentionally build more of these into our practice. They are major drivers for learning, development and growth.  We want connection and we need to support this where ever we can. 

"Preying on Our Own Better Selves"

We hunger for inspiration, purpose, exhilaration — but mostly, we settle for lives of annihilating boredom, alternating with sheer panic. Perhaps we get our fix of "life" through the finely honed narratives of the hundreds of channels of reality TV and "news" we're smilingly offered night after pixelated night.

We want contracts that don't steal our future — but we're often unwilling to walk away from those that already have. Perhaps we feel a sense of moral responsibility to pay our debts — but I'd suggest the greater, perhaps greatest moral responsibility is choosing to live. . . 

We don't want the future we're getting — but most of us shrug our shoulders at the end of the day; only to wake up panicked, the next — and begin the cycle all over again.

Welcome to the Great Collision. In the aggregate, our preferences are savagely at odds with our expectations; the future we want is at odds with the present we choose.

                        --Umair Haque

A few days ago I read Umair Haque's The Great Collision on the Harvard Business Review blog. The paragraph that resonated the most for me was this one:

It's easy to construct a narrative of victimhood; and a narrative of victimhood is as easily palatable as a Big Mac. Sure, you can argue that the modern condition is a finely jawed trap: bound by the chains of debt peonage, our horizons have been ineluctably delimited. But I'd say we're equal parts victims and victimizers — preying not merely on one another, but our own better selves. When it comes to real human prosperity, in the crudest terms of political economy, "demand" is about what people have the impertinence to, well, demand — and perhaps the simple fact is that we've become a society that's simply not demanding enough.

As I go about my work day I'm struck  by how often we see ourselves as victims, at the mercy of other forces greater than ourselves. The boss who won't "let you" do what you know is right. Some other department that has tied your hands. The co-worker who holds you back. The spouse or partner or children who must be served first. It's easy to play this victim card--safer, somehow, and certainly less demanding. 

But I agree with Haque that we are equal parts victims and vicimizers. In fact, I would go so far as to argue that we are entirely victimizers, as he puts it "preying on our better selves." Many people--myself included--know in our hearts what it takes to be our better selves. Yet each day, we make small and large choices that keep us tied to being less than we could be.

I don't think it's too dramatic to say that we victimize ourselves and those around us when we choose to be less than we are, when we forfeit our best selves to hold on to what seems safe or unchallenging.  Because to be less than our best selves is to choose actions that chip away at us, that challenge our integrity and wholeness. Inevitably we feel this chipping away on a deep, often unacknowledged level, and we take out our anger and resentment and sadness on ourselves and other people.

Don't believe me? Then do something that is in alignment with your deepest sense of your best self and watch how it changes your interactions with others and what you bring to the table. Watch what it does to how you treat yourself. 

Each day we make choices. Let's make our choices so they support that future we want.  

Stop Asking the Wrong Questions

To me, the most energizing questions are those that involve people's values, hopes and ideals--questions that relate to something that's larger than them where they can connect and contribute. People don't have a lot of energy around questions that are about removing pain."

                                --Verna Allee

A lot of the work I do with people ends up being around removing pain. There's a problem to be solved or something to be improved or they are at a career crossroads and need to get out--NOW!

What I find most challenging in these situations is helping people find the energy to actually do something about the issues they are facing. It's easy to sink into the morass and lethargy that problems seem to generate. Negativity breeds complacency I've found and a kind of learned helplessness that is difficult to escape. 

One of the reasons that I've been working so much on asking more powerful questions is because I've seen what happens when we can shift from questions that remove pain to questions that generate possibilities and connection. What we focus on grows, so the more we can ask questions that engage our hopes, dreams and values, the more likely we are to create forward movement. The more I can engage around hopes and possibilities, the better my ability to move toward what I want. 

But our world seems to be geared toward pain removal, so it is a daily battle to ask ourselves different questions. Two strategies I've found that help are these.

1.  Follow the energy. The surest route to the right questions is monitoring my own responses and how others seem to be responding as well. If a question is asked and you can feel the collective (usually silent) groan, then you know that most likely you are in a "pain removal" situation. I also find that when the answers or follow-up questions seem to focus on irrelevant details or more complaints, this is another sign that we're focusing on pain, not possibility. 
2. Ask yourself "Is this a pain removal question?"--The more direct route is to evaluate questions and ask yourself if they are about removing pain. This is particularly helpful in the career change realm where I've found that people are likely to focus on how they can escape from a bad situation rather than run toward a good one.  Pain questions are about escape, not possibility. Pay attention to how your question points you toward a positive future rather than away from a bad present. Don't ask "How can I get out of this?" Do ask, "What do I want to move toward?" 

I'm finding that the more vigilant I am about the questions I'm asking, the better my outcomes. When I feel stuck, often it's because I'm asking the wrong questions--questions that focus on removing pain. I can generate forward movement again if I go back to reframing what I'm asking. 

Being Honest With Yourself and Starting from Where You Are

A post from Chris Brogan has me thinking this morning: 

Jacqueline brought me iced coffee a few weeks ago, and I commented that it tasted especially delicious. She said, “I used two sugars instead of one or none, the way you usually say you like it.” As is often the case with me, I ended up thinking about a bit more than how many sugars I take in my coffee. The truth is, I wasn’t really being honest with myself.

I can say I prefer my coffee black, but what I was really saying was, “I know that I’m supposed to have it black.” I prefer my coffee with two sugars. It’s much nicer that way. Healthier? No. But I have to be where I am. Maybe it’s a matter of having it sometimes with sugar and sometimes black.

One thing I've noticed in myself and in the people I work with is how often we lie to ourselves. In Chris's case, he was telling himself that he "prefers" black coffee, when the reality is that he prefers sugar; he just thinks he should prefer black coffee because it's better for him. 

One way we lie to ourselves is through our "shoulds." I should be happy with my work, so I will ignore the reality that I'm not. As if denying reality is an effective method for dealing with our lives. 

Another way we lie to ourselves is by saying that something is beyond our power to change. I hear this all the time. "I can't quit my job" or "I can't take that responsibility."  That's not true. Just about everything is within our power to change. The bigger issue is whether or not we can or want to live with the consequences of those changes. There's a big difference between saying "I can't do something" and "I choose not do something because I don't want to experience what I think are the likely consequences." The former makes us a victim. The latter says we are making an informed choice. 

One of the reasons we lie to ourselves is because we don't want to be kind to ourselves. We find reality unacceptable, so the it feels like the easiest way to deal with an unacceptable reality is to deny it. But denying reality is one of the best ways for us to stay stuck. We'd be better off exploring and accepting our reality and learning how to be kind to ourselves in the process. No need to start berating ourselves for being whereever we find ourselves. Just accept that we are here and figure out the next step to move forward. 

One sure way to explore reality and stop telling ourselves lies is to allow ourselves to feel the emotions that go with our experiences. If I allow myself to feel my responses to what I'm experiencing at work, my emotions can start to help me better understand the reality of where I'm at. At the least I can get clearer about how I'm responding to what's going on, which is half the battle in starting to tell ourselves the truth of our lives. 

I know that for me, I deny reality when I want to protect myself from having to make painful or difficult decisions. I don't want to take risks or I don't want to deal with the potential fall out of changed circumstances.  But all that denial does is prolong the inevitable. Eventually, reality will intrude, often in huge ways that force my hand and have far greater consequences than if I'd just accepted reality earlier and done what I needed to do to address it. 

I think that part of effectively managing our careers is starting to be scrupulously honest with ourselves. Where are the places that we need to stop denying the reality? What would happen if we stopped doing this?

It can be hard to stop lying to ourselves, but ultimately it's liberating. Even if the changes you have to make are difficult or challenging, you also feel a peculiar energy because deep down you know you are dealing with what is, not what you wish it would be. Your body and mind know when you've finally given in and are working from truth. 

So what lies do you need to stop telling yourself? How do your options change when you start telling the truth? 

 

Physician, Heal Thyself

For the past several months, I've been advising  the clients I work with to use a career journal to record and explore their ideas about the work they are doing, what inspires and drives them and what they want to experiment with in their work lives. 

I've also been telling people to quit thinking and start doing--to experiment and then reflect on what happens. And then devise new experiments to keep moving forward. 

Other advice I've given: 

• Use positive questions to explore what you want more of, rather than negative questions designed to "solve problems." 

• Seek out and nurture "the awesome".

• Make new connections and have new conversations as a way of fertilizing career seeds. 

I'm sure there's more, but these are the ones that come to mind. 

Last night, I was feeling a little adrift about where I want to go next--where to focus my attention. And I realized that all this advice I've been giving? I haven't been taking it myself. And (surprise!) now I'm feeling a little lost. 

There's an adage in counseling that says that when you hear yourself giving advice to someone else, often that's the very advice you need to be taking yourself. Basically, physician, heal thyself. 

So this blog post serves two purposes--one, to remind me that my career works best when I'm taking my own advice. And two, to remind you that when you hear yourself telling other people what to do, you might want to start asking if this is advice that you yourself should be taking. . . 

How To Move When You Don't Know Where to Go

Long-time readers of this blog know that I am a fervent advocate of the "Act/Reflect" cycle of career and professional development. And I know that failure to deal with both sides of this equation is one of your surest routes to stuck. 

Yesterday I stumbled across this article on the Harvard Business Review Blog on what to do when you don't know what to do. Boy, did it resonate!

Career change is all about dealing with career uncertainty. We know we want something different, but we aren't sure what is going to happen if we pursue it. The future is a scary thing and standing still feels safer than moving if we aren't sure what will happen next. 

Here's one thing I know for sure about standing still though. You don't actually get anywhere when you do that. If life is a journey (and I think it is), then standing still is the best way for you to miss what your life has to offer. At the end, all you'll be able to say is that you stood your ground. 

So back to that HBR article, which points to a method for moving forward that will sound familiar if you've been playing along here on The Bamboo Project: 

1. Start with desire. You find/think of something you want. You don't need a lot of passion, you only need sufficient desire to get started. ("I really want to start a restaurant, but I haven't a clue if I will ever be able to open one.")

2. Take a smart step as quickly as you can toward your goal. What's a smart step? It's one where you act quickly with the means at hand. What you know, who you know, and anything else that's available. ("I know a great chef, and if I beg all my family and friends to back me, I might have enough money to open a place.") You make sure that step is never going to cost more than it would be acceptable to you to lose should things not work out. And you bring others along to acquire more resources, spread the risk and confirm the quality of your idea.

3. Reflect and build on what you have learned from taking that step. You need to do that because every time you act, reality changes. Sometimes the step you take gets you nearer to what you want ("I should be able to afford something just outside of downtown"); sometimes what you want changes ("It looks likes there are an awful lot of Italian restaurants nearby. We are going to have to rethink our menu.") If you pay attention, you always learn something. So after you act, ask: Did those actions get you closer to your goal? ("Yes. It looks like I will be able to open a restaurant.") Do you need additional resources to draw even closer? ("Yes. I'll need to find another chef. The one I know can only do Italian.") Do you still want to obtain your objective? ("Yes.")

4. Repeat.

Act. Learn. Build. Repeat. This is how successful serial entrepreneurs conquer uncertainty. What works for them will work for all of us.

A couple of points. . . 

• First, notice that your desire doesn't have to be a burning passion. It just needs to be enough to get you moving. Quit spending time worrying about finding that EXACT THING that is going to be your be-all/end-all. Let curiosity be your guide. You need just enough desire to care to do something--and no more than that. Think of these steps as sparks that may or may not ignite a fire. Remember that you can't build a roaring blaze without igniting the kindling first. 

• That "smart step" you take--notice that you take it with what you have at hand. You don't wait until conditions are perfect or you have every possible bit of information. That's a good way to stand still. Work with what you have and see where that takes you. And notice that you should bring others along with you. That's a good role for your positive peer network. 

• Do not--DO NOT--skip the reflection step. You need it, to catch your breath and to figure out where to go next and how to get there. At the same time, don't get stuck there. Don't use it as an excuse to stop moving again. Make sure you go to step 4--the Repeat step. 

Believe me, I get that careers are scary, uncertain things these days. But life is scary and uncertain. We can choose to meet it and move forward or we can sit down on the path and refuse to go anywhere. I vote for keeping it moving. . . 

 

Taking Responsibility for What You Love

Rosetta Thurman has long been one of my favorite bloggers--I've been reading her blog since she began in 2007. Today she has a 5-year anniversary post (Congrats, Rosetta!) that really resonated for me. It's about taking responsibility for what you love and what happens when you do:

What I really want to say is that when you take responsibility for what you love and begin to show up with your unique gifts and talents, magic happens. People start to support you and help you in your quest to do meaningful work. You begin to see new possibilities for changing the world in your own way – whether that’s through writing or teaching or making art or feeding the homeless or taking care of babies or preserving the environment or making sure that we all have affordable healthcare.

Here's what gets me about Rosetta's post. It's about taking responsibility for our passions and gifts. Do you hear that? Taking responsibility. 

I've written before about the impact that our career stories and frames have on our thinking. For many of us, our passions and gifts are either completely unacknowledged (at worst) or we see them as being "impractical" and somehow less important. As a result, we will pay little attention to those gifts. We don't call attention to them or nurture them. If they somehow get in the way of the "real work," we will actively do what we can to shut them down. There's no room for them so we need to push them aside. 

How would our thinking and approach to our gifts change if we saw ourselves as having a responsibility to bring them into the world, to nurture and grow them? What if I felt irresponsible when I pushed my gifts aside or did work that didn't make the most of what I bring to the world? What if my REAL responsibility wasn't to fit in to what everyone else wants from me, but to, instead, be clear about my own gifts and do what I could to nurture and express them? What a different world THAT might be. . . 

 Try an experiment. Ask yourself how your thinking about yourself shifts when you see yourself as taking responsible for your passions and gifts, really owning them. How would it change how you see yourself? What would you do differently? 

Are You Really THAT Busy?

Long hours. . .  are often more about proving something to ourselves than actually getting stuff done. --Jessica Stillman, Why Working More than 40 Hours a Week is Useless

Over the past few years, I've come to realize that I have about 8-9 hours of work in me per day. That's it. Occasionally, if I'm really engrossed in a project, I can push for more, but usually I pay for that later with needing 4-5 hour work days that don't require a lot of mental energy. 

There was a time when I felt like this was problematic. After all, I work for myself and true entrepreneurs are all about the 60 hour work weeks. Anything less suggests that you aren't that committed to your work. So I would dutifully sit at my desk for 10-12 hour stretches of time, feeling like anything less was "not being serious" about what I do.

But here's the problem I observed--no matter how long I actually sat at my desk, I still didn't really do work past about 8 hours. The rest of my "work time" was largely swallowed up by mindless web surfing that always began as a "5-minute break" and ended two hours later with me wondering where the time had gone. It could also be chewed up in social conversations and shuffling of papers as I tried to figure out where I needed to go next. 

What I came to realize is that working a 55+ week was really a myth. I wasn't doing it. I was just thinking that I was because it was important to my identity that I be seen as "hardworking," which I defined by the number of hours I sat at my desk. Somehow this made me feel important to always be able to report to people I was "busy," and "stressed" and "overworked." 

In working with people on their career and professional development, I've seen that this issue of time--or more accurately our perception that we don't have enough of it --is one of the greatest barriers to growth and development. We have bought into the idea that our worth is measured by how many hours a day or a week we are "working," and because this notion is so important to us, we cling tightly to the fact that we are "too busy," without even looking at whether or not this is really true.

Laura Vanderkam in a fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal reminds us that how we spend our time is a choice and that saying we are "too busy" removes from us the burden of making those choices. When we are "too busy," we can act as though our time is something out of our control, rather than something we can choose to spend in different ways.

Aside from asking us to look at how we are REALLY spending our time (a very worthwhile activity), she makes the case for us to change our language around time so that we better understand the choces we are making:

Instead of saying "I don't have time" try saying "it's not a priority," and see how that feels. Often, that's a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets, I just don't want to. But other things are harder. Try it: "I'm not going to edit your résumé, sweetie, because it's not a priority." "I don't go to the doctor because my health is not a priority." If these phrases don't sit well, that's the point. Changing our language reminds us that time is a choice. If we don't like how we're spending an hour, we can choose differently.

To this list I would add, "I'm not going to spend time on figuring out what I want do to next because that's not a priority." Or "I'm not going to take an hour a day for my own growth and development because that's not a priority. Watching television is a bigger priority to me."

When we say that we don't have time for our own growth and development, what we are really saying is that it's not a priority. We are choosing to spend time on other activities that somehow seem more important. That's OK, but we should be intentional about that, reminding ourselves that we are choosing one activity over another. 

For me, what I've realized is that growth and development, time for personal projects and time with my family and friends are important to me--important enough for me to give up the ego stroke I used to get from perceiving myself as "hardworking," because I sat at my desk for 12 hours a day. It feels better to me to say that other things are on my priority list too. Some days I back slide. The culture of work as measured in hours is a hard one to resist. But most of the time I'm clear. And it feels a lot better than it did before. 

So what are your priorities? How are you choosing to spend your time? 

Meditations on Career Generosity

A blog post this morning by Walter McKenzie got me thinking about career behavior--more specifically do we approach people with a "what's in it for me?" mentality or do we look beyond transactions? Here's Walter's take on an experience he had recently:

In terminal one at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, right across from Chili’s, is a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory shop, where they have a standing offer that you can buy three caramel apples and get a fourth one free. The apples are fresh and dipped daily and are a tempting treat, but for many solo travelers it’s not possible to grab four caramel apples and run easily.

One traveler  ahead of me in line bought one caramel apple and ran off to his gate to catch his flight.

Another bought the four caramel apples and offered three to the next three of us in line she didn’t even know, just so she could get hers free.

We gladly took her up on her offer, and as she went on her way with our “thank yous” hanging in the air the traveler who had been standing right behind me commented what silliness it was for her to pay triple the price for the one apple she received.

I walked off processing his cynical comment. Mathematically he was right, of course. As transactions go, she had paid for three but she was only enjoying one.

In her mind, though, she had gotten a free caramel apple and showed a kindness to three fellow travelers in the process.

I guess if you really wanted to be mathematically faithful to the buy-three-get-one-free offer, you could have sold the three extra apples to recoup your purchase price. But who has time in a busy airport to try selling freshly made snacks in the middle of the terminal? No, you are most likely going to buy one or buy four for the price of three and not worry about the cost whether you plan on keeping them all for yourself or giving some away.

But the distinction is an important one. If you were a player in this scene, would you be stuck on the transaction, or would you be comfortable thinking beyond the transaction and sharing an unexpected kindness with three strangers? Your answer has implications beyond your pocketbook.

As someone who works for herself, I have to ask every day "Is this activity bringing value?" If it's not, then I need to re-think it because I can't afford to engage in a lot of useless work. But the question becomes, "what is a valuable activity?" Is it something that I receive payment for or some other direct benefit? That's a transactional approach--I will do something because I see an immediate benefit or direct payoff. A lot of people operate that way, but I can't. 

I believe in paying things forward and in sharing as much as I can.That's why if I have work that I think would benefit a larger audience, I put it online here or on my portfolio. It's why I'm active in LinkedIn groups and other places because I like keeping the information and resources flowing. 

 I've had people ask me in workshops if I worry about people "stealing" my work. Not at all. I believe that creativity is something that we should share with other people--it's energy that needs to keep moving and if we try to hold it to ourselves, then we will stifle our own ability to keep creating. I also believe that we each have gifts to give and that one of our goals as humans should be to find and share those gifts with other people. Whether I get something in return is immaterial. The nature of a gift is that there are no strings attached. 

A few months ago, I wrote about the economic monoculture we are currently living in and how it pushes us to see human interactions through an economic, transactional prism. Everything we do is evaluated based on its "economic rationality," including it's ability to give us some direct benefit. I find this to be a soulless, sad way to live. Not that I can't get caught up in this thinking, but when I do, it's a quick trip into cynicism and unhappiness. 

For me, what I do can't be about transactions. It's more about who and how I want to be in the world. Do I want to embody an ethos of "what's in it for me"?  Or do I want to be someone more generous and relational, someone who values other people simply for who they are not for what they can do for me? 

I'm not sure where this post is taking me. Consider it a sort of meditation on the way I want to live my life. I aspire to be someone who goes beyond transactions, especially in my work.  I want to be the sort of person who gladly buys four caramel apples and gives three away in line to strangers in an airport, happy in the knowledge that I have put a gift out into the world and kept that spirit of generosity and creativity moving.