Category: Self-management

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Knowing yourself Relationships Self-management Work/life balance

Real-life disclosures on the myth of work/life balance

I just got off the phone with Zeus, and I’m angry. This isn’t a surprise because I’m quick to anger, quick to forgiveness and quick to just about every emotion, really. The emotional roller coaster of being a woman and all.

Zeus and I have been engaged in phone warfare. Which also isn’t all that surprising considering that he works for a start-up and now I work for a start-up and well, life is busy.

You will understand this even more when I tell you who Zeus is – that is, Zeus is Ryan Healy, co-founder of both Brazen Careerist and Employee Evolution.

Many of you already know this about Zeus being Ryan, but I felt it was time to announce it beyond my About page because of some recent emails I received from my readers.

I feel I have every right to keep my private life private, but I also feel a strong relationship with my blogging community. My blog and the people who support it are the primary reasons I’m successful today, and so it’s important to me to be as transparent as possible.

I didn’t make my relationship with Ryan explicit before because we had just started dating (even now we’re early in the relationship game), and it’s hard enough to begin a relationship, let alone have the extra pressure of so many people watching you. I mean, Ryan and I are both “In a Relationship” on Facebook, but not even explicitly with each other because I’m so superstitious.

(Yeah, you try dating me.)

This is made all the more difficult because like I mentioned, we’re both busy, and I want the career, the relationship, the blog, the time to exercise and hang out with my friends and call my family.

“People that exercise every day and work twelve hours a day have no life,” Ryan reminds me. So, okay. But maybe I could be the exception?

“No, you can’t have it all. Something has to give,” he goes on. Ryan is practical to my impractical. Rational to my emotional. The pea to my pod. He’s a Taurus and I’m a Virgo. He’s an INTJ and I’m an ENFP. By all personality tests and worldly measures we’re a good match.

But sometimes it’s hard to like someone so much and have so much else going on in your life. It’s hard to think that we might not always live in the same city or that I might not be able to change the way I want to.

It’s easy for me to ignore all these elephants cramping my view though, because in my heart, I see this working. And I know that because this is one of the hardest times in our lives, it’s also one of the best. If you’re playing it right, the best time in your life is filled with uncertainty and risk. There’s nothing balanced about that. It’s exciting and exhilarating, and to take full advantage, you need to:

1) Let go.
2) Give in.
3) Smile.
4) Repeat.

I work for a company that will disrupt the traditional retail market and my boyfriend is someone that has disrupted everything I know about relationships. Nothing is stable now. That’s the thing about work/life balance. It’s more of a see-saw, kind of up and down, and is only ever balanced for the briefest moments in time.

Possibility perch.

Yes, this post was Ryan-approved before I hit publish. What are your thoughts on work/life balance? How do you achieve it? Do you want to have it all? Is it possible or are you content with just one or the other?

Categories
Knowing yourself Self-management Work/life balance

Starting over in the same city

Hercules moved away. I don’t feel left behind by Hercules, but by my own life which seems to have somehow escaped me. I am beginning to feel engulfed by this when my friend Maria Antonia comes over.

“Transition periods… they suck,” she reminds me. “I can’t think of a transition period that didn’t suck.”

“Uh huh,” I smile. Maria Antonia is incredibly practical. This sucks, but it will pass. We try on dresses, talk business and girly things, and go out for the night. I come home early. Socializing seems silly when all I can do is think of myself.

Another night I visit with Belle and her fiancé. It takes a lot of effort on my part not to be the third wheel; they are just sickeningly cute. I give myself a gold star for not being envious. I feel more grown up this past week, and I wonder if you learn lessons faster as you grow older.

Hercules left on a Sunday morning and I miss him on a Thursday. I go to the iTunes Store and download sixteen songs in a row, add them to a new playlist and hit repeat. They are mostly happy songs and soon I feel like the world is once again at my feet. Then I remember the other night, Zeus, and the five glasses of wine. We’re sitting on my couch.

“Am I your rebound?” Zeus asks.

“Of course!” I declare. I feel bad as soon as the words escape. I liked Zeus the moment I saw him and tell him so.

“Love at first sight?” he chuckles. I don’t think it’s funny since love is both the closest and farthest thing on my mind.

“Something like that,” I reply.

And I don’t want him to be my rebound, but I don’t see any other choice. I feel incapable at relationships. Zeus seems younger than most guys I date, and is both sweet and guarded. He makes me want to write, and a few days earlier, he bet that I would make a good girlfriend. This makes me happy and so now that we are alone, I kiss him. It’s not what I expect.

“Zeus, you know when you see an outfit that you really like and you have to try it on to see if it fits?”

“Yeah…”

“I’m not sure we fit,” I say. I’m not trying to be rude on purpose, but the word vomit keeps coming! We keep talking and he agrees and disagrees with everything I say, taking a middle-of-the-road approach. This is good I think and I like him more as the wine wears off.

A lesson I’ve learned though is that when men are in my life, it engulfs me. And when men aren’t in my life, I rise up like a balloon that was being held to the ground and is finally being let go.

I like both states of being despite their unequal weight on my shoulders whispering in my ear. I feel the need to choose relationships or career because it’s easier to go all-in on one side of the coin instead of trying to reach a balance. Defining your own success is indeed as rare as successfully hanging curtains by yourself. I’ve been thinking about this, and the strange feeling of glee I have to own a new beginning where everything is different, yet exactly the same.

Later in the week Zeus texts me, “So what do you think, did the clothes fit?” And this makes me a bit giddy, because that line seems to be straight out of a movie, and I think maybe the clothes do fit. And I ready myself for another stab at flourishing in life.

Categories
Blogging Generation Y Self-management

What Generation Y fears the most

Some might say Emily Gould is a twenty-six year old attention-craving narcissist. But I empathize with her. Nay, after reading her cover article in the New York Times magazine, I adore her (via Penelope Trunk).

Then I read the response. So not worthy of the New York Times the commenters declared in unison. Obviously. Because the world is so much cooler, smarter, and better-looking than Emily Gould.

Which is sad because if Emily Gould’s voice – a voice for bloggers everywhere or merely for herself – is muffled in the world than the world is going to get a lot more lonely.

But there are so many other things to pay attention to. So many other very important things, commenters lamented to the Times.

And maybe therein lies part of the problem.

Generation Y is generally not able to recognize themselves in these very important things – not war, or terror, economic crisis, or the general misery and abyss that too often characterizes the world today.

To be sure, we are eventually ushered into the real world where thoughts of changing the world are fastidiously and mechanically hampered down by those somehow deemed smarter and more experienced than us. It’s called entering the workforce, and it is an experience that only furthers the distance between us and the issues that matter.

Such an evolution is chronicled online within the blog posts of Ryan Healy and Ryan Paugh, authors of Employee Evolution and co-founders of Brazen Careerist. They are the self-proclaimed voices of the millennial generation.

Once proud and insistent of all that an online community could do and accomplish, Healy and Paugh are now immersed and defined by the culture they once espoused. As such, the reality of what an online community is and can actually accomplish is setting in, for better or worse. If you’ve followed them from the early days, you can tell – real life has entered their posts. That is, the reality of doing something meaningful is ridiculously difficult.

You might substitute family or environmental activism or accounting for online community – whatever your passion and dreams consist of – and should you pursue these ideals, you might find they’re not all they were cracked up to be.

Wait. If I sound too much like the big bad wolf of Gen X in Gen Y’s clothing, please let me set the record straight. I drink the Gen Y kool-aid on a daily basis. I do believe in hope, idealism, fantastical dreams and change beyond our imagination.

I was brought up in all that is sweet and sugary. In a world where some fear their shoelace being caught in a landmine, the worst thing that has ever happened to me is my father’s death. A kind of tragedy that I wouldn’t understand until the day after it happened, and the day after that, and each and every day after that. I wouldn’t understand how much my life would be defined by the lack of his.

But I’ve never been raped or abused. Or had a drug problem, or anorexia, bulimia or obesity. I’ve only experienced heartbreak once, maybe twice. I’ve never been shot at or tormented. I’ve never worried about putting food on the table or a roof over my head.

Really, I lead a charmed life. I’m not being sarcastic. I’m being serious. I feel incredibly lucky.

And so when I write about how sad or happy or anxious or ecstatic I am, it’s because I’m trying to figure out how to use this charmed life for the best possible result. How can I build a life that is meaningful?

Because I’ve been trying really hard, and what once seemed like an upward arc towards significance has come back down full circle.

I think this is the great unspoken truth about Generation Y.

We’re terrified our lives won’t matter.

Should Generation Y have a downfall, it will be that we engage in far too much navel-gazing, yes, but also that others don’t recognize the importance of such introspection. The backlash against Emily Gould, and that what she represents is somehow not important demeans the individual experience that defines the collective identity.

That’s why blogging is so important for Generation Y. Because when I read Emily Gould’s experience, I recognize myself. And when someone reads what I wrote, they see themselves.

When we make one person’s struggle less than another, we put down our own struggle as unimportant. And it’s really important to figure out ourselves. If I’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that people react most violently against what they fear the most. And people fear some weird stuff – success, happiness, failure, love. You know.

But if you don’t agree with that, and I wouldn’t expect everyone to, let me tell you something else. You can disagree without malice or hatred. You can disagree without judgment.

It’s this thing called respect.

And I think that’s a good starting point to building a meaningful life.

Hopeless. Romantic.

Categories
Career Knowing yourself Self-management

Don’t make career plans – here’s why

I thought something would happen the last week of March, but what was supposed to happen didn’t.

See, I was supposed to figure out who the man of my dreams was this past week. Stop laughing. This is serious business. Last year, I felt overwhelmingly that this would happen in March or April, and as time went on, I began to believe that it would happen in the last week of March.

I told a couple people about this craziness – my mother, Belle, Hercules. They all humored me while explaining in a good-natured way that I shouldn’t count on it.

You can’t plan for things like this, they said. You can’t plan for love.

Fine, I told them. But I went ahead and had drinks with every eligible bachelor I knew. Just in case. Then I waited for fireworks.

Nothing.

Okay, so you can’t plan love. And you can’t plan for your career any better.

When you stick to a plan, you miss out on opportunities. Besides, you’re only in control of yourself. You may have goals, but unless you’re ruthless with yourself and who you are – your abilities, your strengths, your weaknesses – you’re not going to get anywhere.

For instance, I had drinks with Johannes last week. He’s been planning one particular career path for a number of years now and found out recently that he didn’t get the job he really wanted. He got another great job, but it wasn’t the one he had put on the map he carried around and relied upon. Understandably, he was pretty despondent.

This was probably you when you realized that you would never use your degree. Or when you found out you couldn’t have children. Or when you started your dream job, the one that paid you large sums of money, and you looked outside your corner office with a view and realized you’d rather be a musician.

That’s the thing about life. It doesn’t really care about your plans. So you can chart all the courses you want, but it’s much better to just be prepared and flexible for the opportunities that come your way.

Like Sunday, when I shot a gun. Um, yeah.

If you know me at all, you know how ridiculous this is. And my mother is probably having a heart attack right now. But mom, it’s okay. I was very safe.

I’ve never believed that people should own guns. In England, they don’t allow people to own guns, and there’s virtually no gun-related crime. Seems easy enough to me. So I’ve always thought that owning a gun was downright stupid. Or I did. Until my friend drove us to a shooting ground, taught me the rules of gun safety, and I pulled the trigger. I actually even hit the target several times.

Do you know how exhilarating it is to try new things? To take risks and do something you never thought you would?

That’s why it’s so necessary not to hold onto your plans, opinions, and beliefs with such strictness that you can’t change and adapt, and with such fear that you don’t live your life.

You know, I was never going to be the person I am today. I was going to be the next William McDonough. I was going to be the next Samuel Mockbee. And well, I’ve always wanted to be Oprah. And maybe someday I will be. But I’m pretty glad life got in the way of my plans.

In summary, to rock your life and your career:

1) Focus on the now.
2) Like plans, love change.
3) Take risks.
4) Repeat.

In the meantime, I’m accepting that maybe I’m just not ready for a relationship. Or maybe the person that I like isn’t ready. Or maybe we’re not meant to be together. Whatever. The point is, I’m done worrying about it. And I’m ready for today.

Love it like you mean it.

Categories
Career Generation Y Self-management

Figuring out your next career move without settling

Penelope Trunk’s latest post on steps to figuring out your next career move only makes sense because most people don’t want the responsibility of change. They will read what she has to say, feel a bit uncertain, but will nod along anyway.

This is good for those people, most people. Most people either don’t have the balls or are not well-equipped to do what they want.

The can cross off the “career-equivalent of winning the lottery,” because that dream was making them feel anxious anyway. And while they love to write, they can see that it gives them some sort of peace to admit that they may not really love it if they never make time for it. They’re good to go with the cubicle.

This is all okay. It’s called settling. And it’s a viable option. A good one that will make you happy.

Some others, well, they’re not settling. They are different from most people. This is the group that seems to find the prize in the cereal box every time. They’re leaning into the wind and winning, and the book industry is making a good deal off the fact that most people want to be just like them.

Along with the crowd that is Oprah, I’m currently reading, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, in which the author predictably states that the book, “can only awaken those who are ready.”

It is both a shame and a triumph that the most banal statements are always the most obvious, the most difficult, and the most necessary.

The only way you can be ready is if you’re ruthlessly transparent, authentic and honest. In the book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge argues that a commitment to truth is a “restless willingness to root out the ways we limit or deceive ourselves from seeing what is, and to continually challenge our theories of why things are the way they are.”

This is much different than knowing that you’re afraid to talk to your crush because you have unrealistic expectations of the happy movie ending.

Rather, it’s an advocacy and inquiry that rivals trying to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Or if you’d prefer, finding the one good-looking guy at the bar on a Friday night.

There is a shortcut, the sound of settling. It’s comfortable like a blanket over your shoulders, spaghetti in your stomach, sex in the dark.

Settling leads to mediocrity. It’s the acceptance of the “good enough” status quo.

Successful people know that the gap between our vision and current reality “can make us feel hopeless. But the gap is also a source of energy,” Senge argues. “Truly creative people use the gap between vision and current reality to generate energy for change.”

In encouraging yourself to rely more on your concepts of reality, rather than your observations, and in discarding your dreams and goals in order to be realistic, to settle, you lose this creative tension.

That’s why Generation Y is uniquely positioned to create real change in our next career move. We’re idealistic and yet keenly aware of the world’s scorecard. We understand, as Senge argues, that “the juxtaposition of the two, the dream and the present reality, [is] the real force for change.”

Fall into the gap.

Categories
Inspiration Knowing yourself Self-management Work/life balance

My non-advice for the New Year

I’ve been writing a lot of crap lately. No, really, I have. You don’t know because I have been gracious enough not to post it, but it’s been crap. Complete and utter sh*t.

I think it’s because I feel obligated to write an inspiring New Years post, but regurgitating what the rest of the world is saying makes me nauseous. And also, I haven’t been too inspired lately, and this blog is supposed to be happy, angry, inspirational, controversial, exciting – anything but depressing – but depressing is the only way to describe my writing as of late.

I was going to show you my calendar of the nineteen meetings I have this week, which is typical. Perhaps too typical as I’ve discovered it’s fairly easy to become fairly crazy fairly quickly.

And speaking of that, has anyone else noticed that it only took a short two years out of college for you to completely lose the ability to go to sleep at 5:00 am one night and wake up absolutely fine, refreshed and ready to face the day the next morning? Because I tried it recently and I can’t do it any longer. I’ve lost this valuable skill at the ripe old age of twenty-four.

But anyway, I was going to explain the masterpiece of scheduling that my calendar is, and describe my system of scheduling meetings according to existing meetings, all packaged nicely and neatly in a pretty list, but it was really boring. Really.

Moreover, it seemed a little misleading to sell you my tricks of the scheduling trade, when I’m so utterly exhausted. And if nothing else, I’m honest.

Honesty has gotten me in trouble lately though. I’m starting to say “no” more often, and stand up for myself, and people don’t really like that. And I’m still figuring out how to deal with that, because I’m saying “no” and I’m standing up for a reason, good reasons, but I’m not sure the other parties feel the same way. And the transition from sugary-sweet observer to strong active leader is blaringly still en route.

Then I thought I would tell you about the resolution I made one Monday afternoon and subsequently broke this past Saturday night. And there’s no point now, which is cool, you know, because it’s cliche fun to break your resolution a week after you’ve made it. Er, whatever.

I also thought about writing how I feel like I can’t trust many people lately, which is bad, because trust is really important to getting things done. Mostly I feel this way because someone I look up to let me down. But to be honest, I had him on a pedestal, so it was only a matter of time before I found out that he didn’t like where I had told him to sit.

Other posts included how listening to old-school music makes me happy, and that exercising is good, but better when the cute personal trainer guy talks to you, or how your number one resolution should be to start a blog in the New Year. And at one point, I even thought about just copying and pasting the lyrics to all the music I was listening to, because it just seemed to say everything that I could not.

But time after time, the posts didn’t make the cut, because there is so much advice out there on how to start your New Year off right, and the sky is still blue (or gray in Madison’s case), and you are still who you are. So don’t worry so much.

This is, after all, the year of the Rat. That means it’s “a lucky year, a good time to start a new venture. The rewards will not come without hard work, but with careful planning they will arrive.”

Great things are going to happen this year. And you’re going to make them happen.

That’s all you need to know.

Get to it.

Categories
Networking Self-management

36 hours to making a new friend

“Should I bring my scarf?” Sam Davidson of Cool People Care asked me. He had just arrived to Madison from Nashville to give a speech to my organization.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Should I bring my gloves?”

“Yes, bring everything warm that you have,” I said. Sam went up to his hotel room and came back with his scarf, his gloves and nothing else.

“Where’s your coat?” I demanded.

“This is my coat,” he said. I looked down at his suit jacket and back up at his face, confused.

“Okay,” I said finally. “Come on then.” I walked outside, a little worried how Sam and I were going to get along if he didn’t even understand the meaning of the words “Wisconsin” and “Winter” in the same sentence.

Sam Davidson visits Madison

Sam assured me, however, that he was tough, and true to his word – no matter how much I baited him – he didn’t complain.

Tough is a good word to describe Sam. Not in the traditional steel factory sense of the word, but in the hard-hitting, no-nonsense kind of way. He’s interested in people, he’s interested in change, and he wants to know how to bring the two together.

He’s practical about where he comes from, the detours he’s taken, and turns the notion of a designated path on its head. And perhaps that is what is so refreshing about Sam. He’s straightforward, but uniquely human at the same time. Like when after a particularly meaningful story, Sam stated, “I wore socks today. I hate wearing socks.”

Sam gave his speech on Wednesday night (which was really good), and we all went out to dinner afterwards. And on Thursday, Sam and I proceeded to spend fifteen hours together straight. We went on a tour of Madison into the shops, and the art museum, and our Capitol (although Sam insists that “It’s pretty, huh?” isn’t really a tour at all), and then off to lunch meetings, coffee shop meetings, sushi dinner with Employee Evolution, after-dinner drinks, and after-drink conversations.

Sam sharing a website

And as we moved throughout the day, I felt how great it was to be making a new friend. It’s single-handedly one of the most powerful things, to begin to trust someone, to share your dreams and goals, and your frustrations and anger. To have a mutual respect and desire to change the world. Our generation thrives so much on loose connections, Facebook friends, being quasi-anonymous, that making deep connections often seems like too much work.

But it’s not. It’s just being observant and open. It’s asking the questions beyond simply where you come from and what you do:

“Why are you controversial?”
“How can we work together?”
“Why are you so tight-lipped about your dating life?”
“Do you think you’re moving too slowly?”
“What’s the soundtrack to your life?”
“Do you work out of this coffee shop often?”
“What’s the story behind changing your beliefs?”
“How did you know your wife was the one?”
“What does edgy mean?”
“What’s next?”

Sam and I asked each other these very questions. It’s about investigating and caring about who the other person is. It’s about wanting to know someone intimately, because that’s all we really want anyway. To be known, appreciated, challenged.

When I meet with people, even CEOs or semi-celebrities, the most interesting discussion always happens after we should have ended the meeting. It’s the point where you can get up and leave, or you can ask another question, an unexpected question, a silly or meaningful question, but a question that pushes deeper.

It’s easy to ask the basic questions. But friendships aren’t forged, and change doesn’t happen with easy questions. Instead, you have to ask the story behind those questions.

You have to reach around and ask about the cup of cold coffee sitting on the black table with the guy standing in a kilt on the staircase. You have to ask about that. You have to ask about who a person is.

Friendly challenge.

Sam thinking on how to change the world
Categories
Inspiration Self-management

What passion looks like

When I got sick, one of the first things I had to do to get better was learn to give myself shots in the stomach. The very first time I had to do it, I sat on a hospital bed with Johannes across from me and the nurse beside me, and I cried. And when I say cried, I mean I bawled harder than I have ever bawled in my adult existence. My whole body heaved with the impossibility of the task.

Johannes sat cringing next to me. He had just spent four years studying to be a doctor, and for him, this was like opening your eyes in the morning. For me, it was like the nightmares I have where I’m falling and don’t know where I’ll land. It was pure terror.

I couldn’t do it. The nurse left the room, and Johannes looked at me with disgust.

And then.

And then, something inside me flipped. I stopped crying. The nurse came back in. She handed me the needle, and I did it. As simple as pushing a button into the button hole, I pushed the needle into my stomach. And when I got home, I had to lie on my couch and do it every night all alone, and I did it then too.

After this, there were several more visits to the ER, an eventual surgery, and when it was all done, when it was finally all finished, I felt euphoric. Euphoria enveloped me for all that I had been through; for all that I had fought against and won.

You have to work hard, and sometimes you have to gloriously muck something up to be really successful later. Why we’re always so afraid of conflict, diversity, adversity has never made sense to me. I have no patience for people who are sanctimoniously happy all the time. It means they haven’t taken enough risks.

Success is directly related to how hard you push yourself.

I write about how difficult the process of becoming a leader is, the problems I’ve had transitioning, how life is just plain hard sometimes, to illustrate that once you find your passion it’s not all about birds chirping and bunny rabbits frolicking.

Of course, that’s part of it; right now, for instance, I am really excited. I just had a great meeting with those in my organization. We’re getting closer and closer to rocking out. You know, like, the lip-singing-dancing-around-the-living-room-jumping-for-joy kind of rocking out. But in a Board Room.

And that makes me happy. Especially because I worked hard to prepare for that meeting. Really hard. Our database hates me with a vengeance hard. Sixteen or seventeen meetings a week hard. Like, my apartment is messy an hour after I clean it hard.

I generally spend every waking moment thinking and acting on how we’re going to rock it. So when things go well, that feeling of euphoria – of happiness to the point of enlightenment – is because I’ve pushed myself farther than I’ve ever gone before. Just like when I was sick.

So, it’s hard. And it’s work. And sometimes it’s pure terror. But that’s passion in a nutshell. You wake up and you can’t imagine doing anything else. You do it because there is no other way to be.

Be working to be rocking.

Categories
Creativity Productivity Self-management

Purge first. Creativity second.

For creativity, you need to get rid of the crap. Your surroundings are a reflection of who you are, and the state of your environment is a reflection of the state of your mind.

I work best when everything is in its proper place. At this point, I should make a disclaimer. Everyone works differently. You might work well in crap. I cannot. The piles and dust and general disorder weigh on my mind. Like a big stinky dump truck with tin cans tied to the bumper that clang against the sides of my brain. No, I do not work well with disorder.

Chaos and confusion within your to-do list will also make a mess of your mind. You must do the thing you think you cannot do. Get it out of the way. Right now.

For me, it’s tough to deal with accounting-related tasks. Not only because I am so clearly a right-brained person, but because I’m also directly responsible for my own salary. It’s incredibly stressful. So I sub-consciously avoid the numbers game because it’s difficult and hard and sticky.

But it’s also incredibly important, so I push it to the forefront daily. After all, the show cannot go on without money, and I really love that thing called eating. So while I would really prefer to be brainstorming the next big idea, finishing the accounting makes me feel just as good, euphoric even.

Purging your to-do list of items that bring you anxiety means not only crossing off the difficult and boring tasks, but getting rid of the items that suck your energy.

For instance, I have a habit of adding unnecessary to-dos to my list. Items that are so ridiculously broad such as “recruitment,” or so entrenched in abbreviation like “LM to SC and in DB & Ltr” that I have no frickin’ clue what I’m supposed to be doing or where to start. Such items are now banned from my college-lined notebook. Don’t let them show up in yours. Sneaky rascals, those to-dos.

It’s kind of like the style shows where they embarrass people into dressing properly. The fashionable teach the outdated, passé, and defunct how to rid their closet of negative energy and bedazzaled Capri jeans. By doing so they make the simple act of getting dressed a retreat of confidence, coolness and beauty.

Now, just think if your to-do list were that sexy.

Face your work woes. Creativity will follow the work that you do and the risks you take.

Work woe no more.

Categories
Leadership Self-management Work/life balance

Life as a Gen Y leader – week eleven

I texted Skinny last Friday night, “I’m just not up for it.” Which really meant that I had sixteen meetings last week, and I was exhausted, and however appealing a nice relaxing dinner sounded, Skinny would have just been a landfill. I would have dumped my entire life on him. And who is that fun for? No one.

The thing is, I’ve been saying “I’m just not up for it,” to my friends more often than not, and I’m quickly losing whatever semblance of balance I used to have. Big Brother claims he keeps his personal life separate because it’s difficult to be a public figure, but I’m increasingly wondering if the real reason is because he doesn’t have one.

And I’m wondering if what I really want is to become a workaholic.

The thing is, when you surround yourself with a certain type of person, you become like those people. Take, for instance, a meeting I was at last week. I sat nervously on the edge of my chair as we started the meeting with a WIGO (What Is Going On), where people described what’s been happening in their lives. When every single person talked about work except for one, I breathed a triumphant sigh of relief. They didn’t have lives either!

At the time, I was grateful to hear that others were just as crazy as me, but as Belle and my sister amuse me with their updates on promise rings and wedding plans, I’m anxious for the whole “not having a life” thing to be over with. Because I do want it all. The family. The career. And everything in between.

This idea of priorities came up earlier in the week. I was on a panel and one participant asked me, “If I’m more efficient during afternoon meetings, but my employees or volunteers are more efficient in the morning, what do I do?”

“You have meetings in the morning,” I replied. “That’s what you do. That’s a sacrifice you make for being the boss. The point is to make your employees or volunteers as successful as possible so that you’re as successful as possible.” You want to lift them up. You want to help them reach their goals. You should lead them to be as good, no, better than you.

I’ve wanted to be a lot of things in my life. A journalist, a teacher, and a designer are among the more prevalent. But the one thing that remains the same throughout is my desire to help others reach their dreams. I want to create environments where others succeed. I want my job description to simply read “empower.”

And in the end, isn’t that what a leader does?

So, I’m thinking it’s not so bad to be working so hard if I remember these things. In fact, I feel like I need to be working a lot harder, if not smarter. But that’s another discussion all together. Nevertheless, I’m going to make the commitment to take more time for myself, my friends, and my family – publicly, here on this blog – so that I become accountable to the promise I’ve made to myself.

In the meantime, if someone wants to give me the key to changing the world, or if you simply want to introduce me to Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome, I very much doubt that I’ll reply “I’m just not up for it.”

Up for it all, baby.

Categories
Self-management

How to be productive when you’re sick

I’m sick. My throat hurts. My nose is a faucet. And my head is squeezing in on itself. For no apparent reason. Except maybe in a vain attempt to expel my persistent cough.

And I’m never sick. Oh, sure. I’ve alluded to the one time when I had some strange freak condition that landed me in the hospital. But besides that.

I never get sick.

When other people tell me they’re sick, I raise my eyebrows like, are you really sick you poor thing, or are you just a big wimp? Because if I have a little sniffle, I work through it. I’m tough.

Then a couple weekends ago, I laid down on the couch, the sun shining in, feeling like I could sleep into oblivion because moving was not an option. I couldn’t even move to change the channel from Gossip Girl to America’s Next Top Model.

It wasn’t until a few hours later that I thought, huh, I must be sick, and reached for the phone to dial the only person who could take care of me, even from hundreds of miles away.

My mother.

“Of course you’re sick!” she answered when I described my symptoms. She demanded that I go buy a liter of 7-up to calm my nausea, some white bread, but no butter, and chicken broth. Then sleep. Lots of sleep.

“And for heaven’s sake, don’t try to work!” she squawked. Yes, mother. And for the next four days, that’s what I did. I lived on 7-up, bread, chicken broth, and slept. I don’t even drink pop.

I got better. Life went on. And now this.

Don’t the sick fairies know I have stuff to do? Really. My nose is so red and my skin is so pale, I look like Rudolph died. It’s not fun. And I’m trying to figure out how I can get some work done. Any work whatsoever. So I do a little work, and then I call my mom to check in on her, because as it turns out, even hundreds of miles away, she’s sick too.

“You haven’t been lying down? Go lie down,” she says. And I’m all like, “But Mom, how are you?” And she’s like, “For heaven’s sake, don’t try to do any work either!”

Yes, mother.

Categories
Inspiration Self-management

Are you ready for success?

Success is like a game of dominoes. Don’t go after it unless you’re ready, because it tends to fall into place all at once.

This post is a tribute to Devin Reams, five.sentenc.es, and to Hercules, who only reads the highlighted parts of my blog.

Domino effect.