Alexandersmap

    Category: Career

    • The Momentum of Trust

      “The individual in the organization who collects, connects and nurtures relationships is indispensable. This isn’t about recording the information in a database somewhere. This is about holding the relationships as sacred as they deserve to be.” — Seth Godin, Graceful

      There’s no substitute for hard work and consistency in our work, but life is a lot easier when we also have a network of alliances and trusted relationships developed over time. The very best way to build any momentum in anything is to build a network of trusted people around us. The network becomes our path to greatness, as those who trust us grow into greatness themselves. They pull us up just as we pull them up.

      The moment we change industries, we lose the momentum of trust. Like Sisyphus, we essentially go right to the bottom of the hill and start pushing once again. As someone who has reinvented myself several times over in my career, I know the power and absence of a strong network all too well. Nowadays I hold on to my trusted relationships for dear life, and go to great lengths to keep developing new ones.

      As people grow and change companies it impacts the people who remain as much as it does those who leave. Trust is earned over time. Momentum may slow or disappear altogether. We may choose to be the glue or the acetone in such moments. Nothing ever stays the same in something as dynamic as a career, but we can be consistent in our reliability and presence as a friend, peer and trusted associate. In the end it’s our relationships we’ll celebrate in our time.

    • An Expression of Yes

      “The price of greatness is responsibility over each of your thoughts.” ― Winston Churchill

      Yesterday, in a clear break from discipline, I took the dog to the beach for a long walk. I collected smooth stones until my coat pocket was full and stuffed a few more into my pants pockets. The pup—her tail wagging furiously—greeted other dog walkers and sniffed the salty foam. I might have been more productive pushing through some report or calling a few customers, but the pup and I agreed this was the most productive lunch meeting I’ve had in a long time.

      We know, deep down, when we’ve done our best. So many people go through the motions nowadays, not really finding the magic in the moment in their work. Not really feeling the power of contribution to something bigger than themselves. As if our days are infinite. As if staying within ourselves isn’t a betrayal of our potential.

      Betrayal of potential is doing work that doesn’t matter to us for a beat longer than absolutely necessary. I post this blog every day because it speaks to me, and I speak through it. Like flossing, when you diligently do it every day you get a positive outcome. Shouldn’t our primary work be the same?

      What does it matter to you?
      When you got a job to do
      You got to do it well
      You got to give the other fellow hell
      — Paul McCartney, Live and Let Die

      We have no time for trivial pursuits. We have no time for work that doesn’t resonate, that doesn’t make us feel something essential within ourselves. If today were our last day on earth, would the work we are doing mean a thing? To borrow from Derek Sivers, if the answer isn’t a hell yes, it’s a no. How many no’s do we want to stack in a row? Make today a yes and start a new kind of streak.

      Walking on the beach yesterday was an expression of yes. It was walking away from a no and making the most of a fragile moment. The work was still there when I got back, but it felt different than it did earlier in the day. It turned out the work wasn’t the problem, it was the worker all along.

    • A Workhorse or Show Pony?

      There’s an old expression, more a question of character, that floats around in the workplace. Simply put, when we talk of employees, are they workhorses or show ponies? Some people shun the spotlight, grind away at the work that must be done and move on to the next project when it’s complete. Some people avoid the tough work but appear busy, and look for the spotlight and the opportunity to shine. The inference, naturally, is to be the workhorse.

      I’ve been the workhorse in my professional life and in my pursuits outside of work. Some days I’d rather be with the ponies prancing around in the green grass, doing nothing much at all. Wouldn’t that be nice? Why must we always be the workhorse? Because who really wants to hang around with show ponies all day? What kind of life is that, friend? A life of posturing and surface-level conversations, lackluster commitment to anything substantive, quick abandonment when fashion changes. Show ponies live a life of bullshit and betrayal. In that world, if you aren’t in the spotlight you’re in the shadow.

      We see examples all around us. I watch a couple of YouTube channels for entertainment. I’ve noticed that some shows start off as one or two workhorses doing what they can to keep afloat. Tough projects are shown, not to celebrate the workhorse nature of the horses, but to show how they did it (with the underlying message being; maybe you can too). The best of these channels retain this spirit, but most spiral into the YouTube formula of chasing subscribers and patreons to fund their adventures. Simply put: most turn into show ponies.

      Did you watch the United States’ State of the Union last week? A room full of show ponies posing as workhorses. Want to make progress in a world full of complicated problems? Elect more workhorses. The problem is that most workhorses don’t want the spotlight, and some turn into show ponies when they find they like the spotlight a little too much. The upcoming election will have a workhorse against a show pony. Deep down we know which is which, and our future is literally at stake based on which horse wins the race.

      The question is, what are we? We can be both at different times in our lives. I was a workhorse for part of the weekend doing projects around the yard. When I’m presenting in front of a room full of people I turn into a show pony, making the most of the spotlight while I’m in it. In between we settle into a routine that reveals who we really are. Anyone can be a workhorse or a show pony, it’s all conditioning and reward. So as we begin another day, isn’t it fair to ask ourselves, “just who do we want to be in this world today?” The world answers, “what do you think we need more of right now?”

    • To Live Creatively

      “Many times, in writing I have looked over my own shoulder from beyond the grave, more alive to the reactions of those to come than to those of my contemporaries. A good part of my life has, in a way, been lived in the future. With regard to all that vitally concerns me I am really a dead man, alive only to a very few who, like myself, could not wait for the world to catch up with them. I do not say this out of pride or vanity, but with the humility not untouched with sadness. Sadness is perhaps hardly the right word either, since I neither regret the course I have followed nor desire things to be any different than they are. I know now what the world is like and knowing I accept it, both the good and the evil. To live creatively, I have discovered, means to live more and more unselfishly, to live more and more into the world, identifying oneself with it and thus influencing it at the core, so to speak. Art, like religion, it now seems to me, is only a preparation, an initiation into the way of life. The goal is liberation, freedom, which means assuming greater responsibility. To continue writing beyond the point of self-realization seems futile and arresting. The mastery of any form of expression should lead inevitably to the final expression—mastery of life. In this realm one is absolutely alone, face to face with the very elements of creation. It is an experiment whose outcome nobody can predict.” — Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi

      Another long quote to start this blog, and surely the SEO needs improvement. So be it. I might have doubled the length for all Henry Miller had to say. In fact, stop reading my blog altogether and go pick up the book. We are the people he had in mind when he wrote these words. Can’t you see him looking over his shoulder at us? If Miller was looking to the future with hopefulness that the world would catch up to his way of thinking, well, he may have been sorely disappointed. We all shake our heads at the madness in the world, and the inclination to dumb it all down for the benefit of the power brokers with all the fancy toys. Some things never change.

      To tag along with Miller as he wanders around Greece on the cusp of World War II is fascinating for the historian in me, for we know how the story ends but not always how the world felt about it as things were playing out. Miller found his soul in Greece just before things got truly crazy. What of us?

      Some of us write to reach self-realization and rarely go beyond it to reach for mastery. I talk a good game myself, but my default is to quiet quit on mastery. It takes a level of discipline I’ve learned I don’t want to grind out of myself to be a master craftsman at anything. I can see it in the pursuits I’ve started and let die out. If the price is to exclude everything else to reach mastery, I’ve come to realize that I won’t pay that price. There are precious few who keep going, which is why there are so very few masters of any craft.

      But there’s hope. If the goal of life is Arete and reaching personal excellence, then the journey never truly ends. Perhaps writing for self-realization is part of the journey that eventually we break through to reach for something more. The only certainty is that the creative journey continues, and so long as the blog posts reach you, you’ll know that I’m still pushing through what Steven Pressfield called the Resistance to find out what’s on the other side.

      There’s a reckoning coming. When we keep pushing ahead it’s inevitable that we’ll face more and more resistance. For us to keep going with the work that calls to us is audacious, and some might say self-serving. This too is recognized as resistance. There comes a point in our lives where we tell our quiet-quitting self that the work means more now. We may still end this trivial pursuit and go on to some other distraction. Just not today.

    • To Live For

      “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” ― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

      You may have heard this before here, but time flies (tempus fugit). The more we put behind us, the more we might see just how essential purpose is to our identity. We produce what we might in our lifetimes, we nurture a character that grows through the seasons, systems, habits and trends we put it through, and always, we are that average of the people we associate with the most. To live for others is to carry ourselves in such a way that we make a ripple that rolls outward beyond us.

      A friend was recently trying to lure me to another company with tales of a great culture, fancy resume-friendly titles and high earnings potential. A different version of me would have jumped at the chance to make a big splash. Imagine the splash on LinkedIn when I posted that change? But this version of me sees the folly in that plunge. I’ll take the quiet ripple, thank you. To be present and engaged in this place and time with those who mean the most is everything.

      Purpose seems such a lofty word for the average person. We conjure up heroic images—characters who transcend the routine and lead to us to salvation. The idea of a purpose can be a trap disguised as a compass heading. The trap is in forever looking elsewhere for true north, when it’s usually whispering in our ear all along.

      What’s it all about, Alfie?
      Is it just for the moment we live?
      — Burt Bacharach, Alfie

      The right it transforms us. The wrong it has us running around in circles. Life is short and yes, time flies. We have no time to waste chasing the wrong cause when the essential is right there waiting for us.

      We spend far too much time trying to find a higher purpose and not nearly enough embracing the essential truth we encounter along the way. It’s all about being there for those who mean the most to us in our time. As infuriating as it might feel for those who haven’t yet found it, trust in the process: we know what to live for when we find it. When we give of ourselves to the right people that love is reflected back to us.

    • Our Sine Qua Non

      “Taking charge of your own learning is a part of taking charge of your life, which is the sine qua non in becoming an integrated person.” ― Warren Bennis

      Sine qua non (without which, not) is that essential ingredient in the recipe that brings everything else together. It’s not a phrase we’re likely to throw out there when we’re discussing the oil in the engine with our mechanic, but we can see how it could be. When applied to our identity, it’s the essence of who we are. When applied to who we might become, it’s the essential things that we must master within ourselves to close the gap and be that next person.

      Warren Bennis was one of the first business gurus I followed early in my career. I’d fancied myself a leader and his books on leadership were insightful and inspiring. There was a big gap between where I was in my career and where I thought I ought to be, but knowing that gap we begin to make choices that bring us closer to where we want to be. Remove the corporate aspirations, as I eventually did, and we’re left with a credo for personal leadership in any situation. We take charge of our lives when we embrace our own personal growth.

      So what of becoming an integrated person? What exactly does that demand of us? Isn’t it another way of saying we’re fully optimizing ourselves? This requires balance in our fitness, in our relationships, in spirituality and in whatever it is that calls us to greatness in our craft. Everything we become is an output of what we bring in, processed by that great differentiator that is our essential identity, and placed out in the world for the world to try to understand.

      We are each unique actors—we all have our verse, as Whitman put it—and we each grow into ourselves. All while dancing with the world as the character we are in that moment. Our essence remains the same, but we change over time. Some change is deliberate (decide what to be and go be it), some is environmental (we are the average of the five people we surround ourselves with) and some is born within us as natural talent or inclination that we lean into as it speaks to us. The trick is to keep growing in ways that makes us more complete.

      Sine qua non is a useful lens through which to view our growth: Without learning this, I will not become that. Without doing this exercise more consistently, I will never get to a point where I can do that other thing. Without writing every day I’ll never develop the self-understanding and proficiency to both know myself and to grow in the craft I aspire to master. Each “without” points towards the essence of what must be to become what we may be.

      As we close out yet another year on the planet, we begin to think about the possibility of whom we might become in the next year. There’s a place in our lives for the well-timed leap, but we ought to remember that big leaps can be bruising if we don’t land where we anticipated. Leaps are often a sign of impatience with where we are versus where we want to be. Small, incremental improvements seem to be the best way to close gaps. We can then naturally step across that once-daunting chasm towards what we want to become.

    • Lighting Our Own Torch

      “Work is only a part of life. But work is life only when done in mindfulness. Otherwise, one becomes like the person “who lives as though dead.” We need to light our own torch in order to carry on. But the life of each one of us is connected with the life of those around us. If we know how to live in mindfulness, if we know how to preserve and care for our own mind and heart, then thanks to that, our brothers and sisters will also know how to live in mindfulness.” — Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness

      Monday’s seem to sneak up a bit more quickly lately. The weekends fly by in a swirl of activity, then suddenly it’s Monday morning again. How we react to that depends on what our relationship is with our work. Then again, how we react to getting up any morning is directly related to how we feel about our life anyway. Rising to meet the day is more attractive when we live a life of joyfulness and awareness. Don’t we owe it to ourselves to reach that place?

      I lingered with the sunrise this morning, not to delay writing but to meet the day properly. A bit of frisbee with the pup, a cuppa to clear the cobwebs free, and full awareness of the light show happening above me as the world turned to meet the sun. The point of living is to be fully alive in these brief moments stacked like dominoes along our timeline. Those dominoes behind us have fallen away, all that’s left is the stack standing in front of us. Just how long that stack is is anyone’s guess. The pup and I felt satisfied with the one just fallen behind us.

      What is work but a series of dominoes stacked in our timeline? Each of those dominoes will fall behind us eventually, but what direction are they carrying us in? We either work out of a sense of obligation to others or we follow the call to contribute something more. The latter is often harder to hear—more a whisper than a scream (that screaming sound you hear is a thousand souls commuting to jobs they deeply resent). Whispers of work to be done are meaningful clues to the life we ought to be living.

      When those dominoes fall behind us, do they land with a hollow thud or do they resonate as time well spent? We each have our share of hollow moments, but we ought to work towards a life that reverberates. To light our own torch is to choose a life of resonance and meaning. That’s something to work towards.

    • The Absolute Self

      “No matter what the art, the most important thing is to establish who you really are. That is, move from the ego-centered self to the absolute self.” — Awa Kenzo, Zen Bow, Zen Arrow

      When I was a teenager I tried my hand at welding in a class. I found it thrilling to take a torch and create something with it. As a novice, my work was pretty basic, but I felt the potential of the craft. Alas, I haven’t picked up a welding torch since then, choosing a pencil and eventually a keyboard for my artistic expression.

      Once, when I was in my mid-twenties, I visited the home of an artist who crafted large sculptures out of commonplace steel he’d acquire at a local junkyard. He used a torch very similar to that I’d tried out a decade before, and for a moment I was startled by the realization that I could tap into that ember of fascination with the craft to become a sculptor myself. And then I remembered all the reasons it was completely impractical at that stage of my life and I released it from my mind as something to pursue.

      Just this summer, I found myself on a small island on a lake talking to another artist who uses a torch (along with a paintbrush) to create his own unique and beautiful art. It reminded me once again of that moment as a young teen, and the choices I’ve made in my pursuits since then. I don’t mourn the choice not to pursue that particular craft, but I’m struck by how it pops up again and again in my life. It feels like unfinished business in a way. Perhaps something to take up one day when I retire (I’m sure that would go over well with my bride if I began hauling old auto parts into the garden to fully express myself).

      The thing is, at each stage of my life that I encountered the craft, my ego told me to take another direction, towards a career, towards respectable ladder-climbing, away from artistic expression. The art, whatever its form, remains incomplete. And so I write every day to put something of myself out there in the world. The portfolio is incomplete, as the artist is a work in progress.

      We are each pursuing our spark of light in this maddening and sometimes dark world. We tend to lean towards the ego-centered self, forgetting the absolute, and yet it keeps popping up in our lives, as if to remind us that there’s still time to establish who we really are. We are each sculpting our identity and who we are becoming. We ought to lean into the absolute, and away from the ego. If only to see where it leads us.

    • Meeting the Changes

      “A talent for following the ways of yesterday is not sufficient to improve the world of today. — King Wuling of Zhao

      When you habitually surf waves of change as part of your identity, few things really surprise you in the world. But now and then the world throws even the most antifragile person for a loop. Even Superman had kryptonite to knock him down to human now and then.

      The thing is we all need to be willing to change, and meet it head-on, in order to fully optimize our lives. But we all get comfortable with being comfortable too. These two opposite states lend themselves to discomfort in the best of situations and emotional distress when we spiral into deep internal conflict over the changes.

      Part of being a functional adult is developing adaptability and a willingness to pivot when necessary. Think about all the changes we’ve seen in our lifetimes. Think about how much change we’re going to be faced with for the balance of our lives. Change happens. Our role is to change with change.

      When I was a teenager I learned the trade of drafting. To be a draftsman combined a love of architecture and mechanical detail with a love of art and creating something from scratch. The thing is, the trade was dying quickly even as I learned it, moving to CAD and beyond. To have learned such a trade seemed frivolous in hindsight, but I learned much more than how to draw lines on a piece of paper. I find myself still using some of the skills I developed then, like reading a set of blueprints to understand the scope of work needed for a project. Talking with architects and engineers, I find I know their nomenclature and what they need to complete a project. But on the whole, that drafting skillset is dead and gone.

      I could mourn the passing of a career path I once coveted, or embrace change and leap from one to the next until I arrive at a place I can add the most value in. Sure enough, that eventually happened, and I continue to build on new skills until one day they too become less relevant and I’m faced with the need to pivot once again. This is the way of the world. The ways of yesterday are not sufficient for us to become what we will be tomorrow. We can never rest on our strengths, but we can use them as a foundation for who we may become next.

    • The Right Kind of Virtues

      “It occurred to me that there were two sets of virtues, the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love?” — David Brooks, “The Moral Bucket List” The New York Times

      Do you ever wonder, what people say about us when we pass? Isn’t it directly related to how much we lean into the right virtue? We might work hard all of our life, focused and disciplined, and successful by most any measure of that word, and still not live a life that is fulfilling and meaningful to others.

      Is striving to be virtuous about resume building or character building? Are we building a list of career highlights and an office in the C-suite or are we building a moral foundation that others will point to as a model for living? Just what do we want to be remembered for anyway? A life of meaning and purpose is a life of service to others.

      How is someone developed in such a way that they’re a contributor and builder instead of a corrosive sapper of joy and trust? It begins with flipping attention from ego to empathy. Easier said than done in a world where the self is so celebrated, but absolutely essential to growing into a person who is reliable, trustworthy and willing to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work.

      There is a recipe for building a strong character. It begins with the way we’re raised and the social network around us. In the way others perceive the world and how they in turn influence how we perceive it. Stir in a proper informal education: being well-traveled and worldly, and well-read and articulate surely help build empathy and understanding. Developing strong listening skills and the inclination and moral courage to rise to the moment when nobody else will.

      When someday we pass from this world, what do we want people to say about us? Will anyone remember the extra work we put in to finish that project, or will the memory be about being fully present for our children and significant other at the most important events in their lives? Will we be remembered as being a good friend or sibling, a great neighbor who looked out for others, or as that person who was never really there when it really mattered?

      A life of service to others isn’t always easy, but it matters a great deal. These moments add up, and will create a ripple that will be felt by others. The person with the most toys in the end doesn’t win, they’ve simply gathered a bunch of stuff that will end up in an estate plan for someone else. Isn’t the real goal to have our lives resonate for those around us, that we’ll be deeply missed when our time comes to an end?