Follow Your Passions

As you may have seen in the news recently, Time Magazine has named “You” as the Person of the Year. 

“But look at 2006 through a different lens and you’ll see another story, one that isn’t about conflict or great men. It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes. The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It’s not even the overhyped dotcom Web of the late 1990s. The new Web is a very different thing. It’s a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it’s really a revolution.”

I could not have asked for a better summary of what my experience at the Social Media Club Phoenix meeting last week was like.  The primary objective of the club is to continually explore the ways in which new internet technologies, particularly those wrapped up into the “Web 2.0” label, are changing the way we can connect, interact, influence, and inform one another.

If you are in the Phoenix area, or one of the cities where the Social Media Club is meeting, I highly encourage you to attend an event.  Even if you’re not near a meeting though, check out their website and do some research on what is going on in the internet world.  Reality is changing in really interesting ways, and understanding them can be a powerful asset.

“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.”
- Sydney Harris

You know that part on a roller coaster, when you get to the top of the first big hill and you look down, and realize what is ahead of you is going to be fast and furious, fun and exhilirating, and there’s not much you can do about it at that point?

That was me about two weeks ago.  I have been whooshing along for several days now, and it will probably be next week sometime before the ride levels out a bit. So take my temporary silence on the blog lately for what it is – a temporary status while visions of paid time off dance in my head (and become reality next Friday).

“There’s no doubt or worry – it just absolutely feels like the right thing to do.”
- a friend and former colleague

I used to work for a really terrific manager at one of my former employers. She consistently encouraged me, never held back on expressing the potential she thought I had, and always created opportunities to succeed and learn even when her plate was overflowing with work of her own. When I moved on, I made sure to let her know how much I appreciated her as a mentor and a friend, and I remember wanting to do something for her because she seemed… well, perhaps not defeated, but certainly not like what she was doing was in line with her passions.

On Sunday I was at a holiday party one of my old coworkers invited me to, and my old manager showed up. Without getting into details, she shared with me that she was moving on to a new opportunity, and that it was far more in line with what she wanted to do. My wife, who had only briefly met this person a couple of years ago, told her “You look like you’re glowing, like you’re really happy.” And I thought about the last time I had seen this mentor compared to how she radiated at the party, and it was… inspiring. Seeing others follow their passions in life is wonderful anytime, but seeing someone I have built a relationship with heading off on an exciting adventure filled with potential like that brings a smile to my face every time I think about it.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
- Albert Einstein

Something is often only a problem when you perceive it to be so. Thus, the solution to many problems is not to fret about them or work hard at them. The solution is to stop focusing on them. If you transcend your problem, and get into a peaceful place inside yourself about it instead, two things will occur; you’ll find out if it was a real problem at all, and if it was a problem that needs to be solved, you’ll find much better answers with a calm, clear frame of mind.

Once you’ve eliminated the excess and are left with things that are actual items you wish to solve, the next step is to stop thinking of them using the word “problem”, along with all of the negative connotations that come from thinking of something that way. I’ve spoken before about recognizing opportunities as they come along in your life, and here’s a great tip for an easy way to spot them – look for what most people see as problems! Bad problems and terrific growth opportunities are frequently two sides of the same coin.

There is tremendous strength in beginning to see the world for all of the opportunities it has to offer. There is potential virtually everywhere, surrounding you. It’s waiting for you to harness it.

“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”
- Homer

“When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, ‘Did you sleep good?’ I said ‘No, I made a few mistakes.’”
- Steven Wright

It’s very late and I have not begun formally writing Friday’s post yet. So this will be brief, because I have many hours to fill with fun, life-enriching activities, and some of them will occur rather early.

I had a conversation with a friend of mine today about the universe and how to fix it. Or really, rather, that it is our perception and perhaps not reality that it is “broken” at all. I believe, you see, that our perception defines our reality. As a Christian, I am sometimes asked what proof I have that my beliefs are true. The best answer I have is, it’s called a “faith” because that’s what you have to have to truly believe in something you can’t physically hand someone or show them. I look at the same evidence around me as everyone else, and I perceive a completely different reality about what makes sense as a base of my spirituality.

Have you ever just “known” something was going to happen, and then it did? When I was going through all of my interviews in my senior year of college, I “knew” which job I’d end up with. Before we ever actually began formally dating, I “knew” that I was going to marry the woman that became my wife. Did a series of my choices, conscious or not, lead to those outcomes in some sort of self-fulfilled prophecy? Did my conviction and absolute certainty in my heart about these things lead me to influence others into believing there is no other possible outcome? I can’t answer those questions with any certainty, but I can say that my best guess is that I had gone through enough deep self-evaluation to know how to recognize the best fit for me in each situation when I came across it, and from there the fact that I kept perceiving my reality to be that getting my top job pick and marrying my wife were foregone conclusions at least probably didn’t hurt the eventual outcomes.

Your mind has the potential to be incredibly powerful, regardless of how you choose to use it. Wielded wisely, it can be an incredibly potent tool for good.

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments”
- Jim Rohn

I used to be a sales person for a major clothing retailer back in the nineties. Before I ever took a job there, I was a big fan of their products, and in fact I chose them because I thought I could do a good job selling something I believed so much in. When I began with them, I wasn’t making much more than minimum wage, but I loved my job and my living expenses weren’t too high at that point in my life.

I stood in the front of the store and greeted every customer. I wanted to sell to them, but I wanted to do it in a non-invasive way. I knew that if I could show them why I was so passionate about the way the company treated the customers, and set up its policies around making sure the customer is happy with the quality and value of their purchases, I could have those customers coming back again and again. And I was successful, always finding new ways to communicate with everyone I came in contact with, quickly becoming the top salesperson in the store for several months.

Then a major shift in management and direction took place, both at a high level and locally to my store as well. Without going into details, things rapidly soured and I felt like I could no longer support the customers like I used to, or sell our products to them with the same confidence that they’d have a great experience with them. I began to just go about my daily tasks, doing what was expected and asked but nothing more. I lost my top sales person status, and just remained average. There was nothing wrong with the way I performed – I did what I needed to do to keep things moving and keep my managers satisfied, but it was just going through the motions to earn a paycheck. Eventually, I left, dissatisfied with working in a place I felt that way about.

When I was passionate about my work, I accomplished. When I lost the passion, I was only doing activity. If you’re a sales person and you just say “can I help you”, that customer is going to just shut you down with a “no thanks, just looking”. If you instead introduce yourself, build a relationship, explain how your product can improve their lives, and be genuine and passionate about it, you’ll accomplish great things.

The same translates to all activities. Managers can make sure their people go through the motions and get their work done, but it is leaders that encourage the people they work with have all the tools and opportunities they need to innovate, to feel empowered, and to not be afraid to ask questions that might lead to improvements or opportunities.  We often get so caught up in other things, that the most innocent, inexperienced eyes can see important things we may be missing.

So at the end of the day, I would ask yourself if you have spend your time working towards activities, or working towards accomplishments?  What have you added value to today?  What will you differently tomorrow?

“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
- Immanuel Kant

“When it comes to getting things done, we need fewer architects and more bricklayers.”
- Colleen C Barrett

Intelligence is knowing it is raining outside. Wisdom is coming in from the rain.

Without possessing the wisdom to do something with knowledge, it really matters very little how much information an individual accumulates. Have you ever known people who could soak up information like a sponge, ace every exam in school they took, but seemed to have so little common sense it was almost pitiable?

In a sense, ideas are like knowledge. Without actions to implement the ideas, there is very limited value to the ideas. I have known for some time that I am an “idea man”. Every day that passes, I get better at seeing the possibilities in something, I see opportunities when they present themselves rather than walk by them blissfully unaware. And even though I have changed significantly in my ability to take action on the ideas, it is still extremely frustrating sometimes to have all these unimplemented ideas inside my skull.

I say that I have changed as far as my will and ability to take action is concerned. At first, I would simply be too lazy to go about trying to get much done with them. I’d have them, then I’d put a plan in place to play a bunch of video games with friends, and leave the idea cold and alone, desperate for a nice cozy scarf or something. Then I got up the gumption to actually take a stab at implementing the ideas, but I wouldn’t have any real order or foresight about how to properly go about it. It would come out half-baked, I’d get frustrated and bored with it, and I’d move on. Finally, I reach the current stage in my life, where I have a pretty high success rate of implementing ideas, but I’m always tempted to take on too much at once, and I either burn out or some of the balls I’m juggling get dropped and fall through the cracks.

So I’m in the process of scaling back my life, and trying to be very aware of my limitations. I’ve learned to just say no, and I’m focusing on just the things I feel the most passionate about, where I can do the most good with the particular strengths I possess. But that doesn’t mean I stop having all these other ideas come my way. I just don’t have the time to take them anywhere near an implementation stage at this particular point in my life.

Stay tuned in the months ahead for tools to help you manage your ideas, take them into action, and recognize what your limits are and when you’ve exceeded them.

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”
- Michelangelo

I’m going to do a lot of talking about goals in the future, maybe even have a goal month, but for now I wanted to talk about the difference between short term and long term goals. In fact, I’d like to suggest that the difference isn’t as big as we think.

I was telling one of my colleagues the other day about a few long term goals of mine, and he mentioned that he didn’t have a lot of long term goals, that he works more with short term goals. And that really intrigued me, because I would have a really hard time coming up with short term goals if I didn’t have any long term goals. But the more we talked, the more I got the sense that we weren’t so far apart – he did have long term goals, they’re just more generalized than mine. I have a lot of short term goals, but I keep them a bit more fluid so long as they are building towards the long term goals I have set out.

One of his concerns about long term goals was that they’d lock him into something he might find he doesn’t fit with five years down the road, and he might miss out on something bigger, better, or more in line with where his passions and strengths lay because he’s so focused on something he thought he wanted a long time ago. That’s a legitimate concern, and I definitely want to avoid things that stifle the ability to recognize the potential opportunities in life as they come along the path. My answer to this, and how I try to avoid getting bogged down in any goal (short or long) is to review my goals once a year. My wife and I literally take some time during our summer vacation each year, and evaluate where we are in all of our goals (both individually as as a couple). Some goals have been accomplished so we cross them off. Some goals have become less or greater a priority, so we adjust their position on the list and if appropriate the duration we estimate it will take to accomplish them. Perhaps most important to recognize, though, are the new things that have come into your life, and the things you want to take off the list because it just isn’t very important to you anymore to achieve them.

Occasionally, we have to let goals go. Three years ago when I was going to school and we needed to bring more income to the house, I started my own web and graphic design business. I built relationships with clients, created a lot of work that I was proud of, and really took a lot of pride and enjoyment from being self-employed. Recently, I took a job with a corporation, and I am extremely passionate about making the most of the opportunities it represents. The new job fulfilled a lot of my personal needs that the side business had been taking care of, I didn’t need the income, and I really began to dislike the work. But I had built relationships with my clients, and I had emotional attachment to this business I spent a lot of time with for three years, so my heart and my head had some pretty heated debates before I finally felt good about letting it go. It easily made the most sense in terms of what will make me happiest today and, I think, in the long run too. But sometimes giving up a goal can be a very emotional thing, and you just have to keep in mind that what you’re getting in exchange will be so much better.

“Self-trust is the first secret of success.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

When you hear the word “trustworthy”, what is the first thing you think of? My guess was it was something along the lines of someone not lying, someone always telling the truth, and someone, well, worth trusting! But gauging “truth” is something that varies from person to person, and what I want to challenge you to do today is to think about the deeper meaning of truth, and what it means to be able to trust someone.

Be careful with your words and be careful with your “word”. Giving your word that you will do something within specific parameters, and then failing to execute, can be forgiven once or twice, but as a pattern it negates ability to build trust with you. Simply stated, don’t make promises you can’t keep, even if you feel pressured to do so. In the long run, everyone is better off for it.

If you don’t know the answer to a question someone asks, don’t let them think you do. Just saying “sorry, I dunno” probably won’t cut it, but if you say “I’m not sure, but I think I know where I can find out or the people I should talk to in order to get the answer, so let me get back with you next week”, you should be in great shape.

A great benefit of setting expectations at a realistic or even underestimated level, is that it provides a bigger opportunity to overdeliver and really shine. If someone asks you to get a task done by Friday of next week, you say you can deliver it by Monday of next week, and you give it to them Wednesday, you just delivered two days late instead of two days early in their mind. What a waste of an opportunity!

Have you ever been asked to do something you weren’t sure you could complete within the constraints they laid out, but you agreed to it anyway? Maybe you were able to deliver it and maybe you weren’t, but regardless of the outcome, you didn’t communicate with complete honesty to that person about what you felt your capabilities were. Setting expectations accurately as soon as possible in any project or relationship is critical to its health and success, and it gives you the freedom to work within what you know to be your own constraints. Everyone expects the same thing, and it doesn’t exceed what you think you are capable of. See how the truth really can set you free?

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
- Mark Twain

Last week, I tried to break down the concept of giving and offer some different ways to look at the concept. This week, I’ll try to introduce some new ways of thinking about other concepts that will hopefully help you with whatever your goals are in life. If your goals and passions involve becoming a better leader, whatever you want to do with that leadership skill ultimately, I think this week’s posts will be particularly impactful.

Specific topics to be covered this week include: trustworthy people, resolutions versus goals, activity versus accomplishment, communication verses comprehension, knowledge versus wisdom, and keeping the future tidy.