Does it really matter if you “work to live” or “live to work?”

The idea that you’re an either a “live to work” or a “work to live” person is kind of becoming more moot to me, the older I get. As a hiring manager of yesteryear, I definitely wanted to see “live to work” types on my team. I thought they’d be the most dedicated and focused. But I was gratefully and humbly educated over time that my “work to live” types put forward the same level of quality, commitment, and passion as the others had. So, in the end, does it really matter?

I think this is a unspoken debate most of us have with ourselves. It ties into how we think of our intrinsic value and how we make decisions around work, jobs, careers, hiring, etc. But does it really matter? (Yes, I totally know that it matters in your messaging during interviews – everyone wants to know that you’re really working for them, right? Let’s set aside that thought process for a second…)

Hear me out. I think it’s totally and completely appropriate to ask the question whether or not you “work to live” or “live to work.” 

But...

• You’re probably making judgments about what is better without realizing it or really questioning your assumptions (that’s kind of how assumptions work, right?)
• Your motivations may change over time, and that’s highly ok (because we’re allowed to change and grow over time, right?)
• You are probably missing out on some great candidates or collaborations if you only want to work with either of those types (think of that when weighing opportunity cost!)

It’s OK to want to climb a ladder. It’s OK to want to just have a job. Both modes are valid and good for society (and companies)! What matters is the fact that you are clear and in synch with what you really, truly want. Because if you are misaligned with yourself, well, that’s simply not sustainable or fun.

The other important part is to be open to the fact you might change your mind when faced with different opportunities and challenges. Do you have the flexibility and openness and strength and wisdom to know which mode is right for you right now at this very moment? You can be just as grounded and family-oriented if you’re a super-duper career person. You can be just as passionate and effective if you are doing it all for your parents or kids. Both are honorable, in my humble opinion.

What always matters is being in synch with yourself!

Learning by Moving

I’m a fairly cerebral chick. I excelled at intellectual pursuits while growing up, and while I did a lot of performing arts, I never really understood how to “be in my body.” Fast forward a few decades, and now I can’t evangelize enough that you have to use your body to learn and grow, and that is true for business as well.

This brings me to a topic near and dear to my heart, which is the next generation of business leaders. What I hope for the next generation of professionals is to learn how to learn by doing, not just by absorbing and observing. Specifically, as I have taught networking and business development skills, there’s no substitute for actually sending the email, meeting the contact for lunch, or delivering the proposal. You have to physically move your body to do these things – even if it’s just clicking “send” on the email you’ve been nervous to send. The commitment to move from the theoretical and the safe to the action-oriented real world is a necessary step to anyone trying to realize their potential.

The pandemic robbed our next generation professionals of on-campus community, leadership positions in student organizations, internships, work-study programs, and part-time jobs. I think it will take us years in the business leadership community to make up for the cumulative knowledge that these activities bring to any entry-level candidate. I’ve heard many seasoned leaders lament what younger folk lack, and truth be told I’ve heard enough of it. If they indeed lack that experience, those chances to fail and grow, those opportunities to shine, then we as established leaders need to be work harder at mindfully engineering opportunities for them to take the next steps in their career. We also need to get the heck out of their way!

Something I am tired of hearing is that “young people just need to blah, blah, blah.” While that my be true, they’re certainly not going to gain the benefits of learning if we continually hover over them, doubt them, coddle them, and stay on the front lines. WE – we veterans – need to move as well. We need to comport ourselves worthy of being exemplified. We also need to move in such a way as to prevent people from getting caught in our unintended and naturally occurring shadows. We need to sometimes simply move out of the way.

So I guess what I’m saying is that we as seasoned leaders need to learn by moving as well. Because only when we move out the way can we actually see the results in the next generation take shape that we’ve been waiting for. And that’s a beautiful thing. We all of us need to learn how to learn by moving.

NOTE: Why the image of Tai Chi? I've simply always respected the slow, powerful movements that the human body can make, even into older age.

It’s about spice, not advice

No, I’m not a “life coach”

As I move into coaching certification, it’s pretty common for people to think they know what I do. But the problem is they’re totally wrong. And it’s kind of not their fault. 

Let’s get the life coaching thing out of the way first. Life coaching has become a catch-all phrase to mean someone who helps others reach their goals. Which is great! However, “life coaches” may be people who have zero training, no ethical standards, and nonexistent certifications. I am not that kind of coach. 

I have chosen to become a coach certified by the International Coaching Federation, subject to evolving standards and continuing education. I help people build a growth-mindset corporate culture, heighten their leadership skills, and/or grow their practice and revenue. As of the writing of this post, I’ve been coaching for a few years and recently completed 100+ hours of accredited coursework. I have mentors in the field of coaching who have been doing this for decades, and they are masters of their craft. This is a skill and calling, and I respect the rigor of the requirements to be a proper coach.

Coaching ≠ critiquing 

Bad managers have used the word “coaching” to mean giving someone negative feedback so that the direct report can suck less. It’s often delivered poorly, with the manager having done little to manage their emotions and prepare their comments. Some managers also provide no practical insight for how their teammate can improve. Sound familiar? Of course it does! But that’s not coaching. That’s critiquing. Coaching does explore client limitations and weaknesses, but that dialog definitely doesn’t boil down to a “you suck, so please suck less” type of statement.

Coaching ≠ advice

As a coach, I don’t tell people what to do. Bosses do that, and I’m not my clients’ boss! If a client asks me a direct question, I share what I know (or don’t know). Either way, the focus is on them and not my own knowledge and experience. The choices are the client’s, and the client’s alone.

Coaching ≠ mentoring and championing

Coaches can play a powerful role in someone’s growth, but we don’t share our own knowledge and experience as a tool to guide someone. Mentors do that, sharing their stories and insights for the benefit of their mentee. Champions are navigators for career development and can open doors for their sponsorees. Coaches don’t necessarily open doors for our clients; we teach them how to find those doors and understand what it means for them to open those doors.

If coaching isn’t any of these things, what IS it?

For me, coaching is about giving the gift of “someone’s best self” back to them. Yeah, it’s pretty cheesy when written out like that. And the cheesiness doesn’t stop there! But the thing is that coaching actually works! People who discover true coaching often say it changed their lives and they seem to have accomplished sustained, genuine change as a result. I can’t say I see that type of result from a lot of other typical leadership resources that are promoted in the workplace. (Unless you know of one that has rocked your world? If so, please message me!) For these and so many other reasons, I believe solidly in coaching as a standard element for leaders to experience and to practice.

Special blend of herbs and spices

If I had to come up with a metaphor, I’d say coaching is kind of like discovering a secret ingredient that makes everything better, like a favorite spice blend. Maybe your recipes were already solid, but with your extra special flavor enhancer crystals, you’ve taken your famous casserole dish to a whole new level. Organic, exotic, heirloom, or new, your unique spiciness can be brought forward to the delight of all. THAT is the type of coaching I do and believe in!

Sorting Potatoes and Thoughts

I volunteered at my local foodbank this week, and it was a good experience. I am a huge fan of what foodbanks do, and I can't abide the thought of hungry kids anywhere. I've been a financial donor for a long time, but this was my first experience donating time.

It was really fun and really boring, all at the same time. The task was to sort ginormous piles of potatoes into 3-lb bags. 

• cut the big bag
• open small bag
• put 3-ish pounds of potatoes in small bag using a scale
• tie small bag
• toss small bag into a huge crate thing
• and repeat as much as you can for the duration of the shift

Here are some things that came to me while I risked repetitive motion injury:

• Wow, this 80s/90s music mix is loud and fun
• It's important to have a mindset and intention, even with simple tasks and experiences - what WAS my mindset going into this? And what is it now?
• This is rather meditative, and a great way to practice what I learned in "10% Happier" which I read recently
• I'm really enjoying doing something physical
• Wait, no. Check that. My lats are screaming now that I've been doing this an hour. But... why just my lats?
• Each potato I sort, each bag I toss into the pile is filled with my warmest wishes for a tasty meal and a happy tummy (and I think about my memories of daily family dinners growing up)
• I'm overflowing with gratitude toward the people who work at the foodbank and the fact that I am in a position not to need this service
• I really want mashed potatoes tonight
• That crew of developmentally disabled folks over there are so happy to be here - that's really fun to watch
• I wonder if they ever have to kick anyone out for being a jerk
• I completely misjudged that young man next to me. He is NOT doing mandatory service hours. In fact, he is a hard-working kid of an immigrant family, studying to be an EMT, active in his church, and like a third parent to his very sweet-sounding younger sister in 3rd grade. I'm a huge idiot to have made any assumptions about his beany and baggy shorts. He's even wearing hilarious Sponge Bob socks. Talking with him has been the highlight of my time here.

A friend of mine mentioned to me recently "you seem to be the type of person who gets more out of your work than it takes." I really resonated with that when I heard it, and I kept thinking about it over and over and over again in the middle of potato dirt dust and sweat. And a very simple thing enables that dynamic: being present and curious. Being insanely present to the moment, the movement, the monotony. To the thoughts that come and go, the ideas and flare and fade. I think mindfulness and work go hand in hand, and so much joy can be had if we spend a tiny bit more time being present.

Yeah, I totally got more out of that shift than it took from me. And I am so going back there again to get more.

Forgetting to Remember

I was laid off a couple of months ago, and instead of diving into the chaos of job hunting straight away, I decided to take a sabbatical. I’m sorry to report that it wasn’t all poolside cocktails and spa treatments. It went much deeper and it was a lot harder than I expected. Here are some reflections:

It’s amazing how much we forget

I’m not talking about forgetting why you went into the kitchen. I’m talking about major life stuff we “forget” about as we strive to move onward and upward. There’s huge benefit if we spend time reflecting on our wins and the good things. For me, it goes way beyond a casual, happy thought. It’s a serious business of really thinking about my wins, spending some time with those moments past, maybe even reliving them a little.

For me, I tend to forget what I’ve accomplished, survived, and triumphed over pretty quickly. It often takes a friend to get in my face a little to remind me the such-and-such thing I did two years ago was a really big deal. (May we all have friends that do that for us!)

Why we forget to remember

I understand that psychologically there are many reasons we (or I) do this:

• It’s all we know how to do – just keep moving forward (ingrained thought habits)
• Hedonic adaptation (which this Fast Company article does a great job explaining), which is how our brains simply adapt to good things too quickly
• Negativity bias (see this Psychology Today article on negativity bias), which naturally encourages us to focus on the negative
• We literally have too much going on, and we combat overwhelm by focusing on one thing at a time (which is the next thing we need to do, not the awesome prior thing we just did)
• We don’t register that something we did was actually amazing because we’re too humble in a bad way
• We firmly believe that we won’t actually be successful unless we achieve some other milestone in the future (the next promotion, the next purchase, etc.)

My reflections on remembering

I felt pretty darned good when I looked at all the things I accomplished. It gave me some pretty good perspective on myself. My takeaways were about how much I had indeed done, the wonderful ideas I came up with, the people I helped, the self-discovery I completed, the fun things I’d done… it’s been pretty great, even in the midst of some very difficult, dark things life threw at me.

I learned:

• Learning is like a drug to me, so I will never stop doing it (reading, taking classes, talking to people, watching YouTube)
• I need beauty in my life more than I realized (which translates to me practicing Japanese flower arrangement, coming up with party themes for the kids’ birthdays, my gardening, and my love of costumes and clothing)
• I’m getting pretty good at digging deep for those life goals, articulating them, and then going after them (which is why I now do a vision board + bucket list update every year)
• I absolutely suck at routine and maintenance (which makes me sad, because I am always searching for that perfect power morning routine)
• Holy crap have I grown (as a person!)
• I still want to “write and speak for a living” (which is something I blurted out a long time ago in some therapy or coaching session, didn’t quite understand then, but am staring to understand better now)

I have a practice of spending a whole day with myself every October to reflect and journal. I think I’d like to add a remembering exercise to my usual freeform approach.

What have you forgotten to remember?

Idea for Journal Prompt / Reflection

Create a table or list with space for 10 rows or columns. Each section represents one year of your life. List out all the Big Things that happened in each year for the past ten years. Big Things could be positive or negative, personal or public, in any area of your life. You might need to do this in phases over time to capture everything. 

Once complete:

• What do you see?
• What are you proud of?
• What will you let go of? Hang on to?
• What do you want more or less of?

Possible areas of life to explore:

• Family and Friends
• Finances
• Fun, Hobbies, Learning, Travel, etc.
• Health
• Home, Neighborhood, Region, World
• Romantic Relationships
• Spirituality
• Stuff (like material possessions)
• Work
• Other?

I never asked

All my life, I wanted to be a part of some crazy, big, amazing, world changing company. Instead, I got some steady jobs for things I thought my skills would do. Marketing isn’t a bad thing. I love my work, I love my people. But marketing for an accounting firm was never a part of my life dream. I’ve been standing on the sidelines of Silicon Valley, looking in and drooling and hyperventilating and yearning. But I realized something huge this morning.

I never asked if I could play.

I assumed that since my schooling was “wrong” and my starting career steps were “wrong” and boring and unsexy and all that, that it had already disqualified me from even asking to play the game. So I never asked. How sad is that.

Well, I think I’m going to start asking. 

Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/halfrain/ 

You know, kids on a playground do something socially impossible. They get on a playground, play around for a bit, and put themselves out there by kind of just doing their own thing. Slide, swing, merry-go-round. And if another kid responds positively – or is just even in the vicinity – they engage. And if that goes well, and they talk and connect, then they ask something amazing ballsy. “Do you want to be my friend?” And there is a gods-honest answer on the other end of that question. Yes, or no, it’s honest, and it is what it is. The asker gets their answer. And if the answer is yes, then big smiles emerge and they start running or talking more or playing harder. If the answer is no, then the asker is sad. But also… it’s kind of a known possible outcome.

I want to be more like that kid on the playground. I want to be bolder in my asking about connecting and building with other people. I want to be prepared for both a no as well as a yes. What if the answer is yes? What if they DO want me to play with them, be a part of their playtime at the playground? Wouldn’t that be wonderful.

But I have to ask. And I'm going to start asking NOW.

Too Much to Celebrate

If you’ve ever been a part of a communications project that centers around holidays, celebrations, awareness days, heritage months, and others, you’d know that it’s insanely difficult to pick and choose between what to highlight when.

For example, do you choose to focus on lighter, more cheerful celebrations or heavier, more provocative history months? Do you focus on food (such as wine day today) or the fact that today is the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death? This is a dilemma that marketing, PR, and comms people deal with all the time. 

I find that for as taxing as life has become, I have become used to weaving in and out of poignant highs and devastating lows in different hours of the same day. I’m not sure if this is some superpower or just intellectual scarring at this point, but I would like to offer this up on a day like today: pick one thing to think about and reflect on at a time. One thing at a time. It seems basic, but we all know we could use a little encouragement and a reminder every now and then to follow good advice that we used to practice and preach. One thing at a time.

George Floyd. His name was George. And take a moment (or more) to breathe and celebrate the fact that you can take a breath. Take another breath and feel your feels.  And then another before you sip your wine. And another as you note National Missing Children’s Day. And another as you wonder how Towel Day ever came to be. And another as you honor Star Wars’ 44th birthday. Just breathe. Keep breathing.

Brick Houses

I went shooting yesterday for the first time in ages. For as unique as we are, being liberal people who own and enjoy marksmanship, I’m sure my husband and I fit some stereotype somewhere with his startup-branded backpack with an old Bernie Sanders button. Ammo tins, firearms case, shoot-and-sees. Earmuffs, my “baby Yoda” hat, sunglasses, and obligatory COVID face covering (a pink camo pattern). 

We shot next to a trio of Russians, the woman of the group constantly taking pictures and video, and being annoyingly ignorant of the rules. It’s cold range, ma’am. Please do not approach the bench. Or you will get escorted out by the guy in orange with hunting boots, small beer gut, and surprisingly patient approach to people like you and your crew.

It was unusually quiet for a Saturday, the range having been recently renovated. Fresh concrete and wood, freshly painted yellow and red lines, polite people keeping their 6-feet distance – all this populated by a wide range of languages, accents, and skin tones. Yes, this is America. It’s also the Bay Area, it’s very own country. I smell gunpowder and see fit, good-looking nerds out for a few hours of bonding with their friends or parents. Through firearms.

I so enjoy being a combination of the unexpected. A liberal who likes guns. The woman who is the primary breadwinner. An introvert in an extroverted marketing job. And as I think about this, I think it’s more a commentary on why the stereotypes exist at all. It’s not me; it’s the world. Humans are wonderously multi-faceted beings. Why shouldn’t we be full of M. Night Shyamalan twists and turns?

But I’ve also not enjoyed being the unexpected. All my life, I’ve felt the need to exert a systematic release of information with people so I wouldn’t overwhelm them with the complexity of me and my life all at once. Someone once accused me – not in a good way – of always being used to being “queen nerd.” She was telling me to get off my high horse, because I was amongst other nerds. Nerds who apparently didn’t have identify crises about being nerds.  

It’s not just my geekiness that has made me an outsider. It’s also this containership-sized pile of other contradictory and challenging things that from my experience have made me… interesting? Intimidating? Odd? It’s hard to find tribe when you have the kind of shit going on.

And all of the sudden, that was broken as I started talking one-on-one with the women in a writing group/class I entered this year. Recently, one of these beauties confessed she was in the middle of a separation. As if somehow that wasn’t a normal part of our 30s/40s something landscape. I remember how awkward that part of my life was, trying to explain to someone else that my world was being dismembered, and how I couldn’t bear to process their (very natural but most unwelcome) shock and awkwardness and sorrow on top of mine so please don’t say something trite. How comforting it would have been to be in a room where someone – anyone – would just sigh, offer expletives, ask if I was “ok” or needed anything to be fed or safe, and left the silence to speak for all the unspoken. I didn’t have that, but I offered it to her. And then the thought that frees the soul came to me, “Why can’t life be like this more? Why can we just ‘let it all hang out’ like it’s normal?”

Overwhelming health conditions. Abusive relationships or histories. Children with disabilities/limitations that make life excruciating. Devastating poverty. Death and loss. Shattered family lives. Unjust shaming of the outer self. Spouses with disorders who won’t deal with them. Jobs that suck because we haven’t unleashed our personal superpower yet. Caring for older family members in decline.

We are all brick houses. Stout and soulful, not always confident but always full of power. Our physical figures (beauty standards be damned) don’t even begin to tell the tales of our brilliance and resilience.

I think I’m close to the mark, don’t you? I’m dead on target. We are all brick houses?

 

Stacked souls. Minds with “great racks.” We are all brick houses. We are mighty, mighty. May you find a group of people with whom you can let it all hang out. And shake it down, shake it down, shake it down, shake it down now…

Shake it down, shake it down, shake it down, shake it down now…

No joke

(I started the ChairmanMom “Ready Set Write” class last month. It’s changing who I am.)

Suddenly, I wake up to community that GETS me. In so many ways. Women with stories and badassery, women with words and immovable ideas. All of us still struggling to write more, do more, be more, write more. I’ve been taking this class for more than a month now and have been hanging out with my own new thoughts and with new women. I can’t get enough of this. My words are more mine now. My story more mine. My mission more mine. I am more mine.

I can’t let go of this group. They are now a part of me, and I need women like this in my life for the rest of my life. I’m just shy of feeling anxious about how to keep the conversation going. How do I connect? How do I maintan? I don’t even know most of them well. Just an intrinsic trust that what we say together is accepted, amplified, clarified, blessed. We are all reaching toward who we want to be when we grow up. And we are discovering as well that we never want to grow up. At least, that’s me. (Projection much? Lol.)

So. This is what TRIBE feels like? This is what I’ve been missing and yearning for all my life? I’m now happily addicted, and I now swear I shall never go without again. This is too… what’s the word? Explosive, enriching, essential, nurturing, rocket fueling? Words ironically fail me now as I try to express how writing with this group of women means to me.

My sister-from-another-mister Rachel and I started talking a couple of years ago about women who are on The Journey. They are different women. They hear something different inside themselves, and as like calls to like, they hear something different in the world. We strive and struggle differently. Restless, but not wanton. Misunderstood, and almost always “too much” for other people. Hyper analytical, too word-full, too thinky thinky. Rachel and I talked about trying to find more women. More more more. And here they are. I have to get Rachel into this. (just texted her – she has to do this) We weren’t too much. The worlds we were trying to inhabit were too little.

Far be it from me to be the obnoxious, overzealous new convert to some idea that prescribes my solution for my life to everyone else and their lives. But, really. Tribe is where it’s at. It’s hard to find, but like any great treasure, you will hardly have time to regret the journey’s difficulty when you are basking in the glow of your tribe. Go get you some! All women need tribe!

To Blog

I want to blog. But I fear people reading it and, I guess… I fear my oversharing? I want to communicate so much, but I’ve been told all my life that I’m “too much.” Well, no more. No. More. I do this writing/story/idea thing, and I do me. You do you, ok?

And by the way. The problem never was that I was “too much.” I just had this superpower that wasn’t quite honed yet. I hadn’t gone through my superhero montage of discovering my powers and learning that I could weave and weld them for good. I officially dub myself no longer:

• Too smart
• Too curious
• Too wordy
• Too blunt
• Too obtuse

I dub myself:

• World maker
• Story weaver
• Cooker and consumer of delights
• Mother of incredible humans and ideas
• Asker of room-silencing questions 
• Soothsayer of the Whys in our world
• Flexer of my goddam godgiven mental muscles that will inspire

And you, dear reader, dear friend, can choose who I am to you. That’s your prerogative. I know who I am. I am me.