April 19, 2014

Part One – Set Boundaries, Define Success, and Thrive

Disconnected and it feels so good! Vacation.  A sure fire way to get your priorities straight until you return to work.  Normally I hem and haw about disconnecting before I leave for vacation.  Take the work phone?  Pack the laptop? This time I decided to leave my phone and all my work angst behind.  I let work consume my free time quite often and have been working on myself to stop allowing that. In today’s world, vacation should be void of phones, power cords, and social media.  I used my travel time to start reading Thrive – The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder by Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post) in real book form.  Arianna Huffington was inspired to write this book based on her own experience with exhaustion and burn out and the need to live a balanced life to be successful.  The value of personal time, putting all devices away, and evaluating the true meaning of success were some of the topics that grabbed me.  I am only half way through the book and have so much to say so I am breaking my post up into two parts.

Today’s corporate culture will drive most people into the ground.  The demands and pressure placed upon all of us to perform continue to grow. Work creeps into our personal time and disrupts our down time when we allow it.  We are motivated by stress and this is becoming more apparent as as I listen to colleagues and friends, and read blogs, articles and books. The onus is on the individual to create boundaries between work time and personal time. I do believe executives need to be cognizant of burnout and the habits developed by diligent employees working to stay on top of all tasks, while dodging curve balls.  Personally, I question my team when I see weekend and late night email messages.  If you take a vacation day I really do not want to hear from you because it is your time not work time.  How can anyone be effective if overtired and burned out?  How can anyone thrive in today’s corporate environment without a well balanced lifestyle?  Thrive addresses this and has compelled me to add thrive to my vocabulary because that is what we all need to do.   Will this behavior help me thrive?  Will I thrive in this environment?  I read this book in a little bit of awe as I felt like several parts were written specifically for me. I have failed to set work boundaries for myself over and over.  I know what conference calls at 11pm are like (a zero on the fun meter).  I have fallen asleep behind the wheel of my car after months of burning the midnight oil.  I have had fuzzy decision making situations because of lack of sleep. Arianna Huffington has made me stop and look at what I need to do to truly thrive, whatever I am doing.

Though I realize one book is one perspective, I found it so interesting to read about women who left their executive suite jobs because they felt the “reward” for getting to the top of the corporate ladder was unacceptable.  I would say many people view success as something based on title, salary and job responsibility.  Is that really success? You did a great job so here is more work which means more hours, less sleep and conference calls with Asia at 3am?  Success linked to title and salary seems like an illusion for high stress, high demand and high pressure. I agree anyone should get paid a lot of money for high stress levels and crazy hours but is that really acceptable? Without question, some people are driven by pressure and stress, however, no matter who you are, at some point, it takes its toll on a person’s life and health. Thrive highlights some interesting case studies and statistics related to heart disease, obesity and other medical conditions linked to stress, the failure to disconnect, and live a balanced life. Nothing is served on a silver platter but to digest massive stress levels and spend the majority of awake hours tied to a phone or laptop seems less like success and more like a big picture exercise in futility.  As I turned the pages, I thought about two friends of mine who dedicated all their years since college to their former companies. One was on the fast track in a behemoth company, the other was a vice president in a PR firm.  Both are dedicated and driven and both sacrificed a great deal for their jobs in spite of mountains of stress.  Both ended up getting laid off in graceless, illogical ways (by my assessment, the decision makers were total weenies).  Squeeze every last ounce out of good people and then tell them to leave?  It is kind of like blowing out a candle.  Here today, gone tomorrow in spite of talent, knowledge, and capability. Thrive made me realize it is really important for each person to define personal success and to keep a balance between dedication to job and dedication to self.  I think I have been floating along with the “corporate” definition of success for too long and need a new state of balance in my own life.

To be continued – part two of this post will be available soon!  Thank you for reading!

If you want to read the book,  here is a link to Amazon.com:  Thrive – The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder

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March 27, 2014

Truth Be Told

I came across a Gloria Steinem quote the other day and it started the wheels turning.  “The truth will set you free but first it will piss you off.”  How true is that statement?  Until the age of 30 (or thereabouts) the truth was usually something I tried to avoid in certain situations. Facing the truth was usually a SMACK – right in the center of my pride.  It was just impossible for me to face some things head on when I was called to the carpet. I ran away or avoided or denied.  In fact, I can think of many situations in which the truth would have gotten me out of pickle.  There have also been situations when too much truth may have hurt me by my own design.

Have you ever been in the wrong relationship for many reasons?  That was me in my 20s.  The people around me could see it was all wrong; yet I insisted I was happy and they had no idea what they were talking about.  It used to irritate me when someone would say, “You can’t stand it when he blinks, why are you dating him?”  The reaction inside my head was something like, “Crap I  have been found out.” Yet my outward response was to deny, deny, deny or to get defensive.  I am not entirely sure why I sat in denial of a relationship that annoyed me.  Why I spent so much time with someone who I really wanted to get away from is baffling.  However, life is about lessons and there have been quite a few on my path. To a point, I refused to accept the truth about about my nowhere fast (or in 6 years) relationship – even though everyone who said anything like, “He annoys you when he blinks” was totally spot on.  Of course, as things happen I was forced to toss denial aside because the subject of marriage eventually came up.  There was no way I would have been happy married to this man (his dream was to put me into a minivan with a bunch of soccer cleat wearing kids – if you know me, that would never suit me).  Thus I had to face the truth and be honest and tell him he would never see me walking down the aisle towards him…in any lifetime.  It took me long time to realize it is better to face the music and be honest with other person and exit gracefully.  Why lie to yourself about your happiness for the sake of a relationship? Faking anything has never been my strength thus the truth always ends up smacking me in the face.

The truth can be difficult to accept, receive, process.  Delivery is important.  How the words are linked together can make a big difference in how someone feels or how they respond to what is shared. I used have a client who treated me like I worked on his team.  We had a very good working relationship.  One day he stopped me during a conversation and said, “Alexis are we friends?” I thought about it and said, “Of course we are!”  My client said, “Then as your friend Alexis, I cannot let you walk around with that booger hanging out of your nose.”  I laugh when I think of story to this day because I appreciated the honesty and who wants to walk around greeting people with a booger?  More importantly, the delivery neither made me feel weird nor uncomfortable. The reassurance and kindness averted any awkwardness.  In the same vein if you have spinach stuck in your teeth or if your fly is down, aren’t you appreciative when you are made aware?  Even when it is a (non creepy) stranger in the line at Starbucks?  I have had people say “I feel weird telling that to someone.”  Tell the truth about the spinach leaf, help a person out. It is surely good karma!

When the light bulb switched on for me about the value of honesty and speaking the truth, it became apparent my ability to deliver the truth often resulted in what I call verbal shrapnel. The truth will set you free and I can really piss people off with it? Delivery was hardly my forte.  It took awhile to understand what I said could be poorly received or  valuable depending on the approach.  For a long time I put up a shield of words if someone hurt my feelings.  It is easy to figure out the person’s weakness and go for the achilles heel (verbally) to put the hurt back on a person.  More often than not, my shield of words would ricochet and leave a mark on the other person and on me. Upsetting a family member, offending a colleague are far from good results.  It took time to learn just expressing how I feel works much better than verbal retaliation (that whole life lesson thing again).   I remember a meeting at work during which a colleague informed me he had no idea how to do his job.  Though the words I used escape me, I probably told him he was an idiot and a waste of my time.  My choice words sent that person directly to my boss’ office at the conclusion of the meeting.  My boss later called me in to tell me my colleague was in fact inept and it was unnecessary to call him an idiot to his face. Oops.  Though my intent was to be honest, my words were quite unrefined and clearly needed a little softening of the edges.  Over time I did develop the ability to say things gently (work in progress) and discovered there are ways to tell the truth without insulting someone’s intelligence and leaving a person lying on the floor, missing a limb.

How the truth is delivered and what you do with it is an art for sure.  Shooting from the hip can be damaging and can go horribly wrong.  A thoughtful approach to words used will go far. It is a constant practice for me to think before speaking.  Though my brain works a mile a minute, stopping, then speaking has been an important lesson in many ways. This has helped me be more sensitive about what I say when providing honest insight or feedback or advice.  You catch more flies with honey as the saying goes. Throw a verbal cinder block at someone and a brick ,may come flying back or immediately or in time you will realize the damage done.  I believe in telling truth and it is something I value in my  relationships.  That said, I keep this in mind: words can be disarming and words can be weapons.  Words must be used wisely as rogue words can leave shrapnel in their wake.

Be honest and be gentle and give what you want to receive.  I agree with Gloria Steinem, the truth will set you free and sometimes it will piss you off.  However, with the right delivery, the recipient will be less likely to shoot the messenger.

Thank you for reading this blog!

 

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January 17, 2014

Just A Phase

I was talking to a colleague today about her hectic work schedule, her 5 kids, her lack of sleep and she said, “I just tell myself this is a phase of my life, like a season. I am going to enjoy it because the next phase will be very different.”  I told her when I need advice I will be calling her because I found her words to be very wise.  Every morning this week I have opened my eyes and the first thought has been, “Is this really my life?  Do I have to do this again today?”  Well as it happens, you find your answers in unexpected ways – in my case while talking to a colleague.  This is not my life, this is just a phase of my life albeit a consuming phase.  A time in which I am working crazy hours and feel like I am living and breathing work.  It is the phases of life that help build a fulfilling life.

I feel like in some ways I see changes in my life and in other ways I am just hovering in the same general vicinity.  I am trying to better manage my workload and my work schedule and I am finding that to be challenging.  That is kind of the same.  As I reflect on 2013 and think about the last few weeks, I am seeing more of the same at work in this new year. Hovering. We had a reorg and I have new boss.  It is really more of the same because nothing has really changed in my day to day. Change – sort of. I think I expected a reorg to bring a new and different angle but no matter how many reorgs come to my organization, we see more of the same. Ironically, I am really learning a lot through this hectic period at work.  And it is actually all okay, it just helps me understand why I wake up with the thoughts of, “This is my life?”  Other things around me are transforming, my friends for example.  Some of my friends have children and I hear from them less than in the past.  Unless they can get time free, away from family activities, time to visit can be difficult to schedule.  I am good with that because life evolves and it enjoyable to watch friends grow into motherhood.  I was talking to one of my friends today and we were discussing someone we know in common.  I said, “I just let people go at some point.  I get tired of people who take, take, take and bring emotional drama to the table and nothing else.  It is easier to just let those people go live in their drama.”  The person in question gloms on when she needs something or is having a teenage drama moment and is scarce until she needs something again. My friend agreed and said, “Wow that is a really good way to put it.”  My friendships are important to me and I am a very loyal person; however, sometimes it is just better to untie and set sail in another direction. Ironically, after that conversation, I ran into a new friend of mine in the grocery and was reminded there are always opportunities to make new friends.  Friendships change, people change, and new people come into your life to change things up.  New friends are a great change.

If life is about phases then I suppose we cannot always control when one phase ends and another begins.  If the phases help you build the life you want, there may be lessons to learn or experiences to go through before a phase can end.  You may have to wait for the right timing for the new phase to begin.  Further, if you try to force your way out of a phase, you may find yourself taking a wrong turn or you may find yourself hitting a wall.  One of my friends left my company a few years ago because he felt he could do better elsewhere.  3 years later, every time I hear from him, he wishes he had never left because leave may have been a change he should have waited to make versus jumping ship hastily.  As I think about phases, it is important to always take steps and go in new directions.  You may encounter new things instantly, you may have to demonstrate patience and hover for awhile.  I think of it like a garden and waiting for seedlings to sprout from the earth.  It never happens overnight.  It takes time and work to plant the seeds, nurture the seeds and patience to see the fruits of your labor.  I suppose it is entirely possible while hovering at a point in life, we are actually nurturing the seedlings.  It seems reasonable to expect everything will come to full bloom in the next phase.  There may also be instances when it is necessary to look back to see the meaning of each phase of your life…which reminds me of a quote (no idea who said it), “Sometimes you have to look back to see what lies ahead.”  As you live your life, there may be things that are hard to decipher or make sense of, but in time, when you look at where you are and where you have been, it all may make perfect sense, as clear as the bright blue sky.  

Thank you for reading this blog!

 

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