Lately I find myself in the ironic position of teaching my eleven-year-old son that his thoughts control his perceptions and his feelings. You know, when he starts teasing someone and gets teased back and suddenly he’s really upset. Or nobody is teasing him but he thinks they are and he gets really upset. That sort of thing.
His reaction is to get indignant and see himself as a victim and feel really hurt. Then he tries to find someone to make the other person stop teasing or taunting.
I’ve been explaining we can’t control what the nearly 7 billion people on the planet say, but each of us can choose our own thoughts. We don’t have to let something bother us. We don’t have to give our power away.
We don’t have to freak out when those idiots whip right in front of us on the freeway and we almost hit them.
[wince] No, I don’t say that. I just think about it.
That’s why this is more than ironic. I think the universe is taunting me. That’s a downright smartass thing to do!
It’s a quiet movement, but it’s gaining momentum. It stays mainly under the radar, but every so often people not in the movement catch a glimpse and remark on it as a fad or trend. But it is no fad. It is no trend. It is a revolution, a revolution in how we see work and its place in our lives.
It is a revolution in our definition of “business.” No longer will everyone nod in acquiescence when someone says the only purpose of a business is to make money. To the revolutionaries, whose number is growing, the purpose of a business is to be a vehicle for them to share their gifts and talents with the world. It is their opportunity to display their personalities and express their values. It is their way to be socially responsible members of society. For some of us, running a small business is a rigorous program for self-development and even spiritual growth.
We are having a party, a happy and possibly noisy festival to celebrate the empowerment and the freedom that come from self-employment. We are going to share our victories and our strategies for surmounting obstacles. We are going to ramp up the creativity and challenge each other to set bigger goals and make bigger plans. We are going to help each other rediscover the purpose of work as dedicating ourselves to doing what we are gifted at, what we love, what we were born to do.
On the surface, this is just a gimmick, and a fairly predictable one. It might even be cliché. Singer, songwriter, artist, pop star Jewel goes in costume to a karaoke bar. What will happen when she finally gets on stage and sings?
But when I watched the video, I didn’t just see the surface. I don’t know if the originators of the gimmick intended any deeper meaning, but I saw one. It probably came from me – from my own experiences, values, worldview, and way of being. I work with people to uncover their natural gifts and talents and develop them so they can live and work authentically. I help people free themselves from the boxes and cubicles other people try to stuff them in and overcome their own limiting beliefs. I help them reconnect with the core of who they are, their individual combination of abilities and perspectives and beliefs and values. I help them find their inner genius and set it free – thank you Barbara Sher for defining genius for all of us as what we were born to do and can do especially well.
So when I saw Jewel dressed as “Karen” in a business suit and a fake nose, I saw a symbol of people who force themselves to fit into corporate guidelines and corporate dress codes, uncomfortable with some aspect of who they are (the fake nose) because it doesn’t match other people’s standards for how they should be. She became the shy, self-doubting, repressed woman uncomfortable with her own inner genius – maybe even a little afraid of her own inner genius.
This really cool thing happens when the crowd senses Karen’s insecure vibe. They become a chorus of encouragement, chanting, “Ka-ren! Ka-ren!” as her friends try to get her onstage. They want her to try. They want her to succeed. They are on her side. That’s the way it is when people find out someone wants to stretch her wings but is a little unsure. Close friends and family might tend to dash her hopes – in her “best interest” – but people who don’t know her so well believe she can do it, and definitely believe she has the right to try.
When Jewel starts singing in her Karen costume, you see the magic. It looks like she reaches way down to her toenails when she sings. I believe she reaches way in when she sings, too, to her core self, where her innate gifts and well-developed talent and comfortable self-acceptance all reside in alignment. She’s not “performing” in a showy way, and she’s no longer holding back being Karen. She’s being Jewel.
It’s definitely hokey to say, “Inside every Karen there’s a Jewel waiting to shine.” That’s an oversimplified exaggeration. But I think inside every person there is a core self, with natural gifts and talents, that can shine when that person learns comfortable self-acceptance, lets go of the restraints, and starts developing and expressing the core.
I’m a skeptic by nature, so when I see lots of classes (tele- and otherwise) offered on how to grow your lists – on social networks, for your newsletter, for your blog – I have lots of questions. Then I read an article or excerpt and hear the techniques, and my skepticism grows. What’s the benefit of adding someone who falls for that technique?
People with strong reputations say it’s all about the numbers. But I’m pretty sure the list of subscribers for someone with a strong reputation is a lot more responsive than a quickly grown list built by “techniques”.
Early in my quest for a new career I joined a group that is now called The Changing Course Club. It helped me get clear about what kind of work I enjoy most, which I now understand to mean the kind of work that suits my natural gifts and talents and my natural way of interacting with the world. I was helped enormously by all the articles, e-books, recorded workshops, and teleclasses and webinars that were available through the program. But most of all I was blessed by meeting a supportive tribe of people, widely varied in their backgrounds and interests and talents, but surprisingly singular in their humanity and dedication to seeing other people grow.
Ken settled into a groove for over a year posting fantastic stuff at MildlyCreative.com. He’s tried out different formats and written a lot about struggling to decide what fits and does not fit the theme of that blog. It’s not surprising, because Ken has a lot to say. That’s because Ken has a lot he sees. He’s an explorer. He explores human nature by reading, through conversation, and through observation, but mostly these days through participation. He sketches, he plays music, he’s taken to writing poems, and he finds powerful photographs and music videos and tells the world about them.
Yesterday Ken announced he’s growing again. Instead of deciding if something fits the theme of Mildly Creative, he’s starting a new blog where the theme is “Ken” – or more accurately, “things that interest Ken”. Now, whenever he’s intrigued by something and wants to pass on his observations, or curious and wants to encourage a discussion, he knows the topic will fit the theme.
If you look into the history of the word calling in English, meaning the kind of work a person is specifically suited to do, you’ll find out it’s connected to the word vocation. Vocation comes from the Latin word vocare, which means to call. Although vocation now is synonymous with career, its early meaning was a specific kind of work that a person was called to do by God.
Regardless of your religious or spiritual beliefs, this is an important test. When you try to find your calling, are you looking for something that is essential to your fulfillment, something you must do, something that you feel compelled to do by some force greater than yourself, something you were maybe even “designed” to do?
Because if you’re just looking for something that feels happy and nice or entertaining and enjoyable, you might be completely missing out. Continue reading →
Seth Godin says it so eloquently. “Instead of polishing that turd, why not work harder to think of something remarkable or important to say in the first place?”
Today when I checked the Twitter stream to see if anyone is using it for anything other than PR I saw a chirp from Barbara Winter. She linked to this blog post by Scott Ginsberg that is also all about avoiding distractions and getting things finished and shipped.
Maybe it’s time for me to avoid distractions and get things finished and shipped.
I wonder if my followers and friends on Twitter and Facebook will agree?
Maybe I should go ask them. 😉
P.S. (Post-Stupidity) I hit “publish” instead of “preview” before I realized that I credited the wrong person with the chirp on Twitter. But it’s okay with me if you go learn about Ken and his blog anyway. He writes great stuff and finds a lot of cool things he shares on Twitter.
It’s been a hectic Memorial Day weekend totally consumed by… let’s just call it extended-family-madness. I planned to have a little time over the last couple of days to put together a post but life interrupted my plans. But I’m home now and the chaos is left behind.
Fortunately I found a powerful and brief analogy for my recurring warning about focusing on chasing the latest new marketing tactic before figuring out your marketing plan. It was a link in a recent blog post by Seth Godin.
Seth referenced a post by Rich Goidel, blogging at “The Back of the Napkin,” titled Playing with turtles. The core message here is to focus on the important thing — marketing message — and not get distracted by secondary things — playing with marketing channels.
I’m writing a corollary. When someone else has written a beautifully concise post that conveys a valuable message to your audience, call it good, link to it, and shut up.
(Bonus to me: I don’t really have time to write a post, much less edit one to make it good.
Bonus to you: You don’t have to read that meandering post I don’t have time to write!)
