To Give People an Understanding Into What the Chapter Was About. To Open Their Thinking without Telling Them How or What to Think
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Chapter #2 Discovering Or Rediscovering Your WorkLife Purpose
Quotes #2 “If you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life.” Marc Anthony. “The truth is you will work harder than you ever thought possible, but the tools will feel light in your hands.” Tim Cook
Followed by my Chapter Introduction:
Discovering or rediscovering your WorkLife purpose will give you a true sense of fulfilment. It is the thing that will get you up in the morning, ready to take on each day with energy and motivation. Without it, your WorkLife will have less meaning: you will lack the sense of direction to help you make good decisions and to achieve your goals. Your values play an important part in helping you to understand your purpose, and when you do, it is your purpose that will drive you to live your best WorkLife.
As a WorkLife Learning Practitioner and Writer, I know the importance of serving people’s preferred learning style. Some people like the bigger picture — quotes allow that. Other people like more detail — the chapter introductions allow that.
I like the bigger picture, to begin with, then I like detail. So I like both.
What’s your preferred learning style?
Bigger picture, more detail, or both?
First shared in my book: Your WorkLife Your Way.
If you enjoyed this, please hit the *Clap* 👏 button as many times as you wish.
To Give People an Understanding Into What the Chapter Was About. To Open Their Thinking without Telling Them How or What to Think
Image supplied by author
Chapter #1 Living Your WorkLife True To Your Values
Quote #1 “When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.” Roy E. Disney
Followed by my Chapter Introduction:
Your values are your beliefs about what is important to you in your WorkLife. They can change over time. They form the core principles that help guide you through Life.
As a WorkLife Learning Practitioner and Writer, I know the importance of serving people’s preferred learning style. Some people like the bigger picture — quotes allow that. Other people like more detail — the chapter introductions allow that.
I like the bigger picture, to begin with, then I like detail. So I like both.
What’s your preferred learning style?
Bigger picture, more detail, or both?
First shared in my book: Your WorkLife Your Way.
If you enjoyed this, please hit the *Clap* 👏 button as many times as you wish.
Being In the Right Place In Your Worklife Goes to the Heart of Your Identity: To the Heart of Who You Are and to What Is Important to You
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James’s Story — Finding His Vision and Motivated Abilities at His Later Stage of WorkLife: A Case Study:
James enjoyed his work and his industry, but he was at a stage in his life where his family had grown and had flown the nest. He had seen them through university, and they were no longer dependent on him. He was also fortunate to no longer have a mortgage on his home, and so all in all was in a good place from a financial perspective.
He did, however, have a bucket list of things he wanted to achieve in his life, which included travelling to wonderfully exotic and interesting destinations with his wife. He also wanted to give something back to society, and in some way make a difference.
He wanted to continue working, just not in the same vein as before. It was important for him to remain intellectually stimulated through his work. He also wanted to retain the social aspect it provided, and he needed it to fund his bucket list.
James explored and considered ways he could design his work to allow him to live his life to achieve these things. He had an extensive network with contacts throughout the UK and Europe, including Russia, one of the destinations he aspired to travel to.
Being sociable he began connecting with people and discovered various projects in the pipeline throughout Europe. He was known and respected in his industry, and once people knew he was available for work they were more than happy to meet with him; and very soon offers began to come through for consultancy work, including work with his old organisation and a piece of work in Russia.
To facilitate his travel aspirations, and the ability to give back at a social level, James decided he wanted to take on assignments that would demand a commitment of several months at a time.
Once each piece of work was completed, he would take one to three months off, during which time he would travel to a destination on his bucket list. He also identified a social enterprise in South Africa, where he and his wife spent time; and he contributed his business acumen in helping them develop their vision and strategy.
Develop Your WorkLife Story
Whatever stage you’re at in your WorkLife, understanding your core motivations to living your best WorkLife will give you the vision you need, from which you can plan and do what you need in order to make this happen, so that the choices you make will bring about the satisfaction you seek.
Understanding Your Vision and Motivated Abilities Assignment
This assignment is to help you understand your vision and motivated abilities. Those specific WorkLife moments, events or experiences when you were fully engaged.
We are all stimulated by different things. What may seem like the smallest, insignificant experience to one person can provide real meaning and inspiration to another.
The aim here is to help you notice what factors contribute towards you feeling completely motivated, engaged and great about your WorkLife. When you have this clarity, you can take action to ensure you are incorporating these motivated abilities into your WorkLife to drive your vision.
Begin by identifying three specific moments, events or experiences when you felt any of the following:
A Buzz. Able to Be your True Self. At Ease. At Your Best. Able to Shine
Inspired. In the Flow. In your Element. Life is Good On Top of the World
Totally Absorbed. Touched. Truly Motivated
NB Please feel free to add words and phrases that are especially meaningful to you.
Next develop your chosen words or phrases into a short story. For example:
James’s word was ‘Fulfilled’
To put your word in context, follow these 3 steps:
IDENTIFY A SPECIFIC WORKLIFE MOMENT, EVENT OR EXPERIENCE
e.g. For James it was working alongside his wife, at the social enterprise in South Africa.
2. HOW DID YOU FEEL?
e.g. James felt fulfilled because he felt he was making a difference.
3. WHAT CONTRIBUTED TO YOU FEELING THIS WAY?
i.e. Your particular role, the skills used or the tasks involved, the outcome or type of people or environment.
e.g. For James it was contributing his business acumen to help people in a developing community. The outcome helped strengthen their strategy to achieve their vision.
Next note down the common factors and themes emerging. For example: for James it was helping to develop people
Develop a Practice of Continuous Self-Feedback
Now that you’ve begun to pay attention to specific WorkLife moments, events or experiences when you were fully engaged, make a note in your journal of any observations you have of what was going on during those times.
Develop a Practice of Insightful Self-Questioning
Continue and maintain this practice by asking yourself the following questions:
What was I doing when I was completely engaged? How did this make me feel? What contributed to me feeling this way?
Words of Wisdom
There will most likely be times in you WorkLife when you will need to discover or rediscover your WorkLife vision. You may also stray from living your days true to your motivated abilities, lose sight of what these actually are for you, or actually struggle to know what they are in the first place. This simple exercise will allow you to navigate through these times.
This story is one of the stories featured in my book: How To Drive Your Vision And Motivated Abilities. From The School Of WorkLife Book Series.
The stories I write are based on real WorkLife challenges, obstacles and successes. In some stories I share my own experiences, and with permission stories of people I’ve worked with, whose names have been changed to protect their anonymity. Other persons and companies portrayed in the stories are not based on real people or entities.
If you enjoyed this, please hit the *Clap* 👏 button as many times as you wish.
How When Faced With Accepting a Permanent Position or Leaving My Job, The Lack of Purpose I Felt Actually Helped My Decision to Move On.
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I worked in the world of finance for many years, and while I enjoyed it, and worked with great people in a good environment, I never really had a passion for it. Because of this I chose to work on a contract basis rather than follow a career in banking. Over the years I worked in different departments, which allowed me to continue to learn and develop; and this also kept the work interesting. It also afforded me a great lifestyle and allowed me to embrace my love of travel.
Then the economic crisis happened. The bank made the decision to stop all contract work in order to make the positions of full-time employees secure. I had been considering moving on to doing something different, so although I was offered a permanent position, I declined because I felt this was the push I needed to make a change in my WorkLife.
While I was figuring out what I wanted to do next, my friend Pauline asked me to deliver the job-search element of a programme she was teaching. She had been let down by the original trainer at the last minute, and needed someone to stand in. I had no experience in this, but Pauline persuaded me that all I needed was a common-sense approach. This was in the early days of the internet, so I could not get the course material I needed online. Instead I drove the two-hour round trip to my nearest bookstore and returned home armed with enough books to develop a one-year training course — a tad excessive for the two days I needed to prepare for!
I had two days to develop the course, and travel to Ireland to deliver it. The client would not pay the last-minute high-priced airfare, so I had to travel from England to Wales by train, get the ferry across to Ireland, catch another train, and then a bus. I barely slept for days. Instead I did what I always do when I am out of my comfort zone: I over prepared, then I went with the flow.
And it went amazingly. I really connected with the people attending, all of whom had been impacted by the recession. Because of this their confidence, self-esteem and spirit were low. I knew we had to work through this before we could work on the practical sessions I had planned. So my plan went out the window, but that was OK because having over prepared allowed me to be in the moment of knowing what to do and to go where the flow took me.
I got the group talking about their WorkLife achievements: things they had forgotten about, or had taken for granted, or had never considered to be anything special. We all sat in awe listening to the amazing stories being shared, and through this they each began to realise how much they had to offer to employers. Once they had that realisation, we were then able to move onto the practical elements of their job-search campaign, preparing their CVs in a way that represented their skills, attributes and their amazing achievements to date, along with their potential. We planned their job-search approach, practiced interviews and explored how they would negotiate the job offers coming their way by considering what they wanted over and above the package being offered — whatever this was that was important for each of them at their particular WorkLife stage.
As I made my long return journey home, I was buzzing. It was a little surreal because I was both exhausted from lack of sleep and energised from the experience. I somehow knew this was what I was meant to do: to help people manage, develop and transition their WorkLife in line with what was important to them. I do not think I was able to define it exactly as that in that moment. I think that evolved over time. But I do remember having a strong sense of my WorkLife purpose, knowing I had found my passion. I also knew I wanted and needed to do this properly.
To serve people I needed formal training: a solid theoretical base to build my knowledge from. As my belief in life is “when the student is ready, the teacher will come”, I found the perfect pathway. I undertook a degree in Career Coaching and Management, and then secured a position with a careers consultancy agency. I did this by approaching every single agency in London asking for work — an opportunity to put my learning into practice, to be in a position to continue to learn, improve and develop my skills through hands on practical experience. To ultimately launch my new WorkLife.
Assignments WorkLife Purpose Assignment
To discover or rediscover your WorkLife Purpose ask yourself the following three questions:
1. What is a defining moment in my WorkLife, and how did it impact me?
For example:
Mine was when I sat with the people attending the course I was delivering, which I was expecting to be very practical, only to discover that before we could move onto that I needed to support them through the emotional impact of having being unemployed. Somehow I knew instinctively that having them talk through their WorkLife achievements was what was needed. I was then blown away by their stories and the immediate positive impact this had on their morale. This experience allowed me to know what my purpose was, and the strength from the passion I discovered in those two days has allowed me to create a WorkLife true to my purpose and passion.
2. How did I get to where I am in my WorkLife and Why?
For example:
In my story, while I had enjoyed my work in finance, I had never followed a career path. This was because I was not passionate about it, nor did it give me a sense of purpose. When I was faced with accepting a permanent position or leaving the bank, the lack of purpose I felt actually helped my decision to move on. My friend Pauline asking me to help her out was in no way planned, nor could I have envisioned how it was to lead me to discovering my purpose, and yet it did. I believe that is because I let my curiosity guide me, and curiosity is an important value to me, one that has guided me throughout my WorkLife.
3. Do I belong here?
For example:
I had a sense of belonging in banking. This was because I worked with good people, in a good environment, and I continued to learn and develop. These are more of my values, and these were being met. Yet I knew I did not fully belong there. I did not feel fulfilled in my WorkLife. But in that very brief experience I had with the people on that first training course, I knew immediately I was where I was meant to be, doing what I was meant to do. I was at the very beginning of my new WorkLife journey, and yet it felt as though I had arrived. It was as though I had finally come home to where I belonged.
Develop a Practice of Continuous Self-Feedback
As your self-awareness about what is important to you in living a fulfilled WorkLife continues to grow, asking these questions will allow you to go deeper into your heart and mind, knowing what you want — or as importantly, what you do not want in your WorkLife. Listen well and be observant to the feedback you gain through the answers these questions bring about.
Develop a Practice of Insightful Self-Questioning
This assignment is to help you realise the importance of using questions to get to what really matters for you at every stage of your WorkLife, and to then use the information that comes to you through the answers to make that happen.
Ask yourself:
Did today matter?
What if anything would have made it better, more meaningful, more fulfilling?
Did I live my WorkLife today true to my purpose?
Words of Wisdom
There is a purpose within each of us. For some people it is inherent from a very young age, for others it reveals itself at a later stage in life. Whichever is relevant to you, you will not necessarily have the full vision when you start out, and that is OK. You just need to take one step and see where it takes you, then you take the next step, and the next step.
As you walk along your WorkLife pathway, you will begin to gain clarity around your purpose. From this your vision will form and grow; and from this you can begin to do what you need to do, in order to make your purpose a reality, in order to live your WorkLife with purpose.
This story is one of the stories featured in my book: How To Use Your Purpose To Help Others. From The School Of WorkLife Book Series.
The stories I write are based on real WorkLife challenges, obstacles and successes. In some stories I share my own experiences, and with permission stories of people I’ve worked with, whose names have been changed to protect their anonymity. Other persons and companies portrayed in the stories are not based on real people or entities.
If you enjoyed this, please hit the *Clap* 👏 button as many times as you wish.
A WorkLife Change is Needed when Values are Out of Sync: Ted’s Story: Nuclear Research Engineer to Urban Planner
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Ted was working in nuclear research. Having gained his degree in mechanical engineering he joined a nuclear-energy and engineering consultancy in Europe. There was a lot about his work and training that he enjoyed, except for one fundamental element: ‘nuclear energy’ really went against his values. He had joined the organisation straight out of university, and was grateful to secure the role and gain experience working in a leading engineering consultancy. When he took on the job, he had not given much thought to how he felt about environmental issues; but as his work evolved, he realised this was a serious consideration for him and his values.
Our work really does need to sit well with our values along with our skills, interests, attributes and motivated abilities. Ted’s career coach took him through a self-assessment process to understand what all of this meant to him in considering a WorkLife change. He was at the point where he knew a change in his career was necessary to allow him to feel more satisfaction in his work and to have a job that he was proud of. He wanted a career that was progressive. He was at the beginning of his WorkLife journey, and his professional and personal development were important to him. He also wanted to move from Europe to Australia, having fallen in love with Anna, an Australian girl, and having spent time holidaying there. He loved the lifestyle, and they both agreed this was where they wanted to settle and in time raise a family.
Although Ted did not know exactly what his next career move was going to be, he knew it made sense to utilise the skills and experience he had gained throughout his training and work to date. After all, there were a lot of elements to his work which he enjoyed. These included the project work he had been involved in, the problem solving and the team working that supported the constant exchange of ideas and knowledge. He had developed strong presentation and communication skills, and was comfortable interacting at all levels. His leadership ability had been nurtured and his career development supported, enabling him to improve his soft skills along with his technical abilities.
He began to explore options through researching what was going on in the world of engineering, with his focus on Australia, reading any news stories he could get his hands on. The various engineering publications were a good source of information, and he began to build a spreadsheet of organisations operating in Australia. He then researched each one further to uncover what projects they were becoming involved in, and who was hiring.
He talked to recruitment consultants in Australia, and while they were interested in his CV, he needed to have a work visa before they could put him forward for a role. He had various choices as to how he could do this. He could apply for an initial visa, which would allow him to stay in Australia for one year and work for a set period during this time. He hoped that this would allow him to be employed by an organisation that would be impressed with his work, and as a result want to sponsor him in gaining a full-time visa. Alternatively, he could try to connect with an organisation that was willing to sponsor him from the outset. He was open to either option.
He also began to talk with people in the industry both in Europe, through people he knew, and through forum discussion groups, allowing him to connect with people worldwide. He utilised LinkedIn to facilitate this. His research and conversations opened up his thinking to urban planning, and although this was a new area to him, his skills, experience, interests, attributes, motivated abilities and potential were quite a good fit and extremely transferable. The more he researched what this actually meant in terms of the work he would be involved in and where his career could take him in this field, the more appealing it became, and so he shifted his focus to getting a role in this industry.
He decided that because he was moving into a new industry it was unlikely that an organisation would sponsor his work visa at the outset, so he chose to travel on a one-year visa, which allowed him to work during his stay. People he had connected with throughout his research were happy to make introductions when they could, and he discovered it is quite a small world in terms of who knows who where. When he had the clarity he needed, he had a conversation with his boss — who although sad to lose him as part of his team, was very supportive and helpful in connecting him with people he knew in Australia.
And so Ted set off on his adventure to Australia to establish himself in a new career and a different lifestyle. He has secured an interim role working within urban planning, and I have every confidence this will lead to a full-time position sponsored by the organisation.
Values Assignment
The purpose of the following assignment is to help you think about your key values. This greater awareness is valuable for when you consider what type of job role, sector and work environment will suit you best, along with what is important to you in your life outside of work that you need to take into consideration.
Hereunder is a list of subject headings. Look through them and choose between four and eight that matter the most to you. Add others that have more meaning to you if you wish. Then under each heading write a short description to express the meaning it holds for you.
For example, Ted’s most important values, which have helped guide him in his WorkLife decisions, are:
Environmental Issues: Living in a world that is safe, clean and has a sustainable future is important to me. I want to play a part in making a positive impact in this area, through how I choose to work and live my life.
Love: I want to be with Anna, to create a life together, to live in the moment and share experiences, and to plan our future.
Professional and Personal Development: I want to continue to grow professionally and personally in both my technical abilities and soft skills. I want to be empowered to be myself, and encouraged to take risks, to learn and to grow. It is important that whatever organisation I join is fully supportive of this.
Progressive Career: I want to be part of a company that inspires me to find new and better ways to move my industry forward.
Project Work: I love that design is at the heart of engineering, and it’s important that I continue to be involved in projects that expose me to different problems and situations to stimulate my imagination while continuing to develop my systems thinking.
Team Working: The constant exchange of ideas and knowledge is important to me. I also want to develop my leadership ability and to continue to interact at all levels within my industry.
It is important to note that some values may carry more weight or importance than others, and may be deal breakers. For example, in Ted’s case the job he was in met many of his values, but was completely out of sync with how he felt about environmental matters. That was Ted’s deal breaker.
Develop a Practice of Continuous Self-Feedback Assignment
In the WorkLife Values Assignment you awakened or re-awakened your self-awareness to what is most important to you. To continuously strive to live your WorkLife true to your values, it is good practice to check in with yourself on a regular basis to understand what this means as you go about your Worklife. This will help you to understand the good and bad reactions you have in different situations and towards different people, and what this means by way of being able to make the best and right choices for you to be able to live your Worklife true to your values. This will allow you to make the best decisions based on what’s important to you.
Journalling is an excellent way to do this. Writing in a journal is a way to record the raw thoughts and observations you have during the day. Consider it a short daily investment in yourself.
Develop a Practice of Insightful and Effective Self-Questioning Assignment
Begin this practice by simply asking yourself: Did I live my WorkLife today true to my values? If Yes, what was great about this? If No, why not? What do I need to differently? What needs to change to allow me to remain true to my values?
Words of Wisdom
While things do not always change on a daily, weekly, monthly or even a yearly basis, this simple practice of regularly checking in with yourself, by posing these questions, demands that you stay in tune with your values. Then if something goes out of sync, you will be in a position to identify what that is and take the necessary steps to do what is right for you in realigning your WorkLife true to you values.
This story is one of the stories featured in my book: How To Make Your Values Matter. From The School Of WorkLife Book Series.
The stories I write are based on real WorkLife challenges, obstacles and successes. In some stories I share my own experiences, and with permission stories of people I’ve worked with, whose names have been changed to protect their anonymity. Other persons and companies portrayed in the stories are not based on real people or entities.
If you enjoyed this, please hit the *Clap* 👏 button as many times as you wish.
Through Personal Off-Sites and a Joie De Vivre List of Places To Go, People to Be With, and Things to Do
Photo by Josh Hild from Pexels
On a cold snowy night at the beginning of January, Aisling boarded the Night Riviera sleeper train at Paddington, London, on her way to St. Ives in Cornwall. It was exactly one year since her original intended trip. One she had planned to go on with her closest friend Norma; but sadly and unexpectedly, Norma passed away a few weeks before their trip. Feeling unable to take the trip without her dear friend, so soon after her death, Aisling vowed to take it in her memory, and to do the things they’d planned to do by way of remembering and celebrating the joy that Norma brought to life, her own and other people’s. Norma had a joy of living, and indeed had a Joie De Vivre list of places she wanted to go to, people she wanted to be with, and things she wanted to do. Aisling also had a list, and they’d cross reference joys they both wanted to experience, then plan and scheme to make them happen.
Together with remembering and celebrating the joy that Norma brought to life, Aisling was also going to take time on her trip to think about what she wanted in her future. Her intention was to create space to think long term about what really matters in the greater scheme of things, then work backwards from that to make it happen. She was embarking on the first of what she planned would be ongoing quarterly off-sites with herself. Time and space to work on her Go, Be, Do list, her Joie De Vivre for all areas of her WorkLife.
Look to the Future with Confidence and Optimism by Taking Control of Your Own WorkLife Learning, Growth and Development Through Personal Off-Sites, and a Joie De Vivre List of Places to Go, People to Be With, and Things to Do. A Case Study:
Book Wisdom
Aisling had brought the book Your WorkLife Your Way: Make Your WorkLife Work For You by Carmel O’ Reilly on her trip to work through.
Having already completed Part I: Getting To Know Yourself and Part II: Your Superpowers, Aisling picked up at Part III: Setting Your Intentions, and began from where she’d left off on Chapter 10: Creating Your Shorter and Longer Term WorkLife Plan.
Words of Wisdom
“You can’t predict. You can prepare.” Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance.
Because of everything that happened over the previous year, first losing her friend Norma, then the pandemic hitting, and the impact that had to Aisling’s WorkLife and way of living, this quote at the beginning of the chapter resonated with her. And it reminded her of the:
Sage Wisdom
“You live only once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” Joe Lewis
Aisling started with the Creating Your Longer Term WorkLife Assignment by beginning to think about her dreams and aspirations. She did this by asking herself: What she will be doing at the pinnacle of her WorkLife — when she’s feeling challenged, engaged and not wanting anything else.
Her answer was that she wanted to be making a living from her writing, and she wanted to achieve this by following her dream: “To spread the power of WorkLives lived with Passion, Purpose and Pride by creating continuous WorkLife learning, development and growth programmes that are accessible to everyone, everywhere, at all times.” As well as the books and online programmes she wrote, she also had ideas for films and TV shows she wanted to write. This is what she believed would give her the sense of feeling challenged, engaged and not wanting anything else.
To help her understand her dream, her aspirations, her bigger picture, she asked herself:
What size company do I imagine working for?
There was a time when Aisling thought she would grow her business into something big, but that had changed over time. She now knew she wanted to keep it small, to work independently, and to collaborate as needed with other independent workers or small businesses in their fields. It wasn’t that Aisling was against working with big companies, she just didn’t want to grow her own company big. And she wanted to create books and programmes that were accessible to individuals who managed their own learning, development and growth, which of course companies of all sizes could offer to the individuals that made up their workforce. The key was to keep her products — books, and services — online courses, and in time (hopefully) live-streaming films and TV shows, affordable. So that even in the hardest of times, through downturns in the economy, individuals could still afford to access them, and companies could still offer them to their individual employees, without draining their learning and development budgets, because they were still affordable.
What industry do I want to be in?
That was easy — Education.
Do I want to be in a very individual contributor type role or a management-type role?
Definitely a very individual contributor-type role. That was the role Aisling had always navigated towards. In recent years her work had demanded a more management-type role in some aspects, and Aisling really didn’t like it. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do it, or that she was bad at it, she simply didn’t enjoy it, and it would at times cause her to be slightly anxious at best, and totally stressed out at worst. However, she did enjoy collaborating with people on various aspects of her work — just as long as they self-managed their work.
Aisling then moved on to the next assignment: Create Your WorkLife Action Plan
As directed, as she went about her daily WorkLife, she continued to reflect on what all of this means through the self-feedback she gave herself. She began her outline from the key points she’d gleaned from answering these questions, then she took whatever clarity that came to her over the remaining days of her short-break, her off-site with herself to add more details to her outline.
Aisling did this alongside remembering and celebrating the life of her dear friend Norma. She had re-booked Carbis Bay Hotel for her stay, which Norma had recommended one year earlier, because it was her favourite hotel. She had re-booked lunch at Porthminster Beach Cafe, another recommendation and favourite of Norma’s, and everyday she walked along the beaches of St. Ives and explored the galleries, museums and shops of the town, discovering cafes and pubs along the way. Everything she would have done with Norma, she did in her memory, to which she raised a cup or a glass at every watering hole she stopped at, before she caught the Night Rivera sleeper train back to London ready to look the future with confidence and optimism, determined to continue to take control of her own WorkLife learning, development and growth. She was already planning her next quarterly personal off-site, and until then she had her Joie De Vivre List of Places To Go, People To Be With, and Things To Do, to work (and play) through.
Epilogue
To remind her of what she wanted to achieve, and how she wanted to go about achieving this, every day Aisling recited the poem:
Don’t Just
Don’t just learn, experience.
Don’t just read, absorb.
Don’t just change, transform.
Don’t just relate, advocate.
Don’t just promise, prove.
Don’t just criticise, encourage.
Don’t just think, ponder.
Don’t just take, give.
Don’t just see, feel.
Don’t just dream, do.
Don’t just hear, listen.
Don’t just talk, act.
Don’t just tell, show.
Don’t just exist, live.
Roy T. Bennett
Today’s feature book is my book: Your WorkLife Your Way: Make Your WorkLife Work for you.
WorkLife Book Wisdom Stories:
The intention of the stories I share is to inspire you through people’s stories of their WorkLife experiences. Through these stories, you will learn about people’s dreams and ambitions, along with the challenges, obstacles, failures and successes they encountered along the road of their WorkLife journey. And how they used the power of book wisdom to help them find the inspiration and guidance to navigate their path to live their WorkLife with passion, purpose and pride.
My hope is that these book wisdom stories will help you throughout the chapters of your WorkLife Story.
I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.
If you enjoyed this, please hit the *Clap* 👏 button as many times as you wish.
What’s Good For Many People, Isn’t Good For All People. Freedom of Choice Gives People Their Best Way of Doing What They Want and Need to Do
Photo by Vidar Nordii-Mathisen on Unsplash
This Is The Way It’s Always Been Done … are people’s stories of when they wanted to do things differently, not necessarily because they thought there was anything wrong with the way things had always been done, but because they wanted to try new and different ways of doing things, because they believed there are new and different ways of doing things.
They believed that the way of always doing things, while good for many people and situations isn’t necessarily good for all people or all situations. They believed in exploring and trying out new ways of doing things, and importantly they believed in choice. They believed in the freedom of choice to give people their best way of doing what they wanted and needed to do.
This Is The Way It’s Always Been Done: A Case Study:
I was in the queue for Richard II tickets at the Barbican London. The show starring David Tennant was completely sold-out, but as with many London theatres they hold back a small number of seats for on the day performances. People join the queue early, in the hope of successfully being able to buy a ticket. It’s actually a really good experience, because you get chatting to people who share an interest with you — anyone who’s willing to get up early to queue for theatre tickets has a love of theatre. Somebody will usually do a coffee run, and if you are successful in getting a ticket, you’ll be on first name terms with people in your row of seats.
Meg, the girl next to me, was Canadian. She was a teacher and had a love of both Shakespeare and David Tenant. My nephew Trevor, who has moved to Canada, had just shared a photo of his six-year old daughter, Jodi, who had received an award at school for reading her first one hundred books. I thought this was a pretty amazing achievement for Jodi, and a great way to encourage children to read. I shared this story and my thinking with Meg.
She had a different take on it. She said yes it’s really encouraging for children who love to learn through reading, but it actually discriminates against children who love to learn in other ways.
For example, she said a lot of children in Canada loved the outdoors and loved learning through nature, others loved singing, dancing and music and loved learning through the arts. She said while these were considered to be good, children weren’t recognised and rewarded in the same way for learning through nature and the arts, as they were for learning through reading. She said she felt there was a bias in favour of reading being the best way to learn, and as a result there was more recognition and reward for children who read more.
She had broached this with her school board, and she was told: “This is the way it’s always been done. Reading has always been an integral part of a child’s education, and their learning process, it should be recognised and rewarded.” She said her argument wasn’t that it shouldn’t be rewarded, but that other ways of learning should be rewarded in the same way. She really objected to the thinking or reasoning: “This is the way it’s always been done.” But she said her argument fell on deaf ears.
In a previous story: Knowing When To Say No More, I’ve Had Enough, It’s Time To Call It Quits, I shared some of the trials and tribulations Mo experienced as a volunteer at a non-profit organisation from his fellow committee members. The words: “This is the way it’s always been done,” can be added to what Mo had to endure.
Mo felt as a committee they were out of touch with what people attending the events they ran wanted. But when he tried to raise it, he was immediately shot down with the words: “This is the way it’s always been done. People know what to expect and that’s what we give them. There’s nothing wrong with that, it works just fine, people are fine with the way it’s always been done”
Mo’s argument wasn’t that there was anything wrong with what they were doing, or that there weren’t people who came because they knew what to expect, and that there were people who were fine with his. His point was that they could offer more of the same for the people who wanted that, and they could also offer something different for people who wanted that.
His belief was that the customer, or the member in this case, will always show you what’s next. Because he felt the committee were out of touch with what many of their members wanted, he began talking directly to the members, simply asking what they would like to see more or less of. He knew he would find the answers this way.
The majority of members did want something else, they did want something different. Mo shared the information he’d gathered with the rest of the committee, letting them know that there was more demand for new and different courses than the courses they had created and were offering. He said we’re trying to sell them something, but they want something else, they want something different. He was met with the response: “But that’s not our business goals.” He replied: “But we’re getting lots of enquires, maybe we need to expand our business goals.” The reply he received: “This is the way it’s always been done.” His argument had fallen on deaf ears.
Book Wisdom
In the book Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin, Martin throws the idea of: “This Is The Way It’s Always Been Done” on its head. He says: “With conventional joke telling, there’s a moment when the comedian delivers their punchline. What bothered me was the nature of the laugh it inspired, a vocal acknowledgement that a joke had been told, like automatic applause at the end of a song. A skilful comedian could coax a laugh with tiny indicators such as a vocal tic or a slight body shift.” He noticed that even with unintelligible punch lines, audiences would laugh at nothing but the cue of a hand slap.”
“These notions stayed with me for months, until they formed an idea that revolutionised my comic direction: What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anti-climax? If I kept denying them the formality of a punchline, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh. This type of laugh seemed stronger to me, as they would be laughing at something they chose, rather than being told exactly when to laugh.”
He tested it out and it worked. People were falling around the place laughing, they were laughing their heads off, they were crying from laughter. Afterwards when these people were asked what was funny, they weren’t able to say exactly what it was, they simply said: “You had to be there.”
Now the punchline hasn’t gone away, and I expect we’ve all laughed at a good punchline. I expect there have also been times when we’ve all used the expression: “You had to be there” when something was really funny but we couldn’t explain exactly what it was.
Words of Wisdom
The great thing about exploring and trying out new ways of doing things, is that it gives us choice. It’s not about the way it’s always been done being wrong, no more than it’s about always doing things differently being right. It’s simply about what’s best for any one of us at any given time.
Sage Wisdom
What’s good for many people and situations, isn’t good for all people or all situations. Freedom of choice gives people their best way of doing what they want and need to do.
Reflect on the following questions through self-feedback to know what’s best for you:
Is this known and proven way the best way for me in this moment and situation?
If yes, great. If no, ask yourself:
What do I need to do differently to find the best way for me in this moment and situation?
Remember whenever you have a question or a problem, you also have the answer or solution within you. Remember also the power of What If? questions. If they can turn comedy on its head, imagine what they can do for you in finding your best way.
Epilogue
Meg and I were both successful in getting a ticket to see Richard II that evening. The history play by William Shakespeare was believed to have been written in approximately 1595.
I expect since then it’s been performed on stages throughout the world hundreds or more likely thousands of times. Each and every time I know that every single actor who has played this role will have played it differently, and every single director will have directed it differently. This is because actors and directors will always look for something new to bring to the role, and to the play.
They never come to a role or a play thinking this is the way it’s always been done, so this is the only way it can be done. Instead they look for nuances that will allow them to bring something new and different to the role and to the play. That’s not because there was anything wrong with how it was done before, it’s just that they believe that there’s always something new to learn and discover from a personal perspective. This is something that is encouraged within the arts, something that is recognised and rewarded.
Today’s Featured Book is: Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin
WorkLife Book Wisdom Stories:
The intention of the stories I share is to inspire you through people’s stories of their WorkLife experiences. Through these stories, you will learn about people’s dreams and ambitions, along with the challenges, obstacles, failures and successes they encountered along the road of their WorkLife journey. And how they used the power of book wisdom to help them find the inspiration and guidance to navigate their path to live their WorkLife with passion, purpose and pride.
My hope is that these book wisdom stories will help you throughout the chapters of your WorkLife Story.
I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.
If you enjoyed this, please hit the *Clap* 👏 button as many times as you wish.
The Hardest Thing About Growing In Your Worklife Is That No-One Is There to Tell You What to Do Next, You Have to Decide That for Yourself
Photo by Gemma Evans on Unsplash
Knowing when to say no more, I’ve had enough and calling it quits can be one of the hardest things you’ll do in your WorkLife. As a volunteer, an employee, or a business owner. You put so much time, energy and maybe even money into doing something, that you want to do everything to make it work. But that thing that doesn’t work ends up draining so much of your time, energy and maybe even money, and you look back and you think you should have cut it off sooner, but at the time you say to yourself: “I’m going to push through with all my grit,” and then somehow it doesn’t quite land. It takes guts to be able to say I decide not to do this, as opposed to I decided to keep pushing this along.
Knowing When to Say No More I’ve Had Enough And Calling It Quits: A Case Study:
Mo had become a volunteer at a non-profit organisation that ran coaching and training events designed to help people develop skills needed in the workplace. This ranged from soft skills training to include communication skills to technical skills, which included IT skills.
Mo had become a volunteer because he was someone who always liked to give, and to help others. His area of work is IT, and his intention was to freely give his time, sharing his expertise, knowledge and skills. In return, he hoped to meet really good people and to build his network.
This was important to him, because he’d recently moved from Pakistan to London for work. He had good work colleagues, but he wanted to meet people outside of his workplace too, and he thought the best way to do this was by becoming a volunteer. He also believed he could develop new skills by helping to organise the events.
This is not something he had ever done before, and he was willing to do whatever was needed of him. All of this honoured his values of giving and helping, meeting new people, and learning new skills.
The events were organised by a committee. Including Mo there were twelve members. They ran one or two events each month, and they met monthly to plan and prepare for these. The members were very different.
Some were somewhat welcoming to Mo, others were completely unwelcoming. There was no onboarding, and Mo wasn’t really sure what was expected of him. He wanted to do as much as he could, but he didn’t want to come across as too pushy. So, he put himself forward to do the things that no-one else was volunteering to do, while at the same time, observing how things seemed to operate.
Every meeting was really heated, with people arguing right, left and centre. There was very little consensus between the group. At the first meeting, Mo had somehow found himself in charge of communications. He soon discovered that this was because no-one else wanted to do it, and he very quickly came to realise why: people didn’t read or respond to communications. It was a complete shambles and no-one ever seemed to know what was going on.
It was the same at the events, nobody ever seemed to know who would be there to help out, resulting in either all twelve of the committee turning up or it just being one person. Even though it was agreed at every meeting that there needed to be three or four people helping out at each event, and people would promise to communicate their availability, this never happened, because people simply didn’t read or respond to emails. Yet they said emails were their preferred choice of communication, and objected to phone calls, texts or any other kind of communication platforms, because they said that would be too intrusive on their time.
Mo found the people who attended the events were always really lovely, but there just was never very many people turning up. This was because the events weren’t marketed very well.
Mo suggested setting up social media platforms by way of promoting the events, along with email campaigns, as they had email addresses for all members. He also suggested starting a newsletter by way of keeping members informed. Some of the members thought this was a good idea, others were a bit wary of it, questioning how much work this would involve for them. Mo said it was something that he could do, using his technical abilities. There was an immediate sigh of relief in the room, and a general consensus that if Mo would do it, then that was fine.
Mo asked if the other members could help with writing a brief description of the upcoming events, and get it to him to circulate. There was an immediate sense of drained energy in the room, as people mumbled that they’d get back to him, and let him know what they could do. Mo knew immediately this wouldn’t be forthcoming, and he was right.
These are just a few of the things to demonstrate the dysfunction of the committee. Although draining, it didn’t deter Mo, he really enjoyed the events, some of which he facilitated by way of sharing his expertise, knowledge and skills, and others which he helped out on, doing whatever was required of him — set-up, meet and greet, connecting people etc.
He enjoyed the various marketing campaigns he managed by way of communicating the events to members. He was honouring his values of giving and helping, meeting new people, and learning new skills.
It wasn’t long before his good work became noticed by the governing board of the non-profit. They had begun to receive great feedback from members about the events, and how great the new communication channels were in keeping them informed. Mo’s name would be mentioned time and time again, because of how giving and helpful he always was — at the events he ran and helped out on, and in his communication.
This led to Mo receiving a special achievement award in recognition of his good work at the Annual General Meeting. Mo wasn’t expecting it, he wasn’t even aware that such an award existed. He was really humbled and pleased to have been recognised.
But he soon came to wish he hadn’t been singled out, as he met with immediate resentment from his committee members, who were quite loud in saying: “Why is he getting an award? What had he done that none of the rest of us have done? He’s only been on the committee for a year, some of us have been on it for twenty years, we’ve never been given an award for anything we’ve done. What makes him so special?”
And it got much worse. Any new ideas he put forward for events or connecting with their members were shot down immediately. He didn’t think it was possible, but the meetings became even more draining. And the events that he had really enjoyed became less enjoyable. The committee decided he had run too many events, and he needed to give other people a turn.
The problem was no-one else wanted to run events, which meant there were less events. It was the same for the events that he wanted to help out on. He was told that he was always muscling in to help, and he needed to give other people a chance to help out. Again, the problem was that no-one else wanted to help out, which meant there wouldn’t be enough people on hand to do what was needed to be done — set-up, meet and greet and connecting people.
The members suffered as a result and they expressed that in their feedback. Mo no longer wanted to communicate these events to the members, because he was embarrassed by the lack of events now being run, and the disorganisation of the events that did actually run.
All of this was having a negative impact on Mo’s WorkLife. It was draining, demotivating and de-energising. He didn’t want to say no more, I’ve had enough and to call it quits, but for his own wellbeing he knew he needed to.
Mo was feeling really emotional about everything and because of this he wanted to be sure that his emotions weren’t clouding his judgement. To do this he considered how he could ensure his decision was rational.
He asked himself:
What is wrong that is making me want to leave?
Reflecting on this question, the self-feedback he received was:
There’s a temperament gap. They’re not treating me with respect. Respect is an important value to me, this is not being honoured.
There’s a quality gap. I want to do work that is high quality, that is helpful and valuable to our members. They want to push out work that is cheap, dumb and insulting to our members.
There’s a reputation gap. I don’t want to be associated with what they do or how they do it.
Sage Wisdom
The hardest thing about growing in your WorkLife is that no-one is there to tell you what to do next, you have to decide that for yourself. Whenever you get stuck with knowing what to do or where to go next, turn to your inner sage wisdom in the knowledge that whatever question you have, or problem you’re facing, you have the answer and the solution within you. Your inner sage will guide you and show you what to do next.
Words of Wisdom
‘Suffering Is Optional.” Haruki Murakami
Book Wisdom
Mo remembered these words from the introduction to the book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami.
Running was something that helped Mo to switch his mind off when he faced difficulties in his WorkLife. There was a time when the situation he’d just experienced would have impacted his emotional wellbeing and would have caused him to suffer. He hadn’t been running since he’d arrived in London and he knew he needed to get back to it for both his emotional and physical well-being.
The book is quite like a memoir of writing and running. Murakami said, each time he wrote he’d ask himself: “What’s on my mind right now?” Mo modelled this each time he went for a run, and he also used the same question in journalling, a daily practice he did alongside running. Together the practice of running and journalling had also become a memoir for Mo. These combined actions had allowed Murakami to sort out what kind of life he wanted to lead. It did the same for Mo
Epilogue
All of this allowed Mo to know it was time to say, no more, I’ve had enough, and to call it quits: and he resigned from the committee. As he instinctively knew, getting back to running and journalling was exactly what he needed to do, to ensure he didn’t suffer emotionally from his experience.
He loved everything that this gave him, most importantly a calm sense of being and a clear mind. He enjoyed the solitude of running alone, but he also now had time on his hands. He still wanted to connect with new people, and so he joined a local running group.
This was an amazing experience. He met really good and interesting people. People who showed an interest in him and his work. This led to him being invited to community events to share his expertise, knowledge and skills. He worked with groups that varied from young people applying to college, to return to work mums, to people living in the community retirement home — all of whom greatly appreciated and valued Mo’s giving and helping nature.
He also became involved in his community choir. He’d never really sung before, so this was a new skill he was developing. He had happily returned to a place where he was honouring his values of giving and helping, meeting new people, and learning new skills.
Most importantly he was among people where there was mutual respect and appreciation for each other. He’d gotten here by saying, no more, I’ve had enough, and calling it quits.
Today’s Book of the Blog is: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami.
Today’s story was featured in my book: How To Use Your Voice To Express and Protect Your Identity from The School Of WorkLife book series.
WorkLife Book Wisdom Stories:
The intention of the stories I share is to inspire you through people’s stories of their WorkLife experiences. Through these stories, you will learn about people’s dreams and ambitions, along with the challenges, obstacles, failures and successes they encountered along the road of their WorkLife journey. And how they used the power of book wisdom to help them find the inspiration and guidance to navigate their path to live their WorkLife with passion, purpose and pride.
My hope is that these book wisdom stories will help you throughout the chapters of your WorkLife Story.
I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.
If you enjoyed this, please hit the *Clap* 👏 button as many times as you wish.
Evolving Careers Players 