Iam learning to accept the truth regardless of its source. It’s hard. After all, the truth, as we’ve heard too many times, hurts. But how could it? Why should it? Here’s what I think. It’s not the truth that hurts at all but rather the manner in which it’s first revealed – its source. Maybe you’re in the midst of a heated argument with a friend/spouse/co-worker when he/she angrily spews out some vitriol that you know contains some element of truth about yourself. Or maybe an unhappy client is taking you to task for poor customer service. Or perhaps a competitor has exposed, very publicly, some of your weaknesses. In each of these scenarios, and in countless others, truth lurks, daring us to find it.
Take a Deep Breath
This is how it usually goes for me. First I get angry. I rant and rave (in my head of course), plot revenge, blame someone (not myself of course), make excuses, remain angry, calm down (only a little) then, with a pretty much ruined attitude, continue with my day. Later, much later, when the world is quieter, I sit down, take a deep breath and ask myself this question: “Was there truth in what was said to you or about you today?” Here’s the hard part. The answer is almost always yes. Now I need to painfully pull the nuggets of truth, one by one, from the mass of hurt. Ouch! Worth the effort? You bet! Truth hurts. But it’s a good hurt.
What is Truth Anyway?
A while back I blogged about success and asked how you define it. Okay amateur philosophers, ready? What is truth? From whatistruth.org, here are some of my favorites:
The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear. Herbert Agar
Not being known doesn’t stop the truth from being true. Richard Bach
You never find yourself until you face the truth. Pearl Bailey
A truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent. William Blake
Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction; for we have made fiction to suit ourselves. G. K. Chesterton
Here is another take on the truth … the famous “You Can’t Handle the Truth” speech from A Few Good Men delivered as only Jack Nicholson could. Enjoy.
Now Back to You
How do you handle difficult truths about yourself? Are you able to accept them? Is your process anything like mine? If you’ve got a better way I’d love to hear about it. Talk to me.
Iam not the most selfless person in the world. The impulse to put others first, so natural for so many, doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m not proud of this nor do I really understand it. I’m guessing it has something to do with my father not playing catch with me enough when I was a kid. Whatever. The point is I recognize the flaw and work on it in my own way. For instance, I’ve made “Someone You Should Know” a regular feature of my blog. Each post in the series highlights someone who in my view has done something extraordinary. I have introduced people to Jay Dorfman, gifted photographer and film maker; Tom Gould, Peabody, Massachusetts City Councilor, entrepreneur and humanitarian; Linda Samuels, author, educator and visionary; and Laverne Auguste, a bright, passionate young woman who will most certainly change the world.
Beyond Hallmark
I have, till now, refrained from writing about Judy, my best friend, partner and wife. There are a couple of reasons for this. One, I’ve been a little squeamish about bringing my personal life into so public an arena and two, I’ve feared that anything I wrote about her would read like a sappy Hallmark card (not that there’s anything wrong with that). So why now?
Just Buy Me Dirt
We, like many families, are experiencing our share of difficulty – health, money, career – you get the picture. But like the palm tree planted in the shifting sand of a windswept beach, Judy bounces back. She always bounces back.
Yesterday was a beautiful day here on Boston’s north shore. It was, as most Sundays are for us, a day of no computers, no emails, just relaxing and recharging. So I asked Judy what she wanted to do.
“Is there anything I can buy for you today?” I asked. “Perhaps that diamond ring I never bought you” I added jokingly (very jokingly).
She didn’t hesitate. “Dirt. Just buy me dirt”. And she meant it.
“I just offered to buy you a diamond and you want dirt?”
“Yes” she answered. “I just want a few plants, some potting soil and bark mulch and I’ll be happy.”
In that moment everything I love about her crystallized and hung there in the air.
And Now Back to You
If you had to write a Hallmark card about someone, who would it be? Write one. You don’t need to publish it or even show it to anyone. Think about someone you love and just do it.
Ihave a habit of taking on more work than I should. There, I’ve said it. I don’t think I’m a masochist. I just have a hard time saying no. This is not all bad. It certainly forces me to be more organized and efficient. But as deadlines loom, I begin envying those people who thrive on four hours sleep a night. You know who you are. Really, I wish I was one of you. I’m not. And it’s not an age thing. I couldn’t do it when I was 20 years old either (although I did it anyway). To be clear, I am not a workaholic. At least I don’t think I am. It’s just that I will, for stretches of time, fill my plate with enormous portions of work. I generally don’t realize what I’ve committed to until I see the telltale signs:
I want to throw something at the phone every time it rings (how dare they interrupt me)
I forget to eat (what is that annoying growling in my stomach?)
I’m completely unaware of the time (you’re kidding, it can’t be 5 o’clock)
I forget to take out the trash (I’ll do it next week)
I forget I have dogs (what is that smell?)
I realize I’ve been wearing the same clothes for three days (what is that smell?)
It’s About Feeling Worthy
Hello! Anybody in there?
So why do I do it? Well there’s the money. But that’s not it. It’s more about this: each time a client hires me I hear the Sally Fields quote playing in my head. “You like me. You really like me.” I don’t know about you but I like to be liked. It’s very validating. It’s just that it may not be such a good idea for too many clients to like me at the same time. But in the adrenaline rush that always accompanies signing on a new client, I forget that the number of hours in a day does not expand in proportion to how much work you have to get done. Something on my personal to do list ends up not getting done. Someone in my life ends up feeling neglected. During one of my work marathons it’s not uncommon for me to emerge from my office to find that Darla (Yorkshire Terrier number two) has left me a token of her displeasure at being ignored. Ooops!
It Still Has to be About Quality
I take enormous pride in how I do what I do. Integrity demands that. So while there are countless opportunities to cut corners, to take the easy way out in ways that no one will ever know, I won’t go there. That’s why all my clients speak well of me. (Okay, maybe not all but certainly most). And that’s why, no matter how much is on my plate, I will never sacrifice quality. That’s also the reason I occasionally end up looking like the photo at the top of the page. Scary isn’t it?
Why Am I Telling You All of This?
I am committed to blogging as least once a week no matter what. Even if I’m in one of my “how the heck am I going to get all this done” periods. It’s important to me. It’s also important that whatever I put out there in the world is an honest expression of me. I don’t have a public and a private voice. I have one voice. My voice. So rather than scuffling to find a topic this week, I thought why not just simply share what I’m actually feeling. I’m guessing there are some of you out there who every now and then experience the same thing. It’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up.
And Now Back to You
Do you commit to more than you can do? If so, how do you handle it? If you’re one of those “I only need four hours of sleep” types, I’d love to hear from you. If you’ve got a routine or a technique for getting through these periods of high work volume, can you share it? Talk to me.
Millions of people work from home. I’m one of them. That means that except for time spent in client meetings or at networking events, I spend hours each day in isolation. Yes, Teddy and Darla are around but they’re dogs and don’t usually have good advice when I’m stuck. Lately I’ve been wondering if this is such a good idea. It’s not the working from home part. It’s the working alone part. If you work from home with no one else around you all day then maybe you’ve been wondering the same thing.
So here is my take.
The Upside
It takes me 10 seconds to get from my bed to my office. 12 if I’ve had a late night
I can wear silly clothes – this is one of my favorite benefits
I can daydream and no one will smack me on the head and tell me to snap out of it (see photo above)
I save a ton of money not renting an office
I can write off a lot of my expenses
When the spirit moves me I can pick up my guitar (visible just over my left shoulder in photo) and bang out some tunes
Food (very important) is just footsteps away
The Downside
It’s hard to know when my work day is over
It’s a little tricky having clients over
The dogs bark while I’m on the phone
I can daydream and no one will smack me on the head and tell me to snap out of it (see photo above)
When the spirit moves me I can pick up my guitar (visible just over my left shoulder in photo) and bang out some tunes
Distraction or Inspiration?
St. Martin - Daydream or Inspiration?
If you’re paying attention then right now you’re asking yourselves “how can you have two items in both the Upside and Downside lists?” Good question. …and the core of my dilemma. You see there are times during my day when reaching for my guitar clearly is a distraction. But I’m a creative person and more often than not taking a little time in between brilliant ideas to noodle (yes, wrong use of word) on my guitar gets the creative juices flowing. Voila! Distraction turns into inspiration. That’s why it’s on both the Upside and Downside lists. Same thing for daydreaming. I have photos of St. Martin, the idyllic Caribbean island, pinned to the corkboard over my desk. My wife and I, along with our best friends, vacationed there a few years ago. It’s one of the great memories of my life. But sometimes I blankly stare at these photos daydreaming the day away desperately needing to be smacked on the head and told to snap out of it. Other times I deliberately stare at these photos determined to do the work necessary to get me back there. See where I’m going with this?
And Now Back to You
On balance, working from home works for me. But not because there are more reasons on the Upside list than the Downside list. It’s more subtle than that. It works because it feels right. At some point in the future it might not feel right anymore. When that happens I will reevaluate. What about you? If you work from home what are the issues you struggle with? What distracts you? What works for you? Talk to me.
Here’s something I’ve struggled with for a long time. Maybe some of you have too. Balance… that state of being where the pieces of your life exist in some reasonable proportion to each other. I’ve long believed, long hoped really that I would get to a place in my life where my skills, talents and interests would all be in play at once resulting in a fully formed me. Instead, at a point in my life where there are certainly more yesterdays than tomorrows, I’m still chasing balance. I’m not sure it exists. Or maybe balance simply means different things to different people. When one considers the great masters of art, music and literature it’s hard to imagine their lives being balanced. More than likely they spent disproportionate amounts of time perfecting their craft… and neglecting everything else.
Balance For the Rest of Us
But most of us aren’t masters. We’re regular people with diverse interests and varying degrees of talent. So how much time do you spend doing the different things you love to do? Perhaps the more important question is why? Why do you do the things you do? I suspect that if you asked someone who has talent, whether it’s knitting, playing a musical instrument, filling a canvas with color and shape or painting the Sistine Chapel, why they do it, the answer would simply be “I would not feel alive if I didn’t.” Passion. But how do passion and balance coexist? I don’t know.
It’s A Discipline Thing – I Think
When I was at Berklee College of Music in the mid seventies, I had a friend – a fellow guitar player – who brought a timer into the practice room with him. I don’t mean a metronome that helped him keep time to the music. I mean an egg timer he brought from his kitchen. You see he created a practice schedule for himself and the timer helped him stick to the schedule. Scales for an hour, improvisation for an hour, ear training for half an hour then back to scales. When the timer bell sounded he moved on to the next segment of his schedule. To me this sort of regimentation seemed more suited to an engineer than a musician. At any rate this technique never worked for me. But I’m not very disciplined. Are you?
It’s An Inspiration Thing – I Think
How can you schedule inspiration? How can you time creative surges? You can’t. But if you play music, or write, or paint, or quilt or knit only when you’re inspired, your passion will live in the shadows. That’s not where it belongs. Passion must be nourished. It has to be in the front of your being where everyone can see and feel it. What I think is that if you can pursue your craft when you’re not inspired, inspiration will come more frequently. And your passion will light you up. Isn’t that we want?
It’s a Sharing Thing – I Know
We don’t own our talents. We have stewardship over them. And when we don’t share them with others we are in breach of a fundamental, albeit unwritten contract. Thinking of my talents in this way helps me get unstuck. Would that work for you?
And Now Back to You
Do you have trouble finding the time to pursue your passions and interests? Does it feel like a waste of time when you do? How do you get unstuck? Talk to me.
