Second Life

Following His Passion to Help Others

My friend Robert, BBob, is leaving for Honduras with a group of doctors to provide medical services to the poor. He will be gone for 10 days. Robert started his own blog to post about his experiences while he's there. I have posted the link because I think you'll enjoy reading the blog of someone who is following their heart. I've posted before about Robert because he is somebody who went through some tough times and came out the better for it. My post was around his birthday and he told me it's the best birthday card he got. Robert took his camera and he may upload while there, as even in the jungle there is an Internet Cafe! Robert found that he gets his greatest joy from helping others. On this blog he states, "In the end, it's not your possessions that matter, but who you helped."

Jann

Talents + Passion = ??

I know, I know. By now you're begging for mercy. We're almost there. I promise. Just a few more posts to go and you'll have everything all figured out. Alright, I lied. You'll have SOME things figured out anyway.

Find Your Zen Place
If you've been doing as I've suggested, by now you should have reams of paper on your passions and your talents. What to do with it all? It's time to go to your "Zen Place" and write your career manifesto. It will become your blueprint and your path to finding your purpose.

Where, you may ask, is your "Zen Place?" I don't know. It might be at Starbucks in the middle of the afternoon. It could be in your family room or living room late on a Wednesday night when everyone's asleep. Or it may be in the early morning light of your kitchen with a cup of coffee and the cat purring loudly next to you. Wherever it is, it's the place were you are able to think calmly and clearly with no interruptions and as little negativity as possible.

Strangle The Little Men in Your Head
By now you're thinking that I'm insane, but I promise that I'm not. Your next step is to get rid of all of the critical voices in your head that may have taken up residence there. In fact, because you've been doing so much thinking about what you really want, those voices may be louder than ever, hounding you to just stay in your old life because it's so much SAFER there.

For this part to work, though, you have to get these guys to shut up while you're in your Zen Place. It may take a glass of wine or two (that always works for me) or it may mean meditation or music or a blow to the head. I don't care. You need to get them to shut up and let you THINK for an hour. Don't move on until they're willing to cooperate.

It's Manifesto Time
OK, so you're feeling all Zen. And the "voices" are quiet for now. It's time for your manifesto. Here's what I want you to do:

1. Pull out your journal and everything else that you've managed to accumulate during the course of the previous exercises and read through everything you've got. Keep an open mind as you go through this first time. Just let it all wash over you.
2. After the first time through, go back again for a more careful review. Write down key words, themes, etc. that jump out at you. What are the patterns that you see? How do you see your passions and your talents intersecting? How aligned is your current life with the picture that's emerging? What does that tell you about yourself and where you want to go? Really be honest and pay attention here. It's important.
3. Now I want you to write your career manifesto. What's a manifesto? It's a "public declaration of intentions and principles." In other words, it's a series of key statements about what you will be seeking in your career and your life. Each statement is positive and in the present tense. You will say things like "My work is utilizing my key talent in seeing the big picture. It provides me with the opportunity to look for patterns and ideas and to write about what I see."
4. I'm not into "shoulds," but I'm going to tell you that for the best effect, you want your manifesto to have enough statements and detail to capture the most important information you've uncovered about yourself. You want it to be an inspiration to you and to give you what you need to discover your purpose and how you can use your talents and passions for the most impact. For some people, that means you'll be writing 20 statements. Other people may be able to get it together in 5. It's up to you, but don't short-change yourself here. It's a manifesto. It's who you are so don't make it less than the full enchilada.

Now Put it Away for a Week and Let it Marinate Some More
That's right. You heard me. Put it away and don't look at it for at least 7 days. At the end of that week, read your manifesto again. Does it make your heart sing? Does it get you excited and thinking about possibilities? If so, then it's perfect and you're ready to move on. If not, then you may need to do some more work on it. Don't rush it. Don't worry about it. These things come in their time. Forcing it isn't going to make it happen any faster, I can assure you from long, hard experience.

A Caveat About the Voices Though
You didn't really think that you could get away without me bringing up those voices again, did you?

One thing I need you to keep in mind when you're reading your manifesto again is this. Sometimes you'll go back and look at what you've written and you won't feel excited anymore. You'll think "Well, I'm not nearly as excited as I was last week. It must be because my manifesto hasn't quite captured it for me." That may be true. Or it may mean that the voices have talked you out of thinking that you can actually achieve your career dreams. They may have begun the steady drumbeat of negativity that talks you right back into that job you know you hate, but at least it's a job. Don't let them do this. They are not your friends.

When you're reviewing your manifesto, I want you to read it with the complete confidence that you will get what you want. Don't worry about how or when. For now, just read it with the optimism of a child and see how it makes you feel. If it makes you feel good, then you're on the right track. If it doesn't, THEN consider doing more work on it.

After the Manifesto
So with your career manifesto in hand, it's time to congratulate yourself. Have a glass of wine or something chocolate or whatever you do to celebrate your victories. You've earned it. You may also want to check out some other manifestos. Only a few are related to career(read Pam's on "Accountability Breeds Passion and Desire" for some inspiration. The rest are just interesting and fun to read.

Next time, it's back to work. In the next post, we'll see how you can discover your purpose.

Michele

Life is Like a Jar of Mayo

It's rainy in Texas and I haven't seen the sun in a week. We need the rain, so I can't complain but it's making me moody. I was sitting here being a little pouty and I read this in an email a friend sent. She sends me all the "pass it along" stuff so I am. I am sure you've heard a version of this, but sometimes we all need reminders.

The Mayonnaise Jar and 2 Cups of Coffee

When things in your lives seem almost too much to handle, when 24
hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2
cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in
front of him.  When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very
large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf
balls.  He then asked the students if the jar was full.  They agreed
that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the
jar.  He shook the jar lightly.  The pebbles rolled into the open
areas between the golf balls.  He then asked the students again if the
jar was full.  They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.
Of course, the sand filled up everything else.  He asked once more if
the jar was full  The students responded with an unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table
and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the
empty space between the sand.  The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor as the laughter subsided, "I want you to
recognize that this jar represents your life.  The golf balls are the
important things--your family, your children, your health, your
friends and your favorite passions--and if everything else was lost
and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house
and your car.

The sand is everything else--the small stuff.  "If you put the sand
into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles
or the golf balls.  The same goes for life.  If you spend all your
time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the
things that are important to you.

"Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.
Play with your children.  Take time to get medical checkups.  Take
your spouse out to dinner.  Play another 18.  There will always be
time to clean the house and fix the disposal.  Take care of the golf
balls first--the things that really matter.  Set your priorities.  The
rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee
represented.  The professor smiled.  "I'm glad you asked.

It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem,
there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."

Moral: Fill your jar with the good stuff first, and the rest will take care of itself.

Jann

What Do You Value?

Pam at Escape from Cubicle Nation has a wonderful New Year's post on making this year your year for freedom. She describes 12 ways to get more freedom into your life, each one a gem and I encourage you to check out her thoughts.

What I want to emphasize here, though, is that Pam is describing a key component of understanding your passions--that is, understanding your values, what's important to you. Pam has clearly found that freedom is a key value for her, not only in her work life but in all facets of her life. And she's made the important decision to bring her life into alignment with that value. I want to teach you how to do the same thing.

First, Know Your Values
As I said, your values are what's important to you in life. Some values may change over time--for example, caring for your children may be a primary value when they're younger, but becomes less important as they get older and more independent.  Other values tend to remain relatively constant.  I suspect that Pam's need for freedom is something that's always been there for her, although how she deals with that may have changed over time.

I firmly believe that the amount of satisfaction you get from your work and your life will be directly proportional to the degree that you understand your values and you have aligned your life with those values. But to truly understand them, you need to take a little time to look, first. So get out your journal . . . (you knew I was going to say that, didn't you?)

Stop the Voices in Your Head
Before you do anything else, stifle the voices in your head that tell you what you "should" value. Often that's how you got here in the first place, by listening to those voices. It's time to shut them up. It doesn't matter what your mother thinks. Or your significant other or your friends or "society." What matters is what YOU find to be important, what motivates and energizes YOU, not them. So ignore that voice that's telling you what you "should" do and try to hear the one that's just you.

The Checklist for Personal Values
In 1998, I was at a career crossroads and needed to make some major changes in my life. After a weekend with Charlotte Roberts' Checklist for Personal Values and my journal, I walked into my boss on Monday morning and quit my job. So you can see that this can be a pretty powerful force in the right circumstances.

What I want you to do is review Charlotte's checklist and follow the instructions to identify your top values. But before you do the prioritizing of values, I want you to really think about what you mean by each of the values you select. For example, for me, creativity was a huge thing. I needed to have that in my life. But how I felt and expressed creativity was different than how someone else might see it. Some people see creativity as being able to be artistic. Others see it in a larger sense of being able to explore and try out new ideas. To really understand how and why a value resonates for you, you need to think about exactly what you mean when you picture having that value in your life. Then go ahead and prioritize.

The Values Collage
More visual people and those who really struggle with that internal critic may benefit from adapting yesterday's collage exercise to explore their values. Go through your magazines again and find pictures and words that speak to what's important to you and put them in your journal or into a new collage. You might also pull personal memorabilia for this project--photos of family members, scrapbook items, etc. that say something about your personal values. Use the visual flow of information to dig down into what's important to you.

For the Very Career Focused
My personal belief is that your values permeate every aspect of your life, and getting clear about your overall values will be your surest route to satisfaction. But I also understand that some people are very "task-focused" and want to explore their values in the specific context of work. So one inventory you may want to try is this one. Strictly speaking, it covers some areas outside of what I would consider to be values, but it's still a good quick worksheet for those who are so inclined.

Now Ask Yourself--Is My Life in Alignment With My Values?
Regardless of the values identification strategies you used above, your next step is to look at whether or not your life is currently in alignment with your values. I'm going to warn you right now that if you're feeling dissatisfaction with your life, there's a high probability that at least some parts of your life are not supporting your core value structure. For most people I know, the greatest sources of sadness and frustration are living lives that are not in concert with their values, often because they are not conscious of the connections between the two.

How Do Your Activities Support Your Values?
For each value you selected, I want you to think honestly and carefully about your life and what activities you're engaging in that support that value. Let's say you wrote that "family" is important to you. I want you to write down everything you did in the last month that made that value visible in your life. Did you have family dinners?  Did you spend time with members of your family? Who did you spend time with? Is there someone you "left out?"

Please be very honest and very detailed in completing this list. It will tell you a lot about the alignment--or lack of alignment--you may be dealing with in your life.

How Would You Live Your Life Differently if You Were Going to Align it With Your Values?
Once you've listed everything you're currently doing to support your values, I want you to think carefully about what you would do differently to get your life more into alignment. How would work be different? How would you spend your "off-hours"? Again, be honest with yourself. But I also want you to think big--what would you REALLY want to have happening in your life? Don't worry right now about what's "possible." Just focus on what you need and want to do differently to be more aligned with your true self.

Take a Break
By now, you probably need to take a break. Give yourself some time to breathe and reflect and when you've been away from this for a few hours or days, come back to see what you've created. Look back at your passion exercises. Look at what you said about your values. If you have the right supportive people in your life, talk with them about what you're seeing and get their ideas and feedback too. Keep taking notes, observing and thinking. You'll be pulling all of this together later on, so for now, let it ferment and develop.

Next up, we'll take a look at your talents.

Michele

The End Doesn't Justify the Means-In Dr. King's time or Ours

Today is the day we in America celebrate the birthday one of the greatest Americans of the 20th Century, Dr. Martin Luther King. Dr. King has been a hero of mine for quite some time. I have always been awed by the strength to oppose violence with non-violence. The intelligence to understand the strength of winning your enemies through non-violent opposition is the truest way to peace. In this present world, where violence is the norm, both among individuals, in our entertainment, how zealots try to impose their thinking, and how nations deal with each other, I think of Dr. King and what he would think of our time. Last night I read one of his sermons, and I decided to share part of it with you. His message is a strong and relevant today as when he first spoke these words on Christmas Eve in 1967. I am shortening part of this and will use ... for omissions.

Dr. Martin Luther King:

This Christmas season finds us a rather bewildered human race. We have neither peace within nor peace without. Everywhere paralyzing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night. Our world is sick with war; everywhere we turn we see its ominous possibilities. And yet, my friends, the Christmas hope of peace and good will toward men can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. If we don't have good will toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power. Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. ...I would like to suggest that modern man really go out to study the meaning of nonviolence on an international scale.

...One of the great philosophical debates of history has been over the whole question of means and ends. And there have always been those who argued that the end justifies the means, that the means really aren't important. This important thing is to get to the end, you see.

So if you're seeking to develop a just society, they say, the important thing is to get there, and the means are really unimportant; any means will do as long as they get you there-they may be violent, they may be untruthful means; they may even be unjust means to a just end. There have been those who have argued this throughout history. But we will never get peace in the world until men everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making; and the end of process, and ultimately you can't reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.

....All this is saying that, in the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.

I read this and think of the things I never thought I would see in my country. Secret courts and the condoning of prisoner torture by the Attorney General of the United States. The lost of constitutional rights. The fact, that goes unprotested, that one's vote can't be verified on the newer electronic machines; and that war is the first road of choice rather than diplomacy. If the end is democracy and a just society, I have to question our means. I find it odd to say we are bringing democracy to Iraq while we destroy it here.

Jann

Finding Your Passions

Last Tuesday we started talking about finding the intersections between your Purpose, your Talents and Your Passions. Today I want to share with you some thoughts on how you can begin to discover your passions.

First, Remember That This is a Journey of Discovery
Many women I know are control freaks and perfectionists. I happen to be both of these things so I know whereof I speak.

One thing I know about we controlling perfectionists is that we want to always know what's around the bend, the one "right answer," the thing we can do to perfectly control the outcomes of our lives. But this is something you're just going to have to give up on your road to discovering who you are.

The truth is, many of us have learned to hide both our passions and our talents. For many complex personal and cultural reasons, it's been safer for many of us to pursue a path of what's "acceptable" rather than a path toward what we really want.

When we get into this headspace of wanting to control things, that's when we miss what we've hidden. We think we already know the answers and so we don't particularly want to be open to some of the questions. So I'm going to ask you to start by letting go of all preconceived ideas about yourself, all of the "shoulds" and "oughts"--all of that crap. I'm going to ask you to be an explorer in your own life and to be willing to be open to what may turn out to be some very surprising information about yourself. If you can't promise that, then you're not ready to begin the trip.

Exploring Your Passions

Kathy Ryndak and Gord Ridell write in the December issue of Vitality Magazine about some great strategies for living with passion. In addition to exploring your childhood dreams (as I mentioned yesterday), they also suggest creating a stream of consciousness list of all the things that get you excited, letting your imagination run wild and not stopping to edit yourself. Then go through your list and see how these things really make you feel.

I'm going to take things one step further, though. When you start to (inevitably) hear that critical voice tell you that you're crazy for thinking that you could live a particular passion, then you need to put a star next to those items. The louder that voice gets, the more stars you should put there. Let me tell you why.

In The Power of Flow (a book I'm currently re-reading and highly recommend) the authors point out that the purpose of our internal critic is to keep us safe. But the problem is that safe doesn't lead to passion. If you think about it, the times when you've felt most alive, most in touch with yourself were probably those times that had at least a tinge of risk to them.

In my experience, the more my brain shouts "You can't DO that," the closer I am to something I really want to do. Unless you're REALLY in touch with yourself (and most people aren't), then that loud voice shouting in your ear is actually pointing you in the direction of what may be your career salvation. So do the opposite of what it says. Listen to your heart, not your head.

Identify Your Passions' Building Blocks

To really get to the heart of your passions, I would suggest following Curt Rosengren's advice to find your passions' "building blocks. As you develop your list of passions, ask yourself "why?" What is it about that passion or idea that gets you excited?

For example, if you think "I'd love working with inner city young people" then think about what it is that excites you about that idea. Is it about helping young people reach their potential? Is there some particular thing you'd like to do with them like teach them photography or mentor them? The more you explore the reasons why an idea or passion is attractive to you, the more you will discover about yourself. This information will then help you broaden your horizons beyond some of your more immediate ideas. You'll gain greater in-depth knowledge of yourself that can offer additional insights you might miss on your first round through.

Get All Artistic With Yourself

An exercise that I've found works very well with most people is the "passion collage."

Your passions are very emotional, visceral pieces of you. Sometimes language can get in the way of tapping into that information, so you need to turn to pictures to bypass that part of your brain that simply can't put things into words. Even if you're someone who uses words frequently and well, I still suggest going through this exercise because it taps into the right side of your brain much more effectively than writing does. And it's in the right side of your brain that you'll find what gets you really excited. So here's what you do:

Gather several different magazines that have a lot of pictures related to the kinds of things that interest you. Find a quiet place to think and start going through them. (You might want to add some music to the mix--this can be helpful in getting you out of your left-brain, logical thinking side and help you tap into your right-brain feeling side)

Go through the magazines absorbing what you see. Look at pictures and phrases. Every time you see something that "speaks" to you, pull out that page and set it aside. Don't think a lot. Don't say "Now why do I like that?" or "Should I really add that to my pile?" If it attracts you in some way, pull it out and set it aside.

Once you've created a nice little pile for yourself, get yourself a glue stick and a large piece of reasonably sturdy paper or cardboard. If you're using an artist's sketchbook as your journal, you may want to paste things directly into your journal. If not, get yourself some sturdy surface to use for your collage.

Now go back through everything you've pulled out. Start cutting out pictures and words that capture what excites you. Try to put as little thought into this process as possible, please. We're trying to bypass your internal critic and the more time you give him/her to speak, the more likely you are to end up with something that's not really "you."

Again, without a lot of thought, start gluing images down on your paper. Let your brain be as free as possible and just give in to the flow of the imagery you're creating. Avoid judging. Avoid looking too closely at what you're doing and just create.

When you've completed the process, sit back and look at what you've created. What pictures and words have you used? How have you put them together? Are certain types of pictures clustered together? What does that mean? What kind of feeling do you get from the overall collage? Is there some larger theme or message that you see there?

Give yourself some time to process this. Then write down your immediate reactions in your journal. What did you discover about yourself? How does it make you feel? Did you see things that surprised you? Scared you a little? Made your brain say "You're KIDDING, right?" Note where you had particularly strong positive and negative reactions--this is all grist for your "passion mill."

You may want to return to your collage later and see if you find anything new. If you have positive, supportive people in your life, you may want to ask them what they see in it that could offer you insight (only do this if you know they are positive, though!). Use the work to get you into some parts of yourself that are beyond words. It will make a difference.

_____________________________________________________________________

These are just a few exercises to start tapping into your passions. Another piece of the process is understanding your values--what are the things that are most important to you. These are a "subset" of your passions, similar, but really getting at the ways that you want to live your life. Finding work that's in concert with your values is critical so we're going to spend some time tomorrow looking at how to identify your values in greater depth. 

Michele

Turn Your Problems into Hope

A minister I like to listen to talked this morning about turning your pain into help  for others. It is so simple, yet so powerful. He was talking about taking the times of challenge or loss in your life and use it to help others. He spoke of a man who had lost his wife of many years. He started going to funerals and comforting people because he understood their loss. Today he is the head of the "Comfort" ministry. If you've ever lost your job, you can comfort and advise those who are going through it now. If you think about it, those of us at the point of starting a Second Life have a lot of life experience. Maybe one of the most powerful things we can do in our Second Life is share our experience with others on the road of life.  I think all of us have great power to help each other.

I read a story that I think is related. Volunteerism is at an all time high in the United States. Is it a coincidence that we baby boomers are entering our Second Life at the same time this is happening? I don't think so. I think we feel the need to give back where we can.

Jann

Between Happiness & Tragedy is Life

Every human being on this planet is trying to make their life work; and at some point, I believe we judge our lives by what we could have done versus what we did. It seems to me that the human experience unites us all. This is a story of a woman who's record of her life could have easily been destroyed by her enemy. But in her diary, even those of stood on the opposite side of her beliefs saw themselves and saved a strong account of a short bright life.

The story, which I heard on NPR on my way home worrying about trivial things, is about a young Viet-Cong woman who left medical school during the Vietnam War to help her country fight the Americans. Her story wouldn't be known except for the determination of an American soldier to keep her diary and get it to her family even though everything she believed he was opposed to and his very existence in her country was abhorrent to her. Why did he do this? Because her diary is so honest, so painfully true to the human experience of war, that it had to be preserved. Her name is Dang Thuy Tram and I dare you to listen to some of the excerpts. Her diary is a smash hit in Vietnam these days and will be available in the US next year.

Here are a few of her entries:

April 8, 1968: Today I did an appendectomy without enough medicine, just a few tubes of Novocain. But the wounded young soldier never cried out or yelled. He just kept smiling, to encourage me. I felt so sorry for him, because his stomach is infected. I would like to tell him, 'Patients like you, who I cannot cure, cause me the most sorrow.'

April 30, 1968: Sadness soaks into my heart like days of rain soak into the earth. I want to find some mindless happiness, but I cannot. My mind has wrinkles already because of worry. Is there no way to erase them? Oh, why was I born a girl so rich with dreams, and with love, asking so much from life?

I hope you take the time to go to NPR and read more about her and hear her entries read aloud.

Jann

Letters to God

Some 300 Letters address to God washed ashore in Atlantic City. As the story says, some were humorous, but many were heartbreaking. No one knows exactly how they ended up in the ocean, although, the writer speculates that someone threw them into the ocean rather than the trash as a way to "bless" them. The letters initially were addressed to a minister in Jersey City, New Jersey. According to the text of several of the letters, he was to place the letter on the church alter for the minister or the church congregation or both for prayer. The minister died two years ago and it is speculated that they were found by whoever was cleaning out his out house. The person who found them in the ocean noted that they were in plastic bags as if someone wanted to protect them; and, they appeared not to have been in the ocean long. The person who found the letters is also placing these letters, full of people's names and anguished appeals to God about their private hells, on EBay for auction. I guess he thought that would be a way to honor these prayers to God. I hope a good Samaritan buys them and destroys them. No doubt, this individual is counting on those people who wrote letters to this minister to bid in the auction. I have an idea. Be blessed by returning them to their owners rather than trying to extort money from them. Remember, you're building your own karma, and I personally wouldn't want to get on God's bad side, but that's me. I think today as my spiritual endeavor, I'll pray that this man has a change in heart.

Jann

Sunday is Spirit: Fear Can Help You Grow

One of the things I've always tried to do to get past moments of anxiety, is think about what was my motivation. Was it to do what's right or to save my own skin? In my case, I asked the Higher Power to bless this work if it is good, and to change it if it is wrong and to give me the courage to accept either outcome. (Hey, isn't there a prayer like this that's used by Alcoholics Anonymous?) Like B Bob, I can't say I can keep that attitude all the time, but I try.

So my thought of the day on spirit is this: Don't let your fears destroy your spirit's growth. Use it to learn. I actually have a great deal of affection for failure and fear IF (and really you can do this) you use it for growth. I read a chapter in a book called, "Information Anxiety" that I loved. It was "In Praise of Failure." It talked about how many great innovations came out of the repeated failed attempts of the inventors. Nothing teachs like failure or fear. When you feel fear, try to step outside the situation and get some perspective on it. I often find that I am attributing meaning to things that may mean nothing. I've also started exploring my own talents, trusting them more and this has given me more confidence. Confidence, in turn, has left me less susceptible to the whims of people acting out of fear. Try to analyze the situation. Michele's insight helped me feel better about work and more sympathic to those I was angry with. Fear ain't a good place to live, but it can be a good lay-over. Try to use fear as a tool of personal growth.

Jann