Tag: work

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Clean Slates

 

 

I am at work, experiencing a clean slate. I spent the last few months at Jury Duty (this is something I will talk about later in detail 🙂 ) aware from my office. So, I have a clean slate. My projects are essentially gone, and my group has gone along without me. I almost come in as a new person on the team.

[bctt tweet=”Clean slates are scary because, if we aren’t careful, they offer a chance to slide back into bad habits. “]

Clean slates are scary because, if we aren’t careful, they offer a chance to slide back into bad habits.

Clean slates are wonderful because they offer a chance to take what we have learned and build on it.

Like many scary things, they are necessary because they allow us to grow.  We get a chance at real freedom because of what a clean slate can offer. Freedom is scary, but it opens us up to the potential that we all have.

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Dealing with No: Goldfish And Elephant

A few friends of mine are going through auditions. It is a scary time in any performers life. Imagine going up in front of a group of people you don’t know and showing them your skill, hoping for a yes. All the personality someone who knows you is off the table, it becomes a cold process for someone to judge you and you alone. Imagine a performance review from that boss you hate, and then multiply it by 10.

Whenever I audition I try to keep myself in the best mental shape . I try to get good sleep, I try to eat well, lay off the alcohol, and meditate as much as I can.  I find myself doing the same with any review, interview, or consultation. I review the notes that I have and get as best prepared as I can. I try to accept whatever comes.

Those small changes help when you hear the “no” (there is no avoiding “no”).  Some of the preparation can help you during the review, but eventually you will end up in a place that is hard to enjoy(rejection). When it happens to me, I generally wince, lick my wounds, and try to recover from that gut punch the right “no” can give you.

There are ways to help yourself after hearing that “no”.Having a group of friends will help the “no”. Changing your mindset can help the “no”. But, what sometimes gets lost is that “no” is an opportunity to learn more about yourself, toughen your resolve, and become better. There are two mindsets that help you grow.

  • Goldfish – Write down all of your problems and mistakes on a notebook you carry with you (I enjoy using a  wallet sized moleskin or one of those 5 star notebooks. They are small enough to fit in your pocket). Then work on forgetting what just happened. Set up another audition or nerve-racking event immediately (don’t do it immediately, but put in on the schedule). Go find something you like to do, call those friends, watch your favorite movie and put that pain behind you.
  • Elephant – After a few weeks, pick up that notebook.  GO through those problems you saw and start to develop ways to improve. The key here is to take any ounce of self sabotage out, try not to beat yourself up. Everyone makes mistakes, this is the reason you overcome and defeat them.

The elephant and goldfish method are ways to create a better relationship with failure and systematize for improvement.

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Mind Readers Don’t Need Communication

People are not mind readers. There is nothing more frustrating than someone saying one thing and meaning another.  It leads into several bad places, chief among them an expectation on someone who doesn’t know what you want. It leaves both the communicator and the communicated upset. It just leaves everyone confused including the communicator. When I hear it it’s often layered in  false humility or humor.

We hate when it happens to us, but we seem to do it to others with impunity. We tell everyone else about our issue, but not the person we communicated with. And we begin another cycle of embarrassment and resentment.  When questioned, we become masters of body language and cultural edicts. The phrase “they know” is often thrown around. Someone else actions become layered in our thoughts, creating all types of anguish.

Good communication has a level of feeling in it. We are natural BS detectors. We are able to discern something honest and not honest subconsciously. Our lives used to depend on it for most of human history. We have to connect to our emotion and be honest about what we feel as we talk about what we want. This doesn’t mean harsh either. The truth is not license to let off steam. We can talk about how we feel without going to extremes.

You can discuss any emotion with a little practice. Anger, disappointment, resentment – all these things are valid feelings. When you communicate with those feelings, your message becomes more powerful.

The basis of great communication lies in truth. When we open our mouth, make a gesture or write, we are responsible  to try to do our best. Bad communication doesn’t allow us to do that, and it muddles our energy. When we communicate effectively, it improves every other aspect of our actions and , most importantly, things get done.

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“No One Else Works Around Here”

“No one else works around here.”

We are all guilty of it. Sometimes we feel unappreciated. As a result, we begin to look for someone who isn’t “pulling their share”. We now have someone to throw our hurt on. “So and so isn’t doing any work – how dare they”.

I used to do it often. For me, it was an escape. I got to show my worth when anyone asked by pointing out my accomplishment compared to someone else. I would tell anyone who would listen, and I would look for some sort of praise when I did it. Sometimes, people would agree, and then we would have long conversations about who wasn’t pulling their weight. It’s intoxicating, telling yourself and others that you are the real hero. Getting positive feedback about it feels better still.

This is a waste of energy. I realized it when sitting by a water cooler (how cliché was that) I found myself, again, complaining. Nothing got done.  All we did was indulge ourselves with negative energy through gossip. It’s the stuff that feels good going down but paralyzes us coming out.

By focusing on what people “do” we take time away from doing what we can. We waste our energy on petty things instead of making ourselves a high performer. That energy could be used to create something remarkable. If the mission where you are inst critical, take the gossip time and start building your own thing. There is opportunity out there for people who can create through any circumstance.

With that said, if you find yourself where you are creating, and no one else is doing anything (this can happen), and the mission doesn’t make sense (this is just a job)… I suggest two options.

A) Go find a place where you aren’t shouldering all the work

B) If that isn’t so easy, do stuff that matters until someone can’t help but hire you.

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Impulse and Beating Yourself Up

I hate being impulsive.

Relying on impulse is the easiest thing to run to when a situation isn’t going well. The impulse is the great mental escape, and it feels good to answer the first impulse and ride it until the wheels fall off.

There are several culprits to whet my appetite for impulse. If my phone is around, check it, tweet, send some texts out. If I am at a bar, grab a drink and get lost into space. If I am at a restaurant, grab some food and get into the taste. The  impulsive feeling is strong. It feels good and makes me comfortable. These are things I control. I will do anything to take myself out of discomfort, even if it is only for a second.

I always admire the people who get the big things done. When I think of them, I think of self-discipline and willpower. With that said, after picking up the book Daily Rituals, I recognize that is an over simplification.  The book talks about the rituals of many people whose work I respect. They are people who got some big things done. They were also impulsive. They didn’t have the cell phone, but they had a newspaper. They didn’t have a movie house, but they had a play. There was always a drink or a drug, but they learned that a system based approach works better than anything else.

Two lessons I picked up. One, beating myself up isn’t going to make me better. Self discipline matters and so does willpower, but one must factor humanity. I am not a robot so I can’t pretend that I won’t mess up and I won’t have impulses.  Two, when you feel odd, make sure you have a huge book collection. The wisdom that you can grab from a book is always there, it doesn’t change its words, and you learn without judgement.

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Why Do I Have To Do This?

It was beautiful in New York City yesterday.  It was a crisp 72 degrees, the birds were chirping, and I had a mini nervous breakdown. It started in the shower of all places, all from a single question.

Why am I doing this? That kept ringing in my head. Over and over again. Why am I trying for more? Why am I installing these whiteboards with to-do lists? Why am I taking classes? Why am I working on this nonprofit and startup? I could just sit back and relax.What happened in the world didn’t need to concern me. I have a stable life, a cushy job, and an apartment that doesn’t cost too much. I could just rely on that in life, and spend my time enjoying the rest of it.  I could just sit in this apartment, grab a drink, go watch a game and kiss the rest of this stuff goodbye.

That frame of thinking is well and good, but it also leaves me at the whim of the other people. I know this intellectually but it is hard to swallow in the moment when you feel uncomfortable with the unknown.I want self-sufficient and this is the cost of business.

To rely on the world as it is, to think that we are the same tomorrow as we are today is irresponsible. Our goals are different from someone elses, and since we want to lean on ourselves, we have to pay that cost. We are our own worst enemy.   I don’t know a single person who has someone in their life that is harder on them than they are on themselves. We are our harshest critics.

So I picked myself off the floor, and headed to the local coffee shop. There was some work that I have to do. Marching on is hard. The alternative is easier in the short run, but consequences of an easier life is often being at the whim of someone else.

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By All Means Sleep

Please do – its your biggest hurdle between you and your best work. Sleep is critical and helps the entire thinking process.

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Ideas and Story

I hate that I can’t really talk about ideas fluently.  They often get into my head, stay there for a while, gain some steam, and leave just as fast as it came. There is nothing better to me than getting a fresh idea and nothing worse than losing one.

The great thing about ideas is they make themselves available throughout the day. Each time you come into contact with something, you get the opportunity to have an idea appear. This process happens in the back ground (thank god) and the time can vary from idea to idea. I once had an idea pop up in my head months after walking in the Brooklyn Art Museum, I only remembered the origin of the idea when looking at a subway map (odd I know – have to love New York). These ideas come up quicker when you are uncomfortable, as if being uncomfortable was a tax for getting better ideas. Same with new experiences (which are often uncomfortable). I try to schedule in new activities through the week and see what sticks. Its fun.

That is all well and good, except ideas don’t mean anything at that point. The idea is imaginary. Value comes into turning that idea into reality. One of the ways to do that is through learning how to craft the idea into a story. Building a narrative with the idea keeps it in place. If you’re determined to work with that, I think it gets harder and harder to lose it. It gets harder and harder to lose that idea to the void. Sometimes it hurts, because growing hurts.It is easy being bad but learning how to deal with bad ideas puts you on the path of good ones.

It stands that I have to get better at telling them. Making those ideas stick, and putting them in places where they cannot leave so easily.

 

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Fear and Moving Forward

I get scared when I improve.

Every time I get a little better at something I get nervous. I feel like there is an expectation on my improvement, that I will owe something to someone because I improved.

The fear helps me understand where to go.

It sounds silly as I read it back, but it happens without fail when I try to make life better. Expectation scares me. The fear tries to stop me from doing the work, and thinking several steps ahead, I take a look at what stops me from doing the things I enjoy. But when I beat that fear, I find myself in a way better place than before.

There are two things that help me move forward:

1) When I try to take things one step at a time, this goes away and I realize I can do just one thing in front of me. This advice has helped me a ton. One step in front of the other can get you far if you let it.

2) When I get someone else involved – guilt pushes me a little further. I get to set up goal posts to guide my journey down the road. These feel like light posts, guiding me.

Knowing things help calm me down. Keeping the picture small and having defined points also help calm me down. Cutting through the fear helps me know that I can do it…

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Practice and Silence

People lose themselves in the boredom of practice. It is very draining, dealing with repetition. Who wants engagement with the same stimulus, over and over again?

Practice isn’t a door to the public. Deliberate practice isn’t something that is worth viewing at all. It is hard, it is scary, and when it’s right, it’s  ugly. It is marathon, and you test your endurance against the silence that exists when no one cares and no one wants to see.

There in lies the secret. The best work connects to silent endured. The difference between a professional and an amateur lies in the quiet parts, where our brains make noise, be seen, and disengage from the uncomfortable. And there is nothing more uncomfortable than silence.

The silence is daunting and engulfs all to become the star of the show.  This is a massive strike against the ego, because we all want stardom. There is something in us that wants eyes on us, no matter what the consequences. We fight against that constantly. Even the best try to break out and reach comfortable land, where everyone else is. Al Pacino still goes to The Actors Studio, Tom Brady still goes to the field to throw, Chris Rock still heads to the comedy club. The greatest understand the surrender to silence, and how much work it takes to not pick up arms against it.

To be engaged, we stand outside the public, to see and understand what is happening in the world. That place is silent, but it allows us to see, and ultimately create something that connects. You cannot get to the connection without first getting through to the silence and surrendering. What practice helps us with ultimately, is the surrender to the silence and that silence is the first step to making something great.

So practice deliberately, when and where you can. Engaging in your practice, even if it is just 5 minutes a day, is getting you closer to great art.

 

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