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Other people are crazy.  Of this, I am quite sure.  

Today’s revelation is that other people’s crazy is my opportunity.  And here I thought that I would have to endure the crazy visited upon me by a bunch of other people who have a history of crazy that I don’t quite trust.  Yet, here I am, laughing because their crazy is my opportunity.

I told Jeff: coach everyone.  Just a few weeks later, crazy has turned into not-as-crazy, and opportunity slaps me in the face.  

Oh yeah, carpe diem: seize the fish.

 I am nothing without them.  

Without them, I am just me.  Alone.  Powerless.  I can talk, talk talk.  I can write, write, write.  I can walk around in circles patting my head and rubbing my stomach.  I can do all that and recite the Gettysb…a dirty limerick…while beat-boxing, but I would still be nothing if not for them.

Without them, I would mostly in my head.  The majority of my day would be spent just sitting there.  Staring at a screen.  Reading stuff on the internet.  I’d feel important.  I’d feel like I was doing something worthwhile.  I’d feel like all the reading was going to make a huge difference in the world.  But it wouldn’t.  Because I would be nothing without them.

I am nothing without them.

Here’s how I define nothing: vacuous, without substance, and devoid of meaning.  That’s a pretty comprehensive description of nothing, if you ask me.  Carve the hours you are asleep out of the day.  Carve out the hours you’re driving here there.  Carve out the hours you’re engaged in acts of hygiene and bodily functions.  Carve out the hours you meander aimlessly.  Carve out all that time, and you’re left with very little “other” time.  For me, that’s the time I get to spend with my family, and that time is precious.

But they aren’t the ones about which I write.

Of course my family gives my life meaning.  Of course they influence the purpose I pursue in my life.  Much of what I do, I do for them because we are part of an interdependent collective.  We’re a family!  But the time I spend with them is slim compared to the time I spend at work.  And at work, I am called a leader.

I am nothing without those I lead.

You see, I make nothing.  I build nothing.  I program nothing.  My purpose is to lead, to manage.  My existence, according to the company, is to ensure that the people I lead have the type of working environment they need in order to get things done, important things.  

They are the company.  Without me, they continue on.  I am replaced.  They keep working.  

At first, this seems like a very strange realization to have.  Andrew Carnegie purportedly said:

“Take away my people and leave my factories,and soon grass will grow on the factory floors.
Take away my factories but leave my people, and soon we will have new and better factories.”

I wonder what he would have said about middle management?  He probably would have said something like, “Take away a middle manager, and two more will grow in its place.”  

We spend an awful lot of time at work.  I think those of us who choose to lead others should be clear about our purpose.  And I think we should be clear about who we serve.  Without a spirit of servitude, you’re pretty much left with a middle manager and a grassy factory floor.  Oh, there may still be people there, but you’d be farther away from that new and better factory than you could possibly imagine.

I learned the most about mourning from, of all things, a business book I read a few years ago about managing through transitions in large corporations.  The book, in fact, is called “Managing Transitions” by William Bridges.  I’ve talked and written about it many times.  It’s funny how it is only in retrospect that you realize how influential a book has been in your life.

The most important thing I learned is that mourning is a doorway into the possibilities of the future.  When we experience a great change in our lives, we must mourn what was, what existed before the change.  We mourn what could have been.  We mourn what we often believe SHOULD have been.  Most importantly, we always, always mourn for ourselves.  We seldom mourn for anyone else but ourselves.  When we do, it is brief.  Mourning, it turns out, is a very personal act of release.

Unfortunately, it is quite possible to never get beyond the mourning.

You see, in our society, we mourn for in public for a period.  Then we stop.  We stop because we believe we must.  Our mourning then becomes private.  Mourning becomes a solitary act.  We suppress the urge.  We suppress the feelings.  We wish them away.  We bury them deep.  But, as the saying goes, emotions buried never die.  It is at this point that we betray our best interest and keep the cycle of mourning from completing.

Mourning is a doorway.  It is just a step in a larger cycle.  Mourning allows us to move on from our fixation on what was and what could have been to what will be.  What will be…this is the future of limitless possibilities.  Sometimes, particularly in a large organization or corporation, what will be is outlined in a vision statement or a document of some kind around which people can rally in order to build a new future.  Unfortunately, in our personal lives we seldom have such a concise, well-defined visionary document.

But that shouldn’t stop us from moving forward.

While we may not have a document, what we have is vision.  We have our mind’s eye to show us what the future can be.  There is, of course, danger in once again living outside the present moment and in our heads once again.  We can fixate on a better tomorrow…always tomorrow…that will never come.  If our vision is always on the horizon…well, have you ever chased the horizon?  It has a habit of always been far ahead…on the horizon.

Imagine what can be.  Then look to what is, to what is in front of you.  Give thanks for the present moment.  Be grateful for life and love and everything beautiful surrounding you.  This is the place where you will find grace.

Feel your pain.  Mourn.  But do not let too many “nows” pass you by.

I heard a great quote today:

“700 years ago, the idea of a ‘job’ was totally alien to us.”

The point of the quote is this: 700 years ago everything people did they did for themselves. They made their own clothes. They made their own shelters. They gathered their own food. The fruit of their work belonged to them, and it meant something. Today…today things are different. Today, we have jobs, and jobs are…? What? What is a job, anyway?

Merriam-Webster defines “job” this way: a small miscellaneous piece of work undertaken on order at a stated rate. A small, miscellaneous piece of work? Sheesh. That sounds so…impersonal. Unfortunately, for many of us, it is.  You see, the product of the work belongs to someone else. The output and the reason for undertaking the task are determine by one person while the actual execution of the task belongs to another.  Once that task is complete, the output is handed over to another for their profit, to fulfill their business objective. Payment to perform the task belongs to the worker. That’s it.

At the beginning of the Industrial Age, people made machines to cut down on the effort required to make something. In effect, the same work could be done in less time. But instead of leaving more time for the individual, it resulted in more stuff being made. People started trading and selling their surplus stuff. Productivity was increased by machines. Eventually, somebody bought a second machine to make more stuff. Or maybe somebody decided they didn’t want to run the machine and hired a person to do it for them. Either way, there was a machine, and an owner who didn’t want to do the work.  Somebody needed to run it, so the owner paid for the labor. The first job was born.

In the process of taking on these jobs, people became accustomed to work that was divorced from the end result. The product of the work, the output of the job, became completely and utterly meaningless to the worker. This is the world of work in which we labor today. We move money around that doesn’t really exist. We provide services in support of products that often don’t really exist. We create and maintain vast virtual storehouses of information. We deal in vaporware. We deal in “stuff.”  Worse, it is stuff that exists simply to fulfill our desire to have stuff.

The story is longer, and Seth Godin tells it exceptionally well. You can find it on his blog here. My focus is on this point: we work to make money to get stuff, and most of the work we do is aimed at creating the stuff we want to buy with the money we make. We make stuff. We get paid. We use the money to buy stuff. The stuff sells. We stay in business. We make more stuff. The cycle is a circle, and it’s a pretty crazy circle at that.

I don’t advocate a return to the days of Laura Ingalls Wilder and that little house she made so famous. But the stuff…so much stuff…keeps piling up. You might switch your stuff out. You might throw your old stuff away. You might donate your old stuff. It doesn’t matter. Once the stuff is made, it exists. There is no such place as “away.” When we don’t want to look at the stuff, we bury it. That can’t be healthy, either physically or emotionally.

What I do advocate is consideration for what you do to make money and what you are doing with that money. As I’ve said before, I’m not here to judge. I am here to make observations, to share my opinion. My observation is simply that 700 years ago, a job as we know it today was an alien idea. Somehow, without these jobs and all this stuff, people survived. They thrived. We’re here 700 years later as proof. That being the case, simply take a look at what you do to make money and what you do with that money. Make sure that stuff isn’t in charge of the cycle. Make sure that you are. Doing so increases your chances of finding the kind of lasting happiness that I know we all want.

Not everyone wants to step up and lead. Some people prefer to operate in the background. They prefer the path of least resistance. They prefer to not stand up and stand out. They simply want to contribute, do a good job, and go home at the end of each day. And they want some level of security that the jobs they do very capably today will be there for them tomorrow. This isn’t an unreasonable thing to want. Besides that, the world needs people who want to work and work hard. There is a labor need to be addressed, and these are the people who will fulfill it.

The problem for some people, though, is that the labor they perform can be performed elsewhere in the world, often for cheaper. The security that people crave is more tenuous today than it was 10 years ago. This isn’t a new development; we’ve been seeing this trend for years. It’s here to stay. Don’t expect it to change any time soon. The business world is fueled by profit. To say it’s fueled by money is really a mistake. It’s not the money that’s sought. It’s the profit that’s the key. Profit means power much more so than money does. We all know people who make a lot of money, but they spend just as much. There’s no leverage in that lifestyle, at least no leverage that is sustainable. And there is no profit. No profit, no leverage, no power. Nothing. It’s bound to result in an empty lifestyle that will fail to satisfy. With the target of increased revenue always moving upward, the incentive to move labor to cheaper, distant shores will also move upward. This does not bode well for the person who wants only to continue doing what they’ve always done until their time to retire arrives. Don’t expect too much from that retirement, either, under this situation.

The good news is that there is a world of work out there to be done. There are places in the world where there are skills gaps that aren’t being fulfilled by the local population. The world of work is growing. It is evolving into a borderless, multi-national, virtual world of work in which anyone, anywhere has the opportunity to play a role. People just need to be willing to think differently about the work that they do, the labor they perform. If you choose to not think differently and instead seek out the same work you’ve always sought, then expect the same results you’ve always gotten. Or, better said, expect the new results that are arising for the old world laborer. The new world laborer with a new world view has a much greater opportunity for fulfillment and for generating income. Whether that income is profitable or not remains another topic altogether.

What matters most is whether or not you find yourself with the desire to do something different in the new world of work. There is no right or wrong answer. There are only choices.

There are only ever choices.

Obviously, there’s something going on with LiveJournal because I continue to try to post only to find all my text obliterated. This is a real bummer. There’s a lesson here somewhere that I am failing to understand. Perhaps I will retell my cool analogy about chicken farming and working through change. Perhaps the Universe just wants me to save this one. Who knows.

Sails are windless. I go to sleep now…

I have a weekly reminder on my calendar to study the four concepts below. They are the four branches of Emotional Intelligence. The definition of Emotional Intelligence (I’m going to stop capitalizing now) varies slightly depending on who’s supplying it and whether or not they are trying to sell you their methodology for leveraging it, but, in essence, it is our ability to observe and make use of our emotions and the emotions of others. That about sums it up.

The reason I have this reminder is twofold. First, I think it’s a great idea to remain conscious of the concept of emotional intelligence. It reminds me that there is great value in being aware of my own emotional state throughout the day and the emotional state of those around me. That awareness allows me to enter into each interaction with eyes and heart wide open. I think it makes me more effective in just about everything I do. Besides that, it helps in avoiding emotional ambushes. Nobody likes those.

The second reason I keep this reminder going is because being conscious of the four branches helps remind me that there is more to being a lay student of emotional intelligence than just being aware of emotions and emotional states. Once you have information, you have to do something with that information. We all subconsciously leverage the four branches: we perceive each others emotions; we use emotions to communicate; we seek to understand emotions in our relationships; and we definitely manage emotions. Most people don’t like the negative connotations of the word “manipulate.” I would use it, though, to describe what we do with emotions all day long: we manipulate our own emotions and the emotions of others. What form that manipulation takes and to what end we manipulate…well, that’s where the “good” and “bad” of it comes in. The simple fact is that we use emotional intelligence to…mold…emotions and behaviors all day long.

Why is this important? Emotional intelligence is like any other form of intelligence. It is a skill that can and should be developed. The first step is being aware that it exists. The second step is becoming aware of our own emotions throughout the day. Like I like to tell people, the strong emotional reactions we have to events and people are great indicators that we need a deeper dive into why WE react the way we do. I have found that the more attuned I make myself to my own emotional fluctuations, the fewer and less extreme these become. As I go about my day and tiredness creeps in, the less likely I am to remain conscious. And when consciousness goes…let’s just say I can be a weenie towards the end of the day if I am not careful. Just ask my family.

There are more reasons to increase and develop your emotional intelligence. For now, I think the most important thing you can do is start to strive to become more conscious of your own emotional state. In time, it will become more second nature. You’ll find that you’ll be able to catch yourself when you start going into dark, unhappy places. How you address those moments is up to you. I highly recommend finding a way to not just catch but save yourself from those dark, unhappy places. Your colleagues, friends, and family just might notice!

The Four Branches of Emotional Intelligence:

Perceiving Emotions: The ability to perceive emotions in oneself and others as well as in objects, art, stories, music, and other stimuli

Facilitating Thought: The ability to generate, use, and feel emotion as necessary to communicate feelings or employ them in other cognitive processes

Understanding Emotions: The ability to understand emotional information, to understand how emotions combine and progress through relationship transitions, and to appreciate such emotional meanings

Managing Emotions: The ability to be open to feelings, and to modulate them in oneself and others so as to promote personal understanding and growth

The funny thing about today is that it’s already here. If you aren’t paying attention, it’ll have it’s way with you.

My kids were on their Spring Break last week. I took one day off to go to the Museum of Science and Industry with the family: Lynn, the boys, and me. We had a good time. It wasn’t really that long a day, to be honest, but it made us all tired. We had a lunch at the Chicago Diner. It’s the tastiest vegetarian and vegan food in the whole city. I mean, you can get good food in all kinds of places, but the Chicago Diner has been featured on The Learning Channel for a reason. I had their award-winning “Reuben” sandwich before. The corned beef isn’t “real” in that not beef had to die and be corned in order to make it. Right up my alley. My oldest ordered spaghetti with “meatballs” in a restaurant, and I ordered a barbecue “ribs” sandwich for the first time since in almost two years. Mac-n-Cheeze for the little guy and a Philly Cheeze Steak sandwich for Lynn. We all smiled. It’s nice to walk into a restaurant and know that you can order ANYTHING on the menu. The only thing to consider is what tastes good. It’s a small pleasure but still a pleasure.

So, lazy days last week kept me from the keyboard. To be honest, I’m trying to figure out what to focus on in my writing. What matters? What’s relevant? Why bother? I’ve been doing this for over a year now, and my writing is all over the place. I am not sure if that makes a difference or not, but I feel like I should focus my energy differently. I don’t know…maybe it’s nothing. Maybe I’m just letting uncertainty elsewhere insinuate itself into other aspects of my personality. We’ll see…I’m not in a rush to figure this out. I just need to get back into the discipline of writing on a regular basis and reaffirm my commitment to myself. That commitment is to practice the art of writing.

Write is what I intend to continue doing.

That’s me: an artist in search of art.

I like Seth Godin’s definition of art: something created to have an impact, freely given from one human being to another as a gift.  He says it is what we are doing when we do our best work.  It’s not just about paints and chisels and wood-carving tools.  It is not about canvas and marble and a block of mahogany.  

Art is about action.

Art is about painting.  Art is about sculpting.  Art is about carving.  Art is about performing.  Art is about dancing.  Art is about strumming a guitar.  Art is about singing a song.  Art is about writing a novel.  Art is about coaching a client.  Art is about customer service.  Art is about every action taken by every person who chooses to infuse their essence into the activity in service of someone…or everyone…else.

Art is about giving.  

Art is about giving of yourself.  Freely.  Without expectation of anything in return.  

Art is love.  And love…love is art.

Let’s practice our art.  Let’s fill the world with art.

I am an artist in search of art.