Helping individuals, businesses, and organization leaders through coaching, hiring assistance, behavioral assessments, problem solving, training, and facilitation
Work. Sometimes it can feel as if life is passing you as each day blends into the next. I was talking about this a lot with a friend when two events happened.
1. We got to participate in a creative event where people are encouraged to use their creativity.
2. An invitation came to do a talk on work life balance.
The enclosed video was the result. I hope you enjoy it.
Credits:
Photos (all the good ones): Iain Young
Song: Work, by Jars of Clay
Piles of rocks or stones (Cairns) are found all over the world. They have marked graves, guided travelers and become shrines for worship.
Lately it seems like they are the favorite way to mark trails when you hike in the winter so you do not lose your way.
Stones seem to have a similar importance for me, my family and a few close friends. We find ourselves making cairns when we go to the beach. We also have a habit of collecting stones that mark events in our lives. That walk, that hike, that special occasion typically ends with someone getting a new stone. Yes we are the kind of people who give stones as gifts.
During this season of being thankful, I find myself reflecting on events, people, and memories that have positively shaped my life. It is easy to reflect when times are good, or when the season encourages us. It becomes much harder when the storms enter our lives.
On my desk at work is a small wooden box. The box contains a pile of stones. There is a stone for each of my children. There is stone for my wife, our marriage, and that great walk on the beach. There are stones for other important occasions as well. This cairn is a daily reminder to guide my path especially during hard times. Remembering the positive can be hard, but having a tangible reminder each day helps me to stay on the path.
In the midst of a storm, it is all too easy to focus on the chaos, what might go wrong, or how this storm is too big for us to handle. When the storm comes (and they always do) just picking up those stones seems to connect me to what is important…what really matters.
As you reflect on what you are thankful for, I encourage you to find a stone or some other tangible way to remember those events. And may it become a way to mark your path.
Yes it is true. Today is my birthday. Another year has passed. I am a year older and (hopefully) wiser.
You may be thinking: That is great Carl, but what does that have to do with us? Did you just do this so we would say “Happy Birthday?”
Answer: Keep reading, I will do my best. And what is wrong with saying “Happy Birthday?” I am not going to make you sing today, but that would be cool…anyway I digress.
Birthdays for me are a time to reflect. A time to think about the past year and answer a few questions.
1. Did I live my sentence this year?
2. Did I accomplish my goals?
3. Have I made progress? Both personally and professionally?
4. Why or why not?
This process helps provide focus and direction the goals for the next year to begin to form. So as you may have guessed, it starts with more questions.
What do I want to be? This one requires a little explanation. I have noticed an interesting thing as we age, we stop asking this question. As if once you reach a certain age, the rest of the story is written and you cannot try something new, change your career, or take a new risk. I was talking to a friend recently and we agreed that as we get older, our behavior should become riskier…skydiving here we come!
What is the most important thing I could improve to be more effective with my wife, kids, co-workers, clients?
What is my greatest fear? I will try to remember to write more about this one. We give fear too much credit and far too great a role in our lives.
I was fortunate to grow up living next to my great grandmother. We would regularly go over and hang out, talk and play games. One thing I remember about her is this little saying that everyone saw when you walked in her door:
We get too soon old and too late smart.
I am often reminded of this little saying as I reflect on my life each year. It is funny to look back each decade and realize how much your perspective changes and how much “smarter” you may have become. We cannot control the fact that we are getting older. We can control the progress we make each year.
She also had one more saying hanging next to the first one.
The secret to a long life is eating fresh vegetables and fruits for 85 years.
Thanks Gram. I am almost halfway there.
It snowed last night. According to my neighbor is snowed 11 inches last night. It snowed 11 inches in October. I heard that the previous record for snow in October was about 3 inches, so take that 1908. Honestly, I don’t actually know which year held the previous record. If you do, post it and let us all know.
I guess I could Google it, but this is the first time I have had power in about 24 hours, and this blog and you are my first priority. What I do know is that snow knocked out our power. The power at our house is still out, but our friend let us come over and borrow some warm water, heat and wireless internet. You know, the essentials.
This morning, despite the lack of power, I witnessed our neighborhood help each other. It is the funniest thing, we live relatively solitary lives. We are pretty busy, our houses are close, and most of us work so much that we are “hey” neighbors.
Definition of “hey” neighbor: someone you see when you walk from your car to your door and say “hey” and wave as you enter your house and live your own life.
Every time it snows, we become a little community. Those with snow blowers go help those with shovels. Those with shovels go and help with the walks and paths for others. For a brief moment, we all connect, share, talk and work together. Sometimes I wonder why we don’t connect without the snow.
Despite the inconvenience of the lack of power, maybe snow is just what we need.
P.S. To the neighbor with the full-house generator: we are so happy for you, but next time please shut off your Christmas lights…we are cold and it doesn’t help.
I was meeting with someone the other day to help them understand who they are behaviorally. A lot of what I do is helping people with their journey in life and work and how their particular behavioral style works for them (the good news) and how it doesn’t (the bad news).
Coffee shops and bookstores with coffee shops are a great venue to deliver such news. For no other reason, both options provide a great opportunity to people-watch while waiting for the other person to arrive. The other fun thing about these public places is how often those around us appear to be so engaged with our conversations about how and why we live, work and communicate that they cannot help but eavesdrop.
During meetings with people I ask a lot of questions.
“How has your style become a barrier at work?”
“When was the time your style really worked for you?”
“How do others perceive you?”
During this particular meeting as we sipped lattes in that bookstore, another question came to mind. Well, a lot of questions always do during meeting like this, but one kept bubbling up inside my head and I couldn’t shake it. As I listened and heard more and more about how busy life for this person can be, I had to ask it.
“When was the last time you had a few moments for yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“When have you ever stopped scheduling things for everyone else, and just went to a bookstore like this and just walked around?”
“Never.”
How often do you have a few moments for yourself? If you are like most of the people I talk to…not very often. Life is full of our work and managing our lives. At the end of the day, you can lose yourself and the things you would like to do. Maybe I think about this more because I am now half way through this life. Between a pretty demanding job, a family, and a lawn that always seems to need mowing, time can just simply slip away.
It is ironic that someone will schedule time with me at one of these places, even if they won’t schedule time for themselves…at the same places. It is tragic how many times everything else dominates our schedules leaving no time for us.
As our bookstore meeting was winding down, I couldn’t help myself. I had to return to the matter at hand.
“So, we are already in a bookstore. I am leaving. You could take the next hour or so for yourself and just wander around.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
And they did. I got an email a few days later describing how wonderful it was. Life can be busy, especially when your job and situation requires you to constantly serve and coordinate everyone else. What does your schedule look like? Does your name appear on it?
Take a few moments for yourself. Put YOU on your schedule.
You are worth it.
Are you tired? If you are anything like anyone I know, you are tired. You are not alone. Everyone is Tired. I was recently listening to a podcast by Ruth Haley Barton and she mentioned a “tired continuum” as a way to measure how tired we are. While explaining this to my graphics friend she came up with this illustration.
(I like that it looks like a gas gauge.)
In describing this continuum, Ruth mentioned that we should be operating somewhere between “healthy tired” (after a job well done) and being replenished and refreshed from real rest.
Unfortunately, most of us operate somewhere below “healthy tired” and a lot closer to “dangerously tired.”
Being in a continual state of exhaustion impacts our work, our lives, and those around us. It has become too easy to tough it out, have that fourth cup of coffee, and ignore how tired we really feel.
When we are exhausted, our ability to regulate our own emotional state becomes next to impossible. Someone called me out on this recently.
“Your emotional buffer is almost non-existent today.”
“What do you mean?”
“You appear to be overreacting to just about everything.”
So, my question to you today is a simple one. How tired are you? Are you masking or ignoring the signs of being beyond healthy tired and running on empty? Are those around you, at work or home, or elsewhere getting you at your best? Or just the burned out shell of yourself?
Do yourself and those around you a favor: REST!
Seriously. Go take a nap or something.
Carl Weber Consulting 