Don’t know why, but I have been having the craziest, most intense dreams lately.
The one I had the other night was a peach of an episode. Even though describing your dreams to others can get you labeled as a nut-job, I think I will give a little of this away to see if anyone else is going through similar mental exercises – even subconsciously.
It’s no surprise that there is a tremendous amount of negative news out there today and because of it I have decided to shift my lifestyle. Yes, I am ready to become someone else, altogether and adopt a Positive Alternative Lifestyle. It’s a difficult decision for sure, flipping over to be a P.A.L. It is so much easier to maintain the status quo and just be negative with everyone else.
Bad news hits and what do you do, rollover like a dog, cover your head with a pillow, start diving toward the end of a bottle, or turn to your faith and pray that you are saved from it all? Any way you start coping with your own set of circumstances will not determine your eventual outcome nearly as much as your attitude during the process. If you go high, or you go low – you will only gain or get through the hard times based on WHY you choose to do what you did.
So, with some difficulty, I am trying to adopt a P.A.L. not as a coping mechanism, but as a lifting device. Sure, it’s harder to do, being so much easier to bitch and moan with the lot of them, but I think it will bring me and those around me up quicker so we can look around, stop focusing on our problems and find solutions that aid in recovery.
Want to be around in the next few years? Get small. Not “Steve Martin small” but smaller than you are right now. I’m working on large thinking and smaller scale – can I do what I want to do with the current set of circumstances and limited to no funds? Do we need 6 people in this meeting when only two of them will actually do the work?
Not only does it make sense from an economic standpoint, but it also stands to reason that you’ll have less grumbling and complaining if your back is against the grindstone.
Ever been to a elementary school play? Went to one a couple of weeks ago and it had many parallels to some work environments I have been in. First of all, it had my kid in it – so some parts were decent (actually was a little girl who could sing her ass off), but for the most part it sucked eggs! Here’s why: bad lighting, no discernible plot line (I know there was one, it just wasn’t discernible), crappy acoustics, poor performance, too long, and everyone got to say something. Even the janitor had a line I think.
This is why most presentations I have seen over the last few years fail. Too long, unclear direction, bad timing and performance – and we make the mistake of having everyone talk.
If they COULD have (I know why they didn’t) let that little girl sing three numbers and most of the other children be rocks or back-up it would have been killer. I think everyone would have left better KNOWING what they saw, who rocked their socks off, and where their kid stood in their chances to potentially win a Tony one day.
Just like that play we should be prepared to play the non-speaking role sometimes in our own work – and maybe suggest when other children (coworkers) should be the rocks….hmmm now that I think about it – sometimes you are the rock sometimes the rock-star.
The best advise I could offer to any employee of any company is remain outside the bounds of power and therefor similar thinking. The minute you become an employee of recognition, and remain loyal to the cause, and not your own self-direction – is the minute you stop being valuable to the company.
Stay outside and committed to making wherever you toil better – you’ll be more satisfied and the company will benefit from your outside perspective – or they will find a way to run you off!
Needless to say it will most likely make your life hellish inside the confines of your current employ – but there is a price to pay for difference. The price is not as great as a life spent without measure or completion…so march hard to the beat of your own passion, not to someone else’s desires and whims.
To tell the truth, I struggle with this often.
My career has been in some transition as of late, with promises of new ventures, hope for tomorrow and still the problems of today. But, at the end I am mostly in good form due to the fact that I refuse to supercharge negative issues.
Of course, I give them credence, pay attention to the facts surrounding them, and then tell them to shut it.
Not slamming solving problems, but this is not a time in my life that I can fall prey to the negative elements as they present themselves and allow them to hold my attention any longer than absolutely necessary. I know it’s easier to dismiss negative people than recognize the core of their problems (or your own), and actually attempt to fix them – but supercharging by permitting more credence than they should be warranted is also unadvisable.
Watch too much 24-hour news, read too many Op-Ed pieces, and spend too much time bumping gums with nay-sayers and you run the risk of entering the Negative Supercharge zone we can all fall victim too.
Heed and move, heed and move.
There is so much craziness in the news as of late – there are people passing – the job market isn’t improving – the world stage is rife with conflict – and so many people are lonely with no one to comfort them. It has me thinking…
I could pray for those who I know who have lost dear ones close to them recently,
I could pray for those who have lost their employment and desperately need a job,
I could pray for those who remain in their jobs but are overwhelmed by the pressure,
I could pray for my business,
I could pray for the economy,
I could pray for our country and the world,
I could pray for all these things, and at the end of the day, the “I coulds” are still overwhelmed by the “I shoulds”.
I should pray.
Leave this on a coworkers desk…it could help you explain how the relationship is going at the moment. It’s the perfect card for all these situations, and maybe more.
You miss them.
It could be an opportunity for constructive criticism.
You’re hungry or a cannibal.
“The longer you do something the more literal you should be when talking about it.”
I do try to state simply whatever I am talking about but, I’ve been in this position for around 5 years, and there has to have been some message creep. Now in order to determine if I am actually stating my thoughts/opinions simply I am asking myself the same question over and over.
“What’s in it for you?” If I can tell you what you get out of what I’m presenting right off the bat, then you MAY have more interest and we can get a little deeper.
“We’re trying to get it done, rather than get it right.”
The problem with our economic/business structures today is that organizations seem to be dropping employees left and right, yet keeping the same amount of expectations regarding output for work. Everyone in any management position understands that DEMAND for resources, not just money is tight! The fact that employees are most likely maxed-out is not surprising.
We have to take into consideration that if we continue to push our people without understanding what the outcome could/should be – then we are potentially just checking things off our to-do-list and not actually doing things RIGHT. If whatever you are doing is worth the activity- then why not take the time, and the effort to fight for it to be done right? Otherwise we are performing the same tasks as an Excel spreadsheet. FIGHT for the RIGHT thing to do.
Don't Avoid the Elephant in the Room
If you have ever had a problem inside any organization you were affiliated with I bet at some point you knew exactly what they were and couldn’t or didn’t deal with them. Let me guess, the situation was difficult? The storyline complex, the people in charge mentally unstable? It was a Mexican Soap Opera?
No matter…it’s the same for me, you, and everyone. We often avoid our problems and quickly move past them, instead we should run straight at them. Not in a self-flagellation beat down way, but with solution-oriented cause and effect discipline.
Require ourselves to: Repair/Replace/Refund/or Rebuild. More on this later…
“What happens to an organization when no one wants to be in charge? Maybe they don’t want the job the way it’s done today.”
Recently talking with a buddy and he said that nobody wanted to be in charge of his organization. It got me thinking, what motivates the up-and-coming employees to run the place one day? How can you keep employees when they don’t want the eventual task of being in charge? When money is the only compelling scenario doesn’t the job just become a paycheck and nothing more. Where is the Passion? The Struggle? The Desire?
Just when I was about to go on a rant about the “younger employee of today” and all the problems they have not engaging with management and so forth and so on – it dawned on me…maybe they don’t want the job the way it’s done today! Then it’s OUR fault – the establishment, making it look like it sucks to be in charge. It doesn’t suck to be in charge…right?
“I’ve got jetpack dreams, but I’m cruising around on a pogo-stick. Which frankly has its ups and downs.”
Lately I’ve been kinda up and down. Had emotional highs and lows, with seemingly little ability to affect the change. People aren’t really bringing me down specifically at least not intentionally – but I am in the middle of a personal storm of sorts. I have always been a “high-high, low-low” kinda guy. When I’m up everyone is up, and when I am down I suck all the life out of the room.
Coming to grips with the kind of dude you are is important, having people around you who are steady is critical. Last week in the midst of the emotional roller coaster, complaining about working with a particular person and a trusted co-worker said, “Well you know Andy, people are people.”
In other words, suck it up Nancy it’s called work for a reason.
Aaaargh...
Just got off the phone with some great clients who were having a problem explaining what we do as a company to some of their co-workers. Great thinkers who work for a big company that drives a tremendous amount of revenue. After about an hour of conversation it came down to the fact that some of their clients, and co-workers are greatly pushed out of their comfort zones utilizing our service and products.
It dawned on me that I must have a pirate in my comfort zone. Not saying that’s good or bad, but being comfortable being uncomfortable is something I can get behind. Business today is about navigating the thin line between acceptable and revolutionary. And yes, that is a patch-wearing balding man in the box.
This website is totally going to get me a job as a cartoonist!
