There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s your life, you can do what you want. Do not let anyone slow you down or push you along. You learn from, work through and experience life differently than everyone else. Embrace that – and fight back if you need to. Going too fast may burn you out and going to slow may drain your soul. Only you know your own equilibrium. Find balance and stand up for it.
Category Archives: Work
The Single Greatest Step to Success
If you do not believe in what you are doing, you are unlikely to succeed. No level of responsibility, compensation, or flattery can change your mind. Only you can tap into the higher context of your personal values and goals. Only you can know what makes your heart tick. Figure out what you believe and you can find your place in the world. If you truly believe, nothing can stop you.
The New Age Snow Day
I love the snow. I really do. I always have. On days like today where several brisk inches cause commute times to quadruple and Google Maps to flash black & red, I side with the general public against the nuisance. I don’t condemn the snow for that nuisance, however. I challenge the expectation that people try to tackle it and show up as usual anyway.
Not all jobs or educations can be accessed remotely. For retailers, you need bodies in the store. Most classrooms are not equipped to transmit lessons online. But for many new age companies, working remotely is completely feasible. You can sign in to instant messenger, transplant meetings into Google+ Hangouts, and plug yourself in. Stay warm, stay safe, stay home. And get more work done.
Sound like an unreasonable dream? Far less unreasonable to me than wasting three or four hours in your car without a shred of real work. Employers should see the productivity and time lost to snow. They should call a snow day and unveil a plan to continue operating internally. Far better to do that than expect a troop of soggy, frozen, and demotivated employees to walk through your door.
Transparency and Trust
Unless the key to a secret is murdered and disposed in a large body of water, people tend to find things out. You can try as hard as you can to guise things, but always prepare for the day when you need to own up to it (whether you blow the cover or someone else does).
When it comes to daily life, transparency may be the easiest and most genuine way to build trust. If you have nothing to hide, others will take comfort in believing you and run out of good reasons to hide things from you.
Throughout my entire management career, I have struggled with shielding information from my team to keep the machine running. Secrets don’t make friends, especially in business. As a common example, most managers pad deadlines so that their final deliveries can be met. In many cases, the real deadlines surface and proactive fake deadlines lose credibility. Why not admit final deadlines up front and set padded expectations for your team? Most people understand the truth and will respect you for being honest with them. They will deliver accordingly. Trust me.
Sometimes you need to keep secrets. If that is the case, at least be honest about the reason why (a security clearance or NDA contract are perfectly viable excuses). As hard as it may be for some people to accept, the honest explanation goes a long way. Don’t hide, don’t ignore, don’t dodge the question. Be as honest as you can when you can.
Optimize the Commute
Commuting is a bitch. Last month, I spent 29.3 hours in my car driving to and from work. That’s a full day out of my month lost to driving. There are so many things I could do with that extra day. Worse, there were times in Los Angeles where I spent as much as 4 hours in my car going to and from work for a 24-mile round trip (that’s 6mph in traffic on the 10 freeway!). I dare not do the cumulative math on that one.
As a society, we lose so much time getting to work every day. To put things into perspective: if Denver’s average commute time is 23 minutes one way and working population is roughly 600,000, the city as a whole loses 52.5 man years per day to the streets. From another angle, that’s 57,500 eight-hour work days vaporized per day. Can you imagine what businesses, communities, and our government could accomplish with that much time?
When it comes to personal productivity, public transportation can work for people who find ways to use that time effectively. But when it comes to driving you’re own car, there’s not much you can do except sit there. I tune into NPR and make phone calls to catch up with people, but I wish I could get more done. Siri and other dictation applications are a step in the right direction, but they still have a long way to go.
A world without commuting is a utopian fantasy. Without question, people should live where they want to live or where they can afford to live. Working from home is a pleasant solution, but difficult for collaborative work. And while it was nice for me to walk to work every morning in Hollywood, there were also downsides to living so close to the office (like 2am phone calls from people who forgot their keys). Regardless, it’s worth extra money for me to live close so that I can help save that full day per month. I will hopefully make that change again soon. I just have to decide how much a day of my life is worth.
If you are forced to commute, do what you can to make that time worthwhile. For my fellow commuters out there, what do you do to make that time worthwhile? I need ideas.
Treat Loneliness Like A Shark
When I was 13 years old, I realized the popular kids were not always happy – they just looked really happy when they were busy hanging out with friends (which was often, but not always). When they went home and found themselves alone, they suffered the same withdrawal that I did when they thought too hard about it (some hyper-social kids are never comfortable alone and have worse withdrawals than anyone else). We find ourselves at our lowest points at home left alone with nothing but our thoughts. In rough patches, these lulls sap our energy, optimism, and confidence. Loneliness cripples us.
The popular kids taught me early on that staying busy and surrounding yourself with good people dramatically increases your positive energy and quality of life. Like a shark, you are happier if you keep moving. Stay active, keep friends close, and only stop to reflect if you dare. Before long, you might even become the popular kid.
Mortal Passion
You could die tomorrow. Probably not. But who knows. Today may be your last. The activities, tasks, and adventures before you may fill your final chapter. Coast through it if you want. Or face it with a mortal passion. Accept every challenge, job, and event as if you will never get the opportunity to do it again. Pour your heart and soul into it. Give it all you’ve got.
If you find the work unworthy of your mortality, you better find something else to do before it’s too late.
Peripheral Vision and Opportunity
Keep your eyes open all the time. You never know what opportunities lie at the edge of your vision. Keep your mind free to all possibilities. Focus may be productive, but it has a very negative side effect: myopia. The real pros do not ruthlessly blockade distractions from their lives; they listen to all options, see everything, and train themselves to sort through variables faster than everyone else. If you want to rule the world, learn to dissect the world efficiently. Pay attention to everything and consider it all before filtering away. The email at the bottom of the list, the girl in the corner of the room, or that side panel advertisement may actually be the most important twists in your life. But you’ll never know unless your mind’s eye stays open.
Get Out of There
In a meeting you have no stake in? A social setting you cannot connect with? Around people you do not relate to? In a place that disagrees with your lifestyle? A job that fails to inspire you? Then get the hell out of there. Don’t waste time. Time is money (and more valuable than money). Walk out. Pack your bags. Just go. You have an important family obligation. Impending deadline. Death on the horizon. Get out. Move on. Be as polite as possible, but leave. Think of the things you could be doing instead – and go do them. The impact you can make on the world and your own life while doing those other things far outweighs the egos you rub sitting still. Looking back, those offended meeting attendees will understand and forgive you for it.
Steering a Large Ship
When you are in a small raft, you have enough influence and power to pilot the entire thing in a completely different direction. When you are on a massive cruise ship, you have no power at all and must go with the flow. Nothing you can do as a cruise ship passenger will change the direction the boat is sailing (unless you can convince everyone otherwise, mutiny the bridge to navigate, or sink the ship).
The analogy applies to companies and brands. It is much easier to have stake in and pilot the direction of a small company than a large one. Big companies are much more difficult to steer and big brands much more difficult to reposition. One man or woman will fight an uphill battle if he or she wants to inspire change from within an established, large organization or industry. One man or woman can sink an organization or brand alone, but I doubt the resulting consequences and reputation will be worth it.
Cruise ships have many amenities and benefits worth the ride. You can really travel through life in style in a reputable large organization. If the company treats you well enough, it may be worth the complacency of a vacationing passenger. But do not expect to change anything you do not favor from within the bureaucracy.
If you truly want to make a difference on your own in your field, consider building a faster raft and inspiring the cruise ship to keep up. Competition may be the only key to making a difference and steering a large ship.
Craig Ormiston 