Tag: connection

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Blog Commentary Life Relationship Workplace

Are You In or Out?

Recently, I thought how funny it was that, when it comes to a pool in the summer who can only let 50 people in at a time (no thanks, Coronavirus), if you want a line, you should start a line, keying into the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) that plays so deeply in human nature.

In fact, an interesting thing I noticed is that when everyone was in line, people talked and joked with each other amiably — a sort of communal suffering brought us all together while standing in a line for a pool.

But the moment the gate to the pool was about to be opened, the very intention of the line changed. Like a physical change happened, the gate was not a resting place any more. It was a vehicle. A means to an end.

The game was now afoot and, I imagined to myself the gears turning in others’ heads as they sized up the lady two feet in front of them with three small kids and a Target store’s worth of pool toys, or the grandmotherly woman they were exchanging now-vacant pleasantries with, grinning to themselves as they deduced they could easily beat her to one of the scarce poolside umbrellas that were just out of reach, past the pearly (wrought iron) gates blocking our access to Shangri-La.

Marketers Play on our FOMO

In fact, marketers are so savvy to this primal need of ours to fit in, they often position their products with this exact pitch, letting you know you’re out unless you know that Choosy moms choose Jif, you could be saving 15% or more on your car insurance, that hipper, more active/creative people than you wear the Apple Watch, that going to McDonald’s is actually a lifestyle choice, and that wearing this makeup is not only good for your skin (spf 15!) but if your daily walk to work accidentally turns into a photo shoot for Vogue, you’ll be ready.

We see this constant us vs them show up in so many forms throughout life:

  • Graduating from the kids table at grandma’s Thanksgiving Dinner!
  • Being invited to the cool kids table at lunch.
  • Being on the (insert sport/club) team in high school.
  • Acceptance to your college of choice.
  • Receiving a highly contested scholarship.
  • Getting the job you know so many others applied for.
  • Receiving a raise when you know others did not.
  • Keeping your job when others lose theirs.

Even silly things make us feel important when, really, we’re absolutely no different than anyone else. Here’s a few I have to admit to:

  • My GPS app getting me around traffic smartly, saving me exactly 37 second of drive time. Suckers.
  • Checking out of the big club discount store using their app, skipping the 30-minute checkout line. Smiling condescendingly down on others from around my cinnamon dusted churro.
  • Being able to use the HOV lane on my commute, mocking the unwashed masses stuck in traffic as I comparatively and arrogantly fly by.
  • TSA Pre-Check enabling me to skip the slower airport security lines for the common-folk.

Comedian Brian Regan got it right when he noted that what we’re really saying about ourselves in situations like this is “I think I’m more important than I really am.”

In fact, in life, it seems the only constant is that in every sphere we are in, we are, by definition, out of some others, and that can be a source of intense unseen bias if we are not aware of it.

  • People who retort “all lives matter” to Black Lives Matter sentiments because, in their spheres of influence, they have never experienced the haunting systematic injustice many minorities live with as a daily backdrop to their lives.
  • Not having empathy that its hard to get a job sometimes when you, yourself, have always been employed.
  • Recruiters ghosting candidates because they are very busy getting offers out to the successful candidates.
  • Demanding VIP treatment because of your past donations or “platinum status” or some other so-called qualification.

If you are employed today, with 40 Million unemployed in the United States, you are a very lucky member of a very “in” crowd right now.

What can you do to avoid thinking you are more important than you really are?

Categories
Blog Life Lifehacks Relationship

Give > Receive

Our parents or grandparents taught us this principle, often in the middle of our requests for some grand thing.

“Grandpa” a photo of a woman kissing an old man’s cheek outside an apartment building or storefront in a busy urban environment. He smiles and you can tell she loves him. Photo by Treddy Chen on Unsplash
“grandpa”, photo by Trendy Chen on Unsplash.

At the time, we probably didn’t hear it or felt it was a cop out or distraction technique to change the subject from the thing we begged for.

“Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

To say I didn’t understand his urging—that giving was somehow better than receiving—is an understatement.

If you’re like me, this puffy, patriarchal principle seemed something passed down from another time, an age gone by. A time when things were scarce, not plentiful. A time when pictures were black and white, not color, and things were hard to come by, not easy to accumulate like they were in my childhood (and easier than ever now). To me, this advice was from a bygone time marked by saving everything and “making due” (whatever a 9 year old could make of that strange phrase), and of a long, faraway look in my grandfather’s eyes when he thought perhaps too much of those hard, lean times when he was a boy.

(But perhaps, they are times more and more of us may be facing again)

Of course, this proberb’s lesson, as they are wont to do, seems to sweeten and perfect itself over time.

Giving Of Your Time Actually Gives You More Time

Our rise and grind culture of worshipping at the altar of the eternal hustle dissuades this belief, but for centuries, people have found that the more you see and be with other people around you, or open yourself up to the humanity that is present when we just stop and listen for it, the happier and more abundant your life will become.

And I argue you will have more time, and you will be more productive with your time because you will be happier, think clearer and have more energy.

If you are struggling, lonely, find yourself frustrated, anxious or afraid, I am moved by the calm that can come as you pull yourself away from the tightening, shrinkingly claustrophobic cares and concerns of your own life and open your heart wider to allow the life of another.

Perhaps a forgotten friend or a struggling neighbor.

A widow or a stranger.

Even getting to know your postal worker or the Amazon delivery person, or making a concerted effort to graciously thank your DoorDash delivery person can open your heart a little wider than before.

Thanking employees your come across for working and brightening their shift as you check out from the store or buy your take out meal can brighten your day as well as theirs. If this feels challenging to you, remember that they would probably rather be (and might need to be) home caring for a loved one rather than working, but they are deemed essential and have to work instead (which carries less and less paycheck and more and more risk these days).

In times of COVID-19, many people’s support systems are shrinking smaller and smaller. Rediscovering the joy of a phone call, letters across town like a pen pal, or baked goods delivered carefully to another’s door can lighten or brighten a day, a week or a year.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself.”

And, it turns out, giving is much, much better than receiving.

What will you give or give up today to have peace and more happiness tomorrow?

Categories
Blog Life

Make the ‘Good-er’ Choice

I dont know what challenges you will face today, or what decisions you will have to make, and I’m not going to tell you if your choice is right or wrong.

I can encourage you to keep choosing the good.

But, if that brings some kind of remorse or shame or pressure to make sure you’re making the right choices, then let me break it down for you a little better:

Just choose the good-er one.

As you pick between

  • Two potential new jobs
  • A job versus caring for a member of your family
  • Or for caring yourself (for a change)
  • Saying no to the busy work you always get left with
  • Or to stop pretending you’ll make time for that relationship when things settle down (spoiler: they won’t)
  • And every other choice you make in a day

Choose the one that feels even 1% good-er than the other one, and you will be alright in the end.

Because that 1% more of the good things you choose builds and builds over your life, leaving you the result of a good, rich life, over time.

Side note: Turns out that good-er is usually not the one with the most money involved, at least at the outset.

  • That relationship you finally made space for
  • That mental peace and emotional resilience you developed through meditation, exercise, and/or working through past trauma
  • That ability you finally developed to say No to things that made you look one way but feel another

All these good choices have a compounding effect.

A goodness about you that will pay its own dividends in peace, good work, centeredness, full love, and better alignment of your reality and your expectations.

And, instead of searching for riches, you will find richness—in your heart, your life, faith and work.

That, my friend, is a good, good life.

Categories
Blog Communication Life Relationship

Be Interested, Not Interesting

Here on the corner of my computer screen, I have a little piece of a sticky note with the following on it:

Interested > Interesting

Meaning, being interested is better than being interesting. And, if you’re in the people business, or have any personal relationships that are important to you, this is good advice.

It comes from Mark Goulston, Author of Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone.

This is a great book and, for me, has been instrumental in me trying to really deepen some personal relationships as well as going farther to develop connection with the people I work with, both as candidates, hiring managers and as just other great humans I want to know better.

The whole book is interesting. Mark, who trains hostage negotiators, opens the book with a pretty intense confrontation between a man threatening to commit suicide in a mall parking lot. You see two kinds of negotiations take place. The “Hey, you’re in big trouble so put the gun down” kind that we see on TV and a much different approach that diffuses the situation and brings a peaceful resolution — listening.

One challenge I admit that I have in listening better is, well, asking questions. It sounds funny, but I sometimes get stuck just knowing what I should be asking someone!

So, from my notebook to yours, here are some fantastic tips you should hold on to. Let me know how it goes? I am definitely curious! ?

Great Questions You Can Ask Anyone To Show You Are Interested

As quoted from the book Just Listen by Mark Goulston. See the snippet here on Kindle.

Professional:

  • “How’d you get into what you do?”
  • “What do you like best about it?” 
  • “What are you trying to accomplish that’s important to you in your career (business, life, etc.)?” 
  • “Why is that important to you?” 
  • “If you were to accomplish that, what would it mean to you and what would it enable you to do?”

Personal:

In personal relationships—for instance, at a party or on a first date—questions like these can often trigger a heartfelt response: 

  • “What’s the best (or worst) part of (coaching your kid’s soccer team, being away from home, etc.)?” 
  • “What person has had the biggest influence on your life?” 
  • “Is that the person you’re most grateful to? If not, who is?” 
  • “Did you ever get a chance to thank that individual?” (If the person asks, “Why are you asking these questions?,” you can say: “I find giving people the chance to talk about who they’re grateful to brings out the best in them.”) 

FTD Delivery

Mark goes on to talk about how he tries to get people to respond to questions that include how they feel, what they think and what they did or would do. He mentions in passing that you can use the initials of those phrases, FTD, and the name of the popular fast florist delivery company of the same initials as a way to remember the formula.

“I know that when people ask me questions that generate all three of these answers, I feel known by them in ways that I usually don’t if we’re talking exclusively about what we feel or what we think or what we did or would do.,“ Mark continues.

He finishes with these sage words that I am trying to take to heart day by day.

Much of who we are is composed of what we feel, think, and do, so when we’re in conversations where we get to express all three, we feel more satisfied. Eventually, one of your questions will click and you’ll see the person lean forward eagerly to tell you something with enthusiasm or intensity. When that happens, do the right thing: Shut up. Listen. Listen some more. And then, once the person reaches a stopping point, ask another question that proves that you heard (and care about) what the person said.”

Try this tip out and let me know how it goes!

Read The Book:

Editor’s Note: The links to Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone by Mark Goulston in this article reference Amazon.com with an affiliate code. Using this link helps to support our services. However, if you’d prefer to go directly to the book page on Amazon, this link is affiliate free !

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