Tag: growth

One good sign

~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

In early 2008, about a year after I started at Acumen Fund, I noticed something surprising.  Even though I was busier than I had ever been, I started reading again– first fiction, but then all sorts of things including a healthy dollop of things that cut to the core of how I see and understand the world and how to be more professionally effective.

What changed?  I’d have thought that going from a not-so busy routine to one where I have to savagely guard every minute of the day would give me less space to think and reflect and grow.

It’s because in my previous job, I was dying on the vine.

That meant that I spent all my mental energy all day long trying to convince myself to hang on, that I was making it work, that all of the cognitive dissonance – the cacophony, really – between what I hoped the job would be and what it turned out to be was manageable.  So by the end of the day, when I had some time to myself, the idea of reconnecting to the professional, productive part of who I am ran the risk of reminding me of my terrible, energy-sapping job, and I wanted no part of it.

What I wish someone had told me then – which is what I wanted to share now – is that you (if you find yourself in a similar situation) are not the job.  You are a wonderful, intelligent, highly capable person who will take huge strides forward as you continue to invest in yourself – through what you read and the relationships you build and the connections you make and the doors you open for others.

And if you find yourself stretched and thinking and growing every day, take that as a sign that something’s very right, because in yourself is just about the best use of time around.

Abundance breeds abundance, not the other way around.

add to del.icio.us : Add to Blinkslist : add to furl : Digg it : add to ma.gnolia : Stumble It! : add to simpy : seed the vine : : : TailRank : post to facebook

It’s not you

~ Sasha ~ 4 Comments

I busted my left knee a little more than 15 years ago in a skiing accident – torn ACL, meniscus tear, the works.  I was on ski vacation with 20 people I didn’t know, the guest of a member this big group.  The first morning, I awoke groggily at 7am to a foot of fresh snow piled on the window sills.  But most of the group slept in, and between putting on snow tires and getting ski rentals for nearly everyone, we only made it to the top of the mountain by noon.  Young, eager and frustrated, I soon pitched myself past a sign marked “cliff area.” Three turns in, I discovered a side of mountain without a lick of snow.  Crash!  It’s amazing I didn’t do more damage.

That was in 1993, and over the years I’ve quietly eliminated one high-impact sport after another in deference to my ailing knee. A year ago, my knee started acting up again, and with it went the last semi-high-impact activity – squash – that was left in my repertoire. The good news is that, thanks to a good (if gruff) orthopedic surgeon, a successful arthroscopic surgery and some rehab, I’m back on my feet, and slowly making my way back onto the squash court after a one-year hiatus.

As the excitement of getting back on the court has waned, I’m smack in the middle of ample opportunity for self-criticism – all the things my squash game once was and is no more. And this has gotten me thinking: how can I fix the things that I need to fix on the court without spending all my time thinking, “I’m terrible! This is awful! That’s an easy shot I just missed!”? How do I grow without all the self-criticism?

Which of course is connected to my professional life.

I’m a firm believer that the best jobs are ones that offer real opportunity for growth.  People often take that to mean jobs where you can take on more responsibility and get promoted, but I think that’s only half the equation.  The other half is finding an environment where people give real, constructive criticism (positive and negative) about what you can do to grow into the leader you want to be.  Work environments that encourage and nurture this kind of feedback are rare.  Rarer still is having the professional trust and personal confidence to be able to take on this kind of criticism, hear it for what it is (constructive), and integrate it in a positive way.

Which brings me back to the squash court, and all the games that I used to win that I’m currently losing.  And it’s forced me to ask: why is it easier to acknowledge a criticism on the court than it is at work?

I think the answer is that, on the squash court, (self) criticism is about what you do.  “Don’t stand too close to the ball.”  “Anticipate the next shot sooner.”  “Take your racquet back earlier.”

At work, self (or external) criticism feels like it’s about who you are.  So when someone gives you feedback on how you run meetings or speak in public or what you put in emails or the way you go about analyzing problems, you first reaction might be, “How dare he say that about me?”  

“About me,” not “about what I do.” This is where you might trip yourself up.

The trick is to remember that both situations are the same. Both are about what you do, and how doing some things differently, some other things more, and another set of things less, you can be more effective.

Separating yourself (the actor) from the things that you do (the action) might just give you the space to hear the criticism for what it is: an act of support; an offering by someone who wants you to succeed, showing you what you can do differently to be the leader you want to be.

add to del.icio.us : Add to Blinkslist : add to furl : Digg it : add to ma.gnolia : Stumble It! : add to simpy : seed the vine : : : TailRank : post to facebook

Living like your best years are in front of you

~ Sasha ~ 3 Comments

Speaking of yoga, when I first started taking yoga classes a decade ago, I had a teacher named Rolf Gates who started his professional life as an Army Ranger (the army equivalent of the Navy Seals) [pls see comments below; this isn’t exactly right, apparently, but it’s close].  One day, Rolf made the point in a class that, for those of us who played a sport seriously, we often treat physical activity as if our peak days were behind us.  For the high school or college athletes, we trained hard and pushed our bodies back then…now we just totter around the gym, acting like breaking boundaries was a thing of the past.

It’s easy to fall into the same trap professionally – to think that our days (or years) of greatest growth were a decade or two (or three or four) ago, when we were in a structured university environment surrounded by great minds who pushed us every day.

What about now?  We might learn incrementally, take a training course here and there…but the breakthroughs, the “ah hah!” moments?  Those are in the past.

Or are they?  You can have a professional life surrounded by great, inspiring people who push you every day.  And those great, inspiring people don’t have to be people with fancy degrees and lots of letters after their names.  Instead, you have the opportunity, right now, to start listening to people and to their stories – the people you work with, the customers you serve, maybe the person you pass every day to whom you just say “hello.” If you take the time to open a conversation, you will learn from these people (and they from you).

And if every day you are learning something, think of where you’ll be a decade from now, and compare that to the person you would have been if you thought your days of greatest growth were behind you.