Druthers

“Everything is a choice.”  I read these words upon opening my eyes to the morning light and decide I’ll apply this line of thinking to the planned and unplanned events of the day, to prove (or disprove) this hypothesis. Can absolutely everything be a choice?

It is a choice to throw off the covers in the morning and step out into the mist for a pre-dawn run. It’s a choice to fire up my computer and begin my conference calls at 7:30 AM, to slip out for a cup of coffee when my meeting unexpectedly ends early.  It’s a choice to share my opinion on the business challenge at hand, or to remain silent, deferring to others.  It’s a choice to pay my bills, to work hard at yoga, to drink a green smoothie when I’d rather have a hamburger.

We can trick ourselves into believing we don’t have choices.  Going to work, for example, can seem like one such instance.  A job can feel like an obligation, not because we’re physically chained to the desk, but because the repercussions of not working are too harsh to bear; the alternatives so loathsome we wouldn’t ever consider them. Who would pay for our next great pair of shoes?  How would we keep our homes?  Put food on the table?  While it might not seem so obvious, we’re making a choice to go to the office.

 

My ah-ha moment lightened several years ago at a time when I was frustrated at my lack of upward movement in my job.  To hear me describe it back then there were “no opportunities”, and I had “no choice” but to stay in my existing role.  Upon further examination (many months later, unfortunately), I realized my own misguided perspective colored my thinking. I was making pointed choices to be present and available to raise my children which took me out of the running for many positions requiring travel or relocation.  I understood then and there I felt trapped, not because there was nothing out there for me, but because my personal choices about family were so firmly fixed and non-negotiable, I couldn’t see how I was adversely impacting my professional ambition.

Many choices can be looked at objectively, consequences weighed and decisions made independent of others.  Complication sets in when we consider the expectations another may have of us or worse yet, we presume expectations where none exist at all. We put ourselves in positions where we feel like we can’t say no.  This is how we end up purchasing a $25 bag of Cub Scout caramel corn we don’t need, or sitting through an all-day baby shower in a dreary banquet hall on one of the few remaining glorious autumn days.  In these cases we move away from choices that reflect our own truth, creating imaginary obligations we’re torn, even resentful, about fulfilling.

Time is a precious and finite commodity.  Our choices around how we spend the 525,600 minutes we’re granted each year of life play a part in whether we are stressed or relaxed, harried or calm, sad or happy. We’re not always going to love all of our choices, but knowing they are ours to make is empowering.

There are things we don’t get a say in, like whether the sun shines or it rains, what might come out of a manager’s mouth at the next one-on-one meeting, or what kind of mood a significant other arrives home in after a long day at the office.  But we do get to choose how we receive these situations.

I’ve been away from this blog for some time.  And, yes, I’ve missed it.  It would be easy to say I just don’t have the time.  But the truth is I am prioritizing differently, putting other happy activities in my life ahead of this one.  It’s a choice that may disappoint those who look forward to reading, a choice I revisit at times to make sure I'm still good with it.  But I know it’s my choice.  I'm happy to own it.

Whisht

Appreciation can be hard to come by directly as many of us rave about the great qualities of others when they’re not around to hear it, so I know I’m privileged when I find myself a party to her comments on my leadership.  Of all the attributes she chooses to highlight I’m struck by her summation:  “And she does it all so quietly.”

I think about what these words mean exactly.  Taken out of context they can be misunderstood; can seem like maybe the individual lacks assertiveness, can’t find the courage to speak up or speak her mind.  Much has been written about aspiring women leaders and how they need to find their voices to be successful in this dog-eat-dog corporate world.  If I were my younger and less experienced self I might worry I fall into this category.

We’re conditioned to believe we need to be vocal first responders, that to be heard we need to say our message loudly, repeatedly and to as many people as possible.  Pay for performance and promotion systems can skew towards rewarding those who are best at publicly taking credit for success and unabashedly advertising their achievements and accomplishments. We learn to hold our ideas close to the chest, hesitant to share until they are fully baked for fear a bad idea might mar our reputation or a good one might be hijacked by another to call his own. We become prisoners of our self-promotion, our people don’t want to work for us, our organizations never move beyond the status quo.

There are a myriad of ways to be influential in this world, to drive results, to drive change.  Quiet leaders know that new ideas incubate until they’re brought to life when the timing is right.  They often see the vision far out into the future, but can patiently hold on to it themselves until the rest of the organization is in a position to accept it.  Quiet leaders are methodical, putting the building blocks in place behind the scenes so when the world catches on, they are poised to move forward.

 

Quiet leadership is not about the need to find your voice; it’s about how you choose to use your voice.

Quiet leaders create a following one individual relationship at a time, trusting their reputations to be built through the good experience each person they touch relays to another. They know collaborating on the journey leads to the best solution. Quiet leaders cite the results in terms spotlighting the organization rather than themselves. They acknowledge and applaud the group that gets them there.

Quiet leadership is not for everyone.  There is nothing that says this approach is the only one, nor that it is better than any other.  It’s not an approach that brings sweeping accolades or lightening –speed ascension in an organization.  But for some of us, as much as we think we want to shine, we feel most like our true selves just left of the limelight.  It’s the quiet that allows us to function at our best.  And most importantly it brings to us those individuals we most want to partner with to change the world.

Interlocutress

We’re at a stalemate again, in that all too familiar place, staring at the hump he and I just can’t seem to get over.  I’ve made a move in his direction, thinking I could maybe see things his way. But I’m regretting my decision, wishing I could slurp back over my lips and through my vocal cords the permission I ceded to exercise a freedom I’m not sure I’m comfortable granting.

Instead of talking to him, I lament ceaselessly inside my head, searching for the magic words that will cause him to abdicate his position and leap over, squarely on my side. The trouble is I’ve used all the good letters, laying them bare on the Scrabble board of parenthood, and now I’m left in a dizzying frenzy, feverishly rearranging the consonants and vowels on my tray in desperate hope I’ll be able to spell the mother of all words, the one that causes him to see the light. Instead I’ve got nothing to work with but “to”, “it” or some similarly feeble vocable.

A wise one tells me I don’t need to have all the answers, what I need is a conversation.  “If it was easy,” he says, “someone would have figured it out a long time ago.”  I’m the person who’s been conditioned never to present a problem without being prepared to offer the solution. If this is the requisite consolation for my current quandary, it takes a few moments to sink in before I can feel soothed.

But it dawns on me that approaching this discussion without the answer, that voicing my ambivalence and frustration, and letting my words hang out there in insoluble suspension may begin to shift the burden off my shoulders. And maybe all I can ask for is incremental movement. We walk before we run.

We want our words to be impactful; we know the window of intentional listening opens sporadically and closes quickly.  We hold out for the triple word score in hopes we’ll win by a landslide.  But sometimes it’s staying in the game with a steady stream of “it”, “or” and “to” that adds up to real understanding.  Maybe I don’t need a new set of letters.

Breach

We spend the rainy afternoon soaking in the paintings of surrealist Rene Magritte, puzzled by most of his mysterious canvases, his early work especially, filled with faces exhibiting a sorrowful pallor, lacking all expression.  Some pieces are more than disturbing, causing us to ponder the psyche of this immensely creative individual.

 

As I put my own art out into the world, I’m reminded acutely of how the desire to be intensely real can cause us to cross an imaginary line, expressing a startling rawness that in our own daring to voice we’ve somehow missed the glaring reality many are uncomfortable accepting all we have to say. Maybe these are feelings, ideas or concepts better left under wraps, but in our relentless quest to connect with those who view our work, we can’t help but put our innermost desires out there, in hopes another will see herself in our expression and maybe feel less alone in this place we all inhabit where such little tolerance exists for the blatant admission of frailty, yearning and vulnerability.

Art is nothing if it’s not experimentation.  We push our limits, trialing a multitude of mediums and materials, theories and themes in search of the manifestation of our own truth at last resonating with the world.  Along the way we syphon intrepidness, releasing work to the scrutiny of outsiders.  It feels so bold and exhilarating when it’s finally out there; years of squelching put aside for now we’re able to say out loud “I’m an artist.”

 

So it’s hard not to be embarrassed when we look back at our earlier work, a technique or voice we once viewed with such pride, we’re now seeing differently wishing we’d abandoned sooner.  To absorb it feels underdone, gritty, rough and unpolished.  Who isn’t uncomfortable with her style in its nascence?  Yet it can’t be helped; we’ve lived more life, met new people, learned more about ourselves, all the while honing our craft, not realizing sometimes how much we’ve changed until we’re compelled to look back in time.

It doesn’t surprise me that by the end of the Magritte exhibit we find more we can relate to, pieces we can appreciate and maybe even explain.  We can admire the quality of this man’s painting, now an artist who had come into his own.  I can’t help but think Magritte, if he were able to take in this showing, might wonder what he was thinking with his early work.  Would he be able to accept his own evolution, the humbling and sometimes unsettling missteps we take on this journey to be who we are?

 

We all see the world through the oculus of ourselves. The degree of comfort we feel expressing who we are ebbs and flows. There are times we retreat, putting so little of ourselves out there it’s hard for anyone, including us, to know who we are, and there are times we’re on the other extreme maybe revealing more than is good for us, forgetting how our brazenness impacts those we care for deeply. For me, as I continue to refine my voice, I’m trying to temper and accept both my rashness and my reticence; the words I’m meant to say are somewhere in between.

Dactylographic

At an executive leadership roundtable I attend, the conversation is about the challenges we face promoting women in our organizations.  I can’t help but think about how often I now find myself in all-women meetings, or the fact that every one of my direct reports is a woman, the speakers on my calls are women, and every candidate I consider for any position I am filling is a woman.  At first glance I think "Wow, we’re really making progress;” I say things like it’s great that my organization is so forward-thinking, how lucky I am to work in a corporation where leadership values diversity.  And then I read this post and I stop myself; hmmm, maybe it’s me?

I like to think I do a decent job of documenting the results I deliver for my organization.  I can find the data, do the analysis, and spout the metrics showcasing the value I bring.  So when he observes I’m leaving on the table credit I should be taking I have no choice but to put my hands to my face, groping for the blinders I didn’t know I was wearing. What am I missing?  It never dawns on me that I’m surrounded by smart, ambitious, passionate, dynamic women leaders because I’m a lodestone for the change I want to see in the world.

We spend an inordinate amount of time weighing how much of ourselves it’s safe to put out there.  We’ll temper our messages and our actions to the degree of discomfort we feel in our situation or environment.  We often have a distorted view of how much of ourselves we allow to leak out.  But all we need to do is look around with fresh eyes to understand the impact we’re making:  When we are truly authentic, we’ll see reflected back at us the values and beliefs we are most passionate about.  And so how can I not take credit for the plethora of women leaders I’m working with when I have so much conviction around the value these individuals bring to my business?

Maybe our success is so hard to acknowledge because it’s uniquely ours, because we need to express our individuality in order to truly claim it, because admitting it means we need to embrace the irrefutable evidence that we really are catalysts for greatness, and deep down our greatness scares us.

I’m sure if I had piped up at the leadership roundtable with my observation that I’m suddenly surrounded by a bunch of great women leaders, I would have been the only one in the room who couldn’t see that the accomplishment belongs to me.

I submit we need to overcome our fears around being great and own the success we create if we’re ever to feel like the leaders we are.  Take a good look around and soak in what you see.  Your fingerprints are everywhere.

Sophistry

We meet over lunch at this little restaurant on the water in Charleston, our table facing a wall covered from floor to ceiling with orange life jackets hung in perfect rows.  I don’t know him well, but he holds a significant position in my organization, one of those select few with a “C” in his title.  He intimidates me just a bit, but we’re among friends unwinding from a hectic conference, connecting on a personal level.  He’s telling stories about his past employment; they cause us to blush and laugh out loud at the same time. He’s human after all.

The following week he’s in my in-box, thanking my colleagues and I for allowing him to sit at the “cool kids’ table”, fulfilling, apparently, a dream he’s held on to since high school when he longed to drink his chocolate milk with the in crowd.  I couldn’t help but think when I read his words that here I was concerned about the impression I was making on him, and all the while he was worrying about how we’d receive him.

 

Seth Godin writes about the cool kids today, pulling the memory of this encounter out of the vault in my head.  The point he makes is thought provoking:  In our insatiable quest for affirmation and acceptance, we can spend a ton of time comparing ourselves to everyone else in the room. And when we do, we undoubtedly come up lacking, choosing to see only those traits we wish we possessed, forgetting about everything wonderful we do possess.  The irony is while we’re residing at the bottom of these hierarchies in our heads, we sit squarely on top of the hierarchy of another, we’re that person someone else aspires to be.

When we go looking for places to fall short, the best we can find is comfort in knowing this is a natural part of the human condition.  When we strive to transcend this game we are rewarded with something infinitely more precious:  The power to be who we’re meant to be.

Keel

To move through life is to experience a multitude of losses.  This is not the brightest of perspectives, nor is it a viewpoint today’s society spends much time socializing, contemplating or marketing.  We are all about winning.  To lose is somehow humiliating, shameful and should be moved through quickly lest we lose focus on our goal to win.

 

As kids we played “The Game of Life”, the Milton Bradley board game where the roll of the dice determines your fate.  The definition of winning is a big family and lots of money.  “Life” is all about landing on the right spaces so you are victorious in the end.  I remember vividly how I’d sweat through the small stretch of road offering the opportunity for a spouse and babies.  Much cheering ensued if you happened to land on a husband and a visit from the stork, condolences if you suffered the misfortune of skipping over these spaces.    I was conditioned to believe a full car and bursting coffers are my right by the time I rest in the coffin.

Life isn’t about vigilant, careful choices that bring about a prize in the end; rather it is a series of opportunities and circumstances to be managed with the goal to be as happy as possible no matter what happens.   Knowing and embracing this concept is kindred to harnessing power.  When looking back at the trials and tribulations adolescents endure becoming adults, we can’t help but use the phrase “he turned out okay”, like there is some magical point in life when we have arrived; we cease to evolve.  My mother died when I was 38.  If she thought at that point I “turned out okay”, she would have been doing both herself and me a disservice.  I often wish she could know me now.  In the last seven years of my life I have reached into my soul and pulled out the real me.  And I’m probably not done yet.

 

I believe in the chance aspect of life.  As much as we try, as much as we think we are controlling what comes our way, so little of it really is up to us.  What I don’t believe is that there is an end game.  Life is not meant to be finished; it’s simply extinguished at a point along the continuum.  We are not cheated if we haven’t had the chance to build our families and amass our fortunes, to win by society’s rules; these are blessings not entitlements.

 

 “A Grief Observed” by C.S. Lewis is the journal of a man consumed by despair after the death of his wife.   She was more than a wife by today’s standards.  Too many marriages are on paper only.  Instead of nurturing a cherished intimacy as Lewis and his partner did, the ever-present pursuit of winning distracts us into believing we should expect to lose our passion, that it is normal to settle into languid content, and that the distance brought about by business commitments and raising children is to be expected, tolerated so that we can someday retire in wealth and splendor.  But what about right now?   Are we sacrificing too much today, banking on a finite tomorrow we really don’t control?

Lewis talks about how faith is not really tested until we lose something so important to us that we really need our faith to get through.  And for a portion of the grief process, we question our faith.  I have yet to experience the death of a loved one as profoundly as Lewis documents in the book.  But I have experienced a multitude of everyday losses.

 

“Delicious drinks are wasted on a really ravenous thirst”. Lewis describes the drowning man, so consumed by his fear and panic that he flails recklessly and thwarts the very rescue he is desperate for.   His theory is that when engulfed in grief, we believe God has abandoned us, when the reality is we’ve created such chaos within ourselves we’re unable to hear Him.   The endless pursuit of winning and society’s definitions of success exert tremendous chaos within our hearts and minds.  So much in fact we sometimes can’t drink the sweet elixir of our soul, that internal life preserver demanding stillness to be caught.

Life is not a prescription to be filled.  Are you on the journey to collect dividends, check victories off a list?  What if we handled winning and losing with the very same grace?  I think we might find happiness every day.