Grumbling, part 2: Until you walk a mile...

Two blogs ago, I talked about how grumbling and complaining can be poisonous. Today, I'm going to talk about how easy it is to complain, and how hard it is to do what you're complaining about.

The other day, my friend Jennifer was talking about her mother, and complained that "my mother is in her late 60s, and still trying to find herself. She's making these little sculptures in a desperate attempt to connect. It's pretty sad." It was easy for Jennifer to sit back and take pot shots at her mother's art, or her mother's attempts at self-expression. But when charged with the task of expressing herself through art, Jennifer freaked out. What if it looks stupid? What if people judge what I paint? What if it's not good enough? If the painting is supposed to be a self-expression, and it sucks, what does that say about me? Argh! She made that painting, and emerged with a newly-found appreciation for her mother's courage to express herself through art.

It's really easy to complain someone else who is putting themselves out there, but instead of criticizing, shouldn't we be admiring their courage? It's not as easy as it looks.

If you walk around with this mentality, it's a lot easier to fill you days with love and appreciation. That performer on the subway? Wow, what courage to play in front of a crowd of strangers. A less-than-eloquent Sarah Palin interview? Yes, maybe she should have reviewed her facts a bit more beforehand, but what guts it must take to go on national TV. How cool. How many of us have dared to be in her position?

Image courtesy of http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/

On work and quality

My bike Roland was stolen last year. I loved this bike: it was my mother's before me, older than I was, and four sizes too big, but I didn't care. He was a great bike.

In the past month, I decided that I wanted to get a new bike. And I started noticing that, seemingly everywhere I went, there were bikes parked on the street with "For Sale" signs on them. Some of them looked pretty good: nice bikes, reasonably priced. But I was reluctant to take the next step and contact the owners about the bikes. It was like pulling teeth, and made me feel all angsty. I tried wildly to find excuses for not pursuing the bikes: see that patch of rust on the wheel? The frame is probably a tad too small. The tires look flat. On and on.

So yesterday, after passing by yet another bike for sale, it hit me what was going on. I have a theory about the way the world works, that goes like this:

If you work hard, then you will reap nice rewards

That sounds like a pretty good theory to live by. The industrious ant storing up food for the winter, and such. But I have also developed a corollary to this theory:

If something comes to me with little work, it must be flawed.

Interesting. So I am essentially equating value with how much work I put in. This was why I didn't want to pursue the bikes for sale on the street, because what could be easier than just picking up a bike off the street on the way to the coffee shop? In order to find a quality bike, I felt I needed to search Craigslist, compare at least 10 bikes, visit them, negotiate, think about it... make the whole thing a huge ordeal. THEN I would find a quality bike. But picking one up off the street couldn't possibly result in my obtaining a quality bike.

Of course, this is a silly theory. There is no reason those bikes on the street couldn't be quality bikes. Who says I need to go through a huge ordeal in order to find something great?

So the lesson I learned here is that I need to dump the theory that:

I need to go through a huge ordeal in order to find quality

And replace it with a theory that works better for me. How about this one:

Quality isn't necessarily correlated with ordeal size.

So I tested out that last bike on the street, and guess what? Now I have a bike. No ordeal required :)

Image courtesy of http://3.bp.blogspot.com

Grumbling, part 1: How much do you grumble?

Grumbling. We all do it. The line at CVS is six-people-long, and to top it off, the customer at the front of the line wants a price check. Your friend doesn't ask about how your job search is going, even though she knows that you are anxious about it. Joan in accounting STILL hasn't processed your reimbursements from April. Your mom reminds you to get your flu shot-- does she still think you're 6? You don't have anything in your refrigerator for dinner; why did you spend that extra hour at work instead of going shopping? Your partner is in a bad mood, and you grumble about his moodiness.

Sometimes grumbling can be a red flag that indicates places where you might want to effect change in your life (e.g. leave work at a reasonable hour). But by and large we grumble without ever taking any action to fix the things we're grumbling about. These grumbles poison our mood, and slowly decay the relationships that we're grumbling about. Grumbles also consume mental energy that could be spent in happier, more productive and creative pursuits; we don't even have that many unique grumbles, but often play the same ones over and over again in our heads, on infinite repeat. Imagine what else we could be doing with that energy?

As a first step to appreciating the extent of grumbling in your life, keep a log of everything that you grumble about, complain about, or criticize over a 24-hour period. It may take a few days before you become aware enough of your thoughts to catch all of your grumbles, but keep it up.

Once you have a list of your grumbles, examine it. Are you surprised by how many grumbles you entertain? What are the themes of your grumbles--for example, many of my grumbles are about time, "poor" decisions about how to spend it, and the lack of it. What do you grumble about? How much mental space do you spend grumbling?

And most importantly, how much space do you want to spend grumbling? If it's less than you spend now, let's take down your inner grumbler.

Image courtesy of http://farm1.static.flickr.com/

A world of Liquid Luck

Sometimes movies have beautiful life-philosophy moments, and I'd like to share with you one that I experienced recently in the new Harry Potter movie.

In the movie, Harry uses an elixir of liquid luck to convince Professor Slughorn to share a memory with him. It works like this: Harry fixes his mind on what he wants to accomplish (get the memory), drinks the elixir, and then follows his gut impulses. Instead of taking the logical step of going to Slughorn's office, Harry goes to see his friend Hagrid, and a series of seemingly coincidental events ensue, resulting in a night of drunk revelry and Harry finding just the right moment to ask for--and get--the memory. Impossible to design in advance, brilliant in hindsight.

This is probably one of my favorite Harry Potter moments. Wouldn't it be great if we all had little bottles of liquid luck, to direct at whatever purpose we wanted?

The thing is, though, I think we might. Have you ever wanted something really really badly, and then gotten it through the most random ways? Oftentimes if something comes our way not through hard work, but through a series of unplanned events, we call it coincidence or chance. But what if that whole process is really like Harry drinking liquid luck: you set your mind's eye on your goal, put the request out there, believe it'll come, and then watch it all unfold?

I've had several examples of liquid luck in my life, and the more I think about it, the more I find. Here's one of my favorites: when I first entered MIT, I attended a talk by Nobel Laureate and President of Cal Tech, David Baltimore. I stole a quick moment with him afterwards, and asked him which of two labs I should join. I followed his recommendation, and am happy I did. A few years later, we were both speaking at the same conference on the Berkeley campus, and I set my intention on pulling him aside and thanking him for the advice. The problem was that he was pretty much going to arrive, give his talk, and leave--not much time to pin him down. Glug glug liquid luck. The day of the conference, I was a ball of nerves about my talk, and so I went off into a remote building far from the conference, and found a quiet deserted corridor in which to practice my speech. I paced around, talking to myself, gesturing, etc. And then I heard someone behind me say "excuse me." Turning around, I saw none other than David Baltimore standing there! Just me and him in a deserted hallway far from the conference. He had gotten lost on the way to the conference, and was looking for directions. I could barely speak I was so stunned. Impossible to design in advance, brilliant in hindsight. Could that have been liquid luck?

That is a spine-tingley example. But I think there are other more ordinary ones in day-to-day life as well. For example, I was recently looking for a new artistic hobby, but hadn't found any of interest. So I set my intention on finding one, but did not design any concrete steps. Glug glug liquid luck. Meanwhile, I invited my friend Casey to hang out, we chose a weekend, and then he realized that that weekend was Somerville Open Studios, where artists open their homes to showcase their work. We picked out a few artists, none of whose crafts particularly interested me, nor was I particularly looking for a craft for myself, but on our way back to the car, we walked by a house with a terrific stained glass peacock in the window. We stopped to admire it, and Casey discovered that this house was actually part of SOS. We entered the house, and guess what, the stained glass artist, Emily Bhargava, offered classes. Bingo! I am now taking stained glass classes, and it's exactly what I was looking for. Hard to design in advance, brilliant in hindsight. Could that have been liquid luck?

Will I ever be able to prove that my intention caused all of these paths to unfold before me? Nope. I certainly couldn't get another Ph.D. from MIT on the subject. But how much fun is it to live in a world where every twist and turn is part of a brilliant path to get you to what you desire? I'm looking at my life through the liquid luck lens.

When was the last time you drank liquid luck?

Image courtesy of http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com

A restorative force

A few weekends ago, my friend and coworker at the Handel Group, Jo Sawalha, introduced an interesting idea about how we subconsciously maintain the status quo in our lives.

I have noticed in my own life that often after a period of intense joy or accomplishment, anything worthy of Whitney Houston's "One moment in time" (pre-Bobby Brown) as a soundtrack, I usually have what can best be described as a slump day. A day when I get cranky, down-in-the-dumps, and overall blah.

For example, after leading my last two-day coaching workshop in New York, I spent the following Monday on the couch watching whatever Netflix Instant Viewing cared to throw at me. It would be one thing if this was my delicious reward for a weekend well spent: a day of blissful movie-going. But it wasn't. It was me feeling too blah to bother getting off the couch and doing something that would really make me happy. It was like I was treating the day as a sick day.

I thought that this pattern was just me being quirky. But then Jo mentioned that she experiences the same thing, and her comment was met with almost universal nods of agreement from my fellow coaches. Some of the coaches described how they would get sick, or moody, or pick fights with their spouses. Woah, I thought. It's not just me. How peculiar.

You could come up with many hypotheses for this trend. Maybe we over-exert ourselves, leaving us more prone to illness. Maybe we tap into some sort of energy reserve, and then need to recharge.

Jo had her own hypothesis. She cited work by David Hawkings (whose ideas she mostly disagrees with, by the way, because they state that people really can't grow and evolve to any great extent), that claims that each person lives at a certain "level" in their day-to-day life. That level can be thought of as an energy level, or a greatness level, or a happiness level. We go about our lives pretty much hanging out at a certain level and that level feels "normal" to us.

Then we do something great, and our level rises, maybe even by a lot. But this new level feels strange and unfamiliar to us, and so unconsciously we create an "equal and opposite force," to quote physics textbooks from time immemorial, to bring us back to our old level. A restorative force. Like laying on the couch watching Netflix. Ah, back to familiar ground.

This concept got me thinking, because it puts us in the driver's seat. What if that restorative force really is deliberate, and not some physical law of human-ness? What if my days of blah have really been me just wanting to return to familiar ground? This would mean that, after an amazing accomplishment or experience, I could stay at that new level if I so choose. Wild. What would it take to stay up there, to make that my new level? What would that shift be like?

It's funny how even as I write this, my first response is "that sounds exhausting." The voice of restoration is persistent, that's for sure. But what if I could bust past the belief that it has to be exhausting, and see what's on the other side? What if?

The signs are everywhere

I am convinced that there are no accidents or coincidences in this world. Everything has a purpose, a message, a meaning. Sometimes this message subtle, and sometimes it is glaringly obvious.

This weekend, the universe decided to skip subtle nuance, and go for blatant.

Something I have been working on is bringing my heart to the table. Loving people for exactly who they are, and when I sit beside them, really being with them. Not giving myself the right to recede in my head and start a running commentary on them. Just loving them, period.

It has taken focus and intent, but it's amazing what a difference it makes.

This weekend, I was on a morning run in North Salem, CT, and I ran across a bridge that I noticed had some graffiti on it. Now, for those of you who have never been to North Salem, this is the sort of town where purebred horses outnumber people, Whole Foods is considered pedestrian, and a full European Union of imported cars zoom past you on the streets. Graffiti in a town like this?

Attached is a picture of that graffiti. Ok, universe, I gotcha.

Talking back

Two posts ago, I introduced the concept of writing a purge. Rachel, a writer, was resisting finishing her novel because of fear of failure. So I had her purge the thoughts in her head about writing, to see how her fear manifests itself.

Today, I'm going to go into the purge in more detail. The idea behind the purge is this: as long as we keep something safely hidden inside our heads, away from the light of day, it can live as true for us. For example, I remember that I once thought my friend Lynn was upset at me. I would see her, and gather more evidence for the theory that she was cross: that she said "hi" and not "hi, how are you doing?", that she didn't tell me that her sister was in town, etc. I gathered a nice pile of evidence, and it lived as truth to me. Then I spoke to a mutual friend, Arthur, who seemed perplexed by my conclusions. When he asked me why I though Lynn was upset at me, and I spoke my list out loud, I realized that it didn't hold water. There were dozens of other explanations for each piece of evidence, and there was no jury on earth that was going to side with me on my conviction.

By getting the thoughts out of my head, I was able to see all of the holes in my reasoning.

This is why we do purges at the Handel Group, to see the bugaboos that live in our heads for what they really are. By writing down all of the thoughts in your head, as if you have a tiny microphone in there recording everything, you can hold your thoughts up to the light and see the holes. And then you can talk-back to the thoughts, just as Arthur talked back to my thoughts about Lynn.

To demonstrate, I would like to share with you an example from my client Leo. Leo is an established actor, and is looking to expand his craft to include screenwriting as well. He had a good idea for a script, had taken a screenwriting class, but he was resisting writing the script itself. Here is his purge:

"It’s a great idea but unfortunately that’s all it is: an idea. I lack the necessary writing skills to bring this project to reality. I can’t do dialogue at all. Writing a script would be way over my head. I should just stick to what I do best which is premises.

I just don’t have the kind of brain for plot twists and catchy dialogue. There are people out there for whom writing comes easy. The fact that it is hard for me is a sign that I should just leave it to the pros.

I don’t even know where to begin. The fact that I don’t know where to begin is a sign that I shouldn’t. Writers know where to begin. They have a technique to this stuff. I don’t have the base of knowledge necessary to undertake something this large. It would be a hot mess. It’s just better to devote that amount of time to something else.

Maybe I could do it, but I couldn’t do it well so I’d rather just not do it at all."

As long as these thoughts lived in his head, they were his truth. But once he put them on paper, the holes in his reasoning became apparent. Here is his talk-back:

"It’s a great idea but unfortunately that’s all it is: an idea. Of course it’s just an idea. All projects, large and small, start out as an idea in someone’s head. The difference is that they followed through on theirs.

I lack the necessary writing skills to bring this project to reality. How is it possible to know that when I haven’t even tried it yet?

I can’t do dialogue at all. Ridiculous. Being an actor gives me a well trained ear for not only scene structure but the rhythm of good dialogue.

Writing a script would be way over my head. I should just stick to what I do best which is premises. There’s no reason why this should be way over my head. People much less talented and qualified than me finish script all the time. It is entirely possible for me to do so.

I just don’t have the kind of brain for plot twists and catchy dialogue. There are people out there for whom writing comes easy. The fact that it is hard for me is a sign that I should just leave it to the pros. NOT TRUE. The vast majority of working writers speak of being lost for long periods of time on projects. My idea of an easy birthing process is a myth. It’s wishing to have the end result without the work, pure and simple.

I don’t even know where to begin. The fact that I don’t know where to begin is a sign that I shouldn’t. Writers know where to begin. They have a technique to this stuff. I know exactly where to begin. I could finish plotting my outline where I left off in class. My old class notes that I’ve kept would give me a huge leg up towards getting some work done, and the steps necessary to do that.

I don’t have the base of knowledge necessary to undertake something this large. It would be a hot mess. It’s just better to devote that amount of time to something else. Chicken! This is an excuse. I would love to work on a project like this and it’s a logical next step in my career. This is fear of failure. The truth is I have EXACTLY the base of knowledge necessary to complete a project like this. I’m an actor with an intrinsic instinct for structure, dialogue and building drama. All I have to do is channel this existing talent into this new project. It should be fairly simple actually.

Maybe I could do it, but I couldn’t do it well so I’d rather just not do it at all. Brat! “I won’t wanna!” I can do this. I know in my heart that I can not only do this well, but knock it out of the ballpark. The only thing that is stopping me is my fear. I don’t like playing games I’m not already the best at. But if I put my mind to it I could write a first draft of this script easily in my free time.

So you see, most of the thoughts in Leo's head were not entirely believable when he put them on paper. He was using those thoughts as an excuse to not take on the scary proposition of writing his script. With the excuses stripped away, he can move forward to work on his script, and gather some real data from the experience about what it's like to write a screenplay, how much he enjoys it, and what his ideal role in the movie production process is.