The Career You'll Love

I don’t know about you, but there’s some days I can hardly get myself out of bed.  The prospect of yet another day of pointless work….

Or I get out of meetings late in the afternoon and it hits me how behind I am.  REALLY behind.

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When did we get so darned serious?

Yeah, things are rough. There’s a lot of stress, a lot to worry about. Work never ends – if you’re lucky enough to have a job.

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It happens.

Here you are in the store, and you run across a friend. She’s with another person, and makes the connection that perhaps the two of you might be able to help each other. So with no notice, you’re asked to talk for 30 seconds about what you do – and relate it to this other person. Terror sets in.

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I got a note from a reader pointing me to this Bschool blog post: 10 Incredible Team-Building Trips You Wish Your Company Would Do.  Of course, these examples are so notable precisely because they’re so far outside our normal experience.

Actually, I’m not a great fan of doing outrageous things that often.  In my view, parties and events should be proportional to the impact of what’s being celebrated.  I would imagine that there might have been a pretty outrageous party after NASA landed the first man on the moon.

But I wouldn’t think it would be good to have outrageous parties for relatively normal events.  With that mentality, you end up with an over-the-top culture like Enron or AIG.

So here’s today’s thought to consider:  Celebration is good, whether it’s work-related or personal.  What would be proportional to the emotional impact you’d like it to have?

Perhaps that’s an interesting thought as we consider what to do for our sweethearts for Valentine’s day!

I’ve seen more and more people for whom the concept of a lunch break has effectively disappeared. There’s so much to do, and spending time on a break seems like a waste. So lunch is wolfed down at your desk, and work continues on.

But here’s the thing: Done properly, a break makes you MORE productive for the rest of your work.

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I’m a big fan of the yearly weather cycle. Here in Colorado, we have seasons which are quite distinct from each other.

As we head into autumn, we see that nature is heading toward hibernation. Rather than dying, the trees are going dormant. It’s a dangerous time for forest fires because the winter moisture hasn’t yet arrived, but even fires are necessary for some trees to create their next generation.

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What puts you “in the zone?”

We’ve all been there. It’s the place where you’re fully engaging all your energy, your passion, both the left and right halves of your brain.

You’re in the zone when you lose sense of time, and you have a heightened sense of engagement and accomplishment. And you’re having fun.

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I’ve been a bit under the weather for the last week, recovering from an unpleasant bout of stomach flu.  Now that I’m back up to 98% again, I was thinking about the value of taking a break from the intensity and stress.

One of the nice things about getting sick – if you permit me to say something might be “nice” here – is that it gave me a great excuse to let things slide a little bit.  I had a great reason to blow off some the less important meetings and to reset expectations.  After all, everyone has first-hand experience with being ill.

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Something light and interesting today!  My wife and I went to the Phoenix Art Museum this afternoon, and there were some fascinating pieces.

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