The 10 X 10 Square

There is a story of a lion that was kept for years in a 10-foot by 10-foot square cage with a concrete floor.  Once rescued and sent to a location that had room to roam, this lion quickly found a quiet location to remain alone and spent her remaining years wearing out a 10 foot by 10-foot patch of grass. 

 

That is truly a heartbreaking story.  A magnificent animal that has lost all will to do what the species has naturally engrained in their DNA.  As I think about my life, I wonder how many times have I limited my range by just keeping to the areas that I know.   

 

• My first job was at the McDonald's where my sister and cousin had worked so I knew people there before I had started 

• One of my roommates in college was from my high school class 

• My first job out of college was for a division of the company that my father had worked for since he graduated college 

• I married someone from my high school class 

• We lived within 15 miles of the town where we grew up 

 

All of this happened during my "formative" years.  I have always been pretty shy and introverted when it comes to meeting new people.  Once I get to know them, I am a little more outgoing.  I have tried in recent years to do things that were of my own doing, where I have had no previous ties.   

 

• I started refereeing football and soccer 

• I joined the community advisory board of the local Public Broadcasting station 

• I was on the Patient Advisory Board for a medical practice that we had at work 

 

Each of these items gave me additional confidence in being able to realize that I can do things on my own.  When I had suddenly been laid off from my position at a job I had, I was never worried that I would not find work.  In fact, I was looking at it as a chance to spread my wings a little further.  I started looking for positions that were outside my previous experiences.  Things that I learned from that were: 

 

• While people talk about transferrable skills, having experience in the same area is far superior (especially in the same industry) 

• Networking really is the best way to get into a company when there are so many ways of submitting resumes these days 

• Being self-reflective has its ups and downs 

 

Transferrable Skills 

Having skills that are transferrable is a great concept.  The problem is not everyone can see that.  Some people believe their industry is so unique that you have to be in it for years to understand the nuances of having a position in that industry.  Having been in several "unique" industries, I can tell you that it is simply not true.  Here's an example: 

I had worked in the nuclear power industry for over 15 years.  I had knowledge of regulations, reporting, the intended purpose of the regulation, and, most importantly, how to apply that knowledge when reporting it to the regulating authority.  Fast forward 10 years or so.  I am now working in the Emergency Medical Education industry and one project was to get a paramedic education program accredited by a national board.  Using the same skills as in nuclear power, I took each tenet of the accreditation process and provided documented evidence of how that concept or requirement was met with the program.  The program was accredited on the first submission.  A couple of years later, I led a project to get a Continuing Medical Education program accredited by the State Board responsible for accreditation.  These were 3 totally separate industries but the concepts were the same.  If you have a regulation (or requirement) explain and demonstrate how you meet it.  Each of the program applications was cited as highly effective in their concept and demonstration. 

 

Networking 

While few people like networking, I have found that generally like the connections I have with others really helps me keep in touch with them.  It is so much easier reaching out to people that you know and just saying hello and how are you than it is to reach out to someone that you see is working at a company that you are interested in working at that you haven't talked to in a while.  I still think this is an area that I can get better at and I continue to try to expand my circle of friends and closer acquaintances. 

 

Self-Reflection 

As I read and listen to podcasts, I am constantly asking myself, "how can I incorporate this into my life?"  It doesn't matter if it is something I do to try to learn from or just for entertainment.  I find there are lessons being sent from all over.  My job is to find those lessons and learn how to use them to the best of my ability.  And the lesson can also be what not to do.  Learning from the mistakes of others can be just as powerful.  The key for me is to keep pushing and get outside of that zone of comfort. 

 

What are you doing to get outside of your 10-foot by 10-foot square? 

Don't Throw Out the Baby with the Bathwater

A recent hike where I found a little lake that I didn't knew existed.

There are a lot of places to find information; Books, websites, podcasts, blogs, magazines, etc.   To make people "follow" you, there needs to be a message that is unique.  I have been doing quite a bit of searching over the past several years and I have gotten behind several of the messages.  One thing that I have started doing more recently is stepping back as well.  While each person that is creating content needs to have their schtick (their 3-5 things you need to do to be a perfect human), the theory or message behind every schtick is not necessarily unique. 

 

Let's take reading books for example.  Some people will read a book cover-to-cover, every time, every book.  Others will read the first 30-50 pages.  If the book doesn't grab them by then they stop and move on to another book.  Still, others will open the book in the middle and see if the content is interesting at that point.  What are you supposed to do?  All of these people are usually famous, wealthy, or thought-leaders.  Clearly, the rest of us cannot follow every bit of advice.  What we can do it step back and try it out.  There may be some things that you find that work better than others.  Keep those.

 

We have a book club where I work that was recently talking about the Simon Sinek book, Start With Why.  The premise of the book is that people don't buy What you do, they buy Why you do it.  I believe that to a point.  My feeling is that it just doesn't work for everyone.  If each person or business were to truly "start with why," who would be making toilet paper?  You can't tell me that every person that works at Charmin is so excited to get up and go to work in the morning because they know that when they make a roll of toilet paper the world is going to be a better place. 

 

None of this takes away from the fact that if you are unhappy with your life you shouldn't look at what is creating that unhappiness.  Is it with your work, your living arrangements, your friends, the weather…that is making you unhappy?  If so, you have a choice.  You can continue to be unhappy or you can make changes.  In this instance, I believe asking "Why?" is a good place to start.  Why am I here? 

 

If you do it right, it is not an easy question to answer.  We have been brought up to think that we need to have a good job and take care of our family.  That may not work for everyone.  Is that bad?  If everyone did that, would there be any creativity? 

 

Personally, I love finding ways of doing things that are more efficient or effective.  I have worked in several industries and have taken things that I learned from each to apply to the industry that I work in at the time.  I love looking at what I do each day and wonder is there a more effective way of doing that?  Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of things that I could be more effective in doing.  But it is about finding the pattern and path in each activity that makes me push forward and try to improve.  It's the reason that I listen to so many podcasts, subscribe to so many newsletters, read or listen to so many books.  One of my favorite quotes is: "Learn from the mistakes of others; we don't have enough time to make them all ourselves."  And that is what I try to do.  I take in the information (hopefully it has some context with it as well), see if there is someplace in my life that I can apply it, and try to incorporate it if it does.

 

One great example of this was something I learned from Tim Ferriss.  I read a lot of books on Kindle.  I never really saw the purpose of highlighting unless I had purchased the book.  If I highlight a book that I borrowed from a library and the book gets returned, all those highlights would be gone.  Right?  Actually, wrong.  There is a site you can go to on Amazon that has all of your highlights from any of the books you read through the Kindle or Kindle app.  Also, you can make notes about anything that you were thinking when you highlighted and those notes can be downloaded as well.  Who knew?  While I don't agree with everything Tim Ferriss does or says, this little gem has totally shifted how I read and retain what I read. 

 

Be curious.  Be questioning.  Be open.  But don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.

 

Sometimes You Have to Go South to Go North

I was attending a class with a colleague and we wanted to stop by a mutual friends office that was 1 exit North of where we were.  So we headed northbound on the highway and had to go up to the second exit because there was no Northbound Exit for the correct street.  So to get to the correct address we had to actually go South to go North.

 

This is a topic that I think about a LOT!  When is the direct route not the fastest route?  It turns out that so many things fall into this category. 

• Education
• Fitness
• Eating Well
• Productivity

 

Education - You learn more from your failures than you do from your successes.  By having the ability to reflect on what you did and the outcomes, you can prevent repeating the same problem again.  I have been helping a newer colleague perform a task that only happens rarely.  Based on my experiences, I have been able to express some of the pitfalls that I have encountered because of my failures.  I'm hoping that it keeps the same thing from happening to her but I also know that if she does have something go wrong, she will learn from that.

 

Fitness - Anytime you start using muscles that you hadn't used in a while there is bound to be some soreness.  You may not be able to repeat on day 2 what you did on day 1.  You have to accept that while you are getting better, you may not be on a constant upward trajectory.

 

Eating Well - There is a lot of literature out there that says if you want to stick to a diet long term, you need to include "Cheat Days" or times where you are off the diet.  There is nothing more annoying than a reformed anything.  The same is true for people (me included) that have changed their eating habits.  I have been doing a Keto like diet for several months and have had great success with it.  I have also allowed myself plenty of slack on times when I am out at family gatherings or having dinner with friends.  Being able to realize that I have the capacity to get back on track and that if your goal is to lose weight constantly you are going to die allows me some flexibility.  I am happy with the way things are going and I know that even if I were to go on a vacation, I would have the ability to bounce back from that.  For the most part just working to reduce the number of days in a row that involves things outside of the diet is really helpful.

 

Productivity - This is actually the reason that I was thinking about this topic today.  Speaking for myself, I need to have down periods where I am able to shift gears instead of working on one thing constantly.  Taking the weekend off from work has been so helpful in keeping me fresh for work.  Going on walks at the beginning or in the middle of the day really has improved my mood and productivity.  Sure there will always be more than enough work to fill the day but when you want to run a marathon, you cannot sprint from the beginning.

 

What is something that you have found that you need to do less of to get more out of?

Wet Rocks/Dry Rocks

Have you ever been walking along a stream and saw a rock in the water that looked very pretty, so you take it home and after it dries off it no longer looks as nice?  It's not the rock that has changed, it's your perspective that has changed. 

This is one of those topics that has been coming back to me in many ways over the years.  I always thought I would write a book someday and one of the chapter titles was going to be Wet Rocks/Dry Rocks.  Perspective impacts so many things such as:

·         The shapes you draw if you use perspective, either single-point or two-point.

·         What your opinion on a topic may be depending on the story that is being told.

·         What the plot of a book or movie is.

·         How to complete a task.

·         Using first-order or second-order thinking.

·         Or yes, whether a rock is pretty or not.

 Drawing Perspective

If you're not familiar with drawing perspective, to consider single-point perspective, think of a cube.  Draw the vertical lines as you normally would, but for the horizontal lines, have them meet toward an imaginary point that is in the distant background.  (Think of looking down a long set of railroad tracks where they appear to meet in the distance.)  While it is the same object, they look totally different.  Two-point perspective is slightly different where you are looking more from an edge of a cube and the lines meet at 2 different points on a distant horizon.

 

Perspective on a topic

Have you ever changed your mind about something?  For instance, whether people should be allowed to legally carry guns.  It doesn’t matter what your opinion is on the topic, it’s just a topic that illustrates a point.  If people are allowed to carry guns, what is the purpose?  To allow for their own security…for hunting…because the Constitution allows it.  Depending on your perspective, you may be in favor of people being able to legally carry guns.  But if there is a mass shooting, does that change your perspective even just a little?  And what determines your perspective?  Is it for your personal protection… is it for other people to protect themselves?  You may have different answers depending on the context.  And that is a single situation.  Think about all of the various topics that the federal government has to deal with.  Is it any wonder that things take forever to get through Congress?  You have 535 people with at least that many opinions. 

The plot of a book or movie

Are you one of those people that can figure out who the good and bad people in a book or movie are in the very first part?  How do you do it?  Is it from seeing the same plot lines over and over again?  Recognizing patterns?  Are you ever surprised by a plot twist, or if the director shows you the same situation from a different perspective, does that make you see things differently? 

How to complete a task

I was recently thinking about a team-building exercise that I always wanted to do with a group. 

1.       You give everyone a copy of the same crossword puzzle (a really difficult one).  They have 5 minutes to complete whatever they can. 

2.       After 5 minutes, they work with the person next to them and create one puzzle out of what both of them have filled in.

3.       Then they have 5 more minutes as a pair to see what else they can get. 

4.       The pair works with a pair next to them and you keep going until there is just one puzzle. 

After there is just 1 team, you look at the difference between what every single person got and what the entire group finished up with to show the value of different backgrounds and perspectives.  I believe this would be a great way of team building and showing the value of different perspectives.

Using first-order or second-order thinking

I love this one.  It has changed my entire outlook on so many things.  Consider a parade where everyone attending is on a flat sidewalk.  The kids are sitting on the curb.  The parents are sitting in chairs behind them, and people are standing behind the parents.  Other people fill in between the heads of the other people that are standing.  You know the scene.  What happens if the parents stand up?  The people behind them have to move their heads to be able to see, then the people behind those people need to move their heads and so on. 

First-order thinking would be the parents wanting to see better, so they stand up.  They aren’t considering what happens after that.  If they had considered second-order thinking, they may have stayed sitting to allow everyone to see without causing all the interruption. 

Now consider an effort to prevent discrimination against people that have a criminal record.  There is a group that wants to remove a checkbox on employment applications asking people if they have ever been convicted of a felony.  The reason being that potential employers may not want to have former felons working in their facility.  Sounds great right?  Former felons that have paid their dues to society for past crimes will be allowed to get the same chance as non-felons at getting jobs because there is nothing in the application that warns the employers against hiring them.  But is that what happened?  No, because employers only had the applications to look at without that information, instead of discriminating against former felons, they now started discriminating against all blacks and Latinos that only had high school diplomas and were between 19 and 30.  That is a second-order effect.  Something that happens that was not intended.

When you think about a stone that looks pretty in the water, think that it will be the same stone whether it is wet or not.  And whenever you can, broaden your perspective.  Take in information from people you may not agree with, listen to the other sides’ arguments, make the other sides’ arguments.  And think about those stones that are dry and just look gray or brown.  What would they look like with a little water on them?