The Working Malaise

by Lee Down
copyright December 22, 2003

It's just a general malaise, dissatisfaction, with the status quo. Unfulfilled, not connected, not doing something that really lights that spark. I'm sure you know what I mean.

I had a myriad of ideas when my employer laid me off. I've failed at one business already a couple of summers ago. Then I retreated; I retreated from work, from life, into my home, away from responsibility, away from my ideas and placed more importance on me. I felt selfish, irresponsible, guilty, lazy, et al. Again, anyone out of work, you know what I mean!

My computer died, along with it, so did much material for many of my ideas. Whoa! What's this I noticed, I feel lighter, more able to focus. It may be short-lived but I'll take it while I can. Rebuilt the computer, discovered I can finally play games. I did that. I forgot about a lot of what has been (key word here) DRIVING me. I learned to relax again. I learned a bit more about my self. Still not where I think I should be, but certainly more aware again.

Read a lot of books!!! Now this leads to where I'm going with this post. In light of all this striving, driving, achieving, dissatisfaction with life, work, meaning, etc. I really wonder the reason why. There was a time when the work wasn't so important, that we could enjoy just going to work and the rewards of work: Time off, money to enjoy it, family, friends, hobbies, volunteers, special interests etc.

Now, what's been happening to our world of work? Are we working harder, striving to do more with less? Are we feeling this malaise because we're not taking our time for our own creative pursuits, for our own Rest & Relaxation? Are we searching for some meaning? Is this lack of meaning because we're not feeding our spirit? Isn't our spirit a creative being? How do we feed that with this go, go, go, attitude in society today? How can we take time to relax and enjoy being ourselves when society is continually pushing us to do more, more, more; what?

I've been doing some interesting reading lately and some interesting re-reading. One that really raised a number of these questions is Aldous Huxley, Island, and then the Brave New World Revisited.

Now I'm working on the Vein of Gold, the sequel to the Artists Way. I'm no artist in the literal sense of our culture, drawing, painting and such, but I do think we're all artists of a sort. Now working with this book, getting back to some basics, which is what this book reinforces, I find myself slowing down and getting back in touch with myself. In light of the other reading, the cause and effect of our culture on my own particular situation, the similarities with others I've seen asking the BIG questions, I can't help but wonder if this questing, searching that we're all on, has more to do with our spiritual evolution than it does with our career?

I feel there is something here for us all to discover that may just alleviate our sense of despair. As a recent contact in my network said to me recently, "Our whole life is our career, not just what we've come to label our paid work." What he means is a more holistic approach to career. Your career is your life; it is your kids, your hobbies, your reading, your sports, your volunteering, your work, your relationships, and so on.

If our lives are so one dimensional, it's no wonder we're all eager to look elsewhere and it's no wonder we're so at a loss as to where to look.

Seeking The Path

Well, I hope that through the conversation of me telling you about my journey that you'll see something in your journey that can serve as a guidepost. You can never hope for much more than that when you're in that "seeking" phase. That seeking phase is also a very confusing place, one that leaves you wondering "just what is it" that you're searching for? Often times, it seems as though every single area of your own life is a total and complete shambles, meaningless, worthless. This is part of the discovery process though - or so I believe from my experience.

It's in facing these realities that our focus begins to shift towards what is meaningful. Not having really given it a lot of thought and not having been taught, it is a tough climb to find that meaning. For each individual, that meaning is significantly different. There are many clues within you, but putting all the pieces together, like any good jigsaw puzzle, will take quite some time. You can imagine what I mean with that metaphor. I'm not particularly fond of puzzles because I like activities that have a more immediate feedback response.

This journey has not allowed me to escape from the reality of life being that puzzle and I'm the masterpiece. An ordinary puzzle takes a considerable period of time, so imagine the masterpiece that each human-being represents and you begin to see that solving that puzzle will take you some time. Don't be frustrated by this though. I think we easily frustrate because we feel so much pressure from the world around us. It's conditioned us to perform and produce immediate results.

The truth of life however, is that anything worthwhile takes time. Look at Mother Nature: time is her ally; she will outlast us all; all that is man-made will be swallowed by her awesome power in time. Why can't our lives unfold much in that same way? Becoming aware of your journey, your values, coincidences, participate actively in the process of your life; pursue something, anything. All things contribute to your goal, a goal you are not even completely aware of yet. Action leads to opportunity and opportunity leads to growth and learning. People, situations, signals, repetitive themes and occurrences: if you're awareness increases, you should begin to see patterns that reveal something about what you're in pursuit of.

The final thing I have learned though is about fear. Fear holds us back and, as in the "Fog of War", when we are in a fog we usually don't see what is plainly right in front of us that we are to pursue. It's no ones fault but our own. I admit that I have been caught in its nasty jaws many times and have spent considerable time pondering my pitiful life. Finally, when I decided to take control back of my life, I faced my fear; the fear of the unknown and even without "knowing for sure" I began to walk the path that I believed to be there for me.

Now, I haven't told any specifics about the situations and it's rather a high-level explanation but I hope one that resonates. I think that is also the benefit of reading Po Bronson's book, “What Should I Do with My Life?” I learned from the combined examples in the book that our journeys are unique, that there are no definitive answers until you look back, and sometimes you won't reach the goals and in many cases, you'll discover you've been chasing the wrong goals as you find yourself achieving what you really are here to do. The truth is, you know it better than anyone but until you put the puzzle pieces together, it won't be clear.

Business Unfriendly

Business Unfriendly
by Lee Down
published in The Source Newspaper, December 2005

So much unnecessary suffering among immigrants; Canadian businesses have no foresight. I’ve worked in the employment field for years and have heard the judgmental banter from business owners and hiring managers stating that hiring immigrants is bad business. What a load of crap! I’ve worked with many immigrants over the years and know that there is a tremendous opportunity for Canadian business that does hire with diversity in mind.

I was asked to chase down a few immigrants and write about their stories. I’ve already heard many stories and I wanted to look for new people. Coming out of my building I met Valentina, the mother of a Russian immigrant family immersed in tragedy. It has been a difficult transition for everyone involved. The mother, a family doctor back home, watches her family crumble from the stress and obstacles, including resistance by Canadian business and poor advice by career counselors. I quickly corrected her when she started to shoulder the blame for all of the difficulties she and her family has experienced.

Valentina worked hard to learn her English and being an optimistic person, she was the glue for the family for years. This year, the weight finally caught up to her and she is now living in a transition house to escape the negativity at home that has their family life falling apart. How can anyone succeed professionally when their personal lives are disintegrating around them? She’s worried about her husband who is depressed and struggling. Her son, a brilliant student when in Russia, now struggles through all the negativity at home. They’ve all changed so much due to the lack of familial success. She still has a plan and everyone in the family is still working towards a future, but the collateral damage has taken an enormous toll.

Felicity, another beautiful woman I met, had another remarkable story to tell. A mix of African, European, and Asian descendents, she hails from Zimbabwe and has worked for years in Geneva for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Her commitment was to help families via counseling, reintegration strategies, training, and fundraising activities. With new love in her life, she moved to Calgary in 1991, working in the oil business until 1993 when her Italian husband couldn’t stand the cold and they returned to Europe. As with so many love stories, this one abruptly ended and she came to Vancouver in 1998.

At that time, she struggled with the same business resistance to her having no Canadian experience and the infamous line that I’ve heard in interviews as well, “you didn’t move here for the money, you moved here for the scenery.” This attempt at hiring talent and not paying for it persists on many levels still today. A strong woman, she stuck to her guns and found a marketing position and life seemed well until the fateful day she was diagnosed with Cancer. This witnessed the loss of not only a breast, but also a career, a partner, her finances in ruin and a house repossessed.

Today, she has almost completed her recovery and is looking forward to working again. Her experience with loss, cancer, and recovery has taught her the importance of balance and positive energy. The positive energy and balance in life allows her to maintain an attitude of abundance, creativity, and gratitude. Her experience with helping others and recovering from her illness has demonstrated the power of her attitude in creating opportunity for herself and for others.

There are other stories as well, some similarly tragic, some more uplifting. As a Canadian seeking change in our business culture, it’s time to shift the focus to business in Vancouver – possibly even Canada and America. An attitude exists that ignores the fact that we are all living in community and the health of our society and economy depends upon our willingness to embrace and integrate our interdependence. Business wants the superhero employee and they don’t want to pay for it. Money, profits, and performance are the measuring stick. Loyalty and family values have evaporated. Business is the new family and the bottom-line is the King. When will the business culture realize the value and power behind investing in people?

A Bit About Coaching

What is Coaching?

Coaching is a professional partnership between a coach and an individual or team that supports the achievement of extraordinary results, based on goals set by the individual or team. Through the process of coaching, focus is on the skills and actions needed to successfully produce relevant results.

The individual or team chooses the focus of conversation, while the coach listens and contributes observations and questions as well as concepts and principles which can assist in generating possibilities and identifying actions. Through the coaching process the clarity that is needed to support the most effective actions is achieved. Coaching accelerates the individual's or team’s progress by providing greater focus and awareness of possibilities leading to more effective choices. Coaching concentrates on where individuals are now and what they are willing to do to get where they want to be in the future. Coaches recognize that results are a matter of the individual's or team’s intentions, choices and actions, supported by the coach's efforts and application of coaching skills, approaches and methods.

Benefits of Coaching

Individuals who engage in a coaching relationship can expect to experience fresh perspectives on personal challenges and opportunities, enhanced thinking and decision making skills, enhanced interpersonal effectiveness, and increased confidence in carrying out their chosen work and life roles. Consistent with a commitment to enhancing their personal effectiveness, they can also expect to see appreciable results in the areas of productivity, personal satisfaction with life and work, and the achievement of personally relevant goals.

Is Coaching Right For Me?

To determine if you could benefit from coaching, start by summarizing what you would expect to accomplish in coaching. When someone has a fairly clear idea of the desired outcome, a coaching partnership can be a useful tool for developing a strategy for how to achieve that outcome with greater ease.

Since coaching is a partnership, also ask yourself if you find it valuable to collaborate, to have another viewpoint and to be asked to consider new perspectives. Also, ask yourself if you are ready to devote the time and the energy to making real changes in your work or life. If the answer to these questions is yes, then coaching may be a beneficial way for you to grow and develop.

Why Would I Want a Coach?

There are many reasons that an individual or team might choose to work with a coach, including but not limited to the following:

• There is something at stake (a challenge, stretch goal or opportunity), and it is urgent, compelling or exciting or all of the above
• There is a gap in knowledge, skills, confidence, or resources
• A big stretch is being asked or required, and it is time sensitive
• There is a desire to accelerate results
• There is a need for a course correction in work or life due to a setback
• An individual has a style of relating that is ineffective or is not supporting the achievement of one’s personally relevant goals
• There is a lack of clarity, and there are choices to be made
• The individual is extremely successful, and success has started to become problematic
• Work and life are out of balance, and this is creating unwanted consequences
• One has not identified his or her core strengths and how best to leverage them
• The individual desires work and life to be simpler, less complicated
• There is a need and a desire to better organized and more self-managing

This World

Everyday, getting smaller and smaller
Hearing the screams of pain and agony
The suffering continues
As mankind evolves
But into what?
Atrocities and virtue collide
In a constant battle
As two bighorn sheep
Dueling it out on mountaintop
A thundering crash on impact
Sending a shiver down the spine of society
Trying to make a better place
Will good overcome evil
Or will a blind eye be turned?
Ignoring the crimes committed
Against helpless people
Nuclear fallout, civil wars and terrorism
Destroying a fragile web
The spider must rebuild again and again

The Truth About Emotional Intelligence

There is so much emphasis on emotional intelligence these days that it appears that people are suppressing their emotions and problems in an effort to "fit in," to keep their jobs, and using "positive self-talk" to muscle through the rough spots in their lives.

Recently, I had a friend over who has suffered enormous job stress during a time when his wife's father was dying of cancer. Of course, quitting his job didn't seem like an option during this difficult period, particularly since his wife returned to her parental home for many months to say good-bye to her dying father. That left him at home to take care of their children, pay the bills, and so on. Who can forge positively into a new job-search with all that going on?

After his father-in-law passed away his wife returned home and he lost his job - as did many of his colleagues - and his wife decided she no longer wanted to remain married. What else could go wrong? OH! Of course! His father could be diagnosed with cancer: He was.

Now he is living a complete hell, with all of this turmoil, and two sweet children looking to him for stability. Is it any wonder that people are cracking under the strain?

He is all alone and he tries to be "emotionally together" but that only causes more harm than good. We (society), in our need for order and stability, don't want people with all these problems in our lives. We don't want them working in our office. They're broken!

Well, the truth is, our (society) expectations around emotional intelligence, and together, full-functioning adults, is what is breaking them.

I spent three hours with him the other night, acknowledging his horrific circumstances, his emotional turmoil, and gave him permission to embrace it all. He's not broken, he's experiencing emotional pain and it needs to be expressed, embraced, and worked through (processed.) It's not enough that he embrace it either. Community is required to surround, love, heal, and regenerate.

So, when we see hurting people, don't look at them as broken people who haven't got their act together. Look at them as someone who needs a bit of kindness, generosity, and loving support. Watch the power those simple things can have in their life.

Caveat: This does not condone people remaining disempowered victims for the rest of their lives. Our role is to embrace and still to empower, leaving the "wounded one" to take responsibility for their recovery. Embrace, love, and challenge.

Sleep

It descends softly
Enveloping me slowly
With a million tiny gems
Sparkling in the mines
Of my minds eye
Creating a warmth
Of peace and serenity

Lying there still
Waiting, in the darkness
For the escape
That awaits me
I drift slowly
With the ebbing tide
Of time and distance
No longer a reality

Thoughts become dreams
Dreams become reality
Running from the demons
To find a sanctuary
Of magnificence and grandeur
That will protect and warm
The battered heart and soul
That battles the real world
And spirits of the night

Just Follow The Flow

My mind and life are coming alive once again
to share scattered thoughts of
random order and chaos of disorder.

There is magic in words, in mind,
in sight, in everything we do.
What can be conceived can be believed
as so much of what is, once never was.

We are Gods, we are creation,
we are here constantly creating.
Each waking moment creating our reality
seemingly unreal when the pain is so unbearable and
the reality so surreal in times of ecstacy.

Our minds are powerful beyond measure
conducting maybe 20% of what is possible.
What greater symphony might be experienced
if we could access the complete orchestra?

The music of our lives hits lows so low
too often it seems the highs so far
in the distant past as to be almost
unbelievable when experienced again.

And yet, there is still so much that is possible
for us meagre beings inhabiting a small part
of such a big universe that can hardly
be fathomed so we don't even acknowledge,

prefering instead to stay in our head,
creating our own little world, of which we
are the masters of the universe,
the cenre of all creation and attention.

And yet, even so, we are creatures of God,
honoring our gifts through creation of our lives.
The real question to be asked;
are you of service or disservice?

The challenge of being less of you
to experience more of you and to
live the life you are here to create.
A powerful concept if you let it flow.

Creating Your Future

The questions of life may call to you. You may wonder about your purpose. You may feel out of place, disconnected, just a bit out of sync. You may want to find clarity; to find the stillness in your mind. That elusive quality where time loses all meaning. You may not even know what it is that you seek but you sit there in your skin and you know something is making you uncomfortable.

Well, I'm here to tell you that it's okay. It's not unusual or abnormal. The bigger questions of life and the role you want to play in that are great questions! Important questions! To not ask them and seek your own answers would resign you to an existence of numbness and one day, possibly regret. But it doesn't have to be that way. It's never too late and there is no deadline.

The journey itself can be a tremendous reward. And don't be fooled! The pursuit of worthy goals and self-discovery is not easy. There will be plenty of tough times, inner soul searching, periods of enormous movement and change, periods of stagnation and possibly even despair. There will be times when you think you have found that groove you've always been looking for and then there will be times when you feel as though you haven't a hope in the world of finding your place. This is normal.

Everyone who experiences life will encounter variations of questions pertaining to their values that will challenge them at crossroads in life. Sometimes we heed these inner callings but often times, external forces to our sense of security in the world will push these inner callings deep into the mud. Instead we are fearful of change or to focused on the negatives or "what if" scenarios. So we play it safe and ignore our inner callings.

We're all looking for "that career" that will reward us in the way we need to be rewarded. For some it may be money. For others it may be prestige, recognition and yet someone else it is just the fact they get to "do what they love doing." Everyone will have a unique journey to reach their discovery. The journey will be made intentionally or unintentionally. It will be confused and painful or it can be enlightened by your own self-awareness. Don't get so focused on the goal that you don't get the full experience of the journey. The journey is so critical.

During the journey your experiences will offer you with so many valuable clues about yourself. Who you are. What makes you thrive. What puts you to sleep. The kind of people you like to work with. The environments you prefer. All of these experiences and many many more specific pieces relevant to you, your profession, passion, skills, and personality. All of them can be incorporated into your goal.

You, your life, your values, and beliefs, and many other things, will change. So keep dreaming, keep looking at the goal. But do so with the knowledge and understanding of your journey. Implement adjustments to your navigation system towards your goal if it changes. The experiences of your life and the decisions and their consequences will teach you so much. Allow yourself to take that journey, without knowing when it will end nor where it will take you. Get comfortable with not knowing. Keep seeking. Don't be afraid to take that next step. This is the very thing I too have to challenge myself on every day.

Visit my website One Man Can Human Capital Development to see more about me and what I'm doing to help others create change in life.