mediocre meritocracy

a friend of mine asked me to review the college transcript of a family member recently. the question was, what should the family member do for work now that they have graduated college. i remember being in my early twenties and questioning what to do with my career, so i was happy to take a look and see if there was a direction that jumped out. i wondered how it would have gone if someone had looked at my transcript long ago and helped me decide what to do. is it possible to see a future by looking at the numbers on a page, numbers that tell very little of the story of the real reasons for the grades.

as i reviewed the grades, i had to wonder why this person stayed in the program to begin with. it was clear they did not like the core curriculum, and might have done well to find a degree that held more passion for them. i asked about this and was told, they were "assigned" this degree. i was not able to figure out who had done the assignment. this was clearly not something the student had wanted. it may have been parents, and i would not be surprised if the school or the government overall had taken it upon themselves to select a future for this young person. the truth was that the student and the program were clearly a mismatch, one that sadly will probably never be corrected.

as i graduated high school, i had few plans beyond going into the marine corp and flying helicopters. one rainy summer afternoon i went to see the recruiter, a squared away marine that impressed young men in all the ways that motivate them to sign on the dotted line. we talked about why i wanted the program and what i hoped for in the career. he told me that to fly for the marines i needed to graduated college, if not i had two choices, enlist and hope to work myself into officer candidate school, or go into the army and fly as a warrant officer. neither of these were choices i was interested in, i had a vision of what i wanted and i knew i needed to adjust to get it.

as i slid into the drivers seat of my old junky car, i knew i needed to take a direction i had not anticipated. i decided in that moment that i was going to college, i would get the degree i needed to qualify and i would make my dreams happen. from there it was a series of conversations and quickly made decisions that pushed me down the road of life. i selected my college because someone told me i couldn't get into his school, and if i did get it i would not survive the first semester because the school had a policy of over accepting and then weeding out the freshmen who were not committed enough to work.

i began freshman year as an education major, with thoughts of following george, dave and barry into the classroom and onto the field as i had followed them into the water. i dropped the major after a conversation with the department head. a conversation that focused on the question, "what do you want out of life?" my honest answers led my advisor to suggest i leave his department and find something that would allow more freedom and challenge.

my plans came to a crushing stop when the tractor jumped forward and pinned both legs between it's bucket and the curb i was standing in front of. it took me over a year to get back on my feet and begin to rebuild the legs. they quickly broke down and i had to accept that my future was once again not going to be what i expected. i would not join the second PLC group i was assigned to, i would not take the guaranteed aviation slot, i would not wear the uniform.

i was now qualified to do almost nothing. i had dual degrees that had taught me to think and learn, but no skills that made it clear where i was headed. i liked to debate and with a mixed sense of need to break and enforce rules, i decided i needed to go to law school and become a lawyer. i had no schools in mind, i had not worked directly towards this in college and i was sick of being a student. i wanted to do something, so i decided to work for a few years to allow me to travel and experience the world.

i was quickly consumed with work, found my way though three completely different jobs inside of one company, fell into a position doing software engineering and mixed the ability to think fast, communicate clearly, do just in time learning and allow my hubris to drive me from one risk to the next. i took no time to travel, i worked and worked and kept saying next year would be the year i took time and relaxed a little. but next year had new challenges, another chance to work on something new, and those drove me forward, up and over the bubble; directly through crashes that could have derailed me if i didn't take the turns as quickly as they came.

along this whole course i am sure people tried to give me advice. after moving to malaysia my ex-wife was talking to my mom, when mom expressed reservations about me being on the other side of the world my ex-wife asked why she had not told me that directly. "what is the use, you know him, he is going to do what he wants to do and doesn't listen to anyone". when i was first told about this conversation i almost got upset, mom had given me her best wishes and i felt as though she had lied to me. but i also realized she was right, and if she had told me she was worried i would have moved anyway. i had taken another turn when it came, stopping or backing up was really not an option.

i have enjoyed all the success i have had. there have been some major bumps on the road, ones that have caused damage, but allowing someone else to tell me what to do would not have helped me. i was the only one capable of making my choices. if i had listened i would be like the student who had listened, i would probably be in a life that i did not enjoy and would always wonder what else would have happened if i had made my own choices. "take the safe course" is what most advice boils down to, how boring is that. that is where you end up with a world of mediocrity.

this brings me to the advice i will give, its one of the pieces of advice my father gave me that i did listen to,

"whatever you decide, be the best you can be"

relaxing travels

i started saturday morning at 3 AM, forced awake by an alarm set to stun me out of well earned sleep. i stumbled around in the dark, afraid of the blaring lights that would replace the night with the flip of the switch. i had started another holiday, time away from work and the standard pace of life that i bury myself within. what sounded like a great idea when originally planned, was forcing me up, when i would much rather snuggle into bed and let the weekend slowly creep past. i laced my boots, shouldered my backpack and headed for the door. pushing the grumpiness away, i tried to relax and draw in the comfort of a promised relaxing vacation.

driving to the airport i called my son in the US and found him preparing for a 10-boy sleep over. how he ever convinced his mother that having 10 boys over for a lack-of-sleep over is beyond me. allowing a small horde of laughing tweens to commandeer your home is right up there with running away and joining the circus. it sounds like fun and adventure, but when you get right down to it living with monkey poop all around you has its limits of enjoyment. then again, there i was hours before sun-up being slowly driven to a discount airport so i could fly to a communist country, board a train and go into the mountains. who was i to judge?

i need this holiday. the timing was set months ago to allow me to juggle three projects. the planning has appeared to work out, the first seems fully stabilized, another that is in test but is coasting down its planned slope, and the last is running ahead of the curve a bit like a runaway train. the past few months have been a roller-coaster ride; and it is clear i need to get off and take a break from the "fun".

a roller-coaster is probably the wrong metaphor here, it has been more like bungie jumping must have been before the sport had a name. in a moment of boredom someone started a sentence with "what if we..." and for some reason thought it would be fun to actually to try it. we then cobbled our gear together and found a high ledge and at the last moment called home to warn the parents what we had decided to try. there was tension and some coercion to force us to let go before we were completely ready, but we survived the first thrilling fall before hearing the onlookers say, "dude, that was awesome, do it again".

this is what i needed to get away from, the desire to sieze the day with white knuckles from fear of death secondary to unrestrained free-fall. it does feel amazing when the stress is replaced by the reality that you did let go, you accelerated toward a short sharp shock, and then just as you were sure you had overstepped, you where snapped back and the curve reverses itself to one of upwards safety. it clears the mind, but there can be a hangover, and taking a rest from the party is a good cure for that.

so here i am, walking a neighborhood i mapped in my head on previous visits. i know where to go for a morning ca phe sua da with banana pancakes, or to get a very good croissant to eat while strolling along the lake. i am ready to move around the city on foot, cyclo or motorcycle. i am looking forward to sitting on a corner for hours, drinking bai hoi and eating pho ba for less than the price of a single coffee at starbucks. i am also going to eat at my favorite italian restaurant in asia, go to mass in french, and if i am really lucky get my name on a wall of fame for drinking 10 shots of "rocket fuel" the rice wine served straight or with infusions of your choice from lemon to snake. why in god's name would i want to drink rocket fuel, not once but ten times in row? well, it will get me a t-shirt as well as the bragging rights of success. it will also probably give me a serious headache, so this will have to wait until after the train to the mountains.

maybe that is why i needed this vacation. i needed to have a challenge that would not matter if i failed to do it. i mean, who cares if i stop at 9, or push to 10 and then fall off my stool. i really do want to get to ten for the t-shirt, but the shirts are only 5 USD and i could always buy one rather than drinking my way to ownership... but that really isn't the way to get the t-shirt is it?

just like all the other stupid things i do, it's the doing that is most important. owning the shirt means that i also own the experience. i can wear it not because i can afford to buy it, but because i stepped my ass up to the bar and ordered the drinks while someone was keeping count. if no one cared to watch, if it didn't matter to anyone at all, why would the doing matter. i don't want to wear a shirt if i didn't earn the damn thing. and, i don't want to celebrate something that is easy enough for anyone to do it. it might sound stupid, but it's true that there are too few challenges in life, you need to be proud of the ones you have survived.

if you are really lucky you can look around the table after your jump and with a steady voice say:

been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

awaiting acceptance

six months ago i had my boss’ boss in my office. we were discussing our ability to be agile and to work on things that mattered. i threw out an idea that was almost immediately shot down. the idea went against the main thrust of where we were going and could not be “monetized”. it was considered fringe and a distraction; but i was given the opening to write a proposal for later consideration. this was the beginning of the real work, which has consumed too much of my time for the past six months.

during my review this year i agreed with my boss that when i have too much time on my hands i tend to find things to keep myself interested. the downside to this is that those things can be outside of the main stream. doing the same thing everyone else is doing is comfortable for many, but when you go out looking for a challenge finding a new path to take is much more interesting. making it an uphill climb may not be the goal, but finding new trails on the flat ground is what leads people into swamps. malaria, leeches and condor-sized mosquitoes all take away from the enjoyment of the trip for me, so i have become conditioned to head for the hills.

i didn’t do this trip alone. the original catalyst came from two of my staff who came to me and said they were bored. when we decided to really push forward i asked for volunteers and ended up with those same two and one other willing to come along on the ride. the departure was marked by a commitment ceremony of sorts. i told them it was going to be hard, and that no one was going to be able to quit half way, they all agreed but i was sure they had no idea what they were signing up for. the trouble with age and history is that you know just how hard things can be, you know the trail will be rough and that accidents will happen. you know just how painful success can be.

americans have the donner party tragedy as part of our shared memory. pilgrims set out on a journey and mistakes happen along the trial. they are slowed by events which could have been controlled and are trapped in the mountains by winter snow drifts. as the days pass and the realization that survival is not a guarantee takes hold they resort to cannibalism to survive. human nature held true, survival wins out, even if sacrifices need to be made. people who do not push the boundaries, who do not take risks or attempt things which scare others, may never find the need to confront this, but those that do are stronger for it because they know how far they will go to survive or succeed.

we are not winning a war or bringing astronauts on a crippled spacecraft home. this effort will not result in medals or a ron howard movie about us, but what we did matters. soon after starting this, it transitioned from something that was okay if we worked on it in our own time, to something that needed to be done in 60 days. attention had been focused and a goal was set, even it the goal was unachievable. another team was assigned the mission, but we decided as a team to keep going on our own path. as we had discussed things can happen along the way.

to cut a long story short, things did and the pressure to succeed became ours. we had all the focus and needed to hit the dates and deliver. which is what we did, we hit every single date agreed to. the team pushed while i disconnected to take care of a project i started 11 years ago; one that needed to come first. they got us there, and together we stabilized with a hard push at the end. it was not easy, try to picture the scene at the end of “black hawk down” soldiers running through chaos and smoke, exhausted and bruised. that was how we finished, on our feet because that was all we had left. we crossed the line together, no one was left behind, no one broke and left his or her post, and no one was eaten. it was not easy, but its over and now we can regroup.

almost. this project is a new format for us. normally when we finish testing, it gets signed off, and it goes into production. but this time we have a new hurdle, the application needs to be approved by others. while that approval is pending we sit and wait. we have no control, and we cannot influence the decision, we simply need to wait for others to accept us or not. but this is one more lesson for the team:

even when you are hit your goals, you still need the acceptance of others.

management psychology

a few months ago i was in a cafe when one of my employees came in. he is a friend, so rather than sitting across the restaurant and waving, he came over and sat with me. he had his sister with him and as we talked she mentioned her masters program, she is getting a degree in management psychology.  since that day i keep flashing to that moment and wondering if i need to look into the program to better understand my staff, my organization or the world.

the past two weeks have been about reviewing the previous 51. this weekend is the deadline to complete the documentation of those reviews. as i sit in a cafe typing this, i am waiting for the site we use for that documentation to return from scheduled maintenance. it is down during my daytime to ensure it impacts the fewest people. being on the opposite side of the world makes my impact acceptable. as i wait, i agree with that assessment, but the mounting frustration still remains.  thoughts on management linger.

wiki defines management as:

the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal.

management is part of all of our lives, we do it within the family, in workplaces and within ourselves. to think of management as something that only true managers do is a narrow view that misses the universal nature of the act. the key to the above definition is "getting people together to accomplish desired goals". the first time i saw genuine management was in a locker room almost 30 years ago; a typical amercian setting with a typical american management style.

it was the night of my first varsity football game, and the excitement of being on the big field was what i remember.  i was a junior member of the team and would see no playing time that night, but i was there and i was happy. the fact that the team was not winning was not as important to me, i had made it onto the team and i was reveling in the experience.

coach toppa was last into the locker room at half time, he and the other coaches had stopped outside as the players filtered in and found spots to sit. some of the senior player removed their helmets and shoulder pads to be more comfortable, but those of us new to the team stayed in full uniform.  we kept our helmets on to show everyone we were ready to play; comfort be damned. as coach came into the room, he kicked an empty helmet that skittered across the room. this was the first time i witnessed this legendary leader of men use violence to get their attention.  everyone in the room was now looking at him.

coach allowed his frustration to flow as he spoke, he allowed every person in the room share his frustration, and fostered a feeling of guilt for forcing him to have this conversation. the team was not playing as well as he knew we could play, he may have been 60 years old, but he would have suited up and joined the game if he could.  he could not understand why those who could play were not. he did not understand how we allowed ourselves to fail. as he spoke, the excitement of being next to the field was replaced with a desire to be on the field. almost helping was not enough, i wanted to actively make a difference, i was a failure for just being there, i should have been helping us win. i was ashamed and angry at myself.

that was when coach changed the tone of his message, he turned to what we could each do to solve the issue, we could come together as a team, then we could go back out there and win the game. that is what would make him proud of us, and nothing else was going to help us feel better. 70 vikings rushed the field as one, some got to actually play, but we were all fully in the game during the second half. we rallied and won the game. together we proved to toppa and to ourselves that we could.  those moments set the tone for the rest of the season, and in many ways for every game i have played since.

i was awed that day, i knew coach was performing as he spoke, but it was a great performance that raised the team up. coach motivated us to win that day. he managed us, he brought us together to accomplish our goal. he used psychology to do it; the planning, organizing and staffing was over. he needed to go beyond the plan to give us the need to win.  being happy to be there was not enough, we needed to accomplish our goals as a team.

i have been thinking about this and wondering if those skills can really be taught. is being a leader something you go to graduate school to learn, or can you do by continuing to play? does it help to do it with different teams, each having different needs? does being forced to use non-amercian motivation help someone first awakened by the only in america sharp sound of a kicked helmet crashing into a locker?

toppa was a great coach. he taught three generations of players to be the better than they knew they could be. he did it with small players who learned to play big, making them proud to be on the field.  he did it by managing each team of individuals, to come together and share a goal. he taught us to care enough to work as a team.

being on the field mattered, but winning mattered more. that is a management psychology i will never forget.

barber school

one of the reasons i love my job is that its not really a job, it’s a career.  this might be a subtle distinction for some, but for me it is a clarifying element to every day i spend working.  it helps me take the long view on the daily grind, and allows me to see that even when i am doing things i don’t enjoy, there is an upside.  that is, i can learn something from the experience, every experience even the ones that are no fun as they are happening.  as i continue to learn, i am better prepared for the next thing that comes down the pike.

but at moments, i do question the worth of it all.  when i was a developer i knew i could always go and find another job, or even another career.  it might not require the long days and nights, might not have as heavy stress and could allow me time to focus on life not work.  when i thought about this, i was normally under serious stress; deadlines looming with worried clients and code not working as expected.  in these moments, i had visions of goose, asking maverick for the number to that truck driving school, so they could drive the big rigs.  the idea of a less stressful life, one without a high speed pass on the tower just for the hell of it, was appealing.

but unlike goose, driving the big rigs was never for me.  driving would get me to work, not be work itself.  i always had monster drives, with clients who were 100 mi away from home, and who required serious face-time.  that meant long cycles of living in hotels and commuting in all weather.  NPR and mobile phones were the two saving graces of this, both allowing me to stay connected while mellowing on the move.  but driving eliminated the two things i wanted to be spending my personal time on, learning an instrument and reading.  i knew both where possible, i have a friend who kept a keyboard next to him as he commuted.  he could practice one handed scales while he drove.  i had other friends who listened to books on tape, but my books never seemed to be available.  there was never a large enough market for the books i read, to be able to pay someone to read them to me.

i now live 20 minutes from the office, with a mostly empty road that allows me to drive twice the posted speed limit.  this is my shortest commute since riding my bike to the beach, something i did because it gave me a total of 5 workouts a day.   but, there are downsides, first NPR takes longer than 20 minutes for a full summary of the news and worse there is no NPR to listen to in malaysia.  this is the country of no real news is the news; where a weather report is one worded as “hazy”.

other downsides are that i still don’t have time to learn an instrument or to read as much as i buy on frequent bookstore trips.  the office has a collection of wanna-be guitarists and a wanna-be instructor.  it also has very little time to move from talking about lessons to the actual lessons themselves.  we keep threatening each other that now is the time to begin, yet-another-deadline is the only thing stopping us. 

unfortunately, my reading habits are also still too eccentric for commercial recordings so i can read and drive at the same time.  with the exception of david sedaris’ “santaland diaries” that i drove through a few months ago.  they were the notebooks of a gay elf-with-attitude suffering through a holiday season in a department store.  i loved listening to them, i am sure you can see the commercial appeal they would have.  it was felt good to enjoy mainstream material.

there are moments when i think about doing other things.  as i was driving to work last week i considered all the skills i have mastered over the years and how they would serve me well if i did what i have always threatened to do.  as i said, i was never driven to drive the big rigs.  the school of choice for me was barber school, where i would learn to cut hair and give a shave.  barber school would allow me to run my own business, providing a service to customers, customers who continue to grow hair that needs to be cut.  the worst mistakes could be corrected by waiting 8 weeks to allow it grow out.  

other than the crying child, there for his first big boy haircut, there is little stress in the barber shop.  it’s a place for men to hang out, listen to the news on the radio or a game on a small tv in the corner.  it’s a place for men to socialize while waiting their turn for the chair; where everyone as equal as the egalitarian “regular boys haircut”.

it’s also a place where long gaps of time pass with little or nothing to do.  which sounds like a great retirement gig for me.  no nighttime conference calls, no stressful meetings where business people and lawyers discuss direction from 4 continents, no KPI for staff, no requirements harder than asking if it should be “tapered in back”.  barber school has always been something i would pull out of my pocket like a set of worry beads.  i would roll it around in my hand for a second, and realize that if i am too busy to read or pick up a guitar, then there is no way i have time for a two year training program that allows me to hang a red and white pole outside a storefront.

i love my job, there is still so much to do and learn.  barber school just needs to wait until i retire, which will could be sometime after i have read the books waiting on two continents.  besides, the days of the barber surgeon are sadly past. that was the job i would have enjoyed, it was when barbers were allowed to pull teeth and amputate body parts.  my day-and-night career allows me to symbolically do both of those. 

i already aggressively cut hair every day, what else could i want?  other than NPR during my drive.

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can you image a barbershop i designed?  pictures from around the world, bookshelves full of books to be shared, nice couches, good coffee and a wall mounted TV tuned to CNN or an EPL game.  we would have open wi-fi and a PC in the corner so people could google, wiki or imdb answers to debates between patrons.  clearly, the proprieties must be observed.

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google jobs

i woke up yesterday to an email with links to something on google.  this isn't all that uncommon, people send links all the time.  but these links were different.  they were to jobs, and the email suggested that the jobs sounded like they were written for me.  as i looked them over they were tempting.  the roles looked interesting, i would be in the US again close to my kids and i would be working for the number one cool internet company right now.

google is the new microsoft in our space.  by comparing them to microsoft i show the path of my maturity along with the internet.  i started at a time when 4GL was the hot TLA.  sqlwindows v powerbuilder was the argument around the table when new projects were kicked off.  VB, COM, DCOM and .Net changed all of that for me.  i was known as someone who had my full drink of kool-aid.  i studied internals and obsessed over patterns and performance.  i was there when MVC was added to MFC, i studied EJB 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 and agreed each time that design by a committee of competitors is the right way to kill a good idea.

i am old and i have been around the block.  i have the bookshelves and dead company t-shirts to prove it.  i know that c# is literally cool, and can remember the birds of a feather breakout in a smoke-covered LA that the Project 7 team explained it.  that was the same week that i learned the internals of generational garbage collection, the same topic i used this week to explain why a precieved issue was not.

google is the company that most geeks want to work for now.  they are a hip company with a list of top ten reasons you should work for them.  if you read the list, you can see why smart people want to work there.  they are hot and sexy, of course people are attracted.  but why would i be attracted.  i have a job, its one i like and one i am not really ready to leave.

work for me is more than just a job.  i have a career that i love, i have had a series of jobs that i have loved, good times and bad have happened, but when i look back i remember that i have been successful, happy and in control.  i have tried to do the things that i love, to focus on having fun and enjoying the work, the challenges and the victories.  i used to say that one day i would retire to a job as a barber, i thought it was the perfect job, even if you make a mistake the hair will grow back and you get another chance, but tastes and cuts change over time, so experimentation and discovery is built in.

i replied to the email and said i wasn't sure about applying.  the ads looked good, and the change of pace sounds exciting.  but change for change sake is not what i want.  i have a team i care about, i am busy and i learn something almost every day.  i have already stayed in this company and this role longer than i expected and the ADD side of my head would love something new.  but actively seeking that something is a distraction i don't need right now.  

even when things present themselves, sometimes you need to say no.  you might be saying no to the promise of something better, to the expectation of improvement or to the internal drive that is pushing you to consider the offer.  if prior booms and busts didn't teach me this before i came here, malaysia certainly has.  there is always the promise of the next big thing.

the reply i got on the email thread was a question, "how do you know you are good enough to get it if you don't try".  this is when you realize the person knows your buttons well enough that they push them the way a touch typist strikes the keys; clear, strong and effortless.  creating desire even when you have no interest is a talent, one that is built up over time.

so, i am working on the top ten reasons not to apply. 

1) ....

    

chapter two

ahhhhhhh, its 10:30 pm and i am not at my desk.  i know this sounds like something that should not be a surprise but… well over the last year this is far from the norm.   i realized last week that i had gone to dinner two nights in a row.  during dinner time, we eat dinner without doing email.  we sat and talked about work, life and balance.  as i took in the relaxed surroundings, i saw a smile and realized change had happened while i wasn’t paying attention.  the previous chapter had come to a close while the next sat distantly in the future.

other than taking time off, sitting in a different café, eating a lot of mexican food and losing focus during a lull in the action, nothing had just changed.  change has been happening for months, or years, but at some point reality becomes clear even if you are not focused.  losing focus might have been the catalyst that allowed it to become clear. 

it could have happened laying in a jacuzzi with broken jets, or it could have been sitting in a cramped airplane seat, but the reality hit sitting at a table down under and just looking up.  location did not matter, the change could have been realized anywhere.  the reality is, if you are focused, change is constant and continuous.  change is everywhere.  

earlier tonight i wrote my annual-review.  it’s a process many dread, and one i enjoy.  51 weeks out of the year, we are looking forward to our most pressing issues.  we focus on our to-do lists and we push to get things done while trying to create some level of balance among the demands of life.

for one week year, we look back and document our accomplishments.  we consider our faults and plan our future.  as a manager, i get to help staff to construct and accomplish goals of their own.  while doing this, i am able to take some credit for their accomplishments.  as i write my personal work-review, i realize my peers are writing theirs, and we are all making a case for the coveted slots at the top of the performance bell curve.  our manager will look at our documented accomplishments and those he identifies as his own will get higher weight.

this is part of the review process, it's built in and productive.  as an individual you get a chance to highlight the positive things you have done, as a manager you get to share those positive things, and to look at a wide group full of success and consider which are important and which to reward.  how would things be if we were able to do this in our personal lives; to sit and have a structured review?   

before i grew up into the corporate world, i was a well-paid itinerant worker.  my job was like that of the tomato pickers who come over the border from mexico into the southwest of the US.  i was foreign to the firms i worked in.  they had no reason to care for me as a person or to develop my skills, i was paid for my work and sent on my way.  if they let me work today i was a success; if they told me i wasn't needed it was because someone else was capable of doing my job.  being ready to be sent packing with nothing more than fruit-stained hands was part of the drive to succeed; and never getting a formal review was part of that life.

i now work where i have the chance to be reviewed, while in life i am living as a consultant.  i go to interviews and take on short-term gigs, but finding that permanent role is elusive.  i have considered that i am negotiating a too strongly, but trading independence for security is not my goal.  finding the role that fits and will last to retirement is; that cannot be compromised.  fit requires connection and communication, but i also need fair and honest reviews.  otherwise it is better to spend time on the bench and wait for a future opportunity.  

this new year will be a new chapter for me.  it will be because i have done a review and realize there is room for improvement.  it’s a down economy, but opportunities will open up.  the question is if it does begin to open up can i pursue it?

step one; find time for dinners that are not spent with companions in other timezones who want to fight about things that don't matter.  it’s time to relax and do things that do matter.  there is a review coming next year and i need to exceed expectations in during review.

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as i began reading what i had written i got a call from the US.  i was asked to join a conference call that is about leadership.  i said no, but i am going to call in.  first i need to pay the check and head for the door.  so much for relaxed.

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fast break

i woke up this morning thinking about breakfast.  a dinner of indian food had my stomach upset and necessitated a double benedryl nightcap.  this morning, i just needed to get up and get to breakfast.  it was calling to me, "come, sit, relax, put the reactions behind you".  when asked if i thought breakfast was important, and i replied, "it's the most important meal of the day", it sets the tone for the rest of the day.

when i think of breakfast i have two visions in my head.  the first is of bill cosby explaining to an inner-city diverse group of kids that their bodies are engines which need to be fed so they run well.  if you don't feed the engine it will stop running, you will run out of gas and will be unable to get through the day.  the second is sharing a six-burner stove with cartoons in the background to fill a sunday morning before games and errands took over the day.

breakfast is something i now do while spinning through email and making phone calls to catchup on overnight events.  it's not unknown for me to start a morning with multi-continent conference calls and espresso.  the surprising thing is that the conference call is the stimulation and the espresso is used to calm the jolt of the day. 

while in the US, weekday breakfast was either rushed starbucks with their marginal carbohydrate offerings, or on a bagel day, a sweet danish and a comfortable pause.  bagel days weren't everyday, because they were special; they meant taking a fast pause in the day.  the danish was good, but taking a few moments and realizing that it mattered more than the need to rush was the real break.

weekends in KL are a busy, not as busy as the week but they take focus to get though.  a deli afternoon, one with a sweet start, some time to detox and music to set the mood is my preference.  more important than the food is the mood, it is relaxed and easy.  the fact i can go and simply think, work, write and rationalize the time away is what draws me.  this is my private time; it is my personal work/life balance.

lunch during the week is normally skipped, or will happen as an office meeting.  dinner is squeezed in before a kitchen closes, and is wifi-enabled to stop it from getting in the way of communication.  the difference between these meals and my most important meal of the day is that the early one is harder to miss, it sets the tone for day and is a hard requirement.  it can't be called in ahead and is not "tau pow"-able, because it's time, not food that matters.  it does bring energy, but not the carbohydrate type.

cosby was right, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  it is a time to rev up, you can pour in the caffeine, and customize your energy with something sweet or savory.  you can have meetings, or go solo to find your focus.  but no matter what choices you make, you must ensure that your breakfast supports your needs for the day and gives you the energy that you require; even if its a fast break that you need to take.

because that's what breakfast is, the most balanced meal of the day. 

storm junkie

i told someone a few months ago that they were an adrenaline junkie. some people say it takes one to know one. they came back to me this week and confirmed i was right. also that not only did the adrenaline rush in the middle of the fight feel good, but that it had lasting effects. the rush of crisis driven adrenaline one day, improved overall balance and control the next.

for the rush, some will do things that i have never had to resort to. they will jump out of a perfectly good airplane or they will step off of a pedestal attached to a rubber-band. if you know me you might say that my driving is a search for a rush; honestly i am simply rushing.

to feel the adrenaline i need to feel that i am not in control. even when i am driving at double the speed limit the feeling of control is perfectly type-A. the one exception might be when my “top of the line” malaysian car’s breaks fire without me touching them. this only happens during torrential downpours that come with monsoon season. the rush does not come from the driving, but as a result of the storm.

to experience my rush, i need to be enveloped within a storm. is it a surprise that i made a game of watching lightening storms with my children? it is clearly not a surprise that i continue to find myself in the middle of storms, ones that i happily rush into. rather than battening down the hatches and riding it out hidden down below, you will find me up on deck holding onto the tiller and laughing into the wind. bring on the waves and lightening, it wouldn’t be a storm without them.

this week reminded me of a bright blue day during my college summers. i was sitting in a tower above the sand and was bored with the monotony of yet another clear day. this is when the radio made a sound and said the words, “this is an emergency weather advisory”. i looked north and saw the black clouds coming towards me, the excitement began. for the next 2 hours reports continued and the wall of clouds and lightening pressed closer. in front of me i had happy swimmers who had no idea what was coming, and behind me the storm was raging.

we cleared the beach as the squall came close enough to feel it's effects. the beach was empty, but i stayed in my tower. light drops blown forward were replaced by pelts of driven rain. the wall of clouds and falling water enveloped my world and i was surrounded by lightening strikes, one after the next. the sound of thunder and the spectacle of light was elemental excitement. i sat high above the sand and relished it, i was literally in the middle of the storm and it felt amazing; i had no control over the storm, the rush came from being part of something beyond control.

the squall line soon passed and continued it out to sea. it had come directly at us and drove right over the top. i watched the last of the lightening fade into the distance and the families come back onto the sand with their blankets. you could see the faces, upset that their day had been ruined and the sand was now wet. i sat smiling and happy, satisfied to have been part of the experience. why do people want yet another plodding and uneventful day, when they can have the rush of the spectacle? this was special and would be a lasting memory.

i watch for storms, and feel them approaching with expectation. i live and work where storms happen on a regular basis. i don’t go hunting for them, but if one comes towards me i am ready when it hits. if i hid inside i would miss the fun, so i get up and go enjoy the excitement. i want to teach my kids to not be scared or upset.

if they can learn to enjoy the rush of the storm, it might stop them from wanting to jump off a cliff.

one more

i was asked by my boss a few months ago if i thought of myself as a workaholic. we were sitting at a table full of guys who work hours, carry pressure and make or execute decisions that burn out many of the former superstars that our company hires each year. the guys around the table are friends, associates, competitors and critics. there is not a single slacker in the bunch, if they were they would not have gotten here or lasted. i answered the question; partially.

a few weeks ago the same boss brought the same team together and said thank you for your efforts last year. we were happy to be able to give you all the cash and stock bonuses that you received two days before. then, the conversation turned to the remaining 10 months of the year. the basic message was, you need to do better, you need to work harder, you need to be more aggressive and provide more leadership. taking a group like this and saying you are not pressing hard enough could seem like a strange message to send. but it worked, things have picked up.

i have been called a workaholic most of my adult life. i don’t really see it that way, but others look at me and tend to sit back and tell me that if i don’t slow down i will never make it to the end of the race. how can you work 60 hours a week, have what reasonably should be two jobs at once and continue to push week by week? how can you do this and not suffer from it?

the trick for me is to never do i job i don’t enjoy. once something stops being fun i leave and find something that is. once i lose the passion to get up and get to the office, or to send that “one more” email that leads to another and another, i simply decide its time to be happy again. family rule number two comes into play and you need to make the call.

i was talking to my ex-wife this morning; she has obviously seen me at my best and worst over the years. she saw me grow a company, win contracts, deliver on projects that no one thought we could accomplish and finally walk away from it all. she has seen me push past the point where i should have broken, she has seen me where i was broken and yet i continued to work. she told me working until 6:30 AM this morning and getting back up at 10:30 was not worth it. it is.

during the meeting a few weeks ago i decided it was time to really take the challenge. if this is what was being asked for, i would give it. i want to succeed, because i have promised people that i like i will be there for them. i have shown them a possible future, now its time to make it really happen. the previous 60+ hours was not enough, it was clear that was true. that only gave me 30 hours per job, and in this environment 30 hours at your job is openly slacker behavior.

i am now working 90+ hours a week, spending about 15 - 16 hours a day in the office, going home and checking email before going to bed, waking up and checking email before i go to work. i am working during the weekend, on things that previously would have stacked up until mid week or later, they are now done by monday morning letting me focus on the work of the week. i have done more phone calls (with people on three continents) in one day than i used to do in a week. its working, with more immediate direction people have been able to move faster and mistakes have been averted.

i have been told by multiple people that i need to cut back, but honestly i feel better than i have in a year. i am more organized, more things are getting done, i am directly involved in almost all the work my staff is doing. i can feel it paying off; i am enjoying the success that comes with being able to cover both jobs fully. it's not hours that burn someone out, it's the realization that you can't succeed.

when i was asked if i was a workaholic, i replied “no…” and before i could finish the sentence, my bosses head was turned to talk to someone else. i thought i saw a glimmer of disappointment at my answer as his head turned; clearly being a workaholic was valued. the rest of the answer was “… i am not a workaholic because i love my job and i am not doing it for the money; i am doing it for the satisfaction”.

i feel more like the mom that stays up late to wash clothes so her kids can have them in the morning. she works while they sleep. that’s what you do for your kids… isn't it?

private time

it’s a strange thing about people that they always seem to want what they don’t have. i guess wanting what you do have is boring. you have it, there is nothing to do but sit back and enjoy. the thing i have had in limited supply lately is time just for me. work and personal life have both been busy; a few times i have been asked if i miss the private time that would come with being alone. the immediate answer was, “no, not at all”. as i sit and reflect, i am not sure why i don’t miss the private time.

i have always valued time alone, time to do the things that interested me and that did not interest others. sitting and reading a book cover to cover over the span of hours is a passion from my youth. the ability to focus on nothing but the world the writer is creating in your head. enveloping yourself in the reality that you create by mixing the writers words with your own experiences or imagination. private, self focused, time is the only way to accomplish this. the demands of life and work take the ability to focus this intensely away.

our company has a policy of work life balance. the basic premise is that work and life should both be given priority to allow the person to enjoy both aspects of their lives. once i was having a hallway conversation with my boss, i was commenting that the staff seemed to be a ragged. i felt we needed to slow down to give them the work life balance we were saying we cared about. his witty reply was, “work life balance, that’s really just a marketing phrase”.

work does take a lot of time from your life, more so when work never seems to end. having meetings most nights, responding to email while driving or while still in bed, being always on call, these are elements of our jobs which we accept. this is a part of our lives.

on the home side, things are not so clear. work is already taking our time, where do home activities fit into this? i remember half listening while my daughter told me a story from her day. i was consumed with work of one form or another, and thought i was giving her the attention she needed. i look back on this and realize i was not even close. work life balance means taking the time to focus on your family, without the back ground noise of work constantly intruding.

you need to focus on the person you are with, not the project you left in the office. you need to listen to them whithout checking your email while they are talking. you need to take the time to eat a meal, clean up together and at the end of the day tell a story about a princess who never thought she fit in, but realized everyone can feel the same way.

these are the moments that family members remember or crave from you. these are the moments you must give them.

this leaves all those activities that you would like to do just for yourself. obviously if we are already committed to having a demanding job, and emotionally supporting our family we are now short on time for other things. there are things i have thought of doing, have tried to add to my life, but have not been able to fit them in. i had a book of yoga vouchers; they were good for a month and were at a studio no more than 10 minutes from my house; i didn’t use a single one. i signed up for a salsa class, went to 4 classes, had to travel and never signed up again for the replacement classes. i called about a hopkido class that my son wants me to take, he is doing tae kwan do, and thinks it would be good if i found a way to be violently thrown to the floor two or three nights a week; i never went. i have lived in malaysia for over a year, and have barely seen anything outside of kl.

what would i do with purely private time if i had it? i have sat down and written a list. i know this is a type A personality approach to all problems, but hey it works. the following are the list of things i would do:

write -- for this blog and on other projects
email -- to friends and family who i don’t connect with enough
cook -- shop, prepare, eat, clean (much more time consuming than take away)
exercise -- 90 minutes a day to sweat and feel good
code -- i miss writing software
read -- too many books are stacked and waiting for me

the last item on the list was sleep, but i pragmatically realize that taking the time to do these things would mean having even less time for sleep. i have worked myself down from 9 hours a night a few years ago to a sustainable average of 6 hours a night. some nights more, some less, but 6 is a good average. think of it as 3 more hours to focus on the central demands of life. now if i could get down to 3 hours, yes then i would have time for private time.

private time for me is time to focus on myself. maybe i don’t feel the need for private time because i want my company and my family to be happy and healthy. i just accept that there is not enough time for everything, and those around me have to come first. i really would love to go for a run though.

maybe i should try to change the marketing phrase to, “balance work, life and you”.