September 15, 2011

But You Kind Of Do

This week’s post is from someone way smarter than me.  I know, like that’s unusual. But seriously, Mike Bennett is not just wicked smart; he’s also funny at the speed of light. He’s so smart that he knows how fast light speed is. Read this post slowly please, and let all the wisdom sink in. And then go do what you kind of have to do.

At the beginning of August, I loaded all of my possessions into a light blue Honda Fit, and left my home in Santa Barbara, and drove all the way to East Lansing, Michigan.  I did this so that I could get a PhD in physics, but before you tell me I’m brave or smart let me tell you that I almost chickened out – on account of the drive over.

I hate driving.  Hate it.  I would rather do almost anything than drive long distances in a car.  I’m usually too impatient and self-absorbed to do anything more than focus on how many miles are left to go and how uncomfortable I am in the driver’s seat.  And so at the end of July, as my journey drew nearer, I balked.  I knew what I had to do, but I desperately did not want to do it.  And I began to look for ways out.

Now, I come from a family where love is shown through acts of service, so I had no shortage of family members offering me assistance while I was making the arrangements for my move. “Do you want me to come down to Santa Barbara and help you pack?” “Do you need money?” “Do you want me to make you some cookies for the drive?” Because I am fairly autonomous (and fairly prideful, but that’s another story), and because my kin know this, these bids are largely ceremonial – someone will offer assistance, and I will politely decline, saying that I’ll alert them if I change my mind.

But then my mom threw me a curve ball: “Can I pay to ship your car and things to Michigan, so that you can fly?”

This time, the gears that turned were gears of rationalization, not dismissal.  Could that work? What if it was actually cheaper to pay for shipping the car and my things than it would be to pay for gas, hotels, and food?  It would be safer, right?  Surely it’s better to not have my car broken into with all of my things in it.  This is probably a good choice in the long run.

On it went, until paying to ship my car actually seemed like the best choice.  I found myself looking up quotes on the internet, half-convinced that this was truly the way to go.

But this strange feeling started creeping up inside of me — and it felt somewhat like guilt.  The second I had considered my mom’s offer, a voice had started whispering delicately and seductively inside of me: you don’t have to do this. And because I didn’t want to do it, I had wrapped layers of rationalization around the issue until it looked like a simple economic choice between two methods of moving.  Underneath it all, however, what I was really choosing between was bearing my burden myself and letting somebody else bear it for me.

And now another voice, just as delicate but firm and honest, reminded me: You chose to go to school in Michigan. You need to take responsibility for that choice and drive yourself. No, you don’t have to do this.  But you kind of do.

So I did it.  I politely thanked my mother for her offer and instead planned out a road trip through several states I had never navigated before nor set foot in.  And I drove myself through those states for about eight hours a day.  And – as you might have guessed – it wasn’t all that bad.  I saw tons of new and beautiful things.  I raced a thunderstorm in New Mexico.  I withered in real Southern humidity in Tennessee.  I threw a rock into the Ohio River in Kentucky.  Choosing to drive myself to Michigan not only yielded novel experiences, it enabled me to say I hadn’t backed out of a critical juncture in my life.

What I’m not saying here is that accepting help is incompatible with self-leadership.  There is a difference, however, between accepting aid on your life’s journey and letting somebody else make that journey for you. At some point you will, like me, be at a critical juncture, and at that moment help won’t be help; it’ll be a venue of retreat.

I don’t know what that juncture will be for you.  Maybe it’s refusing to be passive when it’s time to stand up for your beliefs.  Maybe it’s giving a word of encouragement or challenge to somebody whom you know desperately needs it.  Maybe it’s taking a big leap of faith in moving across the country to start graduate school.  I don’t know.  But I do know this: whatever it is, you don’t have to do it.

But you kind of do.Lead Your Life. 

Mike Bennett is getting his Ph.D in nuclear astrophysics at Michigan State University.  In his (elusive) free time, he enjoys playing a good game of Mafia, dabbling in music composition, and figuring out exactly which karaoke song will yield the most positive results at any given karaoke bar.  Check out more of his thoughts at http://wildmikebennett.com/blog .

By Michele | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (2)
September 8, 2011

Why Failure Doesn’t Work For Me Anymore

Don’t be decieved by my pal Krysta. While she is blisteringly funny, she is also a deep thinker and feeler who wears her heart as far from her sleeve as possible. There is no one else I would want right next to me in the heat of a battle, and I am honored to be called her friend. Rock on, Special K.

Hello Moxy folk!

Your fearless leader asked me to be a guest on her good ol’ blog and my first reaction was, “ Self-leadership huh? Yikes.”

Self-leadership, to me, feels more like what I’ve read about being bipolar.

Now that you know how I feel about my own self-leadership process, I’ll let you in on a few gems: I’m a newly married 28-year-old who quit my secure job in the middle of a recession to start my own company. The hubs, well, he had a really fancy pants job in television and decided he’d quit too to work on his film career about 6 months into aforementioned marriage. We are currently in the phase a lot of successful entrepreneurs joke about on panel discussions, “Ha! Remember that time we almost lost our house? Man, that was crazy.” Yeah. Real crazy jerk faces.

I can handle the stress of having two entrepreneurs under one roof, being newly married and having a mortgage without a steady income. What I can’t handle is my own brain.

I used to pride myself in being Ms. Independent. In fact, when I moved from Kansas to L.A., my friends back home were certain I would be single forever and live in a corner office. I was really proud of my financial independence and ability to take care of myself. And I loved that people saw me as more of a man than a pansy girl.

Then the hubs came along. He affirmed my ambition and even pushed me to stick it to the man and start my own thing. About two seconds after the wedding madness subsided, I realized my entire world had changed. I traded in my identity for a new last name, my downtown loft for a house on the Westside and my job title for what seemed to be a new career in homemaking.

Pride is a funny thing. I had to get over the fact that the hubs was funding my dream. I had become DEPENDENT on someone else, which was completely against everything I stood for. Once I got over myself, I realized I actually liked being taken care of. There was something liberating in knowing I didn’t have to do it alone … that I had a partner.

Ownership is another doozy. I have a tendency to get UBER defensive in conversations that question my worth or ability, even if they’re merely questions, not accusations. My therapists says I’m a textbook child of an alcoholic, but I’d like to give myself a bit more credit and say it’s really just a giant lack of maturity and character.

I’ve learned how important it is to take responsibility for the story I’m telling myself when someone is having a conversation with me and most importantly, how I respond. Note: I don’t actually do this well, but I’m trying. Promise.

Lastly, and probably most important (for me, at least), I’m learning to give myself the freedom to change my mind. I don’t want to give you the sob story of what it’s like to be a girl in my generation. Let’s face it, a lot of women took a beating to make sure I even had a choice between career and being a stay-at-home-mom. But here’s the thing … I thought those were my only two options for a really long time. Since I felt I had to pick one, I chose the one I identified most with: the more masculine career-driven life. I owned it … ran with it … and eventually got a little bored with it.

Conan O’Brien said something in a commencement speech at Dartmouth that really struck me:

“It is in our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It’s not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention.”

Read that again and let it sink in.

I didn’t necessarily fail at being hard ass, career-driven Krysta. But if I were really honest with myself (and you), I’d say it just isn’t working for me anymore. I could keep pretending just to save face and spare myself the embarrassment. Or I could change my mind and create new dreams for myself based on what I know now that I didn’t know 10 years ago when I put myself on this trajectory.

The point is … I wasn’t fooling anyone and I bet you aren’t either. So let go, get real with yourself and start being the person everyone else already sees behind the job title and elevator pitch. If you don’t have those kinds of people in your life, get new friends. You can’t do this without people you trust will kick your ass a little when it matters most.

Lead Your Life.

Krysta Masciale is a sassy city dweller with strong midwest roots. Her passion for exposing raw talent and human potential manifests itself through her career in branding. As a new business owner, she has a greater belief that honesty is the best policy … even if it means other people will find out she doesn’t have it all together. Find her at www.krystamasciale.com.

By Michele | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)
September 2, 2011

Motel Floor Leadership

The hits just keep on coming, people. Paul Angone was a student and then colleague at my previous workplace, and he consistently impressed me with his wisdom and enthusiasm. I’m enjoying seeing many former students gather together in support of his new venture, All Groan Up. It’s the perfect blend of humor, irony and truth about life in your twenties– as is Paul himself.

I began down the path of self-leadership the moment I began writing a book.

I began writing my book to avoid a knife fight.

Literally. And slightly figuratively.

Let me explain.

There I was one fateful night. Right out of college, traveling alone for my job, staring at the sturdy metal bars lining the windows of my “diamond in the rough motel room, just minutes away from downtown.”

As a traveling salesman, the routine of motel life becomes painstakingly repetitive. And my routine? M & M’s and reruns of “Friends” — the chocolate euphoria and familiarity of the storyline making me feel strangely at home. While candy from a vending machine and watching hours of TV might not have been the healthiest of routines, it was one I stuck to religiously.

However, on said “fateful night”, a shouting match commenced outside my door. As the shouting turned to screaming, I sat uneasily on the corner of the bed looking at the serene painting of fruit hanging on the wall, then back to the three separate locks lining my motel door like soldiers getting ready for war. Each lock looked big enough to keep out a stampede of wild bison in case they escaped from the local zoo. So I couldn’t help but ask myself, why three? Was there a police report somewhere on Room #113: “In conclusion, two locks, just wasn’t enough.” A slightly unnerving thought.

So either I willfully opened the door to put my life at risk for a bar of chocolate. Or I did something different. And purely out of a desire not to become referee for the knife-fight that was surely about to commence, I chose option B. I started writing a book on a motel room floor — a simple act of escape that would end up saving my life in more ways than one. The end of my first page, the beginning of self-leadership.

The Deep Change of Authentic Leadership

As Max Dupree writes in Leadership is an Art, “the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.” For the next months and years as I wrote my book on the floor of random motel rooms and coffee shops, I was searching for truth with each keystroke. The transition out of college into the life of cubicles, routine, and sales-trips affected me more than I wanted to admit. I was doubting myself, my future, my hope, and my God. Nothing was off limits. My calling felt like a jagged box of mismatched puzzle pieces with no picture on the front of the box to go by. So like most puzzles, my calling was shoved in the back of the closet behind the vacuum and the winter jackets. The big life I was surely promised becoming a fairy tale I had heard a long, long, time ago.

The act of writing quickly became the best, and worst, experience of my life. Writing became the “Best” because it forced me to put definition to something that was indefinable. “Worst” because it forced me to put definition to something that was indefinable. A hurricane was swirling around me and all I could do was take notes. Writing was as freeing as it was excruciating because it forced me to go to a deeper place than ever experienced before. Like repelling into the Grand Canyon – the views were incredible, while the feeling I might fall to my death all too real.

As Parker Palmer writes, the truest form of an authentic leader “leads the rest of us to a place of hidden wholeness because they have been there and know the way” (Palmer, 2000). A true leader has waded through the muck of pain, so that they might bring forth healing first for themselves and then for others. The authentic leader risks the comfort of what’s known to discover what’s imagined. By no means is this an enviable journey, but to truly lead, it is necessary. As Professor Quinn writes in his book Deep Change:

“The hero’s journey is a story of individual transformation, a change of identity. In embarking on the journey, we must leave the world of certainty…[W]e must surrender our present self…Change is hell. Yet not to change, to stay on the path of slow death is also hell. The difference is that the hell of deep change is the heroes journey” (Quinn, Deep Change, p. 45 and 78).

Your Story Leads to Their Story

As I continued writing my book and sharing my story of struggle, doubt, and dead-ends to others my age an amazing thing began to happen — my story created an open space for others to share theirs. Transparency begot transparency.  I felt like I was embarking on anything but a “heroes journey,” yet, my willingness to speak openly about how the crap was getting kicked out of me everyday was touching on a collective narrative worth telling.

I learned that the successful leader exemplifies truth from the inside-out with consistent authenticity that knows who they are and who they are not. The clear communication of this self-definition has the power to connect at a deeper level with followers as they inspire and motivate them to personal and collective transformation. The authentic leader gives first of him or herself and you cannot give something that you do not first possess.

As I stand now at the end of the writing process, my book ready to be shared with the world, I realize now that you cannot give the gift of authentic self-leadership if you have not paid for it in full, and most times at a very high cost.

And that process, sometimes, starts on a motel room floor.

Lead Your Life.

Paul Angone is an author, speaker and story-teller bent on discussing what’s really going on in the “Emerging Adult” years. Paul is the host of AllGroanUp.com - a website for those btween growing and grown. His debut book: “Are You My Life?; Searching for Self, Faith, and a Freaking Job!” has been described as “Donald Miller meets Office Space” and hits bookstores Spring 2012. Find Paul Twitterized at @PaulAngone

By Michele | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)
August 25, 2011

The Best Is Yet To Come

Sorry about the hiccup here, folks. Turns out there were some glitches in my website hosting that affected my comments on posts and my e-mail. The comments are fixed, but the e-mail is not, so if you have been trying to get ahold of me, then just write me a message using the contact page on TMP website. There’s lots to update you on, but I still have some phenomenal guest posts to run and I know you want to get back to that.

Without further ado, and in honor of this being the week that we have spent together for the last 6 years, here is a post from my dear friend and assistant (when I’m lucky), Emilee. Emilee has a heart bigger than North America as well as a wicked sense of humor. If Emilee is your friend, you are blessed beyond belief. Blessings on your journey, Em.

When I graduated from college in 2006, I had a plan. I would work for 2 years, pay off some of my student loans, save some money, and then go back to school to become a music teacher. I got a job right out of college working as an administrative assistant in the alumni & parent relations office at my alma mater. 5 years later, I’m finally leaving. But not to go back to school.

For the past 2 years I have been feeling like I needed a change. I needed something different in the way of my work. I was feeling stagnant, bored, not challenged. I had been volunteering with the youth group at my church for about 3 years and loved it! I started looking for new jobs that would use my love of students with my other skills and gifts. I ended up getting a promotion that provided new challenges and managed to get me excited about work again.

Six months ago, everything changed. I still liked my job but there was something missing. I found myself laid up in bed with a broken leg and torn ligament in my ankle. I was bored and had actually grown tired of looking at Facebook and random hysterical blogs & websites (yes. It IS possible). So, I started poking around on some online job boards. I happened upon a job description that blew me away. As I read through it I kept thinking, “Wow. Did they write this job description FOR me?”

Long story short, I applied and was offered the job. As I went through the application process, I realized this was my dream job (other than becoming a rockstar, of course). I would basically get paid to do everything I love to do. I would get to help plan & organize programs for middle school & high school students, put my music degree to good use, and even get paid to hang out with kids! But it would mean leaving everything and everyone I know.

As my great friend & mentor Michele has taught me, my life is what I make it. I get to call the shots. Sure, I may not have control over everything that happens, but I get to choose how I respond. And in those moments when there are 2 (or more) paths to choose from, I am the only one who gets to make that choice.

Self-leadership is really about owning that power and recognizing that my life isn’t something that just happens to me. I play an active role.

The easy thing would be to stay in my good job where I have history and medical benefits and get to run great programs. The easy thing would be to stay in my cute cottage with my amazing housemates just a 10-minute drive from my best friend. The easy thing would be to just stay in this nice little life I’ve built for myself.

Instead, I made a big decision. I accepted the job. I will soon pack all of my earthly belongings (and I mean ALL) in to a U-Haul and move my entire life 7 hours away from everything I know and love. This fact simultaneously terrifies and excites me. I am so excited to start this new chapter of my life, dig into my new job, explore my new city, and build new relationships.

But every now & then, fear creeps in. What if I hate my new city? What if my new job isn’t as awesome as I’m expecting it to be? What if I don’t make any friends?

I have this place I go when I need space to breathe. It doesn’t matter if it’s raining or sunny, day or night, this place rejuvenates me and brings a peace to my soul. What if I don’t find a place like that in my new life? I made the mistake, the other night, of reminding myself of all I’m giving up. From upcoming concerts at local venues to amazing co-workers who I can’t imagine doing a job without to local festivals and summertime events. Not to mention my friends, my church, and the girls that I have mentored for 5 years.

Deep down I know this is the right thing. The doors that opened up at just the right time were too perfect to just be coincidental. I’m getting the opportunity to do what I’m passionate about for a living! That’s incredible! So I know I’ll be fine and I know made the right decision. Despite the moments of sadness, nostalgia, & panic, I am so excited to move forward.

What’s more, I can be confident in the fact that I am putting to good use the things I have learned about self-leadership. I am facing my future head-on. I am not just letting life happen to me. Instead of sitting in complacency, I am making (life changing) choices that will move me (quite literally) out of my comfort zone. But there is a peace in knowing that I’m on the path that I am supposed to be on. I’m just taking one step at a time and, hopefully, becoming more the person I’m meant to be.

I will leave you with this, MOXY friends. Life doesn’t always have clearly marked exit signs when it’s time to take a new road. But even when it does, it’s up to YOU to take that exit. No one else can do it for you. Your life is what you make of it. So have courage, take a breath, and go for it.

As Michele likes to remind us, “Lead your life.”

Emilee Hurlbert is a graduate of Westmont College. Her passions are her faith, youth ministry, and music. She is currently transitioning into a new job that combines all three. She loves to laugh, travel, eat sushi, and drink iced tea. She recently decided to give blogging a try and you can see if she follows through at: http://mylifeflowson.tumblr.com/

By Michele | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)
August 4, 2011

Well Said.

My friend Lisa writes today’s guest post really well. Which isn’t surprising, because she is one of those people that does lots of things well. She used to work for me, but she got wise to that pretty fast and moved on to bigger and better things. She’s still wise, though. Very wise. Miss you, LP.

Sometimes I write.  The stars align and the right music plays and it’s just quiet enough.  Then I hide it in my journal or on my hard drive for a possible revisit or in the best-case scenario to show my husband or a close friend who already professes to be a fan of my writing.  To write gives me life.  To hide it is an act of self-preservation.

I ultimately don’t share what I write with people because I’m afraid of what people think of me.  I am afraid that I won’t be great at it.  If I keep it to myself then I can continue to bow down to the possibility of being a writer.  If my writing is rejected in any form then the possibility is dissipated.

The opportunity recently presented itself for me to join a writers group. My first time meeting them was in response to a sense of obligation. Upon meeting them, though they possessed ample amounts of charm and grace, I was even more terrified of showing any of my writing to a group of actual writers.  I willed myself to make a commitment to the group and knew I had five weeks until I had to show them some of my work.  In the weeks leading up to my turn to share I found them to be a very intelligent bunch, well read, prolific writers.  They often integrated obscure literary terms into their critiques of each other’s work and referenced the styles of famous writers I often had no familiarity with.  To say that emailing them documents of my writing to read and then talk through with me was a dreaded task would be an understatement.

Identifying that I was afraid was a big step.  Before this, withholding my writing seemed like a strength I possessed.  I saw myself as a writer, but only in my private life.  It was almost a fantasyland of an ideal person I saw myself as but wasn’t willing to take any kind of risk to actually become that person.  Once I realized that it was fear that kept me from sharing my writing I could ask myself what I was afraid of. Admitting my fear released me from the power it had over me. I actually told someone else that I was afraid to share my writing because I cared too much about what people thought about me and I didn’t want to fail.  That thought is a lot less powerful out on the table than it is in my mind. I reframed my thinking.  I owned up to what I was afraid of instead of keeping it a secret.

Lots of people love this website that also generated a book called Post Secret.  The book version is a coffee table book with pictures of note cards people anonymously send in with dark secrets they have about themselves.  The moment a person lets go of that postcard with a secret they’ve been carrying around they get a glimpse of the relief they would feel if they fully owned up to that thing they’re so afraid of letting into the light.

I don’t like that book anymore.

Those people are still afraid of those secrets and that fear gives the secret power over them.  We like reading that book because it makes our secrets seem momentarily less powerful.  This is really just a concern about how others perceive us, and in turn the way we see ourselves.

After sending my work to the group for the first time I didn’t have an experience of realizing I was a brilliant writer that had been in hiding for all this time.  It was the act of pressing send that was the most notable achievement for me.  Then I started to see my love for writing creatively in a more accurate light.  It’s a craft I need to work at.  It’s a resource (however meager) that I can invest into my small corner of the world.  It’s not a gold coin I bury and adoringly dig up every so often when I’m alone.  My writing isn’t always so great; it’s not necessarily profound or perfectly beautiful.  But I can share it with people.  Despite its imperfection, at least I’m pressing send, showing up and investing my creativity rather than burying it. And I’m experiencing a return on my investment.

The most significant return on investing my desire to be a creative person is how it has shaped my identity.  At a time in life when new motherhood was consuming me and when I often felt lonely and at the same time maxed out on my capacity for friendships I found myself in a place of new and unexpected alliances. Sharing my writing made me more of a writer, not because my ability changed, but because the way I identified myself started to change. That couldn’t have happened outside of relationship and the relationships couldn’t have happened under the weight of my fear dictating my choices. I needed to allow those new friends to have access to the writer in me and in so doing I became more of a writer.

Lead your life.

Lisa Phillips Armour is originally from California but now make her home in Portland Oregon with her husband and baby, Bear. Summer is Lisa’s favorite time of year, if only because summer vacations don’t seem to happen without it. If her heart could whisper a message to yours, it would say, Life is brief. Pay attention, because you don’t want to miss a thing.

 

 

 

By Michele | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (2)
July 26, 2011

Prayer and The Art of Motorcycle Purchasing

My friend Mike is wise and goofy and gentle and strong all at the same time. He’s a pastor but he’s not intimidating or weird. He’s able to speak honestly about life’s joys and trials in way that reminds me of what’s really important. After listening to Mike, I feel more free to be who I really am, and to accept others exactly the way they are.

“Mike, you’re going to die.”

Not exactly the sort of excitement I was looking for when I told one of my best friends I was thinking about buying a motorcycle.  After all, a healthy percentage of the pleasure of motorcycles is – follow me on this one – thinking that people are thinking you are cool. The pleasure percentage derived from such a thought is not the same for everyone, but suffice it to say that the amount of pleasure I intended to derive from other people’s thoughts toward me as I revved my engine and whipped around their big boxy cars was significant.  My thoughtful friend was unimpressed, and had known me long enough to know that simple walking around is dangerous enough for me.

That was over three years ago.  Perception and reality have a funny way of missing each other.  A huge problem with the world of motorcycles is there is an adverse relationship between “coolness” and “safety.”  And as bold as I may be in the world of imagination, the real world tends to draw out my cautious side.  When all was said and done, I had purchased a bike 4 years older than me, a huge, nerdy helmet, and a goofy armed jacket to go with my nice “motorcycle safety course” certificate.  Baby steps.

I’ve ridden that old bike (a 1978 CX 500) for the last few years. My intention all along was to get a bit of experience under my belt and then buy a newer, faster bike.  For now, the CX is fun, and once in a while, people look at me through their driver side window with that look that must be saying “You are the coolest, toughest, and most exciting man I’ve ever seen.” Imagine what I’d imagine them saying when I got a new one.

Over the years, I had various opportunities for new bikes, but different adventures slowed them down.  One of the big ones was that I fell in love and got married.  She seemed to think the bike was pretty cool too.  Still does.  A cautious person herself, my wife surprised me with her interest in newer faster bikes when I would talk about it. Everything seemed to be coming together last year to make the leap to a new bike, until an awkward slide into 2nd base at a slow-pitch softball game (remember my buddy’s concern?) led to a broken leg, and no leaping of any kind for the rest of the year.

All that brings us to last week.  There’s a lot going on right now.  Sure there’s a lot happening at the church I pastor, but the biggy is that I’m going to be a father. My daughter is due in October.

And then, it happened.  Last week, I found an ad for a bike that, if true, was an amazing deal.  I felt myself go into something of a trance.  I was able to calmly explain to my wife what a great deal this was, but hide the fact that I was obsessing over it.  I went and looked at the bike.  Its reality was better than its pictures or its description.  Within a couple hours, I was riding a 2003 Bandit 1200S home.  In case you don’t know, that’s a big, fast, beautiful bike.  Couldn’t pass it up.

And couldn’t sleep that night.

The whole next day, my heart was heavy.  It wasn’t buyer’s remorse, as we had planned ahead for a new bike, and found one for less than I had planned to spend.  It was something else.  No matter what I did, I couldn’t snap out of the tight feeling in my chest, or the subtle lump in my throat.  Something about this whole situation was just not right.  My wife was okay with it; she seemed to like the new bike more than the old one.  But her confidence did not quell my anxiety.  To put it differently, I had no peace about this bike.

This is a story of self leadership when your “self” is lost.

When another caring friend voiced a thought that I had been stuffing down the whole week, I discovered how lost I really was: “Why did you buy a new bike, Mike?  Did you forget that you’re going to be a father?”  I gave him the line I had been giving myself: “Well, I’ve been looking for a couple years for a bike like this.  Couldn’t pass it up.”  But his words touched a nerve.  What in the world was I thinking?  If I were to make a pros and cons list for this purchase, the “cons” list would be full, and the pros list would have two items: “Because I want it” and “It’s a great deal.”

Wanting something is a powerful reason, though.  I found my desire fighting against a thousand voices from within, but it was putting up a good fight.   In light of the fight, I tried to pray.  My prayers were awkward and cloudy.  God is apparently not so keen to speak when you’re feeding him the lines he’s supposed to say.  I practically wrote it out for him: here, God, just read this aloud: Mike, I want you to have this bike.  You’ll be fine.

Because I knew I was muffling God (and so much of myself), I took the next best step, and perhaps the piece of self-leadership that has been my biggest strength.  I asked for help. I wrote to a handful of the people I consistently look to for prayer and wisdom.  All I needed was for one of them to say: God says keep the bike.  The only response I got was a call from a dear friend: “When I pray for you,” he said, “this one line keeps coming to mind: Family comes First.  Hope that helps.”

No one else wrote back, but that was enough. All this time, I had been driven by emotion, by opportunity, and by a desire to complete the “look” I never really mastered with the first bike.  Those factors became so powerful that I acted without any prayer, and certainly very limited reflection.  And here comes the big lesson in my own self leadership: for me, the most important step is to surrender. When it comes down to it, I’m a bad leader on my own.  But I know a great one, and no matter how many odd corridors I lead myself down, He’s there nudging me back.

Anyone in the market for a motorcycle?

Lead Your Life.

Mike Wright is a Colorado native, an incredibly lucky husband to Erin, and a pastor of Littleton Christian Church in Littleton, Colorado.  Mike is a coffee snob, a skier, and an occasional blogger at mikewrightsblog.blogspot.com.  In October, he’ll be a first-time father.

By Michele | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (2)
July 19, 2011

When I start to feel like an imposter in my own life.

Today’s guest post is from another former student and current dear friend, who I see very little but think of very much. I will arm-wrestle to the ground anyone who tries to say that I taught Sonja any more than I learned from her. Also, she’s the only student I’ve ever been with the very first time they ever saw dolphins. In the ocean. Sonja, You Rule.

Imposter syndrome. Coined by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978, it is a syndrome in which someone cannot internalize their accomplishments. While it is not an “official” disorder according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (the big reference volume that psychologists use), it has been the subject of many books and articles for over four decades now.

And I suffer from a particularly bad case. I often don’t think I am good enough, or smart enough, or professional enough, or well-dressed enough.

I have heard that women suffer particularly from imposter syndrome. A study surveyed college freshmen a year after they were at the top of their graduating high school classes, and while the men generally still saw themselves as above average relative to their peers, the women generally thought they were average or below average.

I don’t know if we have been trained to see ourselves as imposters, or whether it is just engrained in certain people, but my internal monologue usually goes something like this:

If they knew me… if they REALLY knew me… then they wouldn’t trust me with this responsibility. I am fairly certain that if they knew that I was pretending that I am good at this, they would fire me, or ignore me, or tell everyone what a fool I am.

Sometimes, I read what I have written, or painted, or photographed, and I almost cannot believe that I did it. It’s too good, t0o well written, t0o skillful. There’s no way that I could do that now, I think.

Once I started to realize it was happening, though, I could catch it. I started noticing that if it had been a while since someone had complemented me, I started to develop the telltale signs. Or when I was comparing myself to others at a meeting, in a social setting, or in a friendship, I always found ways to discount my own worth.

But here is the thing: beating imposter syndrome involves more than just noticing it—you have to start to develop an internal locus of power.

A locus of power is what you attribute outcomes to. For example, if I have an external locus of power, then I will do something remarkable, but think, oh well, that was just by chance. Or that was just because my supervisor was clear about what she was looking for on that project. Or that was just because it was a Tuesday. Or any number of excuses.

On the other hand, if I have an internal locus of power, I can begin to attribute things to myself and my own capabilities. I did well on this project because I worked really hard on it, and I have spent years developing the tools to tackle it. Or I received a positive evaluation because I truly am a hard worker, and they are just noticing it. Or I got an A in a class because I actually studied hard for the exams.

And it makes sense. I am tired of feeling like an imposter in my own life. I am annoyed when my own lack of confidence (and not my abilities) keep me from taking risks. I am frustrated with a lack of direction because of a lack of recognition of where I have come from.

So right now, for me, leading my life means both owning up to my accomplishments and shifting my conception of my achievements away from my external circumstances and onto my internal abilities. It is challenging, yes, but it is also extremely rewarding.

I challenge you to identify where you feel like an imposter in your own life, and claim that area with your confidence, your skill, your ability to adapt to change. Join me in living into your true potential.

Sonja Egeland Kelly is now a PhD student at American University, after having worked in the microfinance industry with Opportunity International. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband Shane, and when she is not studying she is trying to figure out how to make the world a better place. When she’s stumped about how to lead her life, Sonja oftenlooks to Rainer Maria Rilke for inspiration, thanks to Michele’s suggestion eight years ago.

 

By Michele | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)
July 12, 2011

Choose What You Have Chosen

I have been so excited for this guest post. My beloved former student, Eric, is a thinker, an artist, and a dreamer. We’ve shared thousands of coffees while debating pretty much anything he felt like debating. His heart is a home for many and his personality is irreplaceable. I hope you enjoy his thoughts below as much as I do.

Choose what you have chosen is what my old mentor used to tell me. If things went awry, if things took me to the bottom of the ocean, or if things went well, I still needed to own that choice and make the best of it. “If you have enough money for one ice cream, and you are indecisive between a chocolate and vanilla,” he would say, “and you decide on the chocolate…as you walk away you think ‘Shoot, I should have picked the vanilla’ Eric, you can’t go buy another one…so eat the chocolate ice cream and make the best of it. Choose what you have chosen.”

Part of me hated him for this, and I told him that, because I now had the responsibility for my actions, for my reactions, and even in the worst decisions I needed to CONTINUE choosing my attitude.

Last year I decided to apply for a volunteer fellowship through a U.S. microfinance organization. I applied because it was extremely competitive and, in all honesty, I felt I had little chance of being accepted. It was my dream to be a Fellow in hopes the exposure to microfinance would spur my future academic study and research. Six months after I applied I was accepted, and eight months after that (I deferred my placement) I found out my placement: Sierra Leone.

Understanding microfinance on the ground level is hugely important to me, and the Fellowship provides exactly that. By the way, at the time I did not even know where Sierra Leone was located.

Within the eight months between my acceptance and my leaving I worked odd jobs and fretted terribly much about the Fellowship. You see, the average age of accepted applicants is 31 years, and the program notes an acceptance rate of 19 percent. I had a lot to worry about, I was NOT 31 years old, I had just finished college, I never worked a professional job, and I had never been to Africa.

There were a hundred more reasons why I was not the right person for the job, how I slipped through the cracks at Kiva, and bah! what value could I add to anyone or a new office? I spent a few weeks at home before taking off and I voiced these concerns to my dad. With the utmost sincerity and care he said, “Eric, you are equipped for this.” I was speechless and did not quite believe him, everything in my head told me I was ill equipped and would probably fail. How could I be equipped?

The moment I applied for my Fellowship I had made a choice.

The moment I stepped off the airplane the reality of that choice was inescapable.

Thus, I had to make another choice: how I would live in light of my first choice?

Trust me, there have been a few times since moving from Santa Barbara to Sierra Leone where I thought, “life could be easier than this.” But there is always something easier, always something harder, and fortunately what is in front of me is exactly what I can handle.

Being in the presence of extreme poverty has shattered my heart and helpless clouds of questions whirl around my head. So many times I wanted the world to be kept at bay from me, but here I was, I needed to choose to know my reality. It was difficult, but from square one to my present I continually had to take responsibility for both my actions and the decisions that influenced them.

It was so easy to think of what my environment was “doing” to my heart, mind, and sweaty body, but, again, I chose to be here. What I have begun to shape, most importantly, is how I react. Ah! I hate when the responsibility is put back onto me! Really though, I could try to avoid the poverty, I could avoid the chaos of taxis and the market, and say, “just being here is all I can handle.” But I am shocked and encouraged by what I truly can handle.

I have also realized the externalities of one choice are invariably part of the whole decision. Not only did I need to accept this, I needed to make the best of it all. I had the power to throw up my hands in defeat and complain about all the differences of being here – But I also had the power to own my decision, live within my reality, and better others and myself through my choice.

Beyond simply living here I have been doing my Fellowship. In all honesty I am way over my head, but if I lost confidence for a second I would drown. No matter how much I doubted if I was equipped or not, it does not matter now because I am here. Before I arrived worrying was my sad comfort, but while here I either do my work or I don’t. I live it or I don’t live it. I must trust that I am equipped with all the faculties to carry out my job, I must trust I am equipped to have meetings with bosses, and I must trust I am equipped to live in Sierra Leone on my own.

I have found that I have a briefcase of professional tools to equip me, and also a briefcase of personal tools that equip me.

The professional skills are shiny, nice, and laudable at times.

But my other briefcase holds personal confidence, acknowledgment of my value, and trust in my ability; all of which complete the nature of my being equipped.

So, what is your Sierra Leone? What choice are you re-choosing every day? What makes you wonder if you are equipped? Ultimately only you can make your choices and only you can believe in your abilities.

There you have it. I’m no fatalist. Be a leader, be responsible for your choices, and know you are equipped.

Choose What You Have Chosen.

Lead Your Life.

Eric Rindal lived in Conway, Washington until he attended Westmont College in Santa Barbara and graduated with a Business and Spanish degree. While in college, Eric studied in Quito, Ecuador and also taught business classes at a technical high school in the Amazon jungle region of Ecuador. His interest in the combination of cultures and business led him to pursue learning more about microfinance as a career. He is currently volunteering with Kiva.org as a KIva Fellow in Sierra Leone. His website is www.ericfellow.com.

By Michele | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (1)
July 5, 2011

Full Disclosure

Today’s post is written by my dear friend Laura. She would want me to tell you that she is my favorite person in her family. We’ve been through a lot, and I’m so thankful for her faith in me.  She gives really good gifts, is extremely gullible, and talks way too much about reality TV shows. She also has my back, forever and always.

The thing about self-leadership is that it’s really hard to do when you don’t know what your ‘self’ is.  I have spent so much of my life perceiving myself in a certain light that it is nothing short of revolutionary for me to begin to think otherwise. Leading myself seems a foreign concept, when I think of how many years of my life were defined as being led by something else.

There are some things that I don’t want you to know about me. I will not divulge them all right here, but I will tell you something. And it can be hard for me to share things, because even though I don’t know you, I want you to think I’m perfect, or pretty damn close.

But that’s laughable. For a number of reasons, really, but the one I want to tell you about is this: I struggle with anxiety. And not like sometimes-I-feel-worried-for-no-reason anxiety, but the kind of anxiety that sits in my stomach like a rock and blocks any room for food and has me doubting everything and paralyzed by nothing; the kind of anxiety that can turn a fun and rational and very confident person into someone scared and frozen and insecure.

From five years old on, I can remember experiencing deep and frequent feelings of anxiety. So I suppose that it’s not terribly surprising that I have come to allow anxiety to define me in primary ways. In my mind, before I am a wife or a colleague or a friend, I am anxious. I have looked at the world through those foggy lenses for so long that my bedrock view of reality has become distorted. Anxiety, at many points in my life, has been the force that was leading me, guiding my actions, motivating my decisions. Instead of making choices from the core of who I am, I deferred to the path of least resistance and most comfort, hoping that I could avoid the pain of anxiety by giving into it completely.

So I might want you to think I’m perfect, but when I open my medicine cabinet and swallow that pill every morning, I’m reminded that I am not. I am also reminded, though, that I am not the young girl who couldn’t leave her parents, or the twelve-year-old who couldn’t eat the whole first week of school because transitions left her terrified.

Because here’s the thing: Somewhere along the way, I grew up.

I went to college.

I traveled in Europe for four months with people I didn’t know.

I got a job, quit that job, moved away, got another job, quit that job after two weeks (yes, weeks), got yet another job, quit that job, got married, freaked out that I just got married, got another job, moved again.

These may sound like simple enough things, but each one was, in its own unique way, a deeply significant battle for my mind. Each time, I could have made the decision to stay close to home, to choose comfort, to remain aloof and project an air of competence that cloaked my deep fear. And each time I have chosen to think outside the confines of my anxiety and act accordingly, I have grown closer to becoming the person that I want to be. The person who leads her own life, who lives in the beauty and mystery of each day and does not cocoon herself from difficulty and learning and growth.

I’m living into my life. Slowly, but honestly. As I stopped conflating myself – my soul, my personhood – with my anxiety, I was able to understand, for the first time, who I really am. It’s not that things changed overnight, and I still struggle with anxious feelings and thoughts. That probably won’t go away completely in my lifetime.

There are some concrete things that I do to separate my anxiety from myself. I exercise. I take medication. I read books that help me to understand anxiety, and then I read other books that have nothing to do with anxiety. I pray, and talk to my friends, and I make sure that people know me well enough to help me with this journey, because I know myself well enough to know that I cannot do this on my own.

Things have surfaced in my life – circumstances, people, internal signals – that have set me on a  journey into myself that helps me live more authentically. Shedding a skin of anxiety, for all the ensuing pain and drama, opens up to me a new way of living in which I am at the helm and in which I seek wisdom and growth, rather than comfort or pain avoidance. Instead of being motivated by fear, I can be proactive. (I know, it’s kind of a buzzword—but it works for me. Feel free to replace with something more erudite.)

It’s like this: I am driving my car. My soul is full and my mind is free, and there will be stops and bumps and unforeseen curves along the way. But I am in the driver’s seat, and I drive with confidence and grace and responsibility. It is my road, my journey, my self. And sometimes I might like my passenger, and sometimes I won’t. I can’t always control who that passenger is, when my anxiety feels overwhelming, when I feel sure that I can’t go on. But I trust that I will be sustained, that I will have life breathed in to me time and again. I trust that I learn along the way and that I can become better without being defined by being in process. In the words of Elizabeth Strout (and via Michele, about a year ago):

“I suspect the most we can hope for, and it’s no small hope, is that we never give up, that we never stop giving ourselves permission to try to love and receive love.”

Lead Your Life.

Laura started to love Michele over toffee almond bars at Starbucks, and really loved her when she met her sons. For the good of everyone, she has finally moved on from her time as Spring Sing’s greatest producer and now works for Fuller seminary. You can read her blog here: www.anordinaryplayerinthekeyofc.blogspot.com.

By Michele | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)
June 28, 2011

What Am I Missing?

How perfect that our first guest post is on missing things in life, since last week I missed posting. For the love. If you didn’t notice, please don’t tell me. I feel like such a goober- I was in the midst of e-mails and conversations about sequencing the guest posts, and I totally. forgot. to actually. post. D’oh.

Let’s get on with it, then. Our first guest post is from my friend Jason. Jason is married to my dear pal Sarah, and he is extremely adept at pointing things out. Even though I’ve only known Jason for a few years,  I can already tell we will be friends for much longer. Here are his thoughts on “Why We Miss The Greatest Lessons.”

Why We Miss The Greatest Lessons

“Every time you call us to talk you miss an exit or get lost.”

This is my parents talking to me the other day.  They speak the truth.

In Los Angeles the car is your office and I make phone calls while I drive (using “hands free” headphones thankyouverymuch) like it’s my job…because it is.

So every time I call my folks to talk I inevitably miss my exit and they have to listen to me say something along the lines of “…DANG IT!  Where am I??”

I hate missing exists.  I like to make the most of my time, so it drives me (no pun intended) crazy when I miss an exit…especially when I don’t realize I’ve done it until 4 or 5 miles down the road.

But I always miss an exit for the same reason – I was focused on something else.  Of course, this doesn’t just happen with driving.  It can happen with just about anything.

For example, I was meeting with one of my mentors a few weeks ago and the subject of relationships came up.  My mentor asked the question:  have you ever met someone who just wasn’t good for you?  Someone who wasn’t safe?

During our discussion she gave me a list of indicators of what constitutes an “unsafe” person.   After she handed me the piece of paper I looked at it for a while with her sitting across from me, watching me read.  Here were a few examples from the list:

Unsafe people stay in parent/child roles instead of relating as equals.

Unsafe people are stagnant instead of growing.

Unsafe people gossip instead of keeping secrets.

Eventually she asked me to read each one aloud…but not so that I could figure out whether it applied to others in my life, but to discuss whether or not it applied to me…and then she added a piece of instruction that I’ll hopefully never forget.

She said, “…and do your best not to think about anyone else but you.”

I’m guessing this doesn’t apply to everyone, but sometimes I’m really good at applying lessons that come my way to other people.  When I listen to a podcast on leadership I might think, “I wish he were here to listen to this.”  When I read a book, or (hypothetically speaking) am given a piece of paper with indicators of being an unsafe person I think, “this would really be helpful for so-and-so.”

I miss exists on the highway because I’m focused on talking with my folks.  I wonder:  how many lessons in life am I missing because I’m so busy applying these lessons to someone else?

How much kinder would I be if I stopped thinking about how unkind others are?

How much more joyful would I be if I stopped resenting others for not being joyful?

How much more love would I experience if I could forgive others for being unloving?

Could it be that the greatest lessons we’re meant to learn can only be learned on the same spiritual bandwidth that we waste trying to control other people?

This is especially tricky in leadership.  We spend so much time meeting with people and helping them solve their problems, or pointing out problems we think they should solve.  After a while that becomes our modus operandi – our natural way of relating to people.  We develop the mental habit of applying lessons to other people so well that we forget to apply the lesson to us.

For me, it’s so much easier to blame others for my problems.  Any struggle with my leadership team?  It’s gotta be so-and-so’s fault.  Marriage problems?  The wife must be to blame. Focusing on my own issues requires focus, courage, humility and a concentrated effort to become someone different.  It’s way easier to just outsource my problems onto someone else’s plate.

I think that’s perhaps the most powerful aspect of The MOXY Project, that it helps people begin focusing on the one person they have the most influence with: themselves.

That’s one of the main reasons my partners and I created Spark Good Studios:  to create spaces and media to empower people to become proactive in the ways that they can, rather than blaming others for their own missed exits.  With our flagship service called “Sparks” we ask the question, “What’s one risk I can take this week to either make myself a better person or the world a better place?”

It’s tangible.

It’s immediate.

It’s not about someone else.

So what about you?  What issues are you avoiding in your life because you may be too busy complaining about someone else?  What opportunities or learnings are you not going to miss because you’re going to be focused on you?

The good news is, even when we miss our exits, we can always find our way back.  It’s never too late to focus on what we can actually change and to pay attention to what Life, God or even our own hearts are trying to teach us.

Lead your life. Don’t miss it.

Jason Jaggard is a husband, writer, speaker, and social innovator for cultural change in Los Angeles, CA.  He is the creator of  Sparks (http://www.sparkgood.com), a 5 week social experience that enhances initiative and creativity for friends, non-profits, schools and businesses.  He’s the Founder and CEO of Spark Good Studios, a company passionate about creating media, learning environments and communities that unleash human potential.  Jason is also an adjunct professor for Pepperdine University.  He can be found at @sparkgood and  @jjaggard on Twitter.

 

 

By Michele | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)