Awakeness is found in our pleasure and our pain, our confusion and our wisdom, available in each moment of our weird, unfathomable, ordinary everyday lives.
—PEMA CHÖDRÖN, Buddhist Nun and Author
Remember that question on the driver’s license test?
If you are driving on an icy road and your car starts to skid, what do you do?
a. Turn in the opposite direction of the skid.
b. Press firmly on the brakes.
c. Turn in the direction of the skid.
I remember when I was sixteen years old, taking the driver’s test at the DMV. The stakes were high; I’d either walk out of there with a license or be sentenced to spend the rest of the school year either a) roller-skating to school or b) hitching rides with sketchy seniors. Unfortunately, I had no idea what to do in this skid scenario, so I used my imagination to reconstruct it. My mental picture looked something like this:
So, I’m in Iceland, cruising around some fjords with Björk. She hits a high note. I’m so moved that I turn to applaud and all of a sudden…my car starts to skid out of control! Car parts, bottles, and cutlery fly out the window in slow motion. There is a polar bear about fifty feet in front of the car. What do I do? I want to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting this innocent creature. My brain is yelling at me to turn away from the skid. But that’s the wrong answer. The correct answer is: c) Turn INTO the skid.
At work, we often face situations or frustrations that leave us feeling like we’re skidding out of control, like when a judgy colleague says, “You can’t do that, it’s not ‘Best Practices,’ ” or we are told “Sorry, but there’s no budget for an innovation lab,” or when we receive an email from our boss with the four most ominous words ever strung together, “We need to talk.”
In those uncomfortable moments, our brain is screaming at us to slam on the brakes, to throw our hands up and accept defeat. But turning away from the everyday annoyances, frustrations, and challenges is not the answer. Instead of swerving away from the skid, we will barrel into it headfirst!
On November 8, 2016, millions of Americans stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, glued to their screens as votes were tallied, winners of counties were called, and collective breaths were held. But instead of staying up with the rest of the nation anxiously waiting for a winner of the most nail-biting national election in history to be declared, I went to bed at 9:00 p.m. MST. Why? Because I was to give a companywide talk to the leadership team at the health insurance company Humana the next morning, a talk I had been preparing for months. I needed to be on my game and figured I should get my beauty rest.
The following morning, I woke up to some startling news. My free Hulu subscription had been canceled! Those bastards! Oh, and also Donald J. Trump had just been elected the forty-fifth U.S. president. Now, let’s put politics aside and just say that regardless of who you were rooting for, the outcome was utterly unexpected. Even DJT looked like he could barely believe it himself. That morning it felt like the world was suspended in shock and disbelief; an alternate reality seemed to have set in.
Not the best morning to give a keynote. In fact, one could argue that it was the worst morning for a liberal lesbian with a potty mouth to talk to a roomful of buttoned-up executives about—no joke—“Resiliency: How to spring up after being knocked down.”
But there was no way out of giving this talk: It had been planned for months, the contract was signed, and executives were poised and ready to listen. Turning away from the skid wasn’t an option; the only thing left to do was turn into it. I took a deep breath and began reviewing my notes.
That’s when I realized that the topic of my speech was exactly what I needed in order to summon the ability to give my speech; what better time for this potty-mouthed lesbian to talk about getting knocked down, getting back up again, and kicking ass than while doing it!
Here’s the thing about being knocked down. We can stay down on the ground, spitting and cursing our lot in life, or we can choose to get back up and look our challenges straight in the eye.
It’s much easier to kick ass when everything is rosy, but it’s infinitely more rewarding to do it when things suck. So next time life has got you down, instead of spitting at the universe, stare your setbacks and obstacles in the face, and make the decision to spring back up!
Something I hear—a lot—from people in all industries is that they long to be creative at work but don’t get enough support from their managers or bosses. Even companies that say they champion creative thinking often aren’t coughing up resources for it. Once, after hearing me give a talk at PHX Startup Week, for example, two engineers from American Express approached me and said, “We want to start an innovation lab but don’t have the space or buy-in; what do you suggest?”
Have you ever been inspired to start a creative initiative, project, or campaign at your company? And have you ever been told that there isn’t enough space, money, resources, or buy-in? Whether your idea was to start an innovation lab, a lecture series, or a book club, nothing crushes the spirit harder than limitations, right? Wrong!
By facing our limitations, we can find unlimited options!
Several years ago, I met an artist named Meg Duguid because I had arranged to see an exhibition she curated. But this exhibition wasn’t at a gallery or museum; in the absence of the cash or connections to gain access to an experimental space, she decided to curate the exhibition someplace unusual. The project was called Clutch Gallery, which she described as “a twenty-five-square-inch space in the heart of Meg Duguid’s purse.” After my initial laughter and delight in the absurdity of curating an art exhibition in a purse, I saw the genius in her gesture. She hadn’t let the limitations of the art world stop her from curating. Instead, she had grabbed them by the clutch!
Start an innovation laboratory in a surprising space.
Curate experiments.
Invite colleagues to participate and contribute.
Does public speaking freak you out? Cool, you’re in the majority. It’s on most people’s list of top five phobias. And yet most of our jobs require us to speak publicly from time to time, in some form or another. Nothing sucks harder than mustering up enough courage to give a talk, make the presentation or pitch, and then…a phone goes off, someone has a coughing fit, your PowerPoint isn’t working, your brain goes blank, you start saying “um” over and over again. Does this sound, um, sound, um, familiar?
Many proficient public speakers have no problem giving you the following advice: Turn nervousness into excitement! Easy for them to say; they’re high-energy extroverts with years of public speaking experience. I prefer the following advice: Turn into nervousness. What I mean is, instead of trying to hide or deny your stage fright, use it to connect with your audience.
I once coached an extremely introverted executive director who was terrified of public speaking. She told me, “I know it’s part of my job, but I am so scared to speak in front of people, when I get up there, I can’t even look at them.” I said, “Don’t.” I advised her to start her speech with her back to the audience, without trying to mask her unsteady breathing, and say into the microphone, “Do you ever feel too nervous to face an audience? Yeah, me too.”
Whether your fear is public speaking, starting a new job, negotiating a raise, or asking someone out on a date, there’s a good chance that at least 80 percent of people identify with the very same anxieties you do. By turning into our nervousness, rather than fighting it, we show our audience that we are honest, imperfect, and human, just like them.