Keep All of You

"Don't throw any of yourself away.

If you have two or three real passions, don't feel like you have to pick and choose between them. Don't discard. Keep all your passions in your life."

-Writer/ Artist Austin Kleon

from his book, 

Steal Like an Artist: 

10 Things Nobody Told You 

About Being Creeative

A New Language: Georgia O'Keefe

Words to Live By: Lizzie Velasquez

"Use that negativity in your life to make yourself better. 

Use it, because I guarantee you. You will win."

-Lizzie Velasquez

Watch this amazing video in which Ms. Velasquez delivers her inspiring message about defining yourself from within.

Enjoy!

-Katie

Blazing Your Own Trail

While I was a graduate student here in Washington, DC at the beginning of the new millennium, I drove daily along the battered end of North Capitol Street, where you could see the beautiful dome of The Capitol Building straight ahead, in the distance, just as you passed by the bullet proof glass protecting the Kentucky Fried Chicken Drive-Thru. 

Then, after turning off North Capitol Street onto D Street, I'd approach a crazy intersection that seemed to go in about 10 directions. That intersection was surrounded by abandoned buildings and scrappy little patches of grass (I absolutely wouldn’t call them lawns) where no one seemed to inhabit, save for the rose sellers or beggars who’d try to get you to roll down your window and give them hope in the form of loose change.

Now, like much of the revitalized District, the area is built up with steel corporate high rises replete with gleaming mirrored windows, luxury apartments and über hip fitness centers. But at the time of my trek to and from school, this confluence of roads couldn't be described as anything more than an urban eyesore. 

So it was no surprise that the one thing that stood out among this barren urban crossroads was a brightly painted message along the side of one crumbling, abandoned building:

“Do Not Follow Where the Path May Lead.  

Go Instead Where there is No Path and 

Leave a Trail.”

Now, you have to remember that this time period predated the proliferation of motivational quotes on Tumblr, Facebook and Pinterest, so I wasn't yet desensitized to the power of a pithy quotation. Instead, it truly intrigued me, and, more often than not, haunted me.

The anonymous graffiti artist didn't include the author of those words, but I soon discovered through research that it could be attributed to American poet and writer Muriel Strode (b. 1875.) I drove by that quote almost every day for three years, and each time I'd wonder what kind of trail I wanted to leave, and, more specifically, how I would leave it. Would it involve acting? Directing? Writing? Teaching? Or something else entirely?

It took me a few more years before I understood what kind of trail I wanted to leave, which, as you know, ended up falling mainly in the "something else entirely" category. And to this day that trail is always evolving and expanding, keeping things interesting. I'm constantly asking myself questions such as, How do I take my coaching practice to the next level? Make it more nuanced? How do I best deliver my service in a novel way? Who needs my career services the most? Will I need to carve out my niche market more intricately?

Even with these ongoing uncertainties, I can't describe how good it feels to have cracked the code, so to speak. It's wonderful knowing that my sweet spot lies in coaching; that I use some of my most valuable talents- that happen to be non-performing ones- to make a difference in others' lives. And, in that coming full-circle kind of way, I like the fact that my "trail" involves helping others blaze their own.

(Here's where I'm going to boldly imagine that Strode would've been pleased!)

I won't lie and say it's been easy; far from it. It has taken due diligence and a hefty sense of self to figure out what kind of path to create. And, undoubtedly, I couldn't have done it alone. Reaching out to others made a turn-of-the 20th century writer's words come to life for me. I realized that in order to create my own unique, individual path I needed the power of collaboration. While that may sound ironic, it actually makes sense given the communal nature of the creative process. And what is the process of designing our own career paths if not a creative one?

Ultimately, yes, it is our own creative hand that paints our life's legacy; however, we can always use the wisdom and support of others to inspire our creations. Seeking guidance is different than following footsteps; we're allowing the paths and knowledge of others to inform our choices, to navigate our way through obstacles, to help us design our own exciting, personalized paths.

Interestingly, the following is Strode's prequel to the above quote, which allows us to see the author's journey in arriving at her conviction to "leave a trail."

"I longed to build as you had builded, but I knew that your joy lay in the conception of your own design. 

I longed to follow where your feet had trod, but I had watched your exhilaration as you felled a new way.

I longed to do that thing you did and be that thing you are, but I knew life's complement was yours because you were yourself."

My Little Book of Prayer

Muriel Strode, 1904

I am eternally grateful for Strode's words so generously painted on an otherwise useless building. Her proclamation held me accountable to discover my own voice. And, because of that difficult search, it also led me to seek help in finding it.

So now I'll hand these thought provoking words over to you, with the hope that you'll feel embolden enough to blaze your own trail.

But hopefully they'll also beg the question:

Who will provide you with the tools to create that trail?

Notes:

*Strode's original quote was, "I do not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path and leave a trail" 

**Many have mistakenly credited this quote to Ralph Waldo Emerson.  

Wondering Within

“Men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, yet pass over the mystery of themselves without a thought.”

-Saint Augustine of Hippo

(354-430 A.D.)

from Confessions

Words to Live By: Gandhi

"The best way to find yourself, 

is to lose yourself in the service of others."

— Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Peter Buffett On Success

A New Definition

"In my view, success should be defined with reference to the substance of a person’s achievement. What is someone actually accomplishing? Is she helping others? Is he living up to his own unique potential? Is there passion and originality in her approach to life and work? Is there fundamental value in what he’s trying to achieve?

I believe that true success comes from within. It is a function of who we are and what we do. It emerges from the mysterious chemistry of our abilities and passion and hard work and commitment. True success is something we earn privately and whose value we determine for ourselves. The outside world can reward us with money, but it cannot anoint us with this deeper and more personal kind of success. The success we define for ourselves is the treasure that cannot be tarnished or taken away."

-Peter Buffett 

composer,

musician, philanthropist and  

author of Life is What You Make It

For Mr. Buffett's full article click here.

Part III: "What to Do With MY Dreams" by Joseph Coram

I wanted to be a writer or a musician most of my life. My dream had a great deal of glory involved in it most of the time. I wanted to be a famous author who revolutionized the world of the written word; I wanted to be a famous musician who brought together the extremes of creativity and accessibility—I wanted to make music that the most artistic minds would respect and that the most unsophisticated sensibilities would really enjoy, whether or not they recognized how brilliant or creative it was. So what am I to do with those things?

That was the unspoken question with which I approached Katie, and in my time working with her, we came up with two solid answers—or, rather, two much better questions—and a lot of good ideas about how to bring them into reality. Briefly, when you have a dream: (1) find out what’s at its core; and (2) figure out what else you want. Dreams like mine are always both too much and too little to be of immediate use.

You have to really know yourself to know what you really dream for, and you have to know something about how the world works to see where a life following those dreams will land you, and that takes help from outside, from community, from ‘counselors’ in the broadest sense of the term.

What am I to do with those dreams?

Take the first one. What am I really after? I want to write, sure. That’s something I can do whether or not I make a living doing it. I want to change things with my writing. That’s doable, too. Revolutionizing anything may or may not happen—and, importantly, I have not given up that fantasy, and if you ask me on most days whether or not I think it’s going to happen, you will likely hear some form of a “yes”—but I can, with some effort, reasonably expect to change people, or at least encourage them to rethink some things, with my writing. Making an impact is a legitimate goal.

So then, what else do I want? When I say I want to write, what else am I after? Katie posed this question early, and with a series of pretty incisive conversations and diagnostics, we got somewhere with it. Well, I want to make my own schedule and have my own priorities; I want to be creatively engaged with things that interest me; I want people to respond to me and give me feedback, so I know how I’m doing and whether or not what I’m communicating makes sense. 

Those are clues. 

On a more nuts-and-bolts level, I want to spend at least some of every day writing and at least some of every day doing something tangible that helps people. I am naturally what they call a “maestro,” as opposed to what they call a “tribal” personality—I’d rather be an expert in something who gets called in for particular occasions than someone who’d prefer to work in a pack. 

Those are all clues, too. 

When Katie had me look through a deck of cards with a different photograph on each one—some with people, some of nature, some of old woodsheds, crowds, monuments, all sorts of things—and she asked me to pick out the ones that most grabbed my attention, we were both surprised and intrigued when the six I picked out all had pictures of people on them, most of them with people interacting. We had both had me pegged as more of a ‘thinker’ than a ‘feeler,’ but all the pictures I picked screamed that there was a ‘feeler’ in there to be acknowledged. Surprising, interesting, revealing—another clue. I also realized I want time to pursue music, too, even if writing is more important. While music may not be an actual part of my career—though music reviewing may be—I know it’s important, and I want a career that accommodates that.

You always know more than you think. And it takes someone who knows people and who knows the real world to bring that out and show you where you fit. That’s where Katie was indispensable.

I didn’t come away from career coaching knowing the next chapter of my story verbatim. I didn’t even come away knowing when this limbo period would be over and I’d actually feel like a grown-up, living in a coherent narrative again. But I did come away knowing with much greater clarity and realism that writing is in my future, as I’ve long hoped it would be, that people are in my future, as I was surprised to find I so badly wanted them to be, and that there is a place for me in the real world—namely, a small college somewhere where I can teach, write, engage with people, and have time to pursue my other interests. I now know some steps to take to find it. 

I don’t think progress is as simple or as automatic as I did when I was young, but I am pretty sure, now, that it didn’t end when I graduated, and it may have some more surprises in store for me in the future.

Part II: "The Dream" by Joseph Coram

At some point, the questions people have been asking you since you were young—particularly, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”—no longer get asked. Does that mean you’ve grown up? Not necessarily. But those questions begin to implicate the present; unless you are one of the few who are as certain of what you want to be as you were when you were six—and are equipped to make it happen—you realize, whether or not you have any dreams that have lasted, you are the only one that will make anything like a dream really happen.

But you also realize there is an objective, solid (or at least semi-solid) outside world within which your dream will or will not be realized. It may be that one’s twenties are spent trying to learn the rules of that world and how her or she fits in with it. Perhaps that’s why it’s a chapter in the story that tends to get skimmed or even skipped.

I am abundantly convinced that, however clichéd it may sound, it is critically important to keep your dreams alive. I think it is only slightly less important to realize they will almost certainly never happen in the way you dream they will. But a young adult who still knows how to dream is way better off than one who is too cynical and disillusioned to have any hope for the future.

Both of the perspectives I just mentioned—the dreamer and the realist—I think are necessary, and I think there is a way to keep both of them intact by figuring out how they relate to each other: the dreamer needs to be tempered by the realist, just as the cynic needs to be animated, and perhaps softened, by hope.

As I’ve thought about it, I’ve come to think the best way to look at this is to treat them both as dreams—that is, to realize that you always have at least two dreams in play. The first should be the easiest to recognize, but may not be, depending on how far away you are from your childhood: it is the astronaut, the rock star, the visionary author (or in my case, both of the latter two)—whatever you would have answered at age six when asked the familiar question of what you want to be when you grow up. The second dream is roughly the same for everyone, and it is rarely called into consciousness till you’re older. I think coming out of adolescence is in part a process of realizing how important it is: the dream to be real, to live grounded in reality, to have a life that is solid and reliable and that makes sense.

The loftier your Dream #1 is, the more Dream #2 tends to look like a mere negation. It will come to you couched in a sentence that starts with the word “But” and ends in dashing your hopes against the rocks. That, I want to suggest, is not the only way to approach the necessary task of relating these two dreams. They can be integrated. But it takes work and it takes help.

You have to realize that no matter how outlandish your first dream is, it is a huge “clue” (as Katie would say) to what you ought to do with your life. There is something valid and necessary at its core; there is something there that you are after; there is something in it that you really ought to pursue. 

We dream mostly in images, and only the most creative among us can dream in images we’ve never seen before. So someone says he wants to be an astronaut. He thinks that’s what he’s after because, out of everything that he’s seen, it is the role, the career, maybe the action figure that most embodies the much less tangible, the much more amorphous and elusive thing he really wants.

Depending on how old and “mature” he is, he has a greater or lesser sense of what it would actually take to make that dream happen, on the one hand, and a greater or lesser sense of the gritty reality of what that dream would demand of him were he actually able to realize it. No kid who dreams of being an astronaut is dreaming of the years of exhausting schooling and training, on the one hand, or the rote, monotonous drudgery that (I assume) fills up the vast expanses of time every astronaut spends not being in space.

But as the second dream grows in prominence—the dream to be real; the dream to have a real, adult life—it becomes a matter of letting the first dream, in all its particularity and naïveté, die, for a moment, and be reborn in a world governed by the laws of reality. 

I have come to believe, as I said, that at the core of every dream, even the most outlandish, there is something there worth saving and pursuing with everything you’ve got. The shell is what needs to go, and it’s not easy to let it go. It takes something like faith to know that when you let go of the particular form of the dream you’ve grown accustomed to, there will still be something there, something you really want, and something that you can pursue as a goal and finally get to.

To be continued...

Part I: "The Myth of Progress" by Joseph Coram

Twenty-five is not typically seen as a “difficult” year, and that’s part of what makes it so difficult. By the time you get there, you’re used to difficult years. It feels like being caught between phases of life, and it’s hard not to put yourself in drift and stay there. Both the resistance you’ve faced and the encouragement you’ve had as a young person back off at least a little, and without resistance or encouragement, it’s hard to find meaning.

From birth to age 18, or maybe age 22 if you go to college, life naturally has a sort of narrative character. Not everyone’s story is alike, but it seems like that span of time, for pretty much everyone, just feels like a story. While everyone’s story can be radically different—mine has been pretty unique—it’s largely the same structure for everyone. Each year means, developmentally, a particular set of challenges, and a particular vision for the near future.

Philosophers and theorists for the past several decades have focused a lot on how meaning is formed through narrative and many have concluded that stories—particularly our own stories and how we understand them—are where most of our sense of meaning comes from. In that sense, whether or not they realize it, young people have it pretty easy, at least for a while. Even if you don’t know where you’re heading, the fact that you have a trajectory—a built in direction, perhaps toward greater maturity—means you know reasonably well what to expect as the narrative progresses; and because it functions that way for most every young person, society has in part been structured around it. Your circumstances change; you change with them; and even with all the twists and turns and slip-ups and tragedies of growing up, you ultimately see, in your story, some form of progress. It is easy to believe you are heading somewhere definite, somewhere better than where you are now; it’s sort of programmed into you.

Another thing recent philosophers like to talk about is “the Enlightenment myth of progress”—the “Enlightenment” being the period after the Renaissance when modern science was developing, thinkers were turning toward reason as opposed to traditional religion, and democracy gained great prominence in Western society; and the “myth of progress” being this idea from that era that revolutionized our worldview in suggesting that society as a whole is improving and will continue to improve until we reach some sort of utopia in which all needs are met and dreams are realized and everyone gets along with everyone.

The reason philosophers like to talk about it is because they almost all agree that it’s not true. Further, they almost all agree that, however untrue the idea is, it’s still utterly pervasive among most people. I think technology has a lot to do with why many still find it plausible. To put it crudely, the man on the street thinks because the iPhone 5 is substantially better than the iPhone 4s, the whole world is moving in the right direction; whereas someone with some highlights of the twentieth century in mind—two world wars and a holocaust, for instance—is not so readily convinced things are improving. The Enlightenment’s “meta-narrative”—its grand, overarching story that says we’re getting better, is fiction.

But that fact has not made its way into the contexts that most significantly affect the worlds we grow up in. It’s still everywhere, and people still want to believe it, so it’s even harder to dislodge. The idea of progress makes particular sense to young people—even ones so young they can’t understand it—and it’s actually pretty reasonable for them to buy into it. Growing kids do see remarkable advances each year as they grow up and mature, physically, emotionally, psychologically, and so on. It’s easy to believe things are just supposed to get better.

My theory is, once you hit your mid-twenties, not only does progress become less obvious, but the whole idea of your life as a continuous story makes less and less sense, and you’re hard pressed to stay engaged and keep moving forward. As an adolescent you can be in drift and still move forward; the story itself carries you forward; but by the time you graduate, “in drift” no longer means “coasting”—something adults lament but ultimately condone in adolescents; it means something more like “stagnant.” From what I can tell, life does seem to pick up again once you’re in full-fledged adulthood, but that really doesn’t seem to begin until you’re about thirty—maybe until you have a spouse; maybe until you have kids. Mine certainly hasn’t started up again.

To be continued...

Beautiful Mind Alert!!

GollyGforce
"Result of an Amusing Memory"

My friend and former client, Joseph Coram, has many gifts.

But then, so do we all.

(How many times do I say that in this blog? Like, a million?!)

However, Joseph possesses one gift that I find particularly spectacular: his insight into the human experience.  After our conversations I always walk away with new ways of looking at age-old dilemmas. Fortunately, I discovered, he most beautifully expresses these thoughts through his writing.

Now, I like to fancy myself a fairly good writer on personal development issues, in that I can make random connections between my dog's goat-like tendencies and the challenges of career design. (It's a gift, I tell you!!)  Still, I consider writing just one of many tools I use to educate others on how to navigate the career world.

But Joseph?  He's the real deal. He writes circles around me, and if you ever have the opportunity to meet him you'd understand why: his nimble and luminous-yet humble- mind knows no bounds. And this mind, I decided, needed to be shared with Grow readers.

PRONTO.

Therefore I invited him to write an essay about his 25-year life experience from a millennial generation vantage point.  I asked him to explain to "The People Out There" (that would be you) how he is navigating his creative life as a twenty-something guy trying to make his way in the world. And, fortunately for all of us, he agreed.

His essay has three parts, so I'm therefore going to publish them as a three-part series (I took a HUGE leap on that choice,) starting with the next post.  I am sure you will appreciate his enlightening words as much as I do.

Enjoy!

-Katie

Freedom From Perfection

"Well, you have suffered enough

And warred with yourself

It's time that you won."

                                 -Glen Hansard, "Falling Slowly"

                         from the Once soundtrack

In case you were wondering, which you probably weren't but you'll hear about it anyway, there are always backstories to the stories that I post here.  There's the wondering if I should post x, y or z to the general public.  There's the factor of someone from high school (who I was always trying to impress) reading about how I now have one eye that crosses in and a right knee to go along with it.  There's the chance that someone to whom I normally wouldn't divulge ANY personal information is now reading about how I've had my self-esteem in the gutter and have recently become concerned in the summer about my ailing bikini body.

Before posting my recent pumping iron with old people post, I had my husband read it first.  I was actually just asking him to see if I was being offensive to older individuals. He didn't think so; in fact, he liked the post. But, as I was turning to leave the conversation he added, "if you don't mind telling everyone all that stuff about you."

And do you know how I responded, quite definitively in fact?

"Actually, I don't."

Revealing these flaws is my way of slowly freeing myself from the perfect image that I have, for years, tried to sustain.  I am gradually crawling out of that cocoon of hiding my once (seemingly) fatal flaws and am now just becoming me, in all of my imperfections.  I can laugh at the chinks in my armor, versus berating myself for having them. God knows they just keep accruing every year!

I'm not saying I never wear makeup or nice clothes, or never worry about how I look or sound or act.  (I'm not perfect at showing my imperfections, after all.) But I am feeling free to reveal more vulnerability, because that is what everyone needs.  We crave honesty from others.  We need to be reminded that we are not supposed to be the airbrushed image in the magazines and online. We all have- or will have- dark circles and blemishes, wrinkles and age spots. And they don't have to be surgically corrected for us to be presentable.

We don't have all the answers and sometimes feel like we know nothing about anything.  And that's just reality, not something to hide or be ashamed of.

As for our personalities, we need to have some of our "shortcomings" and "flaws" re-imagined as gifts.  Whether we're talkative or quiet, imaginative or realistic, emotion-centered vs. fact-centered, open-ended or orderly, we need to remember that, when channeled well, these traits are beneficial and even vital to making the world go round.

Vulnerability.  Freedom from perfection.

Isn't that a great place to start?

Margaret Young: In Order of Importance

"Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. 

The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want."

-Margaret Young, Vaudeville Comedienne, 1920's Jazz Singer  

Pumping Iron with Old People

Did your mother ever tell you, "Young Lady (or Man,) you need a serious attitude adjustment!"

Mine did, and, in truly redundant fashion, I now say the same exact thing to my kids.  You'd think I'd come up with something a bit more creative, but, alas no.

It's just a vicious cycle, My Friend.

I'll admit, however, that there have been many instances in adulthood where I could have used my mother's admonishment to change my attitude.  Because sometimes I forget that I am indeed "coppin' an a," as those of us 40 plussers used to say in the 80's.

(We were sooooo cool, Dude!!)

One recent instance of an attitude in need of adjustment was my work out situation.  This past summer, as I lamented the demise of my bikini figure, I was also undergoing physical therapy on my knees.  (Yup.  Both of them.)  Due to the fact that my right knee naturally turns ever-so-slightly inward, kind of like my right eye that ever-so-slightly crosses inward, (and no, that doesn't mean that I inadvertently just go around in circles) my body became really out of alignment.  And that, in turn, meant that both of my knees would hurt every time I ran or did certain exercises.  Which then meant that I had to figure out how to work out in a way that benefitted my knees, my health and my schedule.  (Oh yes, and my ailing bikini bod.)

So, when my physical therapist told me that running for more than a mile was unwise, I decided immediately that I was totally screwed.  That was my main form of exercise, after all. But, not one to give up on my situation so easily, my therapist then asked me if I belonged to a gym so I could weight train and use the elliptical machine, which would help my strength and alleviate my knee pain. No Siree, I proclaimed right then and there. No way was I going to join the nearby exclusive gym!  I'd joined a similar one a couple of times before and I always felt like it was just too far away and a waste of time and money given the exorbitant initial membership fee and monthly rates. All for the sake of a hip vibe.

And that was the end of that discussion. Although I didn't exactly sulk out of my last appointment and was outwardly grateful for the help she'd given me, I did harrumpf a little to myself.  I grumbled about how, now that I was getting older, my body just couldn't handle the simplest of things, like running.

Like I said, totally screwed- for life.

Fast forward a month later.  I don't know when it hit me, but I suddenly remembered an option I had that I'd always dismissed: the recreation center.  It was only five minutes away.  It had really good machine weights, an elliptical, plus classes. And you don't need to pay a membership fee!  Why, oh why, didn't I think of that sooner, I wondered.

But in actuality I knew the answer to that question.  I'd dismissed the notion many years earlier because I didn't want to work out in a nondescript place with a bunch of old people, since that's who mainly goes to the rec center gym.  It's completely ridiculous I know.  Talk about coppin' a 'tude!

However, now that I've changed my attitude I've discovered there are so many benefits, besides saving money, to working out in the community rec center with old people.  Now, let me just clarify that by "old" I mean 80's and above.  (Because, at age 42, you've got to be careful about who you're calling old.) In fact, I'm actually working out at the rec center quite a bit now, especially since the weather is so cold.  I won't say I'm quite ready for bathing suit season, but I'm getting there!

So what are the benefits, you might well ask, of working out with the twilight generation? Here are my top five reasons:

1. I can wear reading glasses while on the elliptical and not feel embarrassed.

I actually wear them to read because of my slightly converging right eye problem, not because of an aging vision problem, but still, no one there judges me. It's possible they can't see me very clearly from where they are sitting five feet away, but that's neither here nor there.

2. These old people are clean!

When the signs say, "please wipe down your machine after every use" they actually DO IT.  This results not only in fewer germs but also in no smell, which I can definitely appreciate.

Of course, there doesn't seem to be a ton of sweating going on either, so I'm sure that contributes to the fresh air. Which leads me to...

3. No grunting, egregious panting, or other outrageously loud noises interrupt my workout. 

No one appears to be going for the gold as far as pumping iron is concerned. If someone starts grunting I'd actually call an ambulance.

4. I get to hear about the latest offerings on PBS.

Masterpiece Theatre and the like are all the buzz at this gym. Thankfully no one has spilled the beans on Downton Abbey, since I remain most pitifully on Season One.

5. I feel quite young, trim and athletic.

Of course, I try to overlook the fact that it's all relative.  After all, I'm using the leg press next to Millie, who just turned 90 and is more interested in discussing her needlepoint project than in burning calories. (Truly, I am not making that up.) But heck, she's 90 and she's in a gym!  I think that's awesome.


So there you have it. I solved a big problem by making a slight adjustment in my attitude.

Which begs the question: if you adjusted your attitude about certain things, what could you accomplish?

Dining Room Etiquette, Little Heinies and Illusional Careers

Telling me never to assume never works, because I will always forget.

via Brian Smithson
(and not our dining room)

Recently, we turned the dining room into my office.  This meant, of course, that we'd not have a dining room in which to eat.  (Logic works that way.)  At first I was fine with that notion, but it became increasingly apparent that eating in the kitchen on our island was not working.  First of all, it felt too crowded, and I noticed that the kids were quickly losing their sense of decorum and propriety while eating.  (Oh wait, that would mean they had some to begin with....  Well, whatever.  That's for another post.)  So this weekend we boldly made our sitting room into our dining room.

We live on the wild side around here...

Norman Rockwell
and not our turkey either

Now for my assumption. I'd naively assumed that once the children were seated at the dining room table for dinner, they'd feel as if they should behave a bit more formally and properly since they were in a more formal and proper setting.  It really made sense to me, as I've been told logic works that way. After all, studies have shown that if you change a person's environment, you may be able to change his or her behavior as well.

Thus Saturday night we all sat down to a wonderfully prepared meal, courtesy of me, of course.  It was all very exciting!  But before we even picked up our forks my three year-old decided to chuck a couple of carrots across the room to the dog.  Which is when I uttered that insanely over-used term, "Really?!"

I was almost too stunned to admonish this absurd behavior. He didn't even do that when we ate in the kitchen! But then the thought occurred to me, why would I be surprised?

After all, this is the same little man that almost- and I repeat, almost- used our newly gifted, crisp white hand towel to wipe his heinie. Thank heavens I stepped in just in the nick of time. ("But we're out of toilet paper, Mama!" was his reasoning.  I then discovered that the toilet paper was all- and I mean all- in the toilet.)

Which is why I now understand the phrase, "Don't eat the daisies;" sometimes you have to anticipate poor judgement no matter what logic dictates. And why we now have a "reasonable amount of toilet paper in the toilet" rule.  And a hand towel-on-heinie prohibition.

Yes I Do Have a Career Point to Make...

I had some serious pie-in-the-sky assumptions in college too.  For example, I imagined certain careers to be the ultimate in life.  Anything in the international arena, diplomacy, law and the like, seemed as if they were my dream jobs.  And why would I assume otherwise?  I'd always heard my family talking about my great grandfather's fascinating career as an Ambassador from Mexico to countries all over the world.  He also founded the Organization of American States, housed in a beautiful and prominent building on Independence Avenue. Moreover my grandfather had a revered international career as well. To a young person, nothing could be more glamorous.

The OAS by Gerry Dincher

And currently, as I work here in the Washington, DC area, I am always amazed at how many "exciting" careers exist here.  Attaches, foreign service officers, politicians, lobbyists on Capitol Hill, diplomats, scholars, policy wonks, FBI, Secret Service, CIA agents, journalists and global leaders alike call Washington, DC their home. (Just to name a few.) For a Political Science and French Major, it could seem a sumptuous feast of vocational paths.

However, I look at those careers completely differently now that I'm older and in the career specialty field.  While those vocations certainly hold a lot of cache and may even make a lot of people extremely satisfied, I realize that, for me, they merely represent once-revered images from my childhood and early adulthood.  When I think of the daily functions that these people perform, I now know that it's not for me.

Oh Paris

That being said, would it be cool to say that I was the Cultural Attache for the French Embassy?  Or perhaps that I was a Foreign Correspondant?  Of course!  But on closer observation it's not really the great match I thought it would be when I was in high school and college.  I'd prefer not to fill my days with those particular functions or the subject area of foreign policy.   I still find the field pretty fascinating, as I did in college, but not to delve into on a daily basis.

For example, when I read many of the journals and blogs of those with Embassy careers I can tell these individuals love their subjects.  In fact, they may love it as much as I love my field of career design.  But I don't regret not going the route I dreamed of in college because sometimes dreams are not as pleasurable in reality as they are in ones mind. Furthermore, there are often careers out there that could be more fulfilling to you than the ones you've fantasized about since you were five.  Sometimes you actually need to get to the essence of why you had that dream in the first place.

Camdiluv ♥

The difference between an image of a career (the respect it garners, the way you think you'd feel in a certain role, and how you've imagined yourself looking in that role) versus a real, living breathing career is this:  the genuine one embraces who you are as a whole, including your strengths and weaknesses.

Of course, sometimes peoples' dream careers and their actual careers are practically one and the same.  We are all too familiar with people who dream of a career as a child of three, find that it's a great fit when they are ten and amass fortune and fame from that career for the rest of their life.  The media loves to splash these individuals' lives in our faces, making the self-directed-amazing-lifetime-career phenomenon seem far more prevalent than it really is.

Obviously, if that perfect dream-it-and-live-happily-ever-after career path happened all the time I would certainly not be in business!  Nor would there be so many people-as much as 70% of the working population- who feel unsatisfied with their work.

So what is the difference between an image and reality?  Well, in the first example we have the idealistic, formal dining room behavior image versus the living, breathing, carrot-chucking behavior.  In terms of career ideation, here's a specific example: I can casually pick up a book about foreign policy, and find it very interesting as a subject, but I lose track of time in a book about human potential.  In fact, I find myself reading psychology-centered and career books for work and for fun.  And I love to talk to people about their potential more than I love to talk to people about foreign policy issues.

Yes, I fill my life with interesting things that don't necessarily relate to my career coaching practice, like singing, painting, theatre, reading fiction, interior design, planning events and taking photographs.  However, I do find that I'm always thinking about peoples' talents and personalities and interests no matter what I am doing.  I suppose that's how I know that discovering new ways to help people is just woven into the fabric of my being.

I must finish with this, however.  My daughter told her dad the other day that when she grows up she wants to help people with their careers.  (That was a first from my seven year-old.  Previously she'd wanted to be a farmer.)  Then she added, "Luckily I have a mom who can tell me if I have the right personality for it."

I have to admit that is pretty cool.

Enriquez Iglesias-induced Impairment

http://www.flickr.com/photos/evarinaldiphotography/

I temporarily forgot that I was over 40 with children when I said "yes" to my friend's invitation to go to an Enriquez Iglesias concert.  Didn't get home 'til almost 1:00 am last night.

Wait- that was... technically this morning.  Whatever.

http://www.desiretoinspire.net/

Very tired today.  Children up quite early.

Had a lot of fun, but again,

Very tired today.

Now, because of my fatigue, I've been experiencing a phenomenon which I discuss in my presentations:  Inferior Function awareness.  Just to clarify here and now, these are not functions that relate in any way to bodily functions. (It's not that kind of blog.)  Rather, these "functions" pertain to Personality Type, wherein "inferior function" is a term used in Type Development discourse.

We all have dominant functions and inferior functions, no matter what our personality type.  My dominant function, as determined by my ENFP preference, is a perceiving function called extraverted Intuition.  In other words, I tend to ask questions of others first before making judgments. Extraverted Intuition is a great dominant function to have as a career coach, because I ask really good questions of my clients.

I prefer seeking information from my environment rather than constantly making internal decisions on that information.  It's a conceptual, imaginative and open-ended dominant function, and I do it naturally, easily and without thinking. Kind of like writing with my right hand.

Now using my inferior function?  It's like using my left hand:  not quite as adept.  I can use it for basic things like picking up something or clapping, but forget trying to write my name with it.  Unless, of course, I want my handwriting to look like a kindergartner's.  

Flickr-o5com

My inferior function is introverted Sensing, which involves retrieving information from the archives of my brain.  Numbers, dates, general data recall, details, minute planning, blah blah blah.  Introverted Sensing is all about the internal perception of the here and now, the concrete details, and practical data.  I'd mention more but it's wearing me out just writing about these bad boys.

I mention my less-than-stellar adeptness with details in How We Got to the Moon.  And you can bet those pesky details are the first thing to go when I get tired or have a headache or get overly stressed.

The big concept part of my brain is fine; it's operating just dandily, almost automatically because it's used so much and works quite adeptly.  But my inferior, introverted Sensing function? Well, it might as well be where Enriquez and his band probably were this morning: in bed nursing a headache from too much La Vida Loca.  (Or perhaps that's just my fantasy of the kid-less showbiz crowd.)

So today it took a lot of extra energy to concentrate on paperwork, processing data, and doing calculations in my head.  Thankfully, being in the highly conceptual field of a career coaching that I am, those activities are kept to a minimum.  But struggling with these activities makes me appreciate my choice of paths.  My typical day really focuses on my dominant function and what I do best:  gathering information from people and outside sources and creating solutions with these concepts.

I've been in jobs where my inferior function was used every day all day (administrative work) and it was immensely draining.  Why?  The inferior function just doesn't work as well as the dominant function, and so it takes more energy to use.  Of course, we all use our inferior function all the time, but preferably in moderation.  And when someone says that their job drains them or that they come home "at the end of their rope," it's most likely due to the fact that they're probably using way too much of an inferior function.

That being said, I'm going to bed.  And you can ponder over your inferior and dominant functions while I sleep.

Oh, and Buenos Noches, Senior Iglesias.

Crapshooting My Way Through

Here's my Important Question for the Day:

What's the difference between a crapshoot and parenting?

Answer:  At least with craps you have a chance of winning.

(For those of you who don't have kids, don't I make it sound enticing?) 

Becoming a parent has been the most humbling path I've ever taken, always presenting me with new opportunities for self-doubt and flagellation.   Fresh from a career in acting (talk about self-doubt and flagellation!) I never had extra self-esteem lying around to begin with, so now my confidence level (as far as parenting is concerned- in all other areas it's great) frequently scrapes the bottom of the barrel.   I constantly wonder if I'm being too soft, too hard, too lenient, too strict, too doting, too hands-off, over or under nurturing, and so forth.  What if I do the wrong thing?  Say the wrong thing?  Will they resent me for it later on?  I can just hear my daughter, at age 30, saying to me, "remember when you made me eat vegetables?  Now I have a life threatening phobia of eggplant for which I'm in psychotherapy seven days a week!  Thanks for the memories, Mom!"

Oh, the pressure.

However, I will consent that there are some things that I, as a parent, can get right without sending my children into therapy by age ten and which I will never regret.  One of them is telling them I love them (because I do, like crazy,) and another is teaching them the rules of engagement.  If you'll recall from my former post, these rules dictate that adults must assume responsibility for knowing what engages their talents.  And, hopefully, if all goes well, my kids will make it to adulthood in one piece and might just become responsible to boot. 

Moreover, along this road to maturity, they'll need to learn how to recognize what their brains need to do to function successfully.  They'll need to detect what motivates them, what mentally drains them, and what makes them lose track of time they're having so much fun.  So my goal?   To give them the tools and the opportunities to do so.

This is easier said than done, of course.  For, along with trying desperately to get them to like more than chicken nuggets,  I find that it's difficult to navigate the complexities of innate preference versus a reticence to try new things. My daughter, for one, is an innate perfectionist (the apple falleth not far from the tree) and getting her to try an activity that she can't perfect right away is like pulling teeth from a lion.  I dance a soft shoe when it comes to letting her discover, on her own, the joys of imperfection vs. nudging her to try something she is hesitant to try. 

On the other hand, my son, who is only two, has less fear of trying something new.  (Even at age two my daughter had reservations about performing unknown tasks.)  But my little guy seems to have no inhibitions about launching himself from the top of the couch to the floor, for example, or taking a new bike out for a spin, or climbing to the highest point in any room.  Is this a boy thing?  Probably, but it's still a clue about who he is.  And I've already determined that he is a monkey.  A monkey who is really good at doing puzzles.  (I'm really good at this stuff, aren't I?)

Here are some more clues I look for in the "what are they drawn to do?" category:

What excites them?  What gets them fired up?  (Besides sugar.)  

What makes them laugh?  


Where do they enjoy going?  What do they like to do when there?  For instance, do they like to put things in their place when we go to the toy store or do they like to combine things and form combinations with different toys?  My daughter likes to bring together many different little toys and make them form deep, lasting relationships with each other by the time we leave.  My son likes to make sure every car or machine can make a vrrroommmm sound, go fast, and then make sure they play together. 


How do they wind down and then get recharged?  Reading books?  Riding on a bike?  Playing ball?  Being around people?


How do they relate to their classmates?  Are they more independent or do they play with one or two kids or five or six all at once?  


Do they prefer team sports or individual pursuits?  Or perhaps no sports at all?


What do they enjoy creating? Performing?  Conquering? 


How much competition do they enjoy?

Getting answers to the above questions allows me and my husband to foster these proclivities.  We sign them up for what we can based on what they might enjoy.  And we throw in some curve balls just because.  Last year my daughter said she wanted to play soccer so of course we said, "sure!"  She mostly braided her hair the whole time the ball was whizzing by, but that's okay.  Maybe next year she'll move to braiding everyone else's hair.

This, to me, is the fun part of parenting.  I love watching them develop into little people who will then become big people with fully expressed talents and preferences and interests.  I know that I will look back and wish that I could've done certain things differently, but at least I can say that I was paying attention to what they wanted for themselves, not just what I wanted for them.  And that makes me feel like I might not lose completely.

Clashing.. Lots of Clashing

When it comes to weather reports, springtime packs in some real doozies.

A bit of a weather.com junkie, I happened upon the following text a few weeks ago:

"Air masses clash as spring tries to take control while winter does its best to fend off spring's advances. It's that clash of air masses which lead to the development of storm systems across the country.  What is the result?  A little bit of winter (snow) and a little bit of spring (thunderstorms)."

Kinda cool, huh? 

Well, if you don't think it's cool, you are not allowed to be in the weather.com junkie club.

(Note: I'm sure this exclusion causes you much angst and consternation.)

Clashes happen all around us.  At work, at home, at school....  I really like the word, "clash," I suppose,  not only because it sounds utterly dramatic, it's also quite versatile.  It can indicate a fight between two or more individuals, a weather system collision or, in the context of clothing AND weather, outfits that clash louder than thunder.  For example, you should have seen the get-ups my little sister used to wear.  Talk about doozies!  She was lucky we were in the 70's, when self-expression was en vogue.

I've found that working identities, or non-working, as the case may be, can clash as well.  They often resemble the push pull of the weather:  an old career identity tries hard to prevent the new identity from coming in.  It doesn't want to disappear, as well it shouldn't.  After all, an identity is all about being itself and not someone or something else.

During my lifetime I have survived many identity clashes.  Below I describe the good, the bad, and the downright ugly:


1.  Corporate Identity

When I was in my early 20's, the need to live up to other peoples' expectations still dictated many of my decisions.  I had to make my family proud, show my friends my worth, both financially and as a competent human being.  I had to show everyone how strong and capable I was by going after whatever I felt was worth having.  I took the most ambitious, well-paid corporate job I could get right out of college.  I didn't know who I was or what I wanted or what I was really good at doing, but at least someone had given me an identity to hang on to, in the form of a job title and a paycheck.

As the years went by I began to realize that my corporate identity was essentially a hat that I was trying to wear for my portrayal of "a successful business woman."  (Sounds like a bit part in a movie, doesn't it?)  Oh, and I also figured out that no one but me truly cared what I did for a career.  I was the one spending 60 hours a week doing something that didn't engage me at all, not my parents, not my friends, not anyone I'd tried to impress in the first place.

With a new found freedom from societal expectations, I thought I'd go completely 360 and try doing something I knew would engage me more than the corporate world:  the theatre.  I'd always acted on the side, so, with my student loans paid off, I decided to give the exciting world of performing art a try.

2.  Artistic Identity 

Once I got out of the business world and into the artistic world I realized that I was starting from scratch.  Yes, the environment was more up my alley;  however, I had no prior acting experience other than community theatre.  So here I was, someone who used to earn a lot of money and respect, now answering phones at a small theatre company in the middle of nowhere.  (And did I mention that I commuted over an hour each way to do this job?)  My identity here was definitely in-the-making:  I wasn't even considered a professional actress yet, just a receptionist who was trying to crack the acting market, figuring out how the acting scene worked.

A couple of years later I reached my coveted professional actor status, and therefore grew into a new working identity.  Still, I had to go back and forth between performing at top theatres at night and on the weekends while answering phones and filing during the day.  At least some of the time I felt true to my working identity.

3. Maternal Identity

I struggled harder with this identity clash even more than going from #1 to #2.  I loved my newborn baby and being her mommy, but I really didn't like (and I actually still don't) being called "a mom."  All of a sudden people would come up to me and say, "Hey there, Mom!  Looks like you've got your hands full there," or "Ewww, Mom, smells like a diaper needs to be changed."

I began to think, "Hmmm... just a few weeks ago I believe I was a human being with a name."

Furthermore, I realized, for the first time, that I could not say that I did anything.  I didn't want to go back to acting because it wasn't conducive to having a newborn baby.  I had no idea what I was going to do except be a mom:  change diapers and whatever else new moms did.  I was just... me.  And what the heck did that mean?  The clashing titans were two polar opposite identities:  the actress me and the just-another-mom me.

If I'd had a stronger sense of self I don't think the "mom calling" would've really bothered me.  In fact, now that I have a much clearer understanding of my strengths, a career path I enjoy (see #4) and, in turn, a stronger identity, I don't even notice when someone says "mom."  This comfort level can be attributed to the fact that time has allowed me to grow into this new identity;  however, having a nice variety of professional and personal goals largely contributes to my mental health.


4.  Professional/Personal Identity or Coming Full Circle

Although I can't say it's been devoid of doubt, growing pains and fear, having my own business while simultaneously taking care of two little ones has felt very natural and fulfilling.  Sure, I feel torn some times, but overall I couldn't ask for a better situation:  I have my own schedule, I love what I do, I can spend time with my children, husband and friends, and I can grow my business as slowly or as quickly as I'd like.  My life and my career complement each other, and I generally find a lot of overlap socially, which is immensely satisfying to me.

Furthermore, I have come full circle, meaning that I am using all of the experiences along my journey ( #'s 1-3.)  For my coaching practice, I use the business training and skills acquired in the corporate world along with the creative process I honed during my artistic life.  I use my experience with past career frustration to help others.  And, being the lifelong learner that I am, I am always educating myself both formally and on my own.

As for my child-rearing practice?  For that I get out the big guns: negotiating techniques from my sales and account management days and mindfulness meditation from my acting training.  And if those techniques fail, give me a margarita with salt.  Then I don't care who colored her bed purple or put Spider Man in the DVD player.  It's all cool...

Via Flikr

Besides, I can relax now that I've discovered I can just be myself, and that's really cool... almost aas cool as weather.com, but not quite.

How I Got My Self-Esteem Out of the Gutter

High School for me was anything but a walk in the park.  I looked and acted like a perfectly jovial person, but inside my self-worth was virtually non-existent.

For starters, I had a long term relationship with a guy that was a whiz kid.  In my eyes, he was absolutely brilliant.  Why?  Because he could immediately master mathematical equations and scientific concepts faster than I ever could. My brain simply wouldn't work that way.

Via Flickr

And yes, objectively speaking- not just in my girlfriend's-rose-colored opinion- he really was intelligent, especially by society's standards.  My high school years predated the recognition of emotional, social and artistic abilities as legitimate forms of intelligence;  therefore, when I was a teenager, most people measured intellectual ability in terms of scientific and mathematical prowess. I was one of those biased people.

Next to my boyfriend, I considered myself a complete moron intellectually. The fact that I could nimbly analyze literature and poetry, win foreign language awards, make A's in every subject (but that blasted Algebra II), sing the hell out of a difficult song, and deftly perform Shakespearean monologues didn't seem to register more than a one-out-of-ten on my self-esteem-o-meter.  These subjects and talents were "easy" things that I didn't believe counted on the intelligence front.

As for The Boyfriend?  We broke up.  He ended up going to Stanford and then, I am told, on to UCLA for his Ph.D. in Science (couldn't tell you in what field specifically.) I am sure he is out there somewhere continuing to live in his super smartdom.

And then there was the sports arena.  While I averaged B's in Algebra II, I was a D+ student (at best) in athletics.  This, of course, didn't win me any favors in sports-lovin' Indiana.  But in my mind I had to at least try to be great at everything lest I feel inadequate.  That meant, in addition to my academic and artistic pursuits, lettering in sports.   

olympushighemlyhoffman.wikispaces.com

Knowing my limited hand-eye coordination,  I went out for Track and Cheerleading, thinking I could at least do those sports.  Unfortunately, as far as Track was concerned, it soon became apparent I had no business running competitively. On one level I ignored that discovery and pushed myself anyway.

Now, you may be thinking, isn't the act of pushing yourself beneficial, even you aren't good at something?  Of course it is.  Problem was, I chastised myself whenever I didn't do well, which was pretty much all the time.  Now, looking back, I think, "Of course you didn't do well!  You are not naturally fast, your legs are short, and, genetically speaking, there is nothing that would make you a good runner!"  But logical thinking requires a healthy dose of self-esteem, so I was pretty much S.O.L. there.

And the cheerleading?  Well, let's just say I didn't quite master the whole teamwork idea.  I vaguely remember there was a point where I was doing my infamous chipmunk impressions at the request of the cheering section.

Via Flickr, but those were our school colors!

Now, seriously, what was I thinking?  Besides acting like a chipmunk in public, a rather absurd notion in itself, wasn't I there to cheer on the football team?  Couldn't I just do the routines like the rest of the cheerleading squad?  But noooooo, there I went, drumming my own little drum, not grasping the notion that not only was I a different drummer, but also that cheerleading wasn't really a good different drummer type of activity.

So how did my phoenix rise out of the self-esteem ashes?  The answer is, simply:  it took time, hard work and a bit of luck.

In my twenties my self-worth did improve with effort, but something always seemed to set me back.  First of all, trying to make it in the tumultuous world of the theatre didn't quite help matters.  So up until age thirty, I'd say, the self-esteem-o-meter hovered precariously around a four.  But then, once I hit 30, things started to improve.  My maturation level enabled me to naturally become more comfortable in my own skin.  Even so I really didn't understand how intelligent, gifted and remarkable I was as a human being until I reached age 34.

That was the year I had my daughter, my first child, and I realized pretty quickly that I needed to have a substantial amount of emotional strength to devote to parenting.  I knew I didn't have the time or energy to deal with low self-esteem and the havoc it wrought on my life.  And besides, life is too short not to have your you-know-what together.

Just by luck, I stumbled upon a seminar taught by a local career coach.  When I listened to his presentation I knew immediately I'd come to the right place.  I ended up signing on with that career coach who then introduced me to the idea of preferences and abilities, unlike any other individual or academic institution ever had.  For the first time in my life I had a non-emotional, objective way of looking at my mind, my talents, and my preferences.  I could finally look at my strengths and weaknesses in a non-judgmental way.  I also began to recognize the intelligence and gifts in all people, not just those labeled as "smart" or "talented" or successful" in our society.


Of course, there were still some major cognitive-behavioral issues that I had to conquer.  Take negative self-talk for one.  It's like a pit-bull that grabs a hold of you and refuses to let go.  (I should know, I used to have one, God Rest Her Soul.)  And to this day I must continually be mindful of shutting down negative thoughts and letting my mistakes and weaknesses go.

Furthermore, there are lots of questions I still have to ask myself and boundaries I have to test.  But I'm exponentially better at sorting and answering these questions and boundaries than I used to be.  I am also much better at:

1) Living with uncertainty
2) Creating opportunities for myself
3) Tailoring my commitments to my strengths and weaknesses
4) Sharing my talents with confidence
5) Making things happen for myself instead of waiting for fate to tell me what all's in store for the future.

And as far as my self-esteem-o-meter?  It's registering at a 9.5, which means that while there's always room for improvement, I can live well.  I'm no longer a slave to happenstance and mood.  And honestly, certain circumstances still set my confidence back momentarily to maybe a six, but never to a zero anymore.

What else can I ask for?  I worked hard to be where I am, and so can you.  Consider getting the help you need instead of trying to do it on your own.  The investment of time and money will be well worth it.

Eating, Praying, Loving, and Finding Myself in Quebec City

I recently had a marvelous time in Quebec City.  C'etait mon premier fois (it was my first time) as the Quebecoise would say.

Now I present my version of Eat, Pray, Love for this charming city:

I found myself Eating many delectable macarons, crepes, and croissants (I'm sure there is another carbohydrate I imbibed, but it's not coming to mind... just to my thighs.)

I kept Praying for my son to go to sleep in our quaint- and shared- hotel room.

I was Loving this enchantingly beautiful, French-speaking city.

Our trip to Quebec, while only two hours by plane, allowed me to reconnect with my passion for other cultures and experience a new city, all the while sharing my love of the French language with my children.  Speaking with native French speakers reminded me of how much I relish conversing in the graceful, musical language I studied in college.

Which leads me to the essence of Eat, Pray, Love, the best-selling novel adapted into a film starring Julia Roberts.  I read the book when it first came out and saw the movie in a movie theatre, which was nothing short of a miracle.  (If you'll recall, I am always way behind in popular books and movies.) While the movie didn't enamor me quite like the written word, seeing the story unfold on the big screen took me back to the marvelous premise of Elizabeth Gilbert's book:  finding oneself by connecting, enjoying, and experiencing life in all its richness.

When I first read Eat, Pray, Love I enjoyed it immensely.  The widely popular autobiography details the author's journey from the time she leaves behind a dead-end marriage to her global quest for self-discovery.  Although I've never traveled solo around the world for a year or experienced a dead-end marriage (and for the latter I am thankful!) I definitely related to Gilbert's multiple passions:  self-exploration, cultural and language immersion, traveling, writing and savoring delicious regional cuisine.  Most importantly, the book also brought back visceral memories of my own need to stretch myself- my life, my career, and my talents.  

Flashback a few years ago when I was in the midst of my acting career.  Although I was faring quite well in the Washington, DC acting community, I feared that I was becoming a bit too comfortable in my surroundings to grow as an artist.  I knew I needed to discover whether I had the ability to make it in New York City, and therefore decided to get my feet wet in the acting community up there. (Note- If you are an actor reading this, especially an actor living in New York, I'm sure you snickered when you read the "get my feet wet" phrase.  Because, seriously, how can you just dip your toes in the biggest acting pool in the world?)

Moving to NYC wasn't an option so I did what I could:  I rented a New Jersey sublet from a former Raoul in Phantom of the Opera.  He lived above his landlords:  a mother, her grown daughter, and their little brown dog (or rather, "dawg") curiously named 'Cheena"  When I inquired about this unusual name they responded in authentic, Joisey-like fashion, "Ya know... as in a mah-owww-kah-cheeenah.  She's like the collah of cawwfee."  Thus, the name Cheena.  (Or was it 'China?  I never asked.)

Needless to say, Manhattan and all of its opportunities overwhelmed me, but at the same time I actually did, at first, feel amazingly revitalized.  I saw so much talent and vibrancy in the New York theatre.  I met and collaborated with amazing people.  I was accepted into an advanced level acting class and loved it.  I began stretching myself artistically, and tested the waters by auditioning for everything I could.   I abandoned my comfort zone of staying at home in my safe and well-known environment in order to venture out into the unknown.

However, with all of this stretching and vibrancy and talent and wetting of feet, comes another, even more profound experience: humility.  (Yeah, that one hurt a little.)  Because I realized that a key ingredient to making it in The Big White Way was not only dogged persistence and extraordinary talent, but also sustainable, consistent, solid performance.  For example, while I have, in the past, knocked the socks off audiences, and made them laugh or cry or experience personal revelations,  I really came to understand that the best actors do this EVERY DAY.  Whereas I could look at my years as an actor and singer and recall killer performances, I honestly couldn't say that I could give killer performances sustainably like those who perform at the highest levels.

(Photo Credit: Rebecca McAlpin for News)

But you know what else I discovered besides the talent threshold?  When I filled my days with acting alone, I felt I wasn't living up to my potential in other realms of my life.  I wasn't helping people like I wanted to.  I craved making a direct and noticeable difference in other peoples' lives.  I also genuinely missed the other things that gave me energy:  painting, writing, teaching, traveling or cooking up new recipes.  I learned that I had a terrible time narrowing my playing field to just one sport, so to speak.  I realized I liked variety, plain and simple.  Perhaps, if I'd studied performance religiously for years and started in New York at a very young age, I may have caught a break by finding a specific niche.  But that narrow focus has never, and will never, motivate me.  That fact I cannot change about myself, nor do I want to.

I also instinctively sensed that I needed to use my brain to solve complex problems for other people, even though I had no idea at the time what kinds of problems they should entail.  (I realize now it was my diagnostic reasoning that was lying dormant- more on that in another post.)  All I knew was that I was spending way too much brain capacity figuring out which monologue or 16 bars of music I should use for my next audition.  I reached a point where I knew that the day-to-day life of an actor could not sustain me for the rest of my life.  Not to mention another year.

So, after time spent "getting my feet wet" and experiencing life as a New York City actor, I eventually headed back to DC to resume a new path.  This new life entailed a career in coaching, new little family members and a restored love for an incredible personal life rich with friends and family.  I didn't go to the ends of the Earth to find myself like Elizabeth Gilbert, but a $25 ride on the China Town Bus and a meager sublease helped me do some serious soul searching. 

I realized that you can "find yourself," whether you are married, single or a parent; live in New York City or Topeka, Kansas.  If you begin to ask yourself some honest, hard questions and face your fears of going to the next level in your career, you begin to assume personal responsibility.  Committing time and energy to self-discovery reaps unlimited rewards. Once you dig deep you'll find treasures lying within you, talents that have gone untouched for too long.  It may not be what you initially seek, but it will be you.

Growing in one's career takes so much courage.  And because of the risks involved many people choose to stay put.  They remain safe and sound in their cocoon of complacency, pleasing everyone but themselves.  Choosing this route may seem easy in the short term, (and we ALL do it at one time or another) but in the end these same individuals will probably find themselves depleted of energy and enthusiasm.  Unfortunately, those who feel stuck may wrongly blame family obligations for squashing opportunities .  It's very easy, and so very common, to use others as scapegoats for their own career failings.

While I can definitely say that, as a mother of two young children, there are real time and energy issues that constantly arise, I must remind myself to find ways to grow personally and professionally in the life stage I am in.  So I try to push myself to take important but sometimes scary initiatives in my business. I intentionally engage in activities and networking that benefit both family and career (and thereby save my sanity.)  I try my best to "find myself" daily by carving out time for myself and my work whether my kids like it or not.  That way they learn that my passions are an integral part of who I am, in addition to being their mother.  

So, alas, going overseas to Gay Paree may not be in the cards right now, but fortunately we gave Quebec City a try.  And brought les enfants.  This time around, anyway.  Next time it's just me and the Mister.  That seductive little city exudes way too much romance for a family trip every time.