Category: Authenticity

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The Fight to End Cubical Suffering

If this is how you look when you think about going to work on Monday, you’re not alone.
The good news is, you can answer this question simply, effectively and calm the heck down in one easy step.
No time to read? Just hit play and check out The Fight To End Cubicle Suffering. Do scroll down and read the blue boxes… that info isn’t in the recording.

Cubical suffering is on the rise in Corporate America. Won’t you join in the fight today?

No, I’m not talking about suffering to the third degree here, although I’ve seen this type of misery grow exponentially. What I’m talking about is all my tech friends and analysts, corporate warriors of all types, sitting in a workspace and suffering. That’s what I’m trying to end. I’m not an exercise maven, a motivational guru, or an expert on how to become rich. I can’t tell you how to climb the corporate ladder. What I have, are mad skillz when it comes to happiness. Over the next year, my goal is to show you the path from unhappy, overwhelmed, boxed in and overworked to happy, engaged, forward-looking and workload right-sized.

Interested in working with me? Sign up for a free 25 minute session by clicking here. We meet on zoom, camera on or off. Find out how I can help you move from overwork and chaos to happy and engaged at your day job.

My Story

I didn’t set out to get happy at work. Frankly, when I was in my late twenties and early thirties, my goal was to survive. At that time, my husband and I owned a brick & mortar deli in New Jersey. We sold coffee, cigarettes, lottery tickets, soda, sundries, sandwiches, breakfast, lunch, dinner, fries, onion rings, you name it. If we could cook it in under ten minutes, we sold it. If we could put it in trays and bring it to your event, we catered it. The place was open from five am to eight pm with slightly reduced hours on the weekends – long hours, on our feet. My husband and I each took a ten-hour shift Monday through Friday and one full weekend day – he opened, I closed. He used to fall asleep at stoplights on the way to work. After I got home, I did the books. Incredibly, this lifestyle was an improvement over my prior job. You can find that story – here.

Two events stand out for me from this five-year phase of my life:

First, I remember having a large catering job to prepare for. It was well after midnight. I was alone at the deli. I’d been cooking and prepping for four hours, after working my normal ten-hour shift full of adrenaline rushes and physical labor. I could hear the owners of the Italian restaurant next door closing up. I still had trays to finish and clean up to do, money to count and a bank deposit to make. I needed to be back at the shop by ten am. Exhausted and overwhelmed, I laid down on the cold tile behind the counter and began to cry. I hosted a big, ugly, pity party for myself. Slowly, a thought entered my mind. Nobody was coming to help me. The work still needed to be done; we’d already been paid. I stood up, washed my face and feeling eerily calm, finished my work.

What’s the link here? Sometimes, our own thoughts are making our work more difficult.

The second thing I remember from that time is standing in our tiny living room on my day off, looking out the window, holding a phone to my ear. I still had a phone with a cord, so I couldn’t walk around. My father was on the line and we were discussing business. I remember saying to him “Dad, you know what scares me? I’m not afraid I won’t be able to do it all. What really scares me is that I might be able to more.”

What’s the link here? Sometimes what we have to fear, is our own endurance.

Flash forward fifteen years or so. I was working in Corporate America as an IT manager, driving my twelve-mile commute to a job that normally was less than sixty hours a week. I was only called out of bed for overnight failures about once a month, but recently it had been several times a week. It was a sunny day, cold, winter, clear driving. I hadn’t slept the night before, or many nights, because my mind kept me up worrying about my job. I was exhausted and miserable.

I knew that this job was far better than what I’d experienced before. So why was I so unhappy?

I asked myself a question that had a profound impact on me.

Why did I take this job in the first place?

That question was the first step in an upward spiral for me.

I can remember the exact road I was on when I started answering myself. I know what house I was passing. I know what I told myself.

“I took this job because – it has great benefits.” Owning your own business is like playing roulette with your health insurance. I used to have to choose between being able to take my son to the doctor and catastrophic coverage. It was one or the other; we couldn’t afford both.

“I took this job because it is twelve miles from my home.” We used to drive forty minutes to our deli to start our shifts.

“I took this job because of the tuition reimbursement.” It allowed me to finish my college studies and get my degree.

“I took this job because this company has unlimited opportunities.” I work in insurance, which hosts a plethora of options for interesting, meaningful work.

“I took this job because this company truly believes in stakeholder ethics.” Being a great corporate citizen was something I could only dream of as a small business owner.

“I took this job because I get to work with other people, I’m not trying to do this all by myself.” If I can’t keep going, it doesn’t mean my family, my home and everything we own will dissolve.

I remembered the day I was offered my first job at this company. My family could not believe my good fortune. What a great opportunity. I remembered the day I was offered the position as a manager. I loved the team I was on, I loved the work we did and the people we did it for. It meant something to me. It was important.

Driving into work that cold, clear day, I remembered exactly why I had this job.

All those reasons still applied. I was grateful for my job. I still thought the work was meaningful. I wasn’t happy yet, but I was on my way.

And that? Is a path you can take too.

What’s the link here? Remember your why. Everything starts with why.

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Who’s Flying Now?

Listen, every now and then, it’s good to check in and see whose flying this thing we call work.
Don’t feel like reading? Click here for the audio.

This week, it’s back to basics. This blog and the work I’m doing as a life coach has one purpose. I help people who are overworked, tired, unhappy, in a rut or unsure of their next step at work, get more control, feel better, and enjoy work.

The thing about this that makes me want to stand up and shout is we all have a lot more control than we think. We have control over what we pay attention to. We have control over our reasons for being at work. We have control over what meaning we attribute to the work we do, why we’re doing it, and how we execute. We have control over our feelings, our thoughts, our actions.

I think there are a lot of people out there who believe that their only choice at work is to try to deal with what other people say and do, to try to make other people happy and pray that someone changes things so they can be happy.

This, my friends, doesn’t work.

If you would like a free 25-minute session – click here. It’s free, it’s on zoom, camera on or camera off. It’s my pleasure

There’s no single way for everyone to be happy, but the first step is the same for everyone. Take back all the control that you possibly can. Err on the side of assuming you can act and effect changes right from your cubicle. You take back control the minute that you decide that you want to be happy at work or you want to stop overworking, or you want to do more of the work you’re best at. Whatever it is that you are waiting for so that you can feel better at work, take control of that.

Here’s the crazy thing. The only reason I’ve gone back to basics on this blog is that my brother asserted control. I want to turn this blog into a podcast. A bit of music for the podcast would be cool, after all, this is Rock Your Day Job. So I turned to my brother.

My brother is some kind of associate director of client learning programs but his side hustle is as a folk-world-rock singer-songwriter. So I thought great, let me get James to write me an intro/ outro. He said cool but… give me an outline of the journey you want to take your listeners on so I can tie the music to the point of all this.

What?

I just wanted him to string some notes together and make magic. Turns out… he’s an Associate Director of Client Learning Programs. Oh. That means he knows how to design systems that teach people stuff. He thinks I should have a plan and not waste your time. Huh.

So I sat down and started to chart out the outline for the next year and I realized this blog had gotten off course. I decided to get back to basics, the real reason I’m here. I help people who are exhausted and unhappy at work get more control, feel better and enjoy work.

This week, try to notice where you feel out of control at work. Then ask yourself what you can and can’t truly control. For instance, you can’t control what other people do or how they think, but you can control what actions you will take and you can control how you want to think about situations. You can’t control if your boss likes you, but you can control how you think about your boss. You can’t control which projects you’ll get, but you can control how you behave when opportunities arise and who you discuss your preferences with.

My brother influenced my entire process just by stating that he wanted to work from an outline.

Control. He exerted a lot of influence right there but he also exercised control over himself. He didn’t need me to change, he didn’t say no to writing music for me. He just understood how he wanted to work, what he needed from others, and he allowed himself to ask for it.

Magic.

And that? Is something you can do too.

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Showing Up as Your Authentic Self

If being yourself at work feels like you’re one step closer to a pink slip, read on.

Who’s your best friend? Go ahead, answer that question. I’ll wait. And yes, you can have more than one. Ok, got your answer? Did you say your spouse? A childhood friend? I’ll tell you what you probably didn’t say – you didn’t say – me.

Don’t be a wise guy. I mean you, not me. Hopefully, I’m your life coach – which is a totally different thing. Basically, I’m asking if you are your own best friend. Anyone who said yes? High five, Dude.

If you want to shut down anxiety and start feeling better at work… Dudette, call me. Let’s talk about how coaching can get you mad skillz so you can show up relaxed and confident at work. Click here. We got this.

Here’s the deal. At some point, we all do something at work that is authentically ourselves. We speak out at a meeting. We vote “no confidence” during sprint planning. We buy clown shoes as a gag. We go a little Jerry McGuire, and then? We feel embarrassed. We fret over what we said, we change our vote, we go home at lunch and get our loafers. We shred our manifesto.

This is a deep-rooted survival pattern – the need for acceptance kept us aligned with the tribe. In turn, the tribe kept us safe.

When we do this at work, we train ourselves to be quiet in meetings, vote differently than we believe, stop sharing our love of slapstick and trade in our passion for cynicism. That’s painful for us and bad news for the companies we work for.

Nothing drives innovation like unique interests and points of view colliding with a problem.

Whoa. What’s all this got to do with being your own best friend?

Ready?

To show up as yourself, you need to be comfortable with who you are. Your best friend knows that you wore your shirt inside out to work last week. They like you anyway. You never get that line from Seinfeld right, but your BFF laughs anyway. They know what you mean. Your intentions are clear even when you act like an idiot. They wait for you when you’re late and pay the bill when you forget your purse. You’re not perfect and your BFF doesn’t give a fig. And that? Lets you stop worrying about fitting in and start being you.

To be your own best friend requires courage. You have to accept that you’re human, you’ll fail and you’ll win and you have to like yourself either way. You have to treat yourself with compassion.

If you are your own best friend, when you’re the only one at the planning meeting holding up a confidence level of one, you don’t change your vote. Instead, you explain to the group why you think that. You wear your damn clown shoes until someone laughs and you make their day. More importantly, you continue to speak up in meetings even if you were flat-out foolish in the last one.

I’m not saying don’t learn from mistakes. Dude, that’s just silly. I’m saying don’t let mistakes make you their errand boy. I’m not advocating for being disruptive and throwing manners out the window, either. You, waiting your turn, aiming for brevity and being polite is still you. There’s plenty of room within civility for speaking your truth.

Accepting what is unique about yourself, appreciating your great points and not shutting yourself down is being authentic.

If you punish yourself every time you get outside the tribal norm, you will never want to bring yourself to work.

To stop punishing yourself, act like your own best friend.

Every company on the planet has to innovate faster and more effectively every day. Every person on the planet has a unique voice. Every problem on the planet has a solution.

Show up as yourself and get to work. The world needs us all.