No Map. No Guide. No Limits.

I’m not sure who first came up with the idea of promoting clothing emblazoned with the company’s own name as the ultimate expression of cool, but whoever it was deserves a marketer-of-the-century award. I mean, really. Getting customers to pay for the honor of advertising for you is even better than Tom Sawyer’s fence-painting scheme. And yet, millions of people happily agree to do it, every single day. 

I’m also pretty sure that nobody brandishing a Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt sees it that way. Wearing a labeled T-shirt is a way of making an identity statement. It proclaims to the world: “I feel affinity with the Tommy Hilfiger brand. I am cool, just like their models, and that lifestyle is one I aspire to.” Or to put it succinctly: “I am a Tommy Hilfiger kind of person.” 

In truth, how we dress almost always says something about who we are, even if it’s just that we don’t care overmuch how we dress. But for people who feel as if their identities aren’t readily accepted and supported by the world around them, identity statements can feel much more important. Years ago, when I moved from California to the Midwest, I remember feeling as if I was suddenly under attack by an avalanche of restrictive, ultra-traditional gender and social standards and expectations. Normally, I’m a fan of classic-styles clothes, because that means I don’t have to shop for new ones very often. I’m also not inherently a Bohemian counter-culture kind of person. But in that Midwest town, where women were still judged by the quality of their homemade mashed potatoes, I suddenly felt an intense desire to start wearing tie-dyed hippie clothes as a kind of armor, both to proclaim my difference and to protect against having my voice and identity swallowed whole by the stifling conventions around me. [click to continue…]

A few days ago, lured by the soft summer evening air, and reluctant to surrender the light, I took my dinner outside and ate it while reading a recent copy of the New York Times Magazine.

The piece that made the read worthwhile was a lovely interview with Krista Tippett, the host of NPR’s long-running show “On Being,” which is apparently being transformed into a podcast in the fall. To be honest, I never heard the show. But reading the interview, I wish I had. 

There were numerous points Tippett made in the Times’ short interview transcript that resonated deeply and longingly with me. She talked about questions she asks her guests on the show to “get a sense of how someone thinks … so they will relax.” She explained that “we’ve all that this experience … when you know somebody gets you. You relax. You breathe. The other experience that we have all the time is when we’re with someone and we know we’re going to have to explain ourselves or defend ourselves.” I found myself wanting to be a guest on her show; to have someone actually making that kind of conscious effort to get me.

She also talked about “drawing out voices that deserve to be heard and shedding light on generative possibilities and robust goodness.” She said, “I talk about hope being a muscle. It’s not wishful thinking, and it’s not idealism. It’s an imaginative leap, which is what I’ve seen in people like John Lewis and Jane Goodall. These are people who said: ‘I refuse to accept that the world has to be this way.’ That’s a muscular hope.” 

And finally, she talked about the idea of “callings.” “Your calling may be something you do that gives you joy but that you’re never going to get paid for,” she said. “It’s the things you do that amplify your best humanity.” 

All of those things are ideas I fervently believe in. More than just wishing I could invite Tippett to a dinner party and have more conversation like that, I found myself wishing that I could have the kind of job she has, that would allow me to have those kinds of conversations all the time. Of course, one might argue that I’ve done something similar, through this website and the columns I’ve written, over the years, even if I’ve gotten paid little or nothing for a lot of it. But the thought led me to dig a little further into Tippett’s path, and how it diverged from mine. [click to continue…]

Victory is supposed to feel sweet. Look at a winning Super Bowl or World Series team, right after the final play seals their victory. They scream, yell, punch the air, jump up and down, and tumble over each other with whoops and cheers of uncontainable joy. That’s the feeling we expect victory to create.

But it doesn’t always feel like that. One of my coaching clients, after finally getting a promotion she’d been working to get for years (and should have gotten years earlier), said although she was initially elated at the news, that feeling was quickly replaced by a pervasive and unexplainable feeling of exhaustion. Exhaustion that lingered into the next week, and the next. Was there something wrong with her? 

No, I told her. She was simply feeling what every person feels whose victory has come not on a level playing field of physical challenge or sport, but against obstacles, headwinds, or any kind of injustice they never should have had to face in the first place. 

Making our way through the messy and complex world of human ambition, emotions, biases, prejudices, flaws, fears, insecurities, and social/cultural power politics is challenging. It’s why so many people find refuge in the far simpler challenge of physical adventure. A mountain doesn’t backstab you, ignore your talents, claim credit for what you’ve done, or hold you back because it doesn’t think people who look like you, or come from your background, should be climbing it. The challenge it presents is hard but straightforward. So if you win, it’s a clean and untarnished win. The kind that elicits joy.  

Victories in the human realm aren’t always that pure. And victories that involve overcoming obstacles that aren’t universal—that exist because of inequity or injustice—are tinged with the bitterness of knowing the fight was inherently unfair. The victory shouldn’t have had to be won; the fight shouldn’t have had to be fought. And unless the victory includes significant systemic or institutional change, the win is also tempered by the knowledge that the underlying problems that forced us to expend all that energy are still there. The unfairness isn’t vanquished; more battles lie ahead. So instead of joy, we end up feeling 2 parts vindicated and 8 parts exhausted. [click to continue…]

In the past few days, I’ve read no fewer than three separate articles on the concept of “burnout.” Clearly, in the fatigue of a pandemic-constrained world, people are both feeling exhausted and also questioning the inevitability of that exhaustion. It’s an important question, because it’s hard to be any decent version of yourself, let alone your “best” or fullest self, when you’re emotionally, psychologically, and physically drained.

But is that burned-out feeling inevitable, in today’s fast-moving world? My short answer is: No. Not as a sustained state of being. In fact, if we want to flourish and thrive as human beings, it’s essential that we find ways to avoid or combat the exhaustion of burnout.  It’s just that the cure can be a difficult one for many of us to embrace. 

Exhaustion is not a new phenomenon. Humans have experienced physical and psychological exhaustion after intense periods of crisis, or situations requiring extreme effort, since the dawn of time. Battle fatigue has been around as long as there have been battles. And people have been dying of that exhaustion for every bit as long, whether the challenge was trying to survive food-deprived winters, being forced to flee from undefeatable enemies, enduring natural disasters or even the inhuman demands of lifelong enslavement. 

But if we’re not in the midst of a battle for survival, and have some level of freedom, shelter, warmth and adequate food, that kind of exhaustion should be something we only experience in times of crisis. A personal or family illness or death. Big life changes. Natural or economic disasters that hit us unexpectedly. In between those events, we should be able to pull back to a more sustainable level of stress and output that restores and rebuilds our energy so we have a reservoir we can draw on to get through the next crisis, whenever it occurs. [click to continue…]

I had an epiphany, recently, about why I have such a strong, negative reaction to so many self-help books. As soon as I see someone has a system, method, numbered-step process or nicely crafted pie chart showing how to make life better, I instinctively feel myself pushing as far away from the concept as I can get. “It’s not that simple!!” a voice in my head screams.

But then, being the critical thinker that I am, I try to see the other side. Well, maybe some people understand concepts better in pie charts. And, I ask myself, are the elements in all those systems and processes inherently bad? Not necessarily. They’re often fine ideas, even if they’re not as original as some authors purport them to be. So I’ve always thought my objection must be just the way those books oversimplify human behavior and growth. 

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I read a retrospective critique of the best-selling book Emotional Intelligence, which was first published 25 years ago. The review, written by an associate professor at Oxford named Merve Emre, is well worth reading. But the sentence that particularly caught my attention was the way she described one of the problems she had with the book. She concluded, “This failing is inherent in the self-help genre, whose premise is that the capacity for change always lies within ourselves.” 

A big, bright light bulb suddenly went off in my head. Yes! That was it! That was my problem with the methods, systems, and pie charts! It wasn’t just that they were too tidy. It was the underlying premise that if a reader or listener simply followed those systems, multi-step methods, or neat pie-chart diagrams, they would get the prize that was promised. Success. Happiness. Power. Effectiveness.

And the world just doesn’t work that way.

The truth is, there are many elements, events, and factors in life and the world that we do not control. That’s the awfulness and wonderfulness of it all. Awful, because even on a good day, we only hold half the cards. But also wonderful, because that means that how things turn out isn’t necessarily a judgment on us. And that can help lift the burden of guilt and stress too many of us carry. [click to continue…]

I had the opportunity to talk with a wonderful, dynamic woman this past week—one of only five (soon to be six) Black women pilots who have ever served in the U.S. Coast Guard. (For anyone interested, Aviation for Women will be running a feature story on the women in its May/June 2021 issue.) She and I talked about many issues. But one that stuck with me was the question of which battles to fight—out of the many facing any woman trying to make her way in a male-dominated industry—and which ones to let go.

In truth, it’s a question all of us have to answer for ourselves, especially if we’re trying to carve a unique path for ourselves in the world, or are trying to resist peer or professional pressure to be something other than who we really are. It’s all well and good to say we have to pick our battles, but that doesn’t help us figure out which ones to pick. 

We can’t fight every battle. As the woman I interviewed put it, “You can’t die on every hill.” A really important survival skill in a multi-cultural world is learning how to let things roll off your back, whether it’s personal disappointments or ignorant, snarky comments. But there are also times when it’s important to draw a line or boundary; to call out a behavior, attitude, or unjust event in order to keep from materially diminishing your ability to be yourself, or to set some standards for acceptable interactions and prevent future aggression or damage. So how do you decide when to respond, and what response to use? [click to continue…]

Welcome to a New Year!

Hard to believe, but this month marks the 12th anniversary of this website! And while every new year has its challenges and opportunities, I think I speak for everyone when I say I hope 2021 proves a much better year than the one we just left in our rear view mirrors. The new year will undoubtedly still test all of us and our ability to manage fear, endure uncertainty, and focus on what small actions we can take to survive and move forward with our families and sanity intact. But there is at least a hint of light on the horizon. And even if it’s coldest before the dawn, the hope of dawn breaking soon can do a lot to warm the heart.

This month also marks the beginning of a new venture for me, in addition to my existing work. Starting this month, I will be writing a regular personal career development column for Aviation for Women—the official magazine of Women in Aviation, International (WAI). WAI is the professional organization for women pursuing careers in aviation, with over 14,000 members worldwide. The column is titled “Core Strength,” and it builds on the research, writing, and career development coaching I’ve focused on since 2015. [click to continue…]

As I write this, it’s the 17th of December, and I’m thinking about the Wright brothers, my nephew’s love life, and how we plan our careers. Believe it or not, they’re related.

117 years ago, the Wright brothers made their first powered flight at Kitty Hawk. Despite the fact that the distance their Wright Flyer covered would fit easily inside the cabin of a 747, the event changed the world. From that point on, the question became how to evolve and improve on that initial design, not whether or not powered, controlled flight was possible. 

Understandably, therefore, what the world focuses on is that transformative 12-second achievement. But the truth is, that endpoint was years of curious exploring in the making. Along the way, the brothers ended up inventing several other components, including their own wind tunnel to help evaluate wing designs, several successful gliders, and their own piston aircraft engine—substantially lighter weight than anything on the market. And that 1903 winter in Kitty Hawk was actually their third year of experimenting among the sand dunes there. 

The point is that in 1899, the Wright brothers didn’t have it all figured out. They figured it out along the way. [click to continue…]

At first glance, this website might seem to champion individualism. The tag line, after all, is “The Adventure of Being Yourself.” Seems pretty focused on self. Not others; self. But after reading an essay this past weekend about how many Americans are resisting basic health and safety measures in the pandemic because they “don’t like being told what to do,” and “don’t want their individual freedom interfered with,” I think some further clarification might be in order.

The tag line of this website is, indeed, “The Adventure of Being Yourself.” And I’ve written extensively, here and elsewhere, about the power of developing an authentic core and voice. But I’ve also had to clarify exactly what kind of authenticity, and what version of ourselves, I’m advocating, because a lot of people evidently associate being “authentic” or “yourself” with a person doing and saying whatever they like, regardless of the impact on anyone else. 

Perhaps I should have made the tag line clearer by specifying that the focus of this website is on the adventure of being our full, mature and grounded adult selves, not our self-absorbed, tantrum-and-instant-gratification-prone two-year-old selves. It’s a key distinction. 

It certainly could be argued that a two-year-old throwing a temper tantrum is being authentic. But they’re also being two, with an attendant level of maturity and psychological development. Which is nothing any of us would recommend as inspiration or aspiration for a fully grown adult. [click to continue…]