Trying New Things

How Aikido helped me rethink my education

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I’ve now reached the point where I’ve been out of school as long as I was in it. Over the past two decades, I’ve experienced multiple long-term relationships, homeownership, an evolving professional career, and leadership roles in volunteer organizations, among other things.

Yet despite all of this, it wasn’t until recently that I realized that many of the habits and ideas I picked up in school–whether inherent in the education system or in my response to it–have hindered my ability to function well as an adult.

That realization–and my subsequent, gradual transformation–came largely due to my exposure to Aikido.

Why Aikido?

The book, “Journey to the Heart of Aikido: The Teachings of Motomichi Anno Sensei” by Linda Holiday, defines Aikido as “a martial art and spiritual path founded in twentieth-century Japan by Morihei Ueshiba, known as ‘The Way of Harmony’ or ‘The Art of Peace’ (lit. ‘Harmony-Energy-Way’).”

The concept of a “martial” art that’s about peace and harmony rather than conflict has appealed to me for much of my life. But until recently, I’d never found the motivation to pursue it.

Then, a little over a year ago, I was talking to a friend on the train about areas we felt were lacking in our lives. I realized I wanted to improve in many areas; socially, physically, and emotionally. But how would I select where to start? Then something clicked: with Aikido, I wouldn’t have to choose. I’d be training with other people in a physically active discipline that would develop my self-awareness and emotional maturity.

I quickly found and joined a local dojo (classroom, essentially). Soon afterward, COVID-19 struck the U.S., but thanks to the ingenuity and resourcefulness of my sensei (teacher), we were able to sustain our practice online and through socially-distanced, outdoor training.

One year and a few months later, I’m beginning to recognize the growth I sought. Much of that growth has come from identifying and gradually rewriting the mental patterns I developed in school.

Overcoming my fear of failure

If there’s one aspect of traditional schooling that I feel needs an overhaul, it’s the grading system. For many kids, grades are everything. The grades you get on your homework and exams affect the grade you get in class, which impacts your GPA, which determines which colleges will accept you, which affects who will hire you, which influences the entire trajectory of your life.

Within that grading system, the letter we were all taught to fear was “F.” None of the other letter grades are short for anything, but the masterminds behind this system made a point of skipping right over the letter “E” so they could designate “F” for “Failure.”

In his popular Ted Talk, “Do schools kill creativity?” (search for it on YouTube if you haven’t seen it), Sir Ken Robinson discusses the consequence of the stigmatization of mistakes and failure:

“…kids will take a chance…if they don’t know, they’ll have a go…By the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong.”

Early on in my Aikido training, I experienced this fear of failure, of making mistakes, every time I showed up to class. While being part of this group was a social opportunity, it also meant everything I did was observed by others. I wanted to be able to show my teacher and fellow students that I was “getting it.” And every time I stumbled on a turn or used too much force or my posture wasn’t quite right or I locked my elbows and knees when they should have been bent, I silently berated myself.

Sometime after our classes went “virtual,” I heard different techniques being referred to more by their Japanese names. True to my academic form, my reaction was to break out my notecards and dedicate each one to a different term and a breakdown of the movements involved. Yes, I made Aikido flash cards.

But over time, my senseis helped me begin to relax. They told me these techniques can take years to internalize, even referring to one as the “20-year technique.” They said my mistakes were natural, that I could simply train myself to notice what I was doing wrong and correct it. And they told me the notecards were unnecessary–all I needed to do was keep showing up, the terminology would begin to sink in, and the movements would eventually become muscle memory.

I now know that I will never stop making mistakes. But instead of beating myself up, I’m learning to do what a fellow student referred to as “embracing the struggle,” knowing that once I get through it, the reward will be that much sweeter.

Embracing exams

I’ve probably ranted about testing methods in school almost as much as I have about grading methods. My memory of most of the tests I took went something like this: I would stay up late the night before, cram for the exam, show up to class a nervous wreck, be told I couldn’t talk to other students or ask questions, feverishly work to fill in the answers before time was up, turn in my answer sheet, and then agonize until I got my results. Sometimes, I’d continue to agonize after I got the results depending on how bad they were. And sometimes, such as with statewide and national proficiency exams, all I got back was a score so I didn’t even know what I got right and what I got wrong. One thing was almost certain, though: I would forget nearly everything I had studied within the next 48 hours or so.

Not too long ago, I picked up a fantastic book called “Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning” by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel. This book taught me a lot about learning how to learn, but one of my favorite insights was regarding school exams. To paraphrase, the authors believed that the problem wasn’t the tests themselves but how they’re traditionally used. Tests shouldn’t be used so much as testing tools as learning tools. Their research indicated that the very act of taking tests and searching your brain for answers reinforces learning. So does getting the answer wrong and then being given the correct answer. If tests were administered based on this understanding, with tests being a means to help students learn rather than the end of learning, students would learn more.

In Aikido, we also have exams. We have to take an exam to move up a level. Each “level” is called a kyu (pronounced like “cue”) until you earn your black belt, after which each subsequent level (yes, there are levels of black belts) is called a dan (pronounced like “Don”). But because of my relationship with grades and exams, I was utterly confused when students explained to me that, at least in our dojo, these exams weren’t really “graded,” nor were they “pass/fail.”

I asked some of my fellow students to explain this concept since I’ve yet to go through an exam myself. I’ll attempt to summarize their explanation here.

First, there’s no rule as to by what date I have to take an exam. My teacher won’t even have me take it until she feels I’m ready. There will also generally be some practice exams before the “real” one. Once I’m ready, my sensei will call out various techniques and ask me to demonstrate them while she and other dans observe me. If I get stuck–for example, if I don’t remember what a Japanese term means or how to execute the technique–I can ask and they’ll try to help me. When it’s all over, I will understand where I was stronger and where I need more work, but I will likely be allowed to advance.

In Aikido, exams are another part of the continuous learning process–they help to “make it stick.”

Learning voluntarily

Although I enjoyed many of my classes in school, most of my formal education was motivated, at least in part, by a sense of obligation. Growing up, I was legally required to attend school thru high school (not that I would have ever dared to consider dropping out). I then went on to undergraduate studies, which, while not mandatory, were something I believed were a prerequisite to being hired by a good company. Most of the skills I’ve learned through concentrated effort since then–business analysis, public speaking, technical skills, etc.–were pursued mainly to meet the demands of my employers.

In short, for much of my life, I’ve learned things largely because I felt other people expected me to.

Now that I’m taking more time to learn things simply because I want to, I have to keep reminding myself of that fact. In the case of Aikido, I sometimes find I’m putting pressure on myself: pressure to learn techniques faster, to study more for my first exam, to practice more (even though I’m already practicing at least 3-4 hours per week on average). But why? My teachers don’t require it of me; they repeatedly reinforce a beginner’s mindset, praise my dedication, and remind me that if I keep showing up I’ll keep making progress.

I started practicing Aikido so that I could enjoy a better life socially, physically, and emotionally. And if there’s been one common thread through my blog posts up to this point (other than “trying new things,” of course), it’s been that if I want to enjoy life, I need to slow down, not go faster.

Maybe someday I’ll earn a black belt or even open my own dojo. In the meantime, every mistake, every exam, every lesson is a gift I choose to receive.

Although I hope Aikido is something I will continue to learn throughout my life, for today, I’m giving myself a “A.”

The ups and downs of climbing Yosemite’s Half Dome

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Base of the infamous Half Dome cables

“We have your location. Stay where you are and we’ll send someone out there,” the 9-1-1 operator advised me.

“OK, great,” I rasped.

The operator continued, “We’ll call you within an hour to let you know when the rangers will be on their way.”

“But my battery’s about to die,” I replied. No response. I checked my phone and realized the call had dropped. No signal. 6% battery life remaining. “Shit,” I said.

I slipped the phone into my fanny pack and sucked the last few drops out of my water bottle.

I had just spent the morning hiking to the top of Yosemite’s Half Dome, only to take a wrong turn on the way back down. Now I was lost and exhausted with no water, an almost dead phone, and only a few hours of daylight left.

I looked downhill. The trees were so densely packed together, I could barely tell where one ended and the next began. I looked uphill and saw a streak where I had slipped and slid on my butt down an almost vertical slope.

If I stayed where I was, even if my battery was still working, I might not have a strong enough signal to receive a call back. If I moved, the park rangers would have the wrong coordinates. I took the operator’s advice and stayed put.

I activated my phone screen. 4%. What the hell?

The sun began to disappear.

My dry throat made it hard to swallow. I pulled a hard candy out of my pack and let it dissolve in my mouth so I could salivate. It helped but not much.

I checked my phone again. 2%.

I sat on the ground and leaned my back against a huge log, then took some deep breaths. I just needed to be patient. Meditate. Be one with nature.

The sun soon disappeared and I could barely make out shapes in the moonlight. I was afraid food would attract wildlife, but I was also famished. With great care, I unwrapped and ate a snack bar, then stuffed the wrapper in my pack.

I checked my phone once more. It was dead.

I curled up on my side next to the log and used my pack as a pillow. Just as I was beginning to relax, I heard a rustling in the bushes nearby. I pressed my body against the log and tried to lie perfectly still. I waited.

This was not the adventure I planned for.

My Half Dome hike was supposed to be one of the highlights of my life. For the better part of a decade, I had fantasized about making that climb, but concerns about my physical and mental readiness had held me back from turning that fantasy into a reality.

Finally, in 2018, I vowed that would be the year I would make it happen. After multiple lottery entries, I won one of the limited, daily passes required to participate in the final stretch of the ascent. I recruited some friends and booked my lodging well in advance. I went on increasingly challenging hikes and hit the gym regularly. This not only helped me build endurance but also upper-body strength. I’d need this for the last part of the climb, where I would have to pull myself upward, hand over hand, using a metal cable anchored to the steep, slippery rock face. I watched videos of the journey, especially the cable portion. I purchased a Half Dome hiking guide book. I bought and tested all of the gear the book recommended. I even corresponded with the book’s author and got more advice.

I felt like I had done more work to plan for this trip than any prior event.

When the day of the climb came, I was ready. My friends and I woke up around 5 a.m., used our flashlights to help us locate the start of the trail, and began our ascent. My friends hadn’t acquired passes so they couldn’t accompany me the entire way. We parted ways with the expectation that I’d meet them back at our cabin that evening. For the next several hours, I was on my own.

I made it to the “sub dome,” the point where a ranger was stationed to check my pass, right on schedule. I still had enough water to make it up and down the cables, after which I planned to refill at a nearby stream I had read about in the guide book. When I got to the cables, I saw several groups of people sitting at the base. I learned that some of them had decided not to go any farther, but I couldn’t imagine coming this far only to stop just short of the top. I rested a few minutes to collect myself, then pushed ahead.

The cable climb might have been the most strenuous, sustained activity of my life, but I made it. When I got to the top, I walked around, taking in the panoramic view of the Yosemite Valley and pausing to wipe away the tears of joy that blurred my vision.

I probably spent a good twenty minutes up there, then descended the cables and used my new hiking poles to navigate the slippery rocks beneath.

Just beyond the base of the sub dome, my journey began to take a dark turn. I encountered another ranger who asked to see my pass. I asked her about the water source I had read about. She said she didn’t recommend it: there was barely a trickle of water there and it was filthy from human waste. I asked her where the next closest water source was. “About 3 miles down,” she replied. As if this wasn’t frustrating enough, I then noticed something tickling my leg. I reached into my pocket and discovered my phone had been vibrating for god-knows-how-long due to a timer that I had inadvertently set (hence the low battery).

I thanked the ranger for her advice, braced myself for 3 miles with a low water supply, and continued down a path that I later realized–too late–was not the actual trail.

Lost and found

Sometime during the night, I finally heard a voice calling my name. After over an hour of shouting back and forth, the same two rangers I had encountered earlier emerged from the dense woods below and came to my rescue. I was tired, thirsty, and frightened; but I was otherwise more or less OK. They gave me food, water, and electrolyte powder and contacted dispatch to inform my friends that I had been found. The rangers sat and chatted with me for about an hour while I regained my strength. Then, using their GPS to point the way, we hacked a path through the brush for close to two hours until we reached their campsite, where I crashed for the night.

The next morning, I thanked them and I completed my descent alone. It was a beautiful day, and I took my time. At one point as I was crossing a bridge that passed over a small stream, I saw a mountain lion cub down below. I was mesmerized, but I wasn’t afraid. We made eye contact for a moment. Then it leapt across the stream and we continued in opposite directions.

Each time I saw a person coming towards me, I said “hello.” Some of them returned the greeting. Some stared at me; they probably recognized the surge of emotion I was feeling.

Finally, I reached my cabin. I knocked on the door. A few seconds later, it opened and I saw my friend standing there. I gave him a weak smile fueled by a mixture of gratitude, relief, and shame.

Experience plus reflection . . .

I’m obviously a huge advocate for trying new things. But any time you venture into the unknown, you’re taking a risk. Here are some tips I can offer based on what I’ve learned.

Plan ahead. Although you can’t plan for everything, if you do your homework, you’ll feel more prepared and confident. This was my strongest area: by training my body, reading, watching video footage, getting expert advice, and gathering the right equipment, I felt ready to face the challenge.

Examine yourself. What are your weaknesses and how can you address them? I know I’m introverted; how can I overcome this so I’m able to ask other hikers if I can join their group for a while? I know I have a bad sense of direction; what could I have done to help prevent myself from getting disoriented? (For example, every once in a while, I could have turned around and taken a picture so I’d know what to look for on the way back.)

Be present. As I revealed in my previous post on ignoring my goals, I tend to focus too much on the destination and not enough on the journey. In this case, I was so intent on getting to the top–and then back to the bottom–that I was very rarely fully engaged in the present moment. Had I been more present, I might have paused to study my surroundings, made sure I was on the right path before I went too far, and noticed my vibrating phone sooner.

Celebrate the effort. When I reflect upon my Half Dome experience, I tend to focus more on what went wrong than on what I achieved. When I started writing this post, I intended to use my mistakes as a “learning experience” I could share with my readers. But that alone doesn’t do me justice. It took a lot of hard work, both before and during my hike, to complete it. I made it! And even though the overall trip didn’t go as planned, I’m proud of myself for doing it.

Have you ever attempted one of your big “bucket list” experiences, only to find it didn’t turn out as you’d hoped? What did you learn from that experience? 

Or if you have something left to do on your bucket list, what obstacles might you face in achieving it? What can you do to overcome those obstacles?

My new year’s resolution: don’t worry about goals

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In my first post, “A letter to my pre-COVID-19 self,” I wrote about many of the commitments I’ve taken on since I began my “shelter-in-place” experience in March 2020. Every day is different: I might explore career opportunities, take a Spanish lesson, practice an aikido technique, or work on a story to share with my writing group.

But after many months of living this new, more diverse lifestyle; instead of feeling fulfilled, I started to become impatient. I’d love to find my dream job or become fluent in Spanish or earn my next aikido belt or publish a novel. But because I was spread so thin, it felt like it would take forever to fulfill any of these dreams.

When I discussed this struggle with people, one common response I got was, “Brad, you’re doing too much. If you want to accomplish your goals, you need to decide what’s a priority.”

This makes sense in theory, but whenever I try to narrow my focus, I stress over all the areas I’m neglecting. I could, for instance, decide that writing a novel is the most important thing to me and commit several hours every day to that purpose. But it wouldn’t take long before I felt like my relationships, my physical and mental health, and other parts of my life were suffering as a result.

This conundrum led me to start the new year with a question: “How can I invest in all of the dimensions of my life that are important to me and still feel like I’m doing ‘enough’ in each area?”

I believe part of the answer is to focus less on goals and learn to enjoy the present moment.

How thinking ahead holds me back

Buddhist monk and author, Thich Nhat Hanh, has helped me learn to focus less on the outcome of an action and more on the act itself. He perfectly illustrates this in his passage on the difference between “washing the dishes to have clean dishes” and “washing the dishes to wash the dishes”:

If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not “washing the dishes to wash the dishes.” What’s more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can’t wash the dishes, the chances are we won’t be able to drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future–and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life.

Hanh, Thich Nhat. The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation. Beacon Press, 1975, 1976.

After I read this, I became more conscious of how I wash the dishes. It’s amazing how hard it is for me to stay in the moment. My mind wants to get the process over with so I can move on to other things. I become anxious, hunch over the sink, scrub furiously and often end up splashing water all over the counter and myself. That’s assuming I do the dishes at all–when I treat this experience as a chore, it’s very easy to just put it off.

But when I allow myself to be in the moment, to focus on one piece at a time, on how I breathe and position my body and hold the item as I wash and rinse and dry it, it becomes a much more pleasurable experience. I feel relaxed, I’m more thorough, and I have less cleanup to do afterward.

I’ve begun to explore how I can apply the idea of “washing the dishes to wash the dishes” in my other activities.

Walk to walk, not to get somewhere

When I go for a walk, I tend to be in a rush to get to my destination. I feel like there’s a motor inside of me, driving me to walk faster. If I don’t know the way, I look at the turn-by-turn directions on my GPS and just focus on street signs, not my surroundings. (This might explain why I have terrible navigation skills: I don’t get visual cues from scenery and landmarks because I don’t pay attention to them. I plan to explore this in a future post.) By the time I get home, my feet are aching and I’m exhausted.

Now I try to walk just to walk. I’ve made a conscious effort to slow down. With each step, I try to be aware of my posture, relax my shoulders, and feel every part of my foot making contact with the ground. Sometimes my mind wanders and my pace quickens, but I catch myself and slow down again.

I also look around more. I recently moved to a new neighborhood. On my usual route, I glance at a window covered in brown paper; a sad reminder that one of my favorite local restaurants is gone for good because of COVID-19. But the other day, as I approached this scene, I did something miraculous: I turned my head. There were two other restaurants right next to this one. I took a 2-minute detour to check them out. Both were open and looked delicious.

I still made it to my destination, perhaps a few minutes later than normal, but my feet felt fine and my spirits were lifted by the idea of having two new places to try.

The one-item to-do list

I try to keep weekly and daily to-do lists. I’m pretty good about writing down tasks every day. I’m not so good at completing them. Each morning, I record everything I intend to finish that day. Then I feel an enormous sense of pressure. Where do I start? How much time can I afford to spend on each activity and get them all done? What happens if other things come up that are more urgent?

Most days, I end up completing fewer than half my tasks. I see all the unchecked boxes and feel like I failed. Then I add those items to the next day’s plan along with whatever else I “need” to get done, and the cycle repeats. I get more frustrated as more tasks are left unfinished, and I question why I should even bother tracking my to-do’s.

For the past week or so, though, I’ve changed my approach. Each day, after I review my calendar, I scan my weekly to-do list and pick the one thing I want to work on right now. I don’t get impatient about moving on to the next task because there is no next task.

When I focus on what I’m doing rather than what’s left to do, it’s much easier for me to enjoy myself. But I also find that when I don’t worry about how productive I am, I become more productive. The joy of staying in the moment energizes me to keep going. And because of this, every day I follow the practice of the “one-item to-do list,” I get a lot more done.

Learning: focus on what I know, not what I don’t know

I meet online with a Spanish tutor a couple of times a week. For some of our lessons, he sends me a link to an article in Spanish. Before I look at the text, he asks me to listen to an audio recording of the article and try to explain what I heard.

I tend to get very frustrated with myself during this part of the lesson. I quickly encounter a word I don’t understand. Then part of my brain gets stuck on this word while another part tries to keep listening. The more words I get stuck on, the harder it is to pay attention. By the end of the article, I feel lost and defeated. I wonder how I’m ever going to be able to carry on a real conversation when my listening skills and comprehension are so weak.

However, the last time my tutor shared one of these articles, I decided to stay in the moment. If I didn’t understand something, I let it go. Sometimes I could figure it out in context. Sometimes I just accepted that I didn’t get it, knowing I could ask questions later. I just tried to relax, listen, and appreciate what I could understand.

When the time came to recount what I’d heard, to my amazement, I was able to paraphrase more than half of the article and we spent most of the rest of the lesson discussing our thoughts on the topic.

Goals: Set them and forget them

I’m not suggesting that having goals is bad. It’s great to strive to do more for yourself and for others. But we can’t control the future. Not everything will work out as we envisioned, many goals will take longer to achieve than we expected, and there are many others we’ll never reach.

Whether I’m walking somewhere, planning my day, or learning a new skill; when all I care about is getting to the end, every step feels exhausting.

But when I choose to let go of the future and instead live in the present, I feel more at peace and can actually begin to enjoy myself. And from what I’ve seen so far, the more I learn to enjoy the journey, the more likely it is I’ll get to my destination.

Is there something you want in your life that you’re struggling to obtain? Do you spend time on activities you wish you could enjoy more? How might it change your experience if you let go of the goal and just focused on the experience?

The agony and ecstasy of public speaking

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My earliest memory of being terrified of public speaking was formed in elementary school–and I wasn’t even the one speaking. One of my classmates was by far the largest student in the class; at least six inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than the next. Although he probably gave several presentations that year, I only remember one word. It seemed that every few seconds, he would pause and bellow a long “UUUUUM.” And each time he um’d, the class repeated his “um” back to him in unison. He would wait until they finished and then somehow muster the courage to continue his speech. When it was over, he’d stare down at his shoes and slowly trudge back to his seat while the class hooted with laughter.

The image of that giant child being reduced to the smallest person in the room became the embodiment of my view of public speaking.

Perhaps out of self-preservation, my brain has blocked out my own experiences giving speeches as a child. In fact, my earliest, clear speaking memory is from my mid-twenties at my grandfather’s memorial service. Grandpa was a popular and well-respected guy. Between family members, friends, and professional colleagues; it seemed like there were at least 100 people in attendance. One by one, they took turns at the podium, sharing anecdotes and emotions in his honor.

At some point, I decided I had to say something. He was my grandfather, and I owed him that much. Unfortunately, as soon as that idea entered my mind, fear decided to keep it company. As I began to rehearse in my head what I was going to say, I felt a knot begin to tighten in my stomach. At some point, I’m pretty sure I was shaking in my chair.

Finally, it was my cousin’s turn to speak. Of all my extended family members, he’s one of the people I feel closest to. Once he was done speaking, I took it as my cue to follow. I propelled myself from my seat and strode frantically to the podium. I then stammered through a one-minute speech about the time I went to a baseball game with my grandpa and caught a foul ball, after which he brought me down to the locker room entrance and wouldn’t leave until I got an autograph from one of my favorite players.

At the end of my story, I bolted away from the podium, past the audience, out the back door, and into the nearest restroom. I proceeded to shut myself in a stall and lie on the floor for a solid ten minutes, curled in a ball and writhing from the stabbing pain in my belly.

Just a few years later, I started a new job working in the IT department for a major newspaper. Within about a month, my boss made a horrifying announcement: my teammates and I would need to take turns giving a presentation of our plans and accomplishments to the vice president of the department. Always the people pleaser, I didn’t protest, but I silently dreaded what was to come.

Once again, I’ve blocked out most of the experience, but I remember I spent a long time preparing and still felt embarrassed and exhausted when it was all over.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. These presentations were an annual tradition. That meant I would have to go through the whole process again in a year. I knew I didn’t want to spend the next year living in fear, which left me with two choices: quit or learn to deal with it.

I chose the second option.

After a bit of research, I learned about an organization called Toastmasters International that focused on helping people develop their public speaking skills. Lucky for me, there was a Toastmasters club just a couple of blocks down the street that met once a week at lunchtime. I contacted the club president, who invited me to join their next meeting as a guest.

I arrived, carrying my lunch in a to-go box, and immediately headed for the back row and sat down. As a speaker shared his tale of a hiking expedition, I felt like I was no longer in a meeting room but seated in front of a campfire watching a master storyteller at work. As other attendees were called upon to give impromptu responses to “table topics” questions, I marveled at their ability to speak off the cuff on a variety of subjects. At the same time, I had barely touched my food, mainly because I was terrified that at any moment, someone might ask me to speak.

Fortunately, all they requested of me was to share what I thought of the meeting. I quickly blurted out that I was impressed, and that was the end of it.

By the end of the next meeting, I had decided to join the club. As part of my membership dues, I received a “Competent Communicator” manual. Within it were ten speech projects, each designed to help me develop a facet of my speaking skills, and each accompanied by an evaluation form another member would fill out to help me improve. I vowed to complete the manual before my next presentation to my VP.

My first speech project, the “Ice Breaker,” involved giving a short presentation about the subject I was most familiar with: myself. I wrote the entire speech out, word for word. When I presented it, I spent almost the entire time gripping the lectern and staring down at my paper, barely even glancing up at the audience.

Over the next few speeches, I continued to bring a printout of the full content, but I gradually spent less time looking down and more time looking in front of me. I’d sometimes lose my train of thought and emit an “um” or two–flash to my elementary school classmate–but rather than ridicule me, my fellow club members would just smile and listen attentively. Each time after I spoke, my assigned evaluator would share their feedback to help me recognize how I was improving and what I could work on to continue to grow.

For my sixth project, I spent about the first two minutes holding my typewritten speech in front of me and reading it verbatim. Then I crumpled the printout into a ball, strode over to the trash can, threw the paper away, and gave the rest of my speech from memory. The act was completely choreographed, but it represented a huge milestone in my growth as a speaker.

By the time my boss announced we were due to give our next presentation to the VP, I had earned my “Competent Communicator” award for delivering my first ten speeches. Because all of my speeches had been timed, I knew how much material I could cover in the time allotted to me. I knew how to structure my speech and how to cater it to my audience and keep them engaged. I even planned to throw in a bit of humor.

I actually looked forward to speaking!

Then came the day of the presentation. There were four of us, and I was to be the last to speak. Unfortunately, my teammates hadn’t spent the past year preparing for this moment like I had, and a couple of them rambled on far longer than they should have. By the time it was my turn, the hour was almost up. I had barely spoken for 30 seconds when, in the interest of time, my boss cut me off, summed up my work in a couple of sentences, and then wrapped up the meeting.

This was hardly the “happily ever after” ending I was hoping for. However, I still consider it a positive outcome. One year prior, I had been terrified by the mere prospect of having to speak. This time, I was disappointed I didn’t get to speak more.

There were plenty of opportunities to come. Within a few years, I was asked to lead a multi-day training session for about 100 colleagues, a combination of managers and team leaders. Soon after that, I accepted an invitation and gave a presentation on public speaking in front of strangers at a local technology conference. And as a senior consultant for one of my subsequent employers, I was speaking on a regular basis, both to give presentations to existing clients and to try to earn the business of new ones.

I even helped start a new Toastmasters club geared towards helping writers use public speaking to hone and promote their craft. Over five years later, that club is still going strong. In fact, some of the posts on this blog started out as speeches I delivered to that club.

There are still many things I’d rather do than give a speech, and I still feel a little bit of fear each time I’m about to start a presentation. But because I’m willing to face that fear and embrace speaking opportunities, I’ve begun to see myself as a leader instead of the guy hiding in the back of the room or curled up on the bathroom floor.

What have you been avoiding due to fear or some other mental barrier? What opportunities might you be missing out on because you let that barrier stand in your way?

From job searching to soul searching, part 3

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This will be my third and final–for now–post about my search for a more fulfilling career.

For my first post in this series, I interviewed three Product Managers and learned that although they shared a title, each found job satisfaction by applying his distinct style and interests to his work.

For part two, I became aware that the simple act of helping one coworker every day helped me feel like my job mattered.

This post takes this theme a step further by answering the question: can I find fulfillment in my current work simply by changing my approach to my job?

To answer this question, I wrote a list of the values and skills I most want to nurture in my work, then answered the following questions about each value and skill:

  • How do I feel constrained from using [value/skill] in my work?
  • What’s within my control to make this situation better?
  • What’s outside my control?

I came up with a long list of both values and skills, but for the purpose of this post, I’ll share just three values.

Value #1: Connection

I enjoy my work more when I feel connected with my coworkers. I found this challenging prior to COVID-19 because of minimal opportunities to hang out with coworkers outside of work. It’s now been many months since I’ve seen anyone in person, and most of the people I work with don’t even turn on their cameras for Zoom calls.

I can’t stop COVID, but here are a few things I can try:

  • Learn how to improve my interpersonal communication skills and practice with coworkers
  • Turn on my camera in every meeting
  • Invite colleagues to virtual lunch

Value #2: Growth

I want to feel like my job is an opportunity for me to grow. However, as a contractor, no one is going to invest time or money into helping me develop my skills or climb the corporate ladder.

That doesn’t mean I can’t work on myself, though. There are skills and knowledge areas I can improve upon that will make me better at my job. All I have to do is find time to learn and practice.

Value #3: Service

The most rewarding part of my job is when I can help my customers solve problems. Unfortunately, on my latest project, someone else has been assigned the role of “business liaison,” so my contact with my customers is very limited.

However, one responsibility I originally thought would be tedious has turned out to be an area where I thrive. When a colleague resigned, I inherited his role as the administrator for a software application. Although the work itself is pretty straightforward–responding to support tickets and granting people access to content–it gives me a chance to get to know people from different departments and try to make their day a little better. There is always an opportunity for improvement here, from closing tickets more quickly to writing clearer emails.

My job description, reimagined

Based on the above analysis, I am now rewriting my job description to include the following bullet points:

  • Develop interpersonal relationships with colleagues to build stronger connections, boost morale, and foster collaboration
  • Create and fulfill personal challenges to expand my skillset and deepen my knowledge of subject matter relevant to my job
  • Strive for continuous improvement in communication, time to closure, and other aspects of customer service

Through this exercise, I can avoid feeling like a victim of circumstances beyond my control and instead devise creative ways to make my situation better. Whether this will be enough to make me want to stay remains to be seen. I may still seek a position somewhere where there are more opportunities for the experiences I value; like connection, growth, and service. But if I can feel more positive about the work I do in the meantime, it’s worth it.

Do you find your job fulfilling? If not, what do you feel is missing? What can you do to make your situation better without having to quit?

From job searching to soul searching, part 2

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I ended my last post with a hypothesis on how to improve my professional life:

If I consciously choose to spend every workday trying to understand the people I work with and find ways to help them, I will achieve a sense of purpose and fulfillment in my job.

My conclusion: after adjusting my approach to the work I do and experimenting for a month, my job feels more meaningful. However, I’m also more aware of what’s missing.

Learning about “user experience” improved my experience.

The first part of my experiment led me into the world of Product Design, often referred to as “user experience design” or simply “UX.” Wikipedia defines UX design as “the process of enhancing user satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in the interaction between the user and the product.” In other words, instead of creating things in a vacuum, focus on how you can create a better experience for your audience.

Digging deeper, I sought to understand the fundamentals of design. A quick search on “LinkedIn Learning” led me to the fascinating documentary, “Dieter Rams: Principles of Good Design.” Rams gained fame through his work in industrial design, but the principles he devised are, in my mind, universal.

According to Rams, good design is . . .

  1. innovative
  2. useful
  3. aesthetic
  4. understandable
  5. unobtrusive
  6. honest
  7. long-lasting
  8. thorough down to the last detail
  9. environmentally friendly
  10. as little design as possible

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this documentary and had mentally adopted Rams as my mentor within about the first 15 minutes.

I also recognized that I didn’t have to quit my job and become a product designer before I could put these principles into practice. I could start to apply them immediately.

For example, I began to use them as a checklist when crafting and proofreading emails. Useful: Is my purpose clear, and does every word serve that purpose? Honest: Am I sure every statement is true? Thorough: Is there any detail that could be misinterpreted? Aesthetic: Is the layout easy on the eyes? As little design as possible: How much can I cut out while still achieving my purpose?

When I’m busy at work, it can be tempting to compose and send emails as quickly as possible. But I’ve found that when I put in the extra time to apply Rams’s principles, it makes life easier for my readers. And when my emails are sent to dozens to thousands of people, the benefits are exponential.

Helping others helped me.

In addition to focusing on user experience, I gave myself a challenge wherein each day at work for 30 days, I would consciously do something to help one of my coworkers.

On some days, I actively created work for myself by asking people if they needed help or searching through our online discussion forums for opportunities to provide insight.

On other days, I was simply more aware of my work ethic. When I attend meetings, instead of multitasking until someone asks me a direct question, I try to listen actively and contribute to the conversation. When a customer asks me how to do something, I write step-by-step instructions and test them on myself before I share them.

In either case, by being mindful of these helpful acts and sometimes even writing them down, I began to realize that even though the work I do may not save the world, it’s still making a positive difference.

My quest for fulfillment is far from over.

This month-long experiment has shown me that job satisfaction isn’t just about what I do for a living but how I do it.

But although I feel better about my work than I did a month ago, I’m also more aware of the limitations of my current role. For example, there have been times when I had an important question or piece of information to share with a customer, but instead of being able to meet with them directly, I had to go through an intermediary. Sometimes, this dynamic led to the message being lost in translation or just plain lost.

This and other frustrating scenarios have led to new questions.

What am I good at, and to what extent are those strengths needed and valued in my current role?

What do I want to learn, and to what extent does my current role allow for that growth?

What other conditions help me feel good about myself and my job?

Can I change these circumstances simply by changing my approach, or do I need to seek a new role or a new environment?

To help me gain clarity, I’m giving myself a new challenge for next month:

  1. Identify the conditions I feel I need in order to make my work more meaningful.
  2. Imagine what my current role would look like if all of those conditions were present.
  3. Begin to manifest this new, more fulfilling career by rewriting my own job description.

The saga continues . . .