The Element of Adapting and Its Hope For Thriving Even When Our Life Doesn’t Go in a Straight Line

This is a picture of my life.

I started at the bottom of one hill and climbed it successfully, only to find myself at the bottom of another hill.

The first of these hills was climbed in India.

It started with some writing I had done for the local newspaper. This was noticed by my sister’s friend Mela, who worked in an ad agency. When a vacancy arose for a copy cub in that agency, she called our home.

“I have a job for that sister of yours who writes for the newspaper. Tell her to come see me.”

The next thing I knew I was in advertising.

“Aha, this is what he meant,” I said to myself, thinking back to a boyfriend, who had told me I would make a good copywriter. When we were dating, I used to create these cards for him with silly puns. On one occasion, he looked at one of these cards and said, “You know what. You would make a good copywriter.”  “What does a copywriter do?” I asked. “You know those billboards you see for Kitply on Mahatma Gandhi Road? Those were written by a copywriter”  “I’d like to do that” I said.

3 years to that day, I was in advertising, thinking his words had been prophetic. 

Getting that first job changed me. It gave my life, which had been aimless for a while, a new direction and purpose.

In the 2 years leading up to the job, I had been skipping college, writing middles for the newspaper, tutoring foreign students in English, and composing silly songs like the one I told you about in Why I Can Never Get a Job at Google.

Now I threw myself into my work; and looking at the ads in Ad Age and Art Directors Annual, I dreamed of becoming an advertising great like Mohammad Khan.

Step by step, I climbed the advertising hill.  

I would eventually wear the Copy Chief hat at one agency, and an Associate Creative Group Head hat at another, before hanging out my own shingle, Purple Patch.

With 4 copy cubs, a typist and a driver, I felt quite at the top of the hill - and enjoyed the view from there.

And then I moved to America.

A brand new hill awaited me.

When the resumes I sent out to ad agencies didn’t produce any results, and the money I had brought was running out, I quickly switched to a new plan.

I was a fast typist, my English was good – I could look for secretarial work.

I enrolled in Goodwill’s Institute of Career Development to learn Word, Excel and Power Point and close the gap in my computer skills.

After 3 temp jobs, I landed my first permanent job as an Admin Assistant at Palm Inc.

My work was a far cry from creating and pitching advertising campaigns.

I booked conference rooms and hotel rooms.

I carried mail to the mail room.

I picked up mail from the mail room.

I made phone calls.

And I did runs to delis to pick up sandwiches for meetings.

When I was given the chance to do commissions for Palm, I adapted again.

Yes, my advertising career was cut short by my move to America.

And my professional arc was the exact opposite of Peggy Olson.

But I grew as a person.

Having to start all over again in an invisible role tested my resilience, my humility, my ability to roll with the punches.

I had to rise up to do all of that.

And I had to resist the temptation of comparing past to present.

Adaptation means we never take out a mental weighing scale... and put what we had in the past and what we have in the present on it.

This is especially true when we go from a high-profile, bigger bucks or more socially desirable position, to a low profile, smaller bucks, less socially desirable position.

See our lives can be like this

Or like this

Or like this

But we all have the ability to adapt.

Whatever role we have to play at any stage of our life, we should throw ourselves into it and enjoy it for what it brings.

If we were once a heroine, who is now pitched only for roles as a character actor, we should throw ourselves into it, and enjoy it for what it brings.

If we were once a boss-woman or boss-man, now relegated to the role of wing-man or wing-woman, we should throw ourselves into it, and enjoy it for what it brings.

If we were once a pilot, who now has to settle for being only a co-pilot, we should throw ourselves into it, and enjoy it for what it brings.

If we were once a woman or man of action, now on the sidelines as a commentator or adviser, we should throw ourselves into it, and enjoy it for what it brings.

If we were once Don Quixote, but we are now Sancho Panza to our erstwhile Sancho Panza, we should throw ourselves into it, and enjoy it for what it brings.

An MVP can become just another player on the team – and enjoy the new role for what it brings.

A top 100 chart performer can become just a steady Eddie, or a background singer, or club singer – and enjoy the new role for what it brings.

A charmer can become just a companion – and enjoy the new role for what it brings.

We may even find ourselves cast as villains from heroes.

Or be sidelined for someone less deserving (as the older brother in the biblical story of the Prodigal Son).

But we can adapt and make the most of any card which life deals out to us.

We are not our egos.

Each one of us is capable of being bigger than any bitter, resentful or cynical thoughts produced by our egos, and being able to talk ourselves out of those negative thoughts.

When we train ourselves to stay positive when our luck changes, we are liberated from the toxic messages delivered by our egos, and our false fixed ideas of ourselves.

I, for one, am happy my life did not go in a straight line.

If my life had gone in a straight line, I would not have gone to Goodwill’s Institute of Career Development to learn Word, Excel and Power Point, and I would not have met Krysia.

If my life had gone in a straight line, I would not have gotten a job as an admin assistant at Palm, and I would not have met Gerri, April or Nina.

See, when our lives are going in a straight line, the future is circumscribed, and the road ahead is one of probabilities.

But when our lives take a detour or turn, the future becomes wide open, and the road ahead is filled with endless possibilities.

The boundaries are gone, the existing routines are gone, the existing circles are gone, the existing mental habits are gone, the existing false fixed ideas of what and who we are, are gone.

Possibilities open up.

To meet new people

Make new friends

Move in new circles

See new places

Experience new things

Pick up new skills and hobbies

Wear new hats

And learn a whole lot more about ourselves, about the world, and about life.

Above all, when our lives take a turn, we find out we are designed, not just to survive, but to adapt and thrive.

Yeah!!

So here’s to adapting and thriving, even when our lives don't go in a straight line.

As always thanks for reading and have a great day and week…..M…..a Pearl-Seeker like you.  Thanks to everyone for their votes and comments on my last post on Facebook, including Ajay, Betty, David, Rosie and Subhakar. Much appreciated.

The Element of Affirmation and Its Hope for Believing in Ourselves

Joy by maritutz56roca

It’s easy for us to look at life through the prism of a current predicament.

We can look at our health, our finances, our professional situation, and our personal life, and feel hopeless.

We think the situation is unsolvable and we are going to be stuck with it.

When I suffered my depression, it was a big blow.

How could this happen to me?

I was successful and doing the right things.

If you read my post If Life is So Good, Why Do I Feel So Sad?, you will understand.

But my feelings of hopelessness were misplaced.

The depression did end.

And I came out of it a happier and stronger person.

When we are going through tough times, it’s important to look on the bright side.

Affirmations help us.

I was reassured many times by many people that it was not the end of the world, and I would come out of it.

I myself pored over books, wrote a journal, and did other things to strengthen myself.

Thanks to the power of friends and family who affirmed me, and my own ability to self-affirm, I was able to pull myself out of the depression funk.

Affirmations are very important in helping us tide over a tough time.

One of the ways we can affirm ourselves is to think about all our past accomplishments.

When we look back on all the things we’ve conquered and survived, we can feel good about ourselves and it will bring our warrior spirit back.

I recommended this in my post How To Feel Good About Yourself When the Chips are Down.

Through our lives there will be many times when it’s hard to feel confident.

But there will be angels, human and divine, to lift us with their affirmations and make us take heart.

For affirmations to work – whether our own or someone else’s, we need to keep our emotional energy up.

Have you ever reacted indifferently to bad or sad news because you simply did not have the emotional energy for it?

Who remembers Lady Diana’s death?

I don’t know about you, but so much of my emotional energy was used up by it, I had none left to react to Mother Teresa’s death which was soon after.

That’s the way the cookie crumbles.

We only have so much emotional energy at one time.

Not only that, when our emotional energy is depleted, our willpower gets depleted as well.

Cookie Story

I read about this psychological test

It was conducted with two groups of subjects.

One group was made to watch a funny movie.  The other group was made to watch a tear-jerker. 

After the movie, both the groups were taken to one room and made to sit around a table on which there was a tray of chocolate chip cookies.

The tester told the group the cookies were for a discussion that would be held in 15 minutes.

The tester added “If any of you get too hungry, you can help yourself to the cookies before the discussion starts.”

Most of the people who had watched the happy movie were able to wait.

Most of the people who had watched the sad movie were not able to wait.

The movie had depleted their emotional energy and willpower.

Several of them gave into the temptation and ate the cookies before the discussion.

The study confirmed what the testers believed - when emotional energy is depleted, willpower is also depleted.

Our every day experience confirms this.

Have a great day at work?  We go home carrying the energy of the successful day with us.  We find it easy to ignore the big mess our children have made, or the extremely noisy and boisterous play they are indulging in.

Have a bad day at work? Different story, isn’t it?  We have to use all our willpower not to get irritated by our raucous messy kids.

So you see how important it is to keep our emotional energy up.

Note to self: Stay away from those tear-jerkers.

Actually, each one of us will have to observe what keeps our emotional energy up and what depletes it.

It will be different for different people.

For me, meditation is one way to keep my emotional energy constant.

I find walking, exercising, reading motivational books, thinking upon spiritual things, writing, getting the right amount of sleep and sharing my knowledge are also good for me.

This is why I will drop everything to help someone do their taxes.  I get an emotional boost from it.

This is why I created and delivered a 3 part course on money for 4 and 5^th grade GATE students of Bertha Taylor Elementary School.  I got an emotional boost from it.

This is why I write this blog.  It keeps my emotional energy up.

When our emotional energy is up, we are more receptive to affirmations.

And being receptive to affirmations will be important to us at many different points in our lives.

I am reminded of when I first took on the role of Commissions Analyst at Palm.

I did not know Excel – yet there I was being recruited to a job which was entirely Excel based and further involved an advanced level of Excel. 

I was anxious about pulling it off.

But if on one side there was doubt and concern, on the other side there was a fierce women’s advocate in the person of Laura H, my hiring manager.

She wanted me to succeed as much as I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to.

She did all she could to make me feel confident.

Shortly after I took on the role, Laura went out on maternity leave, leaving me solely in charge.

Before she left, I went into panic mode.

 “Laura, how am I going to manage?  I don’t understand any of the formulas.  If anything goes wrong with a formula, how will I fix it?  And what do I do if a new hire comes on board – how will I set up their statement?”

 “Don’t worry, Minoo, you will get it.”, she said. “Just copy the formulas from the existing sheets on to the new sheets for new hires. And if you break a formula, just look at one of the other spreadsheets and copy the formula over from there. Trust me - you can do this.”

The total confidence in my ability helped.

I did not have too many scary moments.

And within a few months, I had a pretty good handle on the work.  

When Laura did not return from maternity leave, I wasn’t fazed. I had become autonomous.

And it was all thanks to her confidence in me. 

The Power of Affirmation

Did Laura know for sure that everything would work okay?

Not really.

Did I know for sure that everything would work okay?

Not really.

But just the fact Laura had so much confidence in me helped me believe in myself.

That’s the power of affirmation.

If we want to see what someone is capable of, give them a challenging assignment, a template to follow, tell them you are confident they can do it, and then let them run with it.

Sometimes that’s all it takes to turn a “can’t do” into a “can do”  - being given the chance to prove ourselves and knowing someone believes we can do it.

We underestimate our ability to adapt and learn, when we think, “I don’t have the skills”, “I don’t have the personality”, “I don’t have the experience” or “I don’t have the exposure”

Exposure will bring the learning.

It is the answer.

I know many people who have taken on brand new assignments and learned the ropes on the job.

The person I am working for in my current assignment is one of them

See learning does not necessarily have to come before doing.

Sometimes you do the work, following a set of instructions, and you learn through the process of doing.

You can pick up almost anything that way.

Each one of us is capable of much more than we are currently doing.

We just need to believe we can.

Why are some people where they are even though they started at the same place as us?

The answer is they went for it.

They didn’t hold themselves back, saying “I don’t have the skills”, “I don’t have the personality”, “I don’t have the experience”, “I am too old”, “I am too young”, “I don’t have the educational qualifications”, “I don’t have the language skills”, “I don’t have the presentation skills”.

They didn’t second guess themselves.

I have a friend I admire greatly.

She is someone who continuously challenges herself.

Each of the jobs she has applied to has been a stretch job from the job she handled before.

The stakes being high, she likes to prepare thoroughly for every interview.

As part of that, I do mock interviews with her before she interviews.

I pretend to be the interviewer and I ask her questions. She answers them.  It has been an eye-opening experience for both of us.

For instance, in doing these mock interviews with my friend, I realize we tend to relate all interview questions to our last job.  We will use terms and scenarios from our last job, when actually we need to create a bridge from the experiences in our last job to what is applicable to the new company and the new job; we need to translate and rephrase any mumbo jumbo.

The longer someone has been in one company, the more they will think in and talk in the language that was prevalent in that company.

This is one of the things that came out in the mock interviews; I would ask her to explain everything to me in non-jargon terms.

Another time, when she came to get my thoughts, my friend had successfully passed the first round of interviews and had been called back for a second interview.

She wanted the position very much, but it was a higher-salaried position and she did not know how to address the fact her last pay was lower than what this job offered.

She was concerned the opportunity might blow up based on the salary factor.

I was concerned too. 

But then I suddenly thought back on my career and realized there was a possibility she was the only viable candidate for the job, and salary would not be an issue; especially the difference between her last salary and what this job paid.

I told her if it came up, to state that since her last assignment was a temp assignment with variable hours, it was not relevant in the context of this job. 

She got the job – not because of my advice, but because, as I guessed, she was the only viable candidate for the job. 

In such instances, power is on the candidate’s side.  Companies often are very fussy in the early rounds of trying to fill a position.  But if they have let too much time pass, they are forced to take a chance on a viable candidate rather than delay bringing someone on board.

It happens more often than you think. 

Companies start the hiring process in a leisurely way.  

In the early rounds, one internal interviewer or the other rejects promising candidates (which is why interviews with multiple people are not that great an idea), but since time is not yet an issue, it’s not a big deal.

Eventually, time does become a big deal, the hiring manager gets desperate and the next candidate is a shoo-in for the job.

I have gotten several jobs for this reason. 

I remember one of them.

The company’s back was against the wall because one thing went wrong after another.

Several candidates were ruled out, because one interviewer or the other didn’t like them.

One candidate joined, but then quit.

Another candidate passed all the rounds of interviewing successfully, but then declined the job offer at the last minute.

Eventually the hiring manager ran out of time to pick and choose.

So my name was on that job.

What should you take away from this?

Don’t let anything hold you back.

An opportunity might have your name on it for whatever reason.

When I last met my friend to affirm her and come up with the right job seeking strategy together, she was applying for an internal job – her most ambitious yet.  It was a management job and she was worried about not being considered because she had no management experience.  She would fill the shoes of an expatriate who was leaving the job in a few months to return to another country.  We talked about her emphasizing the fact she was an internal candidate who had been in the company for over 3 years so they wouldn’t have to wonder about her work ethic, her skills, her performance or track record. We talked about her shadowing the person who was leaving the position and learning everything from that person. She would inform her interviewers of this plan and reassure them she would follow her successful predecessor’s methods and style so there would be no learning curve and no rocking the boat.

I cannot say my friend would not have arrived at these ideas herself; but I am really glad she gave me the opportunity to get involved.

It sharpened my thinking as well as hers.

I realized sometimes the answers we are looking for are simple and obvious and staring us in the face, and someone else may be able to see it, even though we can't.

Did my friend get the management job?

You bet!

She is such a winner. 

Whenever she thanks me for my input, I tell her I am just lucky to have shared the ride.

It is the ride of a person who genuinely and earnestly wants to make an impact on the world.

Genuineness is a big aspect of motivation.

My friend has the motivational energy to pursue big goals because she genuinely wants those goals.

Do you have the motivational energy to pursue a new goal, big or small?

Is it a goal you really want?

Really, really want, I mean?

If it is, then you will pull out all the stops to achieve it.

You will not make any excuses.

If you are not pulling out all the stops, you have to ask yourself, “Do I really want this?”

The goal can be anything.

Going for something far more ambitious than you’ve been used to, in your professional or personal life.

Re-training for a second career

Conquering an addiction, a bad habit, a personality problem

Adapting to a calamity

Dealing with the kryptonite in your life

What steps are you taking to affirm yourself for it?

You can consider reading books like How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clay Christensen or Three Simple Steps by Trevor Blake?

Listening to motivational tapes

Prayer

Going for walks

Writing

Teaching

Meditating

Volunteering

Exercising

Spending time talking to someone who can give you confidence – a friend or career or life coach

All these are viable tools.

I would also like to share with you some tapes I play in my mind.

One is a Sufi story which is unbelievably powerful.

This Too Shall Pass

Once upon a time there was a king. When things were good, the king was happy. When things were tough, the king was unhappy. He did not like the fact that he went from being happy to sad in a flash.

So the king called his wise men and said, “Can you come up with something that will remind me there will be tough times whenever I am happy and complacent, and will remind me there will be happy times when I am feeling down and things are not going well?” 

The wise men went away to think about the solution, and when they came back, this is what they gave the king:

A ring on which was inscribed the words “This Too Shall Pass”.

The king was to look at this ring whenever he was going through a tough time to reassure himself that the tough times would end; and he was also to look at the ring in times of ease and happiness as a caution not to cling to that happiness and think of it as a way of life.

I replay this story a lot in my mind.

There’s another story that helps me a lot.

It is very self-affirming for me.

Our Natural Level Of Performance

2 famous psychologists were giving a class on positive motivation.

In the class, they said praise worked better as a motivator than criticism to improve performance.

Attending the class were 2 Israeli aviation instructors who took exception to this idea.

They said criticism was more effective than praise in motivating the pilots at the flying academy where they taught.

They told the psychologists that, in their experience, whenever a student pilot performed an excellent flight and they complimented the student on that excellent performance, the student’s performance on the next flight dropped. It appeared the compliment was causing the student to relax and slack off rather than motivate the student to do better.

And whenever they criticized a student pilot for a poorly performed flight, the student always performed better on the next flight. It appeared the student was stung by the criticism and improved their performance because they didn’t want to be criticized again.

The aviation instructors said this was proof to them that criticism was more effective than praise in improving performance.

The psychologists agreed that a student who had performed excellently on a flight was likely to perform less well on the next flight, and the student who had performed poorly on a flight was likely to perform better on the next flight.

However, the reason for the change in performance had nothing to do with criticism or praise. It was related to statistical regression.

The students were just reverting to their natural long term level of performance.

Everyone has a natural level of performance.

We may perform above our natural level at times, or below it at times, but we will return to our natural level of performance, which is the norm for us.

Thus a drop after an excellent performance, and an improvement after a mediocre one, is to be expected.

Why do I find this a reassuring story?

Because, whatever the current state of affairs, I know I have a natural level of performance I will return to.

If my performance is below par for a while, because I am going through a particularly tough time, or I am in the wrong environment or I am learning the ropes, I know it’s just a question of time before my performance will return to my long term norm.

Likewise, when I suddenly blow it out of the water, and do exceptionally well,  I don’t have to fret about not being able to repeat it, because even if I can’t do that,  I can depend on my long term natural level of performance to see me through.

We were all meant to thrive.

We just need stories like this, and people to affirm us, to remind ourselves of that.

So go forward with whatever is planned for you in 2014, and don’t look back.

On good days, look at the imaginary ring on your finger with the words This Too Shall Pass, and tell yourself, this is the way of life, there will be good days and bad days,  I will enjoy today, knowing I will have tough days, but on those tough days, I will look at my imaginary ring, so I can remind myself...this too shall pass.

When you blow it out of the water, don’t be consumed with thinking about how to repeat that performance.  Your normal long term average performance is great, so you are going to be okay, even if you never blow it out of the water again.

When you bomb, and we all will sometime, don’t be consumed with fear that you are losing your edge.  You will return to your normal long term average - I promise you that.   

You may lose a sprint, but you will never lose the marathon.

Oh, and one more thing…….

....remember, if you ever watch a tear-jerker, don’t bake a batch of cookies immediately after :)

As always thanks for reading and have a great day and week…..M ……a Pearl Seeker like you. Thanks to Ajay, Ananda and David for commenting on my last post on Facebook. And thanks to Jess and others for their votes. Much appreciated as well.