I have a bit of a challenging week ahead, as since this is the start of the year, there are company-wide and specific department kickoff sessions and because the company is global, the schedule is set for the evening to allow for more people to participate at some kind of "normal" time. This isn't the challenge, as it just means some later nights, the problem is that I have customer deliveries booked (before the kickoffs were planned) for during the days, so it ends up being 3x 12 h days back to back. Not really what I had hoped for, especially since one of my deliveries is very challenging. Of course, with the amount of people working at the company and the distribution, there were bound to be a number of clashes encountered.
I think that for me, it is all the various types of meetings that are the worst thing about my employment position - I am probably not alone in thinking this way. If I had the option, I would just spend my days on training prep and delivery, rather than having to do all the other company-centric stuff. Although I am not too bad at bringing perspective and some direction to the conversation, a management role doesn't interest me in the slightest at this time, as there is far too much organization involved and I am more of an ad hoc creator.
The other day I had a session with some kind of psychologist that work has provided and she was asking how I manage stress in the workplace, with the answer being by writing. While she was fine with this, what she didn't quite understand is how much time I actually spend writing and how I write under all kinds of conditions. While "tired" has been an enduring state since the start as I began after the birth of my daughter and was getting about 2 hours of broken sleep a night, I write in different states too. Yes, I have written drunk, but I have also written several times with a very high fever, after fighting with my wife, while my daughter was in hospital, after people close to me have died, when angry, frustrated, happy and a hundred other variations.
The therapist asked why I would write when I felt bad or was sick and I found it strange - Why wouldn't I write under negative conditions if it is something that I feel helps me cope?
I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs two hundred fifteen pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab of the gray truck outside, and at this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Now why would I know that? How can I know that and not know who I am?
_ Jason Bourne
Okay, I am nothing like Jason Bourne, but I do think that in order to know ourselves, we need to test ourselves under all kinds of conditions, as if we only act when conditions are good, we won't be doing much, most of the time. Writing for me is part of the testing functions, which lets me process experience and observe my mind in the process. There have been times of course where I have found the conditions too challenging and haven't posted, but "failure" is part of building success.
I think that it is because of this approach that I have been able to consistently write across topics with a fairly high degree of quality and standard. I definitely don't think that I have always been able to do this - it is training.
Now, I am a trainer myself and have been in some capacity for almost as long as I can remember - well, since I was 18 - so that is almost 24 years. My first real foray into training was at McDonald's where I became a crew trainer as soon as my starting probation was complete. The reason I took it wasn't for the 30 cent an hour payrise, it was for the cap. It was much nicer than the open top one that required a hairnet. Yep, I got into training because of a hat.
What I have learned over the years is that while people like to spend their time doing what they enjoy and are good at, the people who are the best at what they do are those who have practiced and experimented with their skills under all kinds of conditions, no matter if the immediate result was good or bad. Like Jason Bourne knowing how he would perform, they knew their skill to the point that no matter what was thrown at it, their reflexes would kick in and not only react, but react consistently well.
Doing what you are good at is great, but unless you are pushing the boundaries of your skill, there is no advancement in it. This means that in order to improve, there has to be a constant introduction of discomfort and one way to do this is to introduce it to different states of the body and mind. It is like playing golf in the sun, rain or wind - not that I play golf.
But as said above, failure happens. And when it does, there has to be another process in how to cope with it, as well as the fallout from failing itself. It isn't easy to take criticism and wear the blame, but it is sometimes necessary and avoiding activities where this can happen means to become more affected by failure at increasingly low levels. While conditions play a role, so does conditioning and we can be conditioned or condition ourselves to be better or worse, to react well or poorly. The difference between isn't just luck, it is training.
What I find interesting is that people generally know this and actually practice it in various ways in their everyday lives, yet don't necessarily practice it in the things that matter. A gamer enjoys the increasing challenge of levels as they improve at a game, a person who goes to the gym enjoys the increase in strength or stamina, so keep pushing harder. Yet, when it comes to the things that affect skills that can earn, people rely on "talent", as if that is enough to compete at the top of an industry.
The problem is that the feedback in tradeable skills is often not as clear as it is in the gamified world of gaming or gym exercise and much of the challenge in relation to others is not transparent. As a software trainer, there are many points I can focus on in order to improve my range of skills, but if I only spend my time where I am comfortable, the value I offer clients is going to be narrow. Too technical and I lose engagement, not technical enough and I lose practical application. Currently, I am still not as knowledgeable on the technical side as I should be, which is why one of the deliveries is going to be difficult - but hopefully my personality will make up for it.
From what I have observed, people are less willing to fail publicly than they were earlier and I wonder if it comes down to the way we present ourselves online. Firstly, there is the curated content we deliver to our audience, giving the best angle of us at all times. Then there is the far greater ability to learn in private from courses on YouTube and the like, so practice is down out of the public eye. And in this same vein, there is the ability to "always be right" for those who think intelligence is Googlable and no matter the argument, there is a study of some sort to support and refute it.
This means that we don't have a lot of practice of being "wrong". Of course, this doesn't mean we are not wrong, it just means that we have the support so we don't have to admit it, at least to others. This then lowers the opportunity to develop the personal mechanisms to deal with the social ramifications of not getting it right.
Vince Lombardi said, Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect and this includes the practice of dealing with failure publicly and personally. A lot of people fail and then give up, not because of how they look to others, but how they feel in themselves. They identify with the failure, making themselves the failure and once in that position, it is very hard to find the motivation to try again and change the conditioning, because changing "who you are" is near impossible. This is quite true - but changing what you do is pretty easy.
It just takes practice.
Taraz
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