Books

Security, Resilience, and the Road to your Future

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A few months ago I read: “The Start-Up of You” by Reid Hoffman (Co-founder and Chairman of LinkedIn). The context of the book is that your life is always in start-up mode, and to put the same amount of focus in your life, job, and future as you would in a start-up company. He talks often about how start-ups have to constantly refocus and realign their efforts to make sure they are going in the right direction. He explains that individuals, just the same as start-ups, have to refocus and realign our efforts to make sure the choices we are making in life are going in the right direction. One idea that resonated with me was about resilience:

“…compare a staff editor at a prestigious magazine to a freelance writer. The staff editor at a magazine enjoys a dependable income stream, regular work, and built-in network. The freelance writer has to hustle every day for gigs, and some months are better than others. The staff editor is always well fed; the freelance writer is hungry on some days. Then the day comes when print finally dies, the magazine industry collapses, and the staff editor gets laid off. Having built up no resilience, he will starve. He’s less equipped to bounce to the next thing, whereas the freelance writer has been bouncing around her whole life–she’ll be fine. So which type of career is riskier in the long run, in the age of the unthinkable?” page. 189

Are you the staff editor or the freelance writer? Have you developed the strength you may need if you are the staff editor? It made me think about the different jobs I have had, the choices I have made in my life, and whether or not I would be resilient or not. So often I think we stay in jobs for too long because of the security they bring us, but sometimes that might be a false sense of security. If we could have a window into our future, and know that if we take that risk, and put ourselves out there that everything will work out and be okay. If we had that option, the world might have more risk takers. Yet, we can do that without seeing into the future. We can have a Plan B, we can prepare ourselves to be agile, and in turn develop the resilience of the freelancer. We would bounce back with any changes that get thrown our way, think quickly, and move on to our backup plan.

Which direction will you go? Are you stuck in the security of life? Or, do you treat your life and future like a start-up, constantly changing directions as needed?

You have to look at the crap

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I just finished reading Brene Brown’s book: “The Gift of Imperfection.” After reading her book: “Daring Greatly” I was curious about her other books and wanted to see how they compared, and what I might learn in the process. “The Gift of Imperfection” does not at all compare to Daring Greatly (which I loved) but I still found some helpful ideas and inspiration. Brown has definitely evolved as a writer with each book.

One idea that really resonated with me was about looking at all the crap in our lives. So often we want to look at everything with sunshine and rainbows and the reality of life is that it is not always happy, perfect, and straightforward. We often have to take a trowel and dig into the past, or rake through the distractions that are blocking us from seeing our true purpose in life. When I read this quote from Brown the other day, I realized how right she is:

“We don’t change, we don’t grow, and we don’t move forward without the work. If we really wanted to live a joyful, connected, and meaningful life, we must talk about things that get in the way.” Page 35

We want the easy way out. We like to cut corners, get there faster, check the box off the list. That is not the way it works though. We have to do the work. We have to look at our dark places, what makes us angry, and what makes us react. All the different nuances and challenges in our life that rub us the wrong way, make us feel injustice, or just get in the way of who we are on the good days. If we use the trowel and rake, maybe, just maybe, it will mean that more of our days are happy and on purpose.

With poise, zeal, and excitement together we can look at the dark stuff in our life, our fears, questions, and all the crap that we push under our beds, into our closets, or the trunk of our car. The stuff we avoid to look at because we are scared of what it will tell us. Afraid of what we will learn about ourselves. Open the door, the trunk, and get under the bed and pull out the dust bunnies, and stinky socks, and let’s look at our dark places, talk about them, and see where it takes us.

I am excited to start talking about the things that are getting in my way. Maybe, I will share a few here. You will have to come back and see.

My Favorite Books of 2012

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Last year I mentioned in this post my favorite books of 2011. It is time to look back to my favorite books of 2012. They are in no specific order (well except for Daring Greatly). That is still my favorite book of 2012, and I encourage everyone to read it. The links with the books below do not take you to Amazon to explore the book, but rather are my past blog posts sharing more about how I connected with the specific book:

Each of these books touched my heart in some way. Whether by the story line, the ideas shared, the humanity I felt, the writing, or that I felt like a different person after reading each of them. They brought me to a different place, made me grateful for all that I have in my life, and made me want more out of life. I love that you can learn more about yourself just by popping the spine of a book. A simple pleasure in such a complicated, technically charged, and intertwined world.

What are your favorite books of 2012?

…learning to write my story…

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How did you learn to write? Did you start with a diary that had a little padlock, where you would write all your innermost thoughts and experiences? Did you learn in school or when you started your first job? I remember writing a lot as a kid. I did not have the padlocked diary, but I wrote many short stories. I still have some of them. I do not remember what compelled me to start to write. There are also gaps, where I do not have any writing, no journal entries, and no short stories. Looking back to middle and high school there was too much happening in my life, that writing took a back burner. Later, in college, I began writing more, memoir excerpts, journal writing and taking notes of quotes I appreciated or that resonated with me from authors I read.

Recently I posted about “My Ideal Bookshelf.” I have continued to enjoy exploring the pages of this book. To learn what books have changed or shaped the lives of different authors, writers, chefs, etc. Two ideas stood out to me from different individuals. The first is from Michael Chabon:

“But that was how I learned to write, and it’s the approach I recommend to people who want to write. It’s through imitation that painters learn to paint and composers learn to compose. It is an incredibly useful way to figure out how to write like yourself in the long run. And it’s much easier and more pleasurable to imitate a writer whose work you love.”

And this one from writer, Andrew Sean Greer:

“We don’t write in a void. Our storytelling comes from reading, learning, and trying out techniques we love. As Pound says, we ought to have either the decency to acknowledge a theft outright or the cleverness to hide it. Since I can’t hide anything, I guess it’s clear where I stand on that point.”

Both quotes make me think more and more about why I read so much. As I spend hours and hours of my year reading, I learn more about what I like in authors and what I do not like. I learn the different ways an author sets their scene. I learn who inspires and challenges me as an author. Hopefully I will continue to find my own voice and write my story. Whether that be a memoir, a short story, or a novel, I believe there is a story, or many stories in each of us, just waiting to be told. Some of us tell these stories in the form of a book, others through acting, some through marketing or social media. Whatever the avenue we each have a story to tell, we just have to listen for when it is ready to be shared.

just a few of my journals...

just a few of my journals…

Thank you for being part of my journey to tell my story.

Books find you.

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I am in the middle of finishing my 125th book of 2012. This year I wanted to crush my amount from last year (also 125 books) but moving homes took quite a bit of my extra time these past few months, so I will have to be okay with meeting last year’s amount. 125 is not too shabby. Right?

One of the last books I read in 2012 is called “My Ideal Bookshelf.” It is not a novel or a memoir, but a book that shares the top books of many 100 well-known individuals: authors, chefs, fashion designers, etc. It shares a page excerpt from each person, and then their list of books. The website for this book states the individuals: “…reveal the books that matter to them most—books that reflect their obsessions and ambitions and in many cases helped them find their way in the world.” Since I am such a book addict I wanted to read this book before the end of the year so that I could hopefully feel inspired and add many new (or old) options to my list for 2013. Even though many of the excerpts talk you through different books that matter to them, they also share ideas that can uplift and resonate about their own life experiences. I was inspired by this quote from Rosanne Cash:

“I think books find their way to you when you need them. Whenever I feel like I’m not going to live to read all the books I want to read, I remind myself that the important ones find their way to me.”

What a cool idea. Often we think the right people come into our life when we need them most, but many times we do not have these people there when we need them. I like the idea of knowing that the important books find their way to us when we need them, especially if the people in our lives are not there for us when we might need them. I know there have been times when I have checked a book out from the library and brought it home, and because of all the other books I had checked out I had to return it before I had a chance to read it. Yet, many weeks and sometimes months later when I had the book back in my hands and I open and read it, the words were just what I needed to hear, think about, and ponder. In those times I have often thought about how that particular book found its way to me just when I needed it most.

I hope that the books you need find you in 2013.