Bluebonnets are blooming in the fields and along the highways so I’ve been remembering a trip to the Dallas Museum of Art a couple of years ago. I was one of the drivers and chaperones for a field trip my son’s class took to see a collection of paintings by Julian Onderdonk. He’s an American impressionist who painted landscape scenes, many of which feature bluebonnets. This has me thinking about a simple, powerful lesson from his biography.
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“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.”
~Cyril Connolly
I came away from my coaching group yesterday with a powerful idea. I’m posting it mainly to remind myself, but also because I hope it resonates like a great big gong for someone else.
Here’s the snapshot version: A ballroom dancer can’t find his or her calling to be a dancer without dancing. The calling is an interactive one, so the person called to dance needs a partner to discover dancing. Without a partner, the dancer won’t find dancing and learn that it’s a good fit.
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This week is career week for my son’s elementary class at his Montessori school. Several visitors have been to the class so far talking about their jobs. Ugh. “Job” is a word that can feel small and heavy at the same time.
When the teachers asked me to sign up to present, I decided I would do more than talk about being a consultant and coach. I decided to talk about how I help people find ways to work at what they love and make a living without a job. Guess how that went!
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A couple of weeks ago one of the members of Valerie Young’s Profiting From Your Passions creative career consultants group posted to our group’s forum looking for other people who are ready to “go big.” I applauded her for putting intention and initiative into her dream, and especially for reaching out to connect with other people in a Mastermind group for mutual support. Making plans and gathering a resourceful tribe is a very entrepreneurial thing to do.
But I also feel strongly that it’s important to explain why “going big” isn’t the best choice for everyone at this time. Some of us don’t need to go big, and some of us aren’t ready to go big yet. I am not a good candidate for a “going big” group right now, and I want to explain why to help other people struggling with this part of life and work design.
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This is an experimental style of post for me. While I was planning and writing an article with a focused topic for my Burger Bites series about coaching, lots of “extra” ideas were spilling over. I was sure they didn’t fit in that article because they were tangential and even random. What better place is there for me to be tangential and random than this blog? It’s my playground and laboratory, my “play lab,” where I can mess around with concepts like psychological gravity and psychic density.
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When people in the coaching and consulting world started buzzing about Twitter, I tried hard to be part. I tried to learn how it worked and how it was useful for gathering information, sharing information, and keeping in touch with colleagues. I complained early on that I didn’t see what had everyone so excited. I think I finally get it now– what it’s about, that is, but not why people are so enthusiastic.
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Nearly two years ago, in October 2007, I debuted the Chasing Wisdom Blog-Zine. With six sections to write per month, I set myself up with a pretty demanding schedule. I kept at it for nine months, ending in June 2008. Then I stopped. I didn’t stop chasing wisdom, but I did stop aggressively hunting it down and writing about it.
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I am grateful to the handful of you who have followed along while I was Chasing Wisdom, then veered down the Twisting Road, stayed On The Twisting Road, and then tried to update my Travel Log regularly. You are the ones who know I have never settled on a title for the work I do in this business I am growing. I can’t say I’ve decided for sure, but I am very close when I call myself a “Life and Work Design Coach.” This begs the question: How is my own custom life and work plan coming along?
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There’s a whimsical scene in Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets where the boy wizard is waiting in Professor Dumbledore’s office to speak with the headmaster. He notices many curious and amazing devices, but he also notices a sickly looking bird in a cage. Just as Harry is most anxious about not messing up anything in the office, the bird bursts into flames. Soon afterwards Professor Dumbledore enters. Instead of being upset, he is delighted that his pet phoenix, recently cantankerous in old age, has finally died so he can be reborn from his ashes as a young and spry chick. It’s ashes time for the Travel Log.
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