What Happened to Those Old Ambitions?

New buds on a mature plant. POP POP!

Lately, I hear people talk about motivation levels. How they feel low, stuck, muddled, and in some cases, abandoned by the old fire of days past. And who are we when our old familiar ambitions leave us? Of course there could be many reasons for low motivation, everything from being in a personal mojo descendent (my term for a natural tide of quieter energy); you may need more protein or iron pills or sleep or a new fall goal or some cold-weather strategies. Or maybe it's something else--

What if your ambitions are changing?

Hey, it happens. And it can sneak up on you slowly or just feel like it all hits you in one fell swoop. I experienced this in my late 30's. My old self-focused and career-fueled ambitions were gone and there I was left dangling: a bit dazed, confused and as a result, stuck. (Note: when you feel stuck think of it as a feeling, not necessarily the truth.)

In my experience, motivation drops can go like this: One minute you're enjoying the high tides of ambitions that are focused on career, athletics, child-raising, creative projects and then, kaput. It's like someone turned out the lights on your house of motivation. And you could be left feeling, well, let's pull out those great judgment words: lazy, unmotivated, unambitious, stuck, blue, alienated -- like a nice good-ol' fashion loser, watching everyone race on by you to beautiful places.

Here's my take on Ambitions: They have to change. And they can change suddenly and profoundly (life themes) and in small daily life ways (like reading or cooking). And in order to pick up on the change and act on them, things have to slow down. You have to make the space to reflect, accept and carry on with new and more better-suited ambitions. And hey -- they may be broader and vaster ones too. That's good, right?

So, here's a way to reframe things:

If you feel stuck or unmotivated and all the self-doubt and nasty gollum voices are coming over to have a nice big party at your place, don't give in. Instead, consider this:

Are your ambitions shifting?

And if so, what are the opportunities available to you now?

How can you harness all that delicious curiosity you have to explore this passage of time and see what you find?

It could be that your so-called lack of motivation is your body sending you a message to slow down, look up and move through the world with fresh eyes. Life in your body may not feel super comfortable right now but hang in there. This space may be one of preparation as you enter a new life space that is wonderful and new.

And keep your eye out for your new ambitions.

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The Thrill of Saying Thank You. And Nick Hornby, Part II

Have you ever had the chance to thank a favorite artist—or someone whose book or music or movies have brought you a lot of happiness or illumination? I swear, it’s got to be one of the best feelings in the world.

I was a lucky, lucky girl Friday night. I got the chance to give a personal thanks to writer Nick Hornby. His collections of writings on his reading life are some of my favorite books around.

He was reading at the downtown Seattle library Friday night and it took a buddy system with my pal Liz to get my ass down there, and thank god for the buddy system. As it turns out, the auditorium reading room was packed to the rafters. Hornby read from his latest novel, “Juliet, Naked” – and then answered questions and we got to spend time with a very funny, decent guy.

A quick summation: He describes himself as being a writer who embraces optimism and joked that this may be why he has no writer friends in his homeland of England.

He also made a point that so much of what is considered great art is dark and tragic and ends on a note of despair and hopelessness. For him, having a laugh through a story, even if it's a sad story, is imperative and thank god for that. I think he used the word "redemption" to describe the common theme that runs through his novels.

But what I love -- his essays. I heard he was coming to town just as I was re-reading his collections of essays from his former Believer column "Stuff I've Been Reading." (The books are: "The Polysyllabic Spree"; "Housekeeping vs. the Dirt"; and the newly discovered "Shakespeare Wrote for Money".) And I will try to make this my last fan-posting about him for a while.

Totally loooove this stuff. These are the types of books that make you develop your own personal, intimate, adoring relationship with an author and wish you could call him up at 2am and blurt out, “I so agree why hans’t anyone ever admitted to this!” Because the two of you think so alike there must be an instant friendship created. Instead I put passages on my blog or email them to people or reread them a thousand times and commit them to memory so I can giggle over them when I need a laugh. Of course they always pop up when I'm listening to someone speak earnestly about a very serious, personal conversation and I have to manually hold the corners of my mouth down.

So, after the reading I bought a couple of books and really wanted to stand in line just to be in person with him and say “Thanks. You have made me laugh and think in new ways. And that matters, so thanks.” But the line was massive and I hate waiting in lines so my pal Liz and I decided to bolt and here’s what we got for our  brilliant anti-Communist line-waiting ways:

We ran smack into the author.

Right outside the library, away from the hundreds of people standing in line waiting to meet him, was Nick Hornby and one other fellow, having a smoke. I couldn’t believe it. So I approached him and like any fool of a fan thanked him for coming and told him I bought the "Shakespeare" book and yes, I was a total cliche, telling him how much I loved these essays and he assured me he was returning to his Believe column again sometime next year and I gave a little cheerleading jump and he gave me a shy but seemingly delighted smile (or did I imagine it; I swear, I think I saw the beginnings of a crush) – and off we went.

I left stunned at our good fortune and also laughing a bit at the image of the crowd waiting for Hornby and how just yards away, right behind their backs, literally, was the object of their affection standing alone.

But what struck me most was how elated I felt. Elated and excited and deeply fulfilled at being able to simply say thank you to a writer who made me laugh and think and want to read more. Who cares if I’m one of a million saying thank you. It still matters. It matters to me, as an art-appreciator and a writer; it matters to my humanness and I think it matters to Art and humanity. I think it's important that we keep thanking the artists who add meaning and explanation to our lives and to what it means to be human in a crazy world. It's important to be a fan!

Simple stuff.

But the simple stuff is always what matters the most, anyway.

Check out the Hornby bibliography. Treat yourself.

When Communication Fails: Nick Hornby on Sci Fi

Ok, the inspiration behind this post is important for one reason. It's funny as hell.

And the man behind it all is writer Nick Hornby,who is coming to Seattle this Friday eve, so it's a good time to re-pimp him. 

Hornby wrote a pair of my favorite books several years ago, while writing a monthly column for The Believer on his monthly reading habits. The books were: The Polysyllabic Spree and Housekeeping vs. Dirt.

I'd advise everyone to get one of these immediately. The essays are smart and funny and human -- and tie into the fact that many of us as readers think everyone else is so much better read than we are that we keep buying books in the hopes that owning them will suffice and cover up our dimness. And it's more than that, too, aside from an intriguing memoir of sorts and some beautiful descriptions and insight and a good diverse reading list -- with excerpts! I suggest PS first and then H vs D.

I"m going to give you a sample from H vs. D. It's from a month where Hornby decides to try reading some new stuff.

And the new stuff is not a book on the peregrine falcon as he wanted it to be, but a sci-fi novel. And he hits upon the ultra-geeky sci fi type of book and this is not a slag at sci fi which  I actually quite like stories that are speculative and futuristic but not like the one below.

I actually read this section today -- well the part in bold -- to a someone I was talking about work with today and I think it actually helped me get the editing gig -- which is translating technical instructional weepifying text into something that a clerk can read and feel smart about.

Here we go, from p. 58 – 59,  Housekeeping vs. The Dirt. The part in bold is the sentence I re-read about a million times over the last few days.

"When I actually tried to read ‘Excession’, embarrassment was swiftly replaced by trauma … And nothing in the twenty-odd pages I managed of ‘Excession’ was in any way bad; it’s just that I didn’t understand a word. I didn’t even understand the blurb on the back of the book: ‘Two and a half millennia ago, the artifict appeared in a remote corner of space, beside a trillion-year-old dying sun from a different universe. It was a perfect black-body sphere, and it did nothing. Then it disappeared. Now it is back.’ This is clearly intended to entice us into the novel—that’s what blurbs do, right? But this blurb just made me scared. An artifact—that’s something you normally find in a musuem, isn’t it? Well, what’s a museum exhibit doing floating around in space? So what if it did nothing? What are museum exhibits supposed to do? And this dying sun—how come it’s switched universes? Can dying suns do that?

 The urge to weep tears of frustration was already upon me even before I read the short prologue, which seemed to describe some kind of androgynous avatar visiting a woman who has been pregnant for forty years and who lives on her own in the tower of a giant spaceship. (Is this the artifact? Or the dying sun? Can a dying sun be a spaceship? Probably.) By the time I got to the first chapter, which is entitled 'Outside Context Problem' and begins '(GCU Grey Area signal sequence file #n428857/119),' I was crying so hard that I could no longer see the page in front of my face, at which point I abandoned the entire ill-conceived experiment altogether. I haven’t felt so stupid since I stopped attending physics lessons aged fourteen."

***

Nick Hornby is reading at the Seattle's Central Library, Friday Oct 9 at 7pm. The book he's promoting, Juliet, Naked, is not science fiction.

The (Easy) Art of Conversational Writing

Web sites, email, blogs, Twitter, Facebook -- everyone's a writer these days. And it's a good thing. The tricky issue becomes: How do you sound like you when you write?

The growing trend of entrepreneurs means a lot more people are going to have to do writing that really matters. Because Web-based bizzies are built on words rather than brick and mortar. And for any of us moving through the modern world we know it: Words matter.

First things first on the topic of finding your voice:

You already have a voice.

And now you get to learn how to harness that perfect unique voice and put it into your writing.

So we can really call this How to Sound Like Yourself When You Write and Not Sound Like Your Copy Came out of Some  Biz Writing Manufacturing Plant. A few things happen when you start writing in a natural way. The process becomes easier, the flow is more conversational and everyone gets along better. And … you may even (get ready for this)  like it.

Remember, you’re having a conversation

Here at Write Now, we concentrate on crafting profitable and engaging conversations between you, the brilliant creative biz owner and your perfect customers. The more naturally you write, the better the experience for everyone involved.

So, here are some tips for conversational writing.

Rule #1: Write the way you speak

If you find yourself writing sentences you wouldn’t say out loud in a million years, scrap ‘em. If you’re stuck, pretend you’re speaking to your perfect customer. Speak out loud. Write that instead. When you write how you speak you are literally catching your voice. 

 Remember: If you throw your personality out the window when you sit down to write (and you’re going to hear me say this a lot), you sound like everyone else out there. And probably like you have a twig up your arse and don’t have many original thoughts or ideas. When you get comfortable writing closer to the way you speak you sound like yourself. Voice!

I’m on a mission, I admit, to free the entire world of this kind of shit: Our B2B bandwidth modalities incentivize our customers to reuptake their inhibitors through maximizing our polarity torts. This kind of writing is a sin against nature, and I don’t even believe in sin.

Rule #2: Use grammar-of-the-day

If you’re at a grammar crossroads, go with conversational grammar over Strunk & White or AP rules. Again, we’re having conversations here, not applying for a copy editor’s gig at the New York Times.

 Example: Instead of writing With which hand did you pick up the tennis ball? go with Which hand did you pick up the tennis ball with? Yes, we can end sentences with prepositions.

This is not to say I approve in any way of this kind of thing: Me and my partners would have went to the end of the world for your success …. That’s just plain bad and wrong.

Rule #3: Know when to add the needed dirt details — don’t withhold Make sure you offer information to support a detail, concept or idea when it’s needed — just as you would in a conversation. As you revise your writing, imagine the place where a live person might interrupt you and ask for more details or an explanation.  Example:

Instead of: I’ve discovered three unique ways to help business folks kick ass and move to the top of the mountain in their working life. To quote a Dale Carnegie … Write something more like: I’ve discovered three unique ways to help business folks kick ass and move to the top of the mountain in their working life. They involve discipline, a keen sense of play and wearing pink shirts, but we’ll go more into detail on that a little later. There’s this  Dale Carnegie quote … 

Whoever’s reading this will want to know something about these three unique ways ASAP. Screw Dale C. And by addressing the unique ways up front (being withholding is not a great writing tactic by the way) you get to express yourself in a true voice, just as you’d do it in conversation. And your audience can trust you’ll be hanging with them and anticipating any questions, and answering them along the way. And being yourself = authenticity = building trust.

Rule #4: Have some fun for goodness sakes we’re not saving babies here

Well some of you may be saving babies because the written word has this kind of power. But the message here is: Relax. Be yourself. Enjoy this new way of doing business that embraces authenticity and a natural writing voice. Transparency is in. And so is appropriateness and respect — as in, you may swear like a sailor with your pals but maybe not with clients – but you already know that.

Let yourself play around, experiment and enjoy the process of letting your voice out in your writing. You never know what — or who — you may discover along the way.

Friday Rant: Go Rio! And American Sentimentalism

Chicago is out of the Oly 2016 bid and I'm glad. I'm happy about it for a couple of reasons.

1) Of all the countries in the bidding, Brazil hasn't hosted the Olympics, and who doesn't want to go to Rio, even if it's through their flat screens? And at this very moment it was announced that Rio got it, so yay.

2) I hated the little I heard on the news about how the Obamas campaigned for it. Yes, this is an impulsive off-the-cuff response to radio news bits. But there were a couple statements that made me cringe at the self-centered and sentimental nature of American expression.

Apparently, NPR news said that Michelle O's  empassioned plea to the committee included the fact that sports were really important to her as a child and that her father would throw the baseball around with her and it was so special blah blah blah.

Isn't that a bit embarrassing to think that the First Lady imagines that the European members of the Olympic Committee will flip the switch to put the Games in Chicago because of her chidhood attachment with sports?

Next up was Obama saying "Nothing would make me happier than [something like walking out with his wife and daughters to the Olympics in his home town.]" Really? Nothing?

The Olympics over a lower unemployment rate? A repairing economy? A healthcare reform plan that has bipartisanship backing? (Maybe that's like wishing for life on Mars). The Olympics trumps the happiness that would come with ending this ridiculous middle east post-9/11 roving war we've been fighting?

I know, it's just a figure of speech.

But on this day, Friday October 2, it struck me how much our American culture focuses on the sentimental self-focused here's-what-it-means-to-me-as-it-pertains-to-my-personal-life appeal to campaign for whatever the going cause or interest is.

It would have been nice to hear our First Couple talk more about what Chicago could have offered the athletes and citizens of the world at large, rather than what it would do for the Obamas. That would have shown great hostmanship.

But then that's just my 2c on a blistery fall day in Seattle.

Go Rio!

How do you deal with change?

Winter snaggle-puss apple tree, and the same transforming one on the right--from death to life in two seasons!

"You must change your life," Rilke wrote in his poem The Archaic Torso of Apollo.

For some reason I keep hearing this line in my head, "You must change your life" -- like a seasonal leitmotif. Maybe it's reminding me of my 2009 theme: Everything has to be different.

At this point, there's no going back. Change has happened, it still is, it's been exciting and it's hurt like a muthu, too. We've all heard it millions of times: human beings + change = tantrumy relationship. That's the beautiful struggle of it all.

Love it or hate it: Change is inevitable.

How you deal with change is in your control -- and it's not.

Here's some information that could help.

Everyone relates to change differently because of how they're wired.  This is something I learned at coaching school, and it helped me accept my relationship with change, a lot.

Maybe it will illuminate something and help you, too.

So, to start: Think of a continuum or a line that represents sameness and change. Sameness is on the far left, Change-o-rama is on the far right. Now remember that each of us can move along it like a skater. But we are more anchored to one area of this continuum.

1. At the far left are personalities who Prefer Life to Remain the Same  (5 - 10% of the population) These people love the status quo and are most comfy when things remain the same: same city, same partner, same job, same friends, same hair cut, same vacation spots. They want the song to remain the same and are likely to lose their footing when change comes visiting unexpectedly. However, every body clock needs a bit of mixing up. These folks run on a change clock of about 10 years.  This is the amount of time it takes before someone will say Enough already, time to try something new.

2. In the middle of this change continuum are those who Prefer Life to have a Familiar Sameness but With Some Diversity and Improvement  (65% of the population). In other words, these folks like to hang with what's familiar and known, but with their aims also fixed on improving and developing the status quo. They like a bit of change here and there but not too much or too often. They are adaptable but don't push it, baby. Their change clock is on a 3 - 7 year cycle.

3. And off to the right are, well, let's call them the Change Junkies (25% of the population). These types really like the turnstyles to keep moving. They like newness and going into jobs where they can make a difference with their new ideas, and when they've arrived at their goals, they're outta there -- on to the next thing. Their change cycle is on a clock of 1 - 2 years.

All of us indentifies with one of these change-relationship styles the most. There's nothing to judge here, neither style is better than the other, it just is.

But understanding where you fall on this change/sameness continuum might help you  accept the way you deal with change and move through life's thresholds and transitions (or wrestle through them as many of us do).

I, for one, am a bit of a change junky. I used to feel like a flake, like I couldn't commit, I had ADD etc etc, whip, flog, hair shirt. The longest job I've held is four years and every fall I want to throw out last fall's clothes like a snake shedding skin. And  to know it's just how I'm wired, BOY, easy breathing. And now I can make decisions that support this personality type rather than, well, buy more hair shirts and flogging toys. (I should add, I can make the change, but the change itself still makes me go EEK.)

On another note, I have a friend who needs a long time to process a change like a new job or a move, and she has been known to talk and think a change through for years before jumping. Because change is scary! But she accepts it as part of her way. She's saved a lot of money on hair shirts over the years, let me tell you, the clever minx.

And where do you see yourself here?

How can this information support you as change rolls  in and out of your life? Whether it comes uninvited or you go running toward it. And sometimes it comes clanging down like a lightning bolt. Ouch.

Yes, change is inevitable. And Rilke is right, you must change your life. That's the flow of all existence.

So how are you going to take on the next change that comes your way?

Because it's comin' for you -- for all of us. And thank god for that.

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Do you have undiscovered gifts?

Many people are floating around a bit these days. A lot of questions in the air: What should I do with my life now? What kind of work could I do next?

Could I have possibly have undiscovered gifts and talents waiting to come bursting out anew?

Probably not.

And it's a good thing, I say -- assuming my readers are pretty much over 20 and you know what you're good at (even if you like to pretend you don't sometimes).

So now I want to reference a fantastic book by Larry Ackerman called The Identity Code. It's beautifully written (and thin!) and it's about finding your place and purpose in the world. The end of the chapters come with questions and exercises that are simple and focused on life purpose through the scope of personal identity. Before you get Fear-of-Woo-Woo know that Ackerman takes this stuff into Fortune 500 companies.

Anyway, somewhere in the beginning of the book (maybe the chapter called "The Myth of Personal Freedom and the Meaning of Identity"), he talks about something that loving parents have done that is actually very counter-productive. It's saying to children "You can do anything you want!" "You can be anything you want!"

Bullshit. Here's why. Nobody can be anything they want. I couldn't be any kind of biologist, I promise you. In high school I scored one point lower at the end of the year's competency exam as I did in the beginning. Yes, pretty lame but that gave me some good information: I love the process of elimination.

So, just as there is something each of us just couldn't do no matter how hard we tried ...  there is the converse: the achievements and fulfillment you have when you follow that which comes naturally and with a great deal of curiosty and interest.

Each of us has special strengths and talents and gifts.  I mean, we all know that right? And then, to be given so much freedom, to the tune of you can do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING  ... well. That sort of sucks doesn't it? Talk about overwhelm breakdown or just weaving right off the universal path laid down in front of you.

So when I say that I highly doubt you have undiscovered gifts, I mean that in a supportive, give-yourself-a-break way.

A lot of people are bobbing around in their life's ocean these days. Some are out of work or starting up a new biz or flirting with a new chapter or just wondering ....

But there are clues in our lives, like bread crumbs along a continuum of a lifeline, always there for reference.

Ambitions and identity and purpose all shift around a bit as we move through stages and ages -- and you're left walking down the street scratching your head wondering: What the -- ?

See what happens if you broke down everything that you loved and came easily to see the common threads. What would you see?

I highly, highly recommend taking Larry Ackerman's  The Identity Code and going through it; try doing it with a buddy. I did it with a great deep-thinking pal and it rocked. I understood why I had to do work that interacted with people. No more writer-for-hire sitting in a lonely corner, no matter how much I like to write. But I could merge them together.

Undiscovered, surprise gifts just waiting to bloom as you round the corner of 40, 50, etc? Probably not*. But how about this: You tapping strongly and purposefully into what you already have. You just need to reaquaint yourself with a few of the items in your treasure chest. And reorganize the tremendous gifts and curious inclinations you already have.

And from there -- tranform, change and grow.

Because as Rilke wrote, "You must change your life."

*Cover my ass moment here: Yes, I do believe in taking up new hobbies and artistic interests and at 70 painting a landscape picture and saying Jesus Christ I had no idea. My grandfather took up painting in his retirment. He also was part-owner of an art gallery as he drilled away as a dentist during the day. Hmmm.