Today, Chris Brogan wrote a post about how to manage distractions to get the job done. Oddly enough, what caught my attention was not the meat of the post, but rather the first part, where Chris talks about how he “phoned it in” at various times and did or didn’t get desired results.That part really got my attention.
A bit about me and my phone
When I was in oh, fifth grade or so, I was phoning it in hardcore. I would wait to work on my homework till the morning it was due, and if that didn’t give me enough time to finish, I’d race to get the work done while the teacher was taking attendance. I’d work while the teacher was collecting everyone’s work. I hated that feeling – that cold sweat, that pulse racing. When I would wait to write my papers, inevitably the printer would run out of ink at the last minute. I’d run out of paper.
It just was not working for me. So I decided I’d start doing things that would lead to a higher quality of work. Then I realized that working as hard as I could was really rewarding. I made fewer dumb mistakes on math tests. I bumped all of my grades up. Phoning it in became a distant and harrowing memory.
Replace Phone with Fire
As I got through high school and college and into graduate school, my passion filled and overflowed the place where my phone had been. Not only did I not miss phoning it in, but I actually was driven to go as hard as I could and do the best that I could simply because I cared. It was important to me. I was striving for good grades, sure, but as time wore on, I also just wanted to learn as much as I could. I wanted to immerse myself in the experience. I wanted to make me proud of myself.
As I endeavored to do so, a lot of people looked at me funny and told me I was doing things wrong. In high school, a lot of the smart kids would brag before a test about how they had read the entire book the night before. When I’d tell them I’d finished the book 2 weeks earlier, they’d roll their eyes. In college, friends would always tell me my papers were too long. In graduate school, I was picked on because not only did I read every word of every book, but I also took painstaking notes.
“You don’t need to do that,” my peers would say. “Just read the first and last sentence of every paragraph.”
Most of my friends in graduate school finished their theses before me. In college, most of my friends got better marks on their independent study projects than I got on mine. I was never valedictorian.
I have no regrets, though. I learned as much as I could. I put everything I had into the work I did. While the grades and ratings were measurements of a sort, ultimately, they are not the measurements I care about.
Don’t back down and don’t give up
There are a lot of people out there who are ready to offer you advice. I only have one overriding piece of advice. Be guided from within. Use a compass of your own devising. And once you have that, don’t let other people or other pressures tell you that what you are doing is “wrong” or “crazy” (unless you are trying to cut a tree down with a herring or something like that). It can be hard to do things this way. It was hard to be the last one to get my thesis done. It was hard to be rated lower than my friends on the magnum opus of my college years. But I clung to what I believed was most important. They did so for themselves, too, and that’s how things ended up. I doubt that any of us have any regrets. We stayed true to ourselves.
What really matters to you? Protect that like you would protect a tiny lit candle on a windy night. If your readers aren’t digging your blog right now but you know that what you are writing is what you need to write, stick to your guns. If you are tweeting a certain way and people say, “Ew, why are you doing that?!?” don’t be swayed if you really believe you are doing it right for yourself.
But keep your ears and your mind open
This doesn’t mean that we should fence ourselves off from other peoples’ opinions and advice. There are always things we can add to our arsenal. We can always add another bit of fuel to our inner fires. And if you end up shifting course as a result, don’t let people tell you that you’re dumb for doing that either. We are like flowing streams, always changing yet always remaining the same.
And let me tell you a little secret. Are you ready?
The only advice that you’ll carry is the advice your ears and mind are ready to gather for you.
What really matters to you?
Are you on a path that you know in your heart is the right one, yet all you are encountering is pointy fingers and cackling laughter, doubt, maybe disappointment…things that are standing in your way? Hang in there. It’s hard. It’s really hard. But you will not regret fighting for what matters to you. Make sense?
What happens when that wedge of question / doubt gets stuck into the core of your conviction, Margie? Presuming that it happened to you – what did you do / say /change to either unwedge the wedge, and removing it altogether… or acclimating it to your conviction if it’s something that you see as a fixture?
How did you overcome your greatest obstacles in replacing your phone with your fire?
Thank you for sharing, as always.
Great questions, sir. Hmm.
I think that if you really believe you are on the right track, and if you believe in yourself enough, you won’t be shaken from that path even if you fall down and trip. When people would give me trouble for doing things the way I was doing, I felt sad that they weren’t on the same path as me. And sometimes, I was really tempted to do things a different way. There are all kinds of ways to take shortcuts in life, no matter what you’re doing. But generally speaking, I like to just strive for what will make me know I did my best. Sometimes I don’t succeed at that, and no one is harder on myself than me. When I do succeed, I like knowing that I didn’t step on anyone to get there.
It really really helps to have a goal you’re striving for. That gives you something to walk towards. If you’re just walking without an end in mind, it’s easier for people to pull you off of your path. At least in my experience.
Does that help?
So may I ask this, what if your own track, is not the track of the powers that be, be it a teacher, professor, boss, etc.? What if doing things my way, true blue…interferes with the big picture?
You see, this is the problem I have with post-secondary education. I go to a four-year university and am studying communication. I am in my 5th year of study. I spoke at my graduation ceremony from High School in 2006, was a straight ‘A’ student, a 6-sport varsity athlete, a member of the band and choir, as well as highly involved in theater. I even earned nominations to the Air Force Academy and Merchant Marine Academy, but decided against those options.
In college, I “phoned it in” a bit, but also, decided to guide myself through my education. I took classes I was interested in vs. what “the man” told me I had to take to get a degree. I got ‘A’s where I cared and “phoned in” where I did not. For example: “The Man” told me I had to take applied stats MWF at 8AM…I passed AP Calculus with A’s in high school and took 15 credits of physics in college in which I also got A’s…I earned a D in stats! I now have a 1.8 GPA but feel that I have a much better education than any Suma Cum Laude (or however you say it) on campus! If I have invested over $50,000 in my education, and have gotten out of it everything I set out to get: A well-paying job with a fortune 100 company, a broader perspective on humankind, “enlightenment” if you will (all of which I have attained 😉 )…then who are they to have power over me and say I am an idiot with a 1.8 GPA that doesn’t deserve a degree?
Help Me!
Dear Kyle,
It’s an important question.
Sometimes, in order to do what we truly believe in, we have to make some compromises. For example, when I was in college, I had to take a certain number of science classes. I knew that nothing in my future would require me to understand Marine Biology or rock cores, but I also knew that in order to achieve my over-arching goals, I had to play the game a bit. So, I took the classes and did as well as I could, even though my heart wasn’t necessarily in it all the way.
College is also different because, as you mention, it’s a huge investment. It’s an investment of money, it’s an investment of time. Since I was fortunate enough to have parents who helped me get through college financially, it was not entirely my decision to let that go to waste. They had invested in me. The scholarships I received were investments in me.
What I would do if I were you is talk to someone at the registrar’s office and explain that because you had done so well in math in high school (and reference your transcripts) your heart was just not in it. The class wasn’t a challenge, it’s not where your interests are, etc. On the other hand, if that class is part of the path you need to take to get your communications degree – you have to be willing to bend to the man a little bit, knowing that it’s part of the path you’re traveling.
Having your own vision does not mean the same thing as having myopic tunnel vision. You need to see your own course, but it’s also good to look at the ravines on each side, the roots in your way, and the trees and hills off in the distance. It’s all part of the trip, in the end.
Does that help?
You have no idea how much that helps! I am really bad at letting my own thought process interfere with being “teachable” and tend to have very little patience. Perhaps this is why I was never a “Stud” at anything I did in high school. It was more important to me to be “the guy that has done everything” than “the guy that is the best at something.”
I don’t know if I am explaining this right, but the best I can do is this:
Everyone says, “It’s not what you know…it’s WHO you know…”
I say, “It’s not who you know…it’s making yourself the person everyone else wants to know…”
I am so eager to learn everything the world has to offer and share it, that I sometimes forget the fact that a good deal of this learning can come from those that are TRYING to teach me and I don’t have to go out and do it all myself!
Thanks,
– Kyle
@spittk07
It’s not a black and white issue. You can learn a lot on your own. You can be the person people go to for information or insights. But you can also learn from other people.
What I have learned especially over the last few months being involved in Social Media is that even a simple article can attract numerous different interpretations and perspectives, and we can learn from all of those. We can learn about related information, we can learn about the people – all kinds of fun and juicy stuff.
Think of it as a long road trip. It’s fun to drive and be the one leading the tour, but sometimes it’s also nice to sit in the back seat, eat crackers, and just look at what’s going on while someone else drives. So it is with most things.
Marjorie this statement rings out loud and clear.
“If you are tweeting a certain way and people say, “Ew, why are you doing that?!?” don’t be swayed if you really believe you are doing it right for yourself.”
I learned this particular lesson just in the last month. I was swayed away the fashion of tweets that was working for me and growing my business. I am in the process of re-establishing my previous tweet style which took me months to set up.
Ciao
\D
Man, that stinks, Debra. I would have told you that I’ve never seen anything remotely wrong with your tweeting style. In fact, I wouldn’t have been so happy to befriend you if I you were inaccessible or otherwise hard to get to in Twitter world.
Glad to hear you are back on track – don’t doubt yourself. You are awesome!!
I do listen to you, Margie. I read your blog (many of your posts, anyway), join you on Twitter chats, engage directly on Twitter. Sometimes you give good advice, like now. So, uh, what can I do with this? You’re telling us not to listen.
When I was a child I didn’t have heroes or idols. Seeing how some of my friends and classmates idolized people and tried to be like them in every way put me off. It wasn’t until much later in life that I found my heroes–several of them, people I admire for different and sometimes contradictory reasons. I don’t try to be like any of them in any way except in the trait for which I admire them. Deep down, I’m still ME–and, anyway, I’d never be as good as they are at being them. But I pick up bits of advice, of good habits. My heroes have taught me stories of doing good or working hard or going against the grain.
So here’s how I want to be like Margie: I want to write thoughtful and well-crafted blog posts. I want to tell stories and share what I’ve learned, without making my readers feel like they have to copy me. I want to bravely put my ideas in front of others. Through it all, I want to be me and let other people be themselves.
Sorry, Margie. Sometimes I can’t help admiring your example.
That’s so sweet Karen.
I guess what I mean is that ultimately, your path to whatever goal, and the goals you choose, can’t truly come from someone else. Not me, not anyone except you. I’ve seen a lot of people who went through hard times, and I’ve been through some myself. When someone is plugging their ears, there’s nothing you can do to break through. They aren’t looking for what you are offering and therefore they can’t see it. Even if you are offering the best sense you can muster, it may not hit someone the right way or at the right time.
And you can’t depend on others to provide that service.
In the end, we are all answerable to ourselves. If you get that gut feeling that what you are doing is the right way to go, you need to believe in yourself while also keeping your ears and mind open to other concepts. It’s always possible to cross the line between fervent belief and arrogance or other less admirable traits, right? So strike a balance. Believe in yourself enough to admit that you could always learn and always improve.
I am truly touched at your comment. Thanks again!
Margie I won’t listen to you but I will hang on to every word in your blogs. It is my way of learning to write better, to communicate better which builds the confidence I need to be myself as an end rewsult. Keep on , keeping on!
Well thank you. Your support means a lot to me!
I just want to create a cheer, 2-4-6-8 – Who Do We Appreciate, Maaargie!” You are such a great source of wisdom, support and true caring. Loved this post, probably more than any other that I’ve read cuz I got a real glimpse into you, in life. Thanks for this, thanks for helping me learn about this amazing space called social media….
Hey, I was just going to go over to Twitter and ask where you are, and then you come over here and leave a sweet comment like that.
Thank you for that…this is probably a bit more personal than I usually go, but I thought it would be helpful, for Social Media and beyond. Glad it seems to be so 🙂
The only way to shine is from the inside. You never disappoint. Be true to yourself. A motto to carry throughout life and if they don’t agree keep going because that’s the only way to find true wisdom and peace. In world of opinions the only one that really matters is yours.
Exactly. Well said!
Margie,
I agree you have to listen to your inner voice. You also (and this is equally as important) have to develop a committee of trusted friends/family members/colleagues and seek out their advice. Sometimes we are trying to “cut a tree down with a herring” and we just don’t realize it. We’re so passionate about cutting down that tree that when somebody says “Ew, why are you doing that?!?” we fail to realize that what they may be really be trying to do is point out the axe lying on the ground behind us.
You’re fortunate to have had the opportunity to go to college and a family business to settle into. I’m the second oldest of 7 kids, raised in the Bronx. My father never made more than $18k/year. I had my own ambitions of a better life. Fortunately, I developed relationships with people I trusted that helped me see well above what I was ready to settle for. I got my first sales job at 27 years old (commission only) and thought I was pretty darn good but still listened to other people who made me better. I took on a Sales Manager position in Long Island where I heeded the advice of someone who became one of my biggest mentors. Moved my family to Florida to take on a Director of Sales & Marketing position for a 60-acre entertainment center. Away from my family & friends in NY, I sought the advice of some of the local business leaders and found yet another mentor. Then in 2006, I left my very well-paying job to start my video production company; very passionate that I could make it work but still seeking the advice of other entrepreneurs. That business has now grown each of the past three years despite the economy.
What’s the point? That over the years, I listened to a lot of people (maybe even more than myself) who helped me get to that next level. Even today, I rarely make a major business decision (regardless of how passionate I am about it) without first consulting with my “consiglieres”. There are a lot of broke people out there who were very passionate about what they wanted to do but failed to listen to anybody else or formulate a strategy to get it. Sometimes we have to back down (and even give up) on what we’re after and start anew – with a different strategy or even following someone else’s advice.
Your life is just getting off the ground – what lies ahead is gonna make your HS & college days seem like a walk in the park. Learn to trust and more importantly, to listen. “He that teaches himself, hath a fool for a master.” ~Benjamin Franklin
My two cents for whatever it’s worth…
You are absolutely right. It’s definitely important to have that inner circle of people whom you know you can depend on to look out for you. I am definitely not saying that you should plug your ears and sing “la la la” when someone is offering you an opinion and/or advice. Rather, I am saying that it’s okay to go with your gut. It’s okay to believe yourself. You might not be doing things exactly the way someone else might, but that’s okay. There are lots of different ways to get to the same goal.
I really appreciate you doing so much sharing here, Dan. It means a great deal to me. Thank you!!
Dang! Did I just write all that?!!!
Yes. Yes you did 🙂
“Be guided from within.” It’s all I know. And it’s hard to learn to trust yourself enough.
Thanks for the post, Margie. Nice meeting you this year.
It’s been great to meet you as well, Jim! Thank you for your comment, and Happy New Year!!
My dad used to tell me that I was “paying my dues.” I kept asking him, “When do I get a return on those dues?” I realized (too late, I think) that you never really stop paying your dues.
What I want to protect more than anything else is my relentless pursuit. That’s it. Whether it’s about my family life or my professional life. If I latch on to something, I don’t want to lose my mojo. The way to do that is to be absolutely relentless.
Paging Jim Valvano here: Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.
Nope, you never stop paying. But the plus side is that you also never stop receiving, if you look at things the right way (which can also be a challenge!) 🙂
And you’re exactly right – don’t give up. But be open to experiences that could slightly alter or enrich your course. Otherwise people might think you’re just bull-headed 🙂
Margie..just discovered you courtesy of Chris Brogan..and what a great find you are! Love this blog ..thank you
Thanks so much for that, Louise! Thanks for stopping by! Happy New Year!
Thanks, Margie. The most memorable positive comment ever got on a job review was: “Bob’s relentless.” Whenever I get off track, I try to find the Relentless Bob.
You’re the second person to use relentless – I think sometimes people view that word as a negative, but it can also be an immensely positive adjective.
Thanks for the comment!
Couldnt agree more with that, very attractive article
Those people who take feedback the best are ironically those who need it the least. They are open to learning, but keen to make up their own mind. They are more likely to ask what you liked and didn’t like and less likely to just ask, “Did you like it?” They are more concerned with improving than with approval.
You ask what really matters to me? The whole idea of quality feedback, how to find it, generate it, receive it gracefully and how to turn it into excellence. That matters to me. Hmmm. I should maybe do some writing on that.
That’s a great point, Steve. In other words, I’m kind of preaching to the choir. I wouldn’t disagree with you there.
I’d love to see a follow-up post – if you write one please let me know!