The Career Clinic Blog

Once upon a time I was on the dance floor with my college boyfriend. It was at a disco--remember those?--and I thought I was doing an okay job of imitating the moves of the people around us.

Wrong.

In a trivial but oddly defining moment of my life, my boyfriend--whom I hadn’t been dating very long--looked at me with exasperation and said, “Listen to the music.”

And yes, it’s been a project ever since to talk me into dancing.

I’m not sure where I got the idea I couldn’t sing, but I’m more loathe to sing than dance. I admitted that to a voice teacher once, who assured me the opposite was true. I have a lovely singing voice. The fear remains, though. When I’m in an auditorium filled with sports fans singing along to the national anthem, I don’t even move my lips in an attempt to pretend I’m singing--that’s how spooked I am by the proposition.

So here’s hoping you’ll be surprised and amused by how much I sang to Katie when she was little. You might remember the song, “Basketball Jones.” My version went like this: “Applejuice breath, you’ve got applejuice breath. You’ve got applejuice breath, oh baby oh oh oh…”

Music is so much a part of our lives I feel like we’re in Les Mis--minus the hopelessness, the sadness, and I suppose everything else about it except the singing.

When Katie was in middle school we talked Dad--a farm boy who’d never been to the Big Apple and had no desire to go--into watching the ball drop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. The two of them wrote a song to mark the occasion--set to “Year 3000” by the Jonas Brothers: “We’re goin’ to New York City. I think we’re nuts but now Mom is in heaven. And our crazy twelve-year-old daughter is on her side…”

Katie dressed up like Kanye and sang “Ice Ice Baby” in her high school’s holiday variety show--adapted for the Christmas season, of course, with help from Dad: “Santa’s comin’ your way, nine little reindeer pullin’ his sleigh. Be good, so you stay on The List. Don’t be a fool or your house’ll get missed…”

Nothing’s too mundane not to sing. Katie belts out the lyrics to the FreeCreditReport.com commercial at the top of her lungs as we run errands…and after a fancy dinner that may or may not have included a glass of wine, Dad relents and sings “Hey, Soul Sister” at the top of his lungs after claiming he didn’t know those lyrics.

Katie gets up an hour early on weekdays so she can practice with the jazz band. When it’s time for regular band a few hours later, she breaks out her bassoon and greets her fellow musicians with riffs from Rebecca Black’s “Friday.”

A friend of Katie’s piano teacher surprised us by being the entertainment on a cruise--and suggested she sing along to Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” while he accompanied her on the baby grand in that piano bar. Which she did. Which just might top our list of favorite family memories.

It’s fascinating to me, how much music can change your mood. Feeling sad? Play a sad song in your headphones just loud enough to worry it’s too loud to preserve your hearing, have that cry, feel better. Need to write a cover letter to that employer? Play something uplifting and coax those words out of your heart and onto the screen. Need a reminder of how sacred life is? Play “Canon.” Repeat.

Speaking of feeling sad, have you noticed it’s impossible to play a sad song on the banjo? I’m probably not the first person to have that observation, but try it. Boing de de boing boing boing. It doesn’t work. Maybe that’s why if I had to pick a genre to stick with as the soundtrack to my life it would be bluegrass. There’s just something about it that works.

And that’s what I hope we’re up to here at The Career Clinic, doing what works!

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Ten years before I wrote my first book I told my brother it was a dream. I don’t remember what I followed that up with--probably the old standby, “Who am I trying to kid?”--but I’ll never forget his reply.

“It happens to somebody.”

It happens to somebody. Well, yes. It does. Otherwise there’d be no People magazine, no Academy Awards, no cover of the Rolling Stone.

That’s one of just so many reasons I loved reading the backstory of Good Will Hunting.

It reminded me what I’ve come to admire most in people. The refusal to decide, “Well, I guess this is it. This is all my life is ever going to be.” A friend once told me that from now on all the interesting things will happen to our daughters. And I thought, “No way.”

No way.

Career consultant Barbara Sher says nothing puts more of a drag on a child’s heart than the unfulfilled life of her parents.

That’s why I smiled even brighter when another friend--watching me outline the next steps in a souped-up version of what we’re up to, here--told me, “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

She knows the best thing I can contribute to Katie’s story at this point is more attention to my own.

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Ever wish you could take every book you’ve ever read, and read it again? I do. I bet it would explain a lot.

Many years ago I read The Three Boxes of Life, by my friend Dick Bolles. Dick pointed out we used to spend the first part of our lives learning, the second part working, and the third part playing. The goal, however, should be like what Lawrence Pearsall Jacks described: “A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself he always seems to be doing both.”

From then on, that was my goal--for who I am and what I do to be the same. To be learning, working, and playing at once--and not have it be obvious, even to myself, which I’m doing more of at the moment.

If you can succeed at that, the people who hassle you for working such long hours won’t matter as much. Not that they’ll believe you when you say, “I’m not working. I’m playing!”

But that’s okay. As Mother Teresa reminded us, it was never between you and them anyway.

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If you’re feeling frisky, step away from that keyboard. That’s how I’d sum up the advice given by ePolicy expert Nancy Flynn when I interviewed her recently about the dangers of texting while enamored. Why do so many otherwise intelligent people risk not only their careers but their marriages to dabble in office romance?

Mostly what I’m up to with the radio show and this blog are questions--not that you asked! I want to give you thought for food, to fill you up with inspiration for doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

I used to think of The Career Clinic as an inspiration factory, but it’s really more of a question factory.

Here are a few questions that have been tickling my imagination lately…

Why does it delight me to be teased about the way I eat? A man I’m fond of kept poking me with a box of cookies, trying to get me to take one but knowing I wouldn’t relent. I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face for days. Is it because he reminds me what an accidental litmus test this diet is? If people are mean to you because you only eat healthy food, they’ve done you a favor--by showing you there’s no winning with them. Next!

Why did I not notice how very cold the floor in our basement bathroom is until Darrell pointed it out?

You know those ads that pop up on your screen, obscuring whatever you’re trying to read? I hate them. But I find it interesting, how patient I am when they pop up on The Onion. It’s The Onion. Forgiven! Where are the people who write headlines for that site? What was it about the way they were brought up that made them so hilarious as grownups? How would it feel to know you’re bringing that much joy to the world?

You’ve probably seen them, the panic-stricken faces on men on the eve of some holiday. They’re in line behind you at the florist or the jewelry store or even the convenience store. They know they’re expected to come through, yet again--and with what? What could possibly be the point?

When the actor Larry Hagman died--you might remember him from Dallas--I read that when he was doing I Dream of Jeannie he started observing a silent day once a week. He wouldn’t speak to anyone for twenty-four hours. “I would go out and party on the weekend,” he told reporters. “I was at a rodeo with all the dust and horse s--- blowing around and I got a sore throat. My doctor told me not to talk for the rest of the weekend and I liked it so much, I did it for one day each week for the next twenty years.” What would happen if I tried that? Nothing bad, I bet! The more I talk for a living the less inclined I am to talk just to talk. It’s Darrell’s bouquet of roses, every day.

What about you? Any questions?

Darrell has one. Did you realize I phrased it “thought for food” intentionally? Maybe he doesn’t think I’ve earned that cred. Then again, you might remember I have it from two sources I’m the only person in the history of cartoon watchers to mispronounce Boo-Boo the Bear, friend to Yogi. I got it in my head his name was pronounced like the “bow” in (his) bow tie. “How?” a friend wondered. “How?” Pause. “It isn’t like you heard someone else pronounce it that way…”

But I have to ask Darrell every time. Is it bow-bow? Or boo-boo?

You can say that again!

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“You see that guy over there?” I asked one of Katie’s teachers, who’s fast becoming a family friend. “The one with the blonde hair?” She did. “He looks like Meg Ryan,” I told her.

Her eyes got wide. Then she cracked up and told me she agreed.

I leaned back and smiled. “It’s a gift,” I said.

I was teasing, but not really. I mean, it is sort of a gift--but in a totally useless kind of way. I felt safe with this woman, so I didn’t worry about being silly and even a little okay with myself. It was an experiment.

Why, I wonder, does admitting you’re okay at something often feel wrong?

If you’ve been reading this blog very long you might remember the turning point in my life was a workshop given by Dick Bolles, author of What Color Is Your Parachute? The task was to decide which of our skills we’d most love to use, and where we’d most love to use them.

Dick called those skills gifts. I’d never really thought of myself as a person with gifts. I mean, who does? But there we were, on what felt like a Christmas morning that lasted two whole weeks, unwrapping those gifts and comparing notes: “What do you think about this one? I’m going to love using this…”

A woman I used to know is fond of railing against anyone who talks about himself for more than a paragraph. If she senses a hint of being okay with himself, it’s over. Once upon a time I was invited to give a presentation about writing my first book. I was specifically asked to share as much as I could about the experience--to talk about…myself. When I found out this woman planned to attend, I wasn’t so adept at compartmentalizing things my heart didn’t sink. But she sat in the back, I was able to pretend she wasn’t there, and the presentation went really well.

Have you ever admitted how wonderful things were unfolding when someone asks, “How are you?” Just try it. Say, “Great!” You can judge the quality of the people you hang out with by how many--or how few--ask you to elaborate.

If you aren’t surrounded by people who are pulling for you, I think that’s a shame. But I’m not trying to change the world on this point. Though I think in the privacy of our own homes--among people who really care about us--it would help to acknowledge that we, all of us, are indeed gifted.

It might make sharing a quick story or two about that easier in a job interview, for example. It might make us feel better about the ways in which we aren’t gifted. It might feel like there’s more of a point to getting up in the morning if we consider it our mission to share our gifts.

Be kind to yourself. That’s how you change the world.

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“Got a minute?”

That was my brother’s way of bracing my parents for the update they wanted. They’d left him and one of my sisters and me home while they took the rest of my brothers and sisters to visit relatives in Montana.

And what an update my brother crammed into a minute! Earlier that day the plumbing had backed up, he’d broken his glasses, our sister had gotten a bad eye infection--and I’d been in a car accident taking her to the doctor.

In the twenty or thirty years it took to raise eight kids, I wonder if my parents had ten minutes to themselves.

If you have ten minutes to spare--and you’re feeling “secretly defeated, maybe somewhat sour and cynical, or perhaps just vaguely dispirited”--there’s a possibility these thoughts on personal renewal will help.

Here’s hoping…

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There’s no harm in taking another sample of the coffee cake at your favorite bakery, right? What if you take three or four or even ten samples? When does it become breakfast?

What about utensils? If you take one plastic spoon to eat your chili with and stash another one to bring to work the next day to eat your leftovers with, is that stealing?

The folks at Burger King have one answer to questions like this.

What do you think?

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When Ze Frank was a little boy, did he dream of telling stories about the tarsier when he grew up? And if he shared those dreams with anyone, was he met with ridicule or encouragement?

It must’ve been lonesome at times. Traveling by yourself is scary. You don’t know what’s around the corner. It might be a pack of wolves. It might be a dead end. It might be Oz.

The road to Oz was paved with scary, if memory serves.

Maybe Ze didn’t know how to do life any other way. I don’t know the man. But I think he’s a good example of how much the world has changed. The idea of dressing up and going into an office and doing what someone else tells you to do for a couple of thousand hours a year strikes me as quaint. I realize there are big companies that either still operate that way, make you feel as if you’re working for a small company, or are changing so quickly you’d swear they are a small company.

But more of us are becoming freelancers. We carve out a niche, a specialty--and find people not only willing but eager to pay us for that. The more traditional jobs, those you keep until you’re ready to go off on your own, are financing much of this evolution. The people who gave you those jobs will probably benefit from your eventual break--by contracting with you for only what they need without pretending to be your whole life.

You might think someone like Ze is just being silly, but I don’t. Get together with a bunch of people for dinner. Eavesdrop on a conversation during unhappy hour. Watch the random mother wait for Susie to decide what yogurt she wants. There are a lot of crabby people in the world.

Ze won’t solve all their problems, but he might help them forget about them for a few minutes--without smoking or drinking or overeating. Without perpetuating a different problem.

He might even inspire you to get out there and do that supposedly silly thing people need, but haven’t thought to ask for yet because you haven’t invented it.

I’m suddenly more serious about my own dreams.

All because when Ze Frank was a little boy he must’ve decided that when he grew up he wanted to be hilarious.

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Iowa’s best-known homemaker farms out some of her housekeeping.

I would, too--if I was 93!

I’m surprised Evelyn Birkby isn’t known as everyone’s favorite grandmother. When I described her that way in our interview you could hear her delight.

I hope you’ll listen to the podcast. Meanwhile here are some highlights from the conversation that still tickles me to look back on.

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When it comes to nurturing, I’ve been lucky. There aren’t enough years left to adequately thank the people who make life so much fun, who inspire me to chase every dream--and who make me feel like I’d be letting them down if I didn’t.

So why, why, as I prep another show or update another blog or even fold the laundry do I fixate on some random--and mean--observation from someone who either doesn’t know me, or doesn’t know me well enough to matter?

I’m not unique in sweating the small stuff--er, people. You might not believe how many really successful guests I feature on the show who admit those inevitable shots sting.

Why does the yuck stick?

I’m not being rhetorical here. If you have a guess, I’m curious.

Meanwhile, a few thoughts of my own.

If you give off any kind of light, as I’ve heard it put, you’re going to attract both moths and butterflies. It’s nothing personal. It’s just part of the deal. Everyone I respect has people who are gunning for him.

That’s one reason I was afraid to blog. Who needs the criticism? Granted it was only in my dreams anyone would read it. But some do. And aspiring to have even one more person like it would be greedy, that’s how much fun I’ve had hearing the reactions.

So while I know there are people who are here not for the inspiration but because it’s easy to mock, I’m increasingly at peace with that. It reminds me what I thought when I first heard a tape of myself hosting a talk show in the early days. I sounded obnoxiously cheerful. “But that’s your personality,” someone I worked with offered--and believe me, he didn’t mean it in a good way.

There are two kinds of people I write for, as it turns out--those who need a lift, and those who need something to make fun of.

I design everything with the first group in mind.

I edit it with the second group in mind--and if you’re in it, welcome. I’m glad you’re here. You’re one reason I’m here. You remind me I made a good decision--to risk more, to use myself up, to hit the pillow feeling great about the reaching.

You keep me sharp.

Thanks!

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