The Career Clinic Blog

My friend Larry had a parrot during his bachelor days. He lived alone, and the only noise the parrot ever made was the sound of a beer can opening.

I thought about Larry when I interviewed another friend, Chris Shea from Lifesighs. She recently moved her offices into a new building with a storefront. The impetus? Her former landlord, who’d rented out the space next to hers to someone who rescued parrots.

Parrot rescuer. I’ve never seen that job title on a resume, but talk about a conversation starter!

I’ve always been enchanted by parrots--or rather, the idea of parrots. To have a pet that’s an honest reflection of what goes on inside your house? Wow. You’d be inspired to keep things sunny, I think. Because when it was time to find a new home for your pet you couldn’t just erase its vocabulary the way you can scrub a computer’s hard drive.

Darrell wonders why more parrots haven’t appeared in Chris’s artwork lately. “They’d be on their backs,” she admitted, “with X’s over their eyes.” Because they’d be, you know, dead.

Chris is an animal lover who, while she recorded a sample of the audible mayhem to play for anyone who’d listen and perhaps empathize, holds no resentment toward the parrots. They gave her, after all, a new lease…on life. That’s how much she loves having a retail space attached to her offices. All she has to do is look out the window to be inspired. The customers who wander in--some to buy cards, some to look at cards, and some to look up from their phones and into the eyes of a real person--are endlessly fascinating to Chris. Some of them might be a bit lost when they show up, but all of them leave knowing they’ve mattered.

The latest incarnation of Lifesighs reminds me of church, or what church can be. Each visitor draws out the inspiration he most needs. It’s like what Jimmy Page from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes says about sports. They reveal character. With help from coaches--and people like him--you can learn how to harness that character into something good. Jimmy says sport is a religion for some people, in the best sense of that word.

That’s another reason I’m glad spring is around the corner. As the snow melts the college basketball season heats up. If Butler University is playing and I’m anywhere near a screen you’ll find me parked in front of it--watching Brad Stevens coach so calmly you’d swear he was just doing laundry. Stevens bet on himself once upon, and few people inspire me the way he does.

Your friends, your pets, your favorite teams. More dandy reasons to get up in the morning, eh?

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Okay. I admit it. I watched Oprah’s interview with Lance Armstrong.

For all of the first night and much of the second I was a little--oh, I don’t know--bored. Maybe because Lance struck me as measured. It was almost as if he flowcharted his answers as he gave them, tweaking them here for one effect and there for another.

Then he talked about explaining himself to his kids, suggesting they not defend him anymore. That part got to me. Not because of Lance. Because of the kids.

I tried to imagine how it would feel to believe your dad is a hero--and then, seemingly overnight, to be asked to absorb the opposite.

What would that be like?

I have no idea. I’m lucky that way, and I’ve never taken it for granted.

When I talked with Katie about this she offered the reassurance I--for once--didn’t need. I smiled and told her, “Yeah, it stings for two days when I think I’ve bored you for five minutes.”

I don’t know where I got the idea it’s a sin to be boring, but it’s probably an okay thing to obsess about as a radio talk show host.

As a mom, not so much.

Katie and I are fond of reminding each other that even if I could be perfect--which no one can--I wouldn’t be, because part of being a good mom is giving her practice in dealing with frustration.

We both wonder why I’m so hard on myself when I give her just the teeniest, tiniest bit of that practice--when I bore her for three whole sentences.

I’m working on that. And I’m trying not to be too hard on myself while I do!

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One man’s trash is another man’s violin.

That will be all.

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When you don’t know where you’re going you may as well hang out where you are.

If you’re making okay money where you are, so much the better. And if you can save a great big chunk of that? Genius.

Because one of these days you might know exactly what you want to do with your life, and the money will come in handy.

What if you’re just out of college and you know what you want to do, but you aren’t sure if you can make a living at it?

My money’s on this comic strip.

Good luck!

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Someone I interviewed for the show recently said he doesn’t understand the big deal about birthdays. So you went another year and didn’t die. So what?

Sometimes that’s a big deal. That’s what.

A couple of summers ago I was shopping for classy flip-flops--a contradiction in terms, I suddenly realize--and was bent over the railing of an escalator surveying the floor below me. A woman who was going down the other side made eye contact with me, and there was something about the look on her face that made me straighten up…just in time to keep from being hit hard by the wall separating the two.

By “hit hard” I mean something much, much worse. Gruesome. Life-ending. I’m serious. I don’t know what it was about the design of the escalators--or the recklessness of yours truly--but it spooks me to think about.

You might be wondering if I’m afraid of escalators now, the way many people are afraid to fly after a particularly turbulent ride.

I’m not.

I feel only gratitude for the reassurance I apparently still have some work to do here.

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You know those vignettes you can sample by using the audio player on our home page? They’re outtakes from the talk show. They run on XM Satellite Radio, on the American Forces Network, and on many of the stations that carry The Career Clinic.

They’re one reason I still listen to every word of all our interviews. I’m on the lookout to flog myself for one too many “uhs” or “ums,” granted--but I’m also mining them for vignettes. I select sound bites, Darrell times those and preps them for broadcast, and I write scripts around them.

It doesn’t take long to write the scripts. Or rather, it doesn’t take me long. Darrell struggles with that part of his job. It just isn’t his thing.

“How do you do that?” he just asked. “How do you crank out ten scripts in twelve minutes?”

I shrugged. I thought about it. And I decided I probably thrive on the twenty-five words or less contest aspect of it. Telling a story in as few words as possible is fun for me.

The reason I mention it is the sudden bounce in my step from Darrell’s compliment. I stood up straighter, and I went about my other chores this evening feeling better about myself.

It reminds me of sharing with a friend how many times in a typical day Darrell and Katie and I tell each other way to go on something. “You’re kidding,” she said. She couldn’t remember the last time she told her husband he’d done a good job on anything.

It’s so simple. Notice what’s good, and tell someone how much you appreciate it.

What would happen if you did it more often?

Nothing bad!

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As a reporter for a radio station in the small town where I still live, it always amused me when people assumed I was a Democrat--or a Republican. It happened equally often. Maybe they thought since I hadn’t bashed their side, I was on it.

I’d been trained by a journalist to be a journalist--to take notes on what happened, and to share those without sprinkling my opinions over everything.

That’s a good way to go about life, isn't it? Notice what happens, but don’t decide how you feel about it right away--and, more importantly, look for opportunities to keep that to yourself.

Darrell and I once attended a party where the hosts were openly liberal. Still, we were surprised when another guest--joining us at the dinner table for what we assumed would be small talk--opened with, “So. Are you Democrats?” As if that would determine the course of our conversation. It did, but not in the way I bet this gentleman imagined.

A woman once agreed to be on our talk show before she realized it airs on Radio America. I could almost hear her sigh pop up from the screen as we continued our exchange. “Oh, well,” I imagined her thinking. “You can’t have everything.”

A man once told me he’ll never read my essays on the Huffington Post because, well, it’s the Huffington Post.

Radio America and the Huffington Post?

Here’s hoping I’m a difficult gal to peg!

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“Life is too important to be taken seriously.”

That’s wisdom--or at least, I’d call it wisdom--from a new book, The Dude and the Zen Master.

Jeff Bridges is one of the authors and this little gem is worth lingering on, I think…

“Kevin Bacon and I recently worked on a movie together, R.I.P.D. Just before we’d begin a scene, when all of us would feel the normal anxiety that actors feel before they start to perform, Kevin would look at me and the other actors with a very serious expression on his face and say: ‘Remember, everything depends on this!’”

I’ve had a little bit of a thing for Kevin Bacon ever since his character in A Few Good Men teased Tom Cruise’s character about the not-so-strong witnesses he had in reserve. “And handsome, too,” Cruise’s character fires back. Bacon’s character cracks up. To think he might be as playful in real life? Oh…

It reminds me of a story I once heard about a bus driver who, when asked how long the trip was going to take, said the following: “I don’t know. We’ve never made it.”

Who can you make laugh, today?

That’s the Lord’s work.

So help me God!

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“If I had mapped out my career,” says Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook, “I would have missed my career.”

Sheryl was quoted in the Huffington Post recently, quoting another woman--Lori Goler--who also has a big job at Facebook. Sheryl says Lori has a great metaphor for careers: “They’re not a ladder, they’re a jungle gym... Look for opportunities, look for growth, look for impact, look for mission. Move sideways, move down, move on, move off. Build your skills, not your resume. Evaluate what you can do, not the title they’re going to give you. Do real work. Take a sales quota, a line role, an ops job. Don’t plan too much, and don’t expect a direct climb.”

Maps, plans, recipes--to some of us, they’re just different words for boring.

What about you? Would you rather try to map everything out? Or feel your way?

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How do you want to be remembered?

My friend Jim played the accordion in college. I mean, all the time. I’ll never forget heading back to the dorm for a meal or whatever, to be greeted by his music wafting through the courtyard.

Is that where I got the idea ordinary days are anything but?

What a gift.

I hope he realizes how much joy he brought into the world that, decades later, still lingers.

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