Category Archives: Dreams, Goals & Purpose

The Air We Breathe

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I returned from Kathmandu late last night. More on my other-worldly experiences there and in India and Tibet to follow. Today, I want to share the news that my Peace Corps odyssey has come to an end. I debated whether to write a post about it. I don’t want to discourage anyone who’s currently in, or thinking about joining, Peace Corps. And I’d be a liar if I said I don’t care about being judged for backing out of something I had planned to do. Those concerns are outweighed by my desire to put my genuine self – the good, the bad and the ugly – into my posts, in the hope of helping someone who’s going through a similar experience. So here goes.

When I decided to apply for Peace Corps, I pictured myself living in a village or small city in South America, habla-ing Espanol, and helping people improve their skills and education to make their lives better. I put South America as my preference on my Peace Corps application and started investigating places to brush up on my Spanish skills. During my Peace Corps interview, I was told they only send people to South America who are already fluent in Spanish.

I was nominated to teach English at a university in China. Anxious to learn more about what that experience would be like, I searched for books about volunteering for Peace Corps in China. I hit the jackpot with Kosher Chinese: Living, Teaching, and Eating with China’s Other Billion, by Michael Levy (the “Kosher” part referring to the fact that Levy is Jewish). Levy liked his experience in China. The intent of his book is not to discourage people from joining Peace Corps.

But Levy wrote about things that were news to me. Did you know that sixteen of the world’s twenty most polluted cities are in China? That nearly 200 Chinese cities fail to meet minimal air quality standards? And that fifty percent of China’s rivers and lakes are so polluted that they’re not even fit for industrial usage, and ninety percent of China’s urban groundwater is contaminated?

Levy describes his airplane’s “slow descent into a brown soup of pollution” and an “industrial nightmare” in Chengdu (the capital city of the Sichuan province and Peace Corp’s headquarters in China):

“I imagined the capillary veins in my lungs recoiling in horror as breath after contracted breath dumped carcinogenic particulate matter into my previously healthy chest cavity. It wouldn’t be long before my Chinese teacher would tell me that smoking cigarettes was actually healthy because it prepared one’s lungs for Chinese air. The tobacco, she insisted, served as a vaccine against the smog. This seemed far-fetched to me, though I reconsidered my convictions after the Peace Corp nurse advised us to cease all exercise. An increased heart rate, she warned us, would lead to deeper breathing which, in Chengdu, meant a more profoundly damaged cardiovascular system. Best to sit and smoke, perhaps.”

This seemed far-fetched to me, too. How could any country, especially a world power like China, be in such horrendous environmental condition in 2012? Then the Universe handed me a gift. I went for my annual physical at Northwestern and my regular doctor was on vacation. I saw another doctor who recently returned from several years of living in China.

She confirmed the dangers of breathing Chinese air. After living in China for two years, a CT scan of my lungs would look like that of a life-long smoker. Knowing that I’m on Synthroid (a prescription thyroid medication), she also told me about her mistake of getting a prescription filled in China. Many commonly used U.S. medications aren’t available in China, or don’t contain the same ingredients, or are counterfeit. She became seriously ill from the prescription medication and had to return to the U.S. for several months of detox.

Not exercising or taking my thyroid meds for two years would be compounded by what Levy describes as the “oil heavy” Chinese diet, consisting of “fried dough for breakfast every morning and piles of greasy meats for lunch and dinner” (something  I experienced first hand during my week in Tibet, which is officially — albeit very, very sadly — part of China). And the meat frequently comes from man’s best friend. Lassie. Rover. Toto. Levy describes walking past the “Dog Meat King” every day on his way to his classroom: “Its name – as well as the carcasses that dangled in its windows – made me pretty sure they weren’t serving chicken.”

Not. What. I. Bargained. For.

Sometimes that thing you’re pursuing with all of your energy turns out not to be the right thing for you. But if you’re lucky, and if you’re open to it, you learn from the journey. You learn about yourself, the world, and what truly matters in life. In this case, I learned that while I was willing to sacrifice my material possessions, I’m not willing to sacrifice my health. I also learned how lucky we are to find ourselves living in a place where we can step outside and breathe the air without worrying about what our CT scans will look like as a result.

I still have visions of going to South America for volunteer work. Only this time I plan to go to Guatemala in 2013 to help build schools from recycled materials with an organization called Save The World Today (featured in an article in the September 2012 edition of Oprah’s “O” magazine). Did I mention they don’t eat dogs in Guatemala?

Tough Love 3: You Can’t Change And Stay The Same

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A typical American, I started practicing Iyengar yoga for the physical benefits and to help mend my problem hips. Little did I know that yoga would transform much more than my body. One Iyengar yoga teacher in particular, Manouso Manos (who doles out a very memorable brand of tough love), said something that stuck in my mind and drove me to examine how I was living my life: “You cannot change and stay the same at the same time.”

From The Sticky Mat …

Manouso was explaining how yoga teachers push students beyond our comfort zones, help us release our inner control freaks, and step out of the hard boxes we put ourselves in. Iyengar students learn these lessons through performing poses or asanas and observing our minds and bodies in action. Through observation and analysis, we can catch our habits of letting the strong parts (e.g., calves) do the work while the weak parts (e.g., hips) attempt to evade notice; doing things the same way over and over again (e.g., gripping my calves so my hips can release) without noticing our patterns; and avoiding certain actions (e.g., twisting standing poses) because they highlight our imbalances (e.g., weak and tight hip muscles).

Good yoga teachers help us become more self aware and show us how to do things differently in order to build strength and balance. Nothing is as transformational as having a teacher put your body in true alignment and feeling as crooked as Lombard Street to let you know that you need to change something. In order to incorporate the teacher’s corrections, yoga students need to maintain an open mind and be willing to shed old habits and adopt new methods.

… And Beyond

This approach was having positive results for my yoga practice and my hips. But Manouso’s words — “you cannot change and stay the same at the same time” – carried far beyond the sticky mat. I was unhappy with how I was leading my life. I felt the need to change. What was holding me back? My desire to maintain the same lifestyle. I wanted to change yet remain the same at the same time.

Turning to what I learned from yoga, I observed myself in action: What habits was I engaging in that were causing the misalignment? How could I break free from the box I’d put myself in and do things differently? The answers came fairly quickly. To borrow a term from Stephen Covey. I neededa paradigm shift. As Covey explains in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People:

“We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior and get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behavior flow.”

The Paradigm Shift

When I examined my life, I realized that I had fallen into what Covey describes in The Seven Habits as a “money centered” paradigm, putting economic security at the top of my priority list:

“When my sense of personal worth comes from my net worth, I am vulnerable to anything that will affect that net worth. But work and money, per se, provide no wisdom, no guidance, and only a limited degree of power and security.”

Latching on to material things had created weaknesses and imbalances that skewed my priorities as much as my wonky hips had skewed my body.  In order to change and create the life I envisioned, I needed to let go of the pseudo-security of owning a home and being able to buy whatever shoes strike my fancy at Nordstrom’s.

Once I opened myself up to moving away from a money-centered paradigm and aligned myself with my core values, the changes began to flow. In Covey’s words, “paradigm shifts move us from one way of seeing the world to another. And those shifts create powerful change.” Driven by my desire to use my talents to help others and to save money for my Reinvention Fund, I can now breeze through Nordstrom’s with no desire to buy another pair of shoes for my too-large collection. In fact, I’m amazed at how quickly that “shoe girl” disappeared.

That’s not to say that change is easy. The hard work of selling my condo and moving to a much smaller place ranks right up there with the challenge of working on my tight and weak hips. But by developing self-awareness (in my case, through yoga and Manouso’s tough love), we can identify habits that don’t serve us. No matter how deeply embedded those habits are, with persistence and the courage to change and a vision for a better life, we can replace them with more effective behaviors that strengthen and balance our bodies, minds and souls.

Path to Purpose Part 3: Execution

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In Parts 1 and 2, we were inspired to take the path to purpose and we explored to find at least one target field to pursue. Now it’s time to execute our plan for continuing down the path. This is where the rubber hits the road, and many people sadly let their dreams fade away, sidelined by excuses and fears.

But not us! Pamela Mitchell is back to provide some much-needed guidance through her book, The Ten Laws of Career Reinvention. Here are three of those laws that will help in the execution stage of the path to purpose.

Law 5: You’ve Got the Tools in Your Toolbox

One myth of career reinvention is that our previous careers were a waste of time and effort. You’ll be happy to learn that, in reality, your current skills are portable to your new field. They simply need to be repurposed:

“Repurposing your old skills – identifying the ones you used in your old field and converting them for use in a new career – is part of the definition of reinvention. It sums up the basic strategy that will help you thrive in this era: Reinventors continually use the tools that are already in their toolbox in creative new ways to build and broaden opportunities.”

Make a list of your current duties and responsibilities, and those from prior jobs, and of your job successes. If you do volunteer work, include that also. Then break down your duties and successes into the skills it takes to perform them:

“If you’re thinking about what you’ve done only in terms of job function, your toolbox for reinvention will look pretty empty. When you start thinking about what you’ve done in terms of the skills it took to perform the tasks, you’ll see that you have plenty of tools at your disposal to help build a bridge to a new career.”

Once you’ve listed your skills, find out which ones are valued in your target field and compare them with what’s in your toolbox. For me, skills from my very first career (teaching) and volunteer work turned out to be key. Look at job listings in your area of interest and see what skills are prioritized:

“There will also be times when you analyze the tools in your toolbox and realize that you do need to add a few more. This usually happens when the case you make isn’t quite strong enough to convince your target to give you a shot. Now you will need to go a step further and gain experience or learn something new that adds another skill to your toolbox.”

New skills can be gained in a variety of ways. Online courses abound these days, including the New York Times Knowledge Network (which is how I learned about blogging). Volunteering in your target field is another great way to pick up the new tools you need (which is what I’m doing to pick up some additional skills that I’ll need for my Peace Corps assignment).

Law 8: They Won’t “Get” You Until You Speak Their Language

When your path to purpose involves moving into a new industry, it’s critical to learn the “language” that’s spoken there and reframe your background accordingly:

“This Law – learning to speak the language so that those in your new career understand you – is at the heart of the reinvention process. Don’t underestimate its importance. Since you are the one who wants a shot at something new, it’s up to you to be bilingual and help others understand what you have to offer.”

In Law 7, Mitchell explains the crucial step of meeting and talking with people in your prospective new field or, as she calls it, “speaking to a native.” There are plenty of resources for that these days, including Twitter, blogs and Google. (Hey, if semi-Amish me can do these things, anyone can.) Taking these steps allows you to learn not only the language but also the culture of your chosen field:

“Tossing off an impressive phrase or two won’t cut it. The Natives in your new career will immediately see through that ruse, because speaking a language is also about understanding the unspoken nuances associated with that world. It’s these nuances that help build rapport and solidify relationships; that help you ‘fit.’”

Once you know what skills are needed in your target field and you’ve learned to speak their language, it’s time to “redraft your resume or bio, describing your skills, talents, background, and accomplishments in the language of the new industry.” Mitchell’s book provides solid suggestions for converting a typical resumé into a Reinvention Resumé.

Law 9: It Takes The Time That It Takes

At the inspiration stage, T.D. Jakes cautioned against impatience on the path to purpose. Mitchell reminds us of this again during the execution stage:

“Reinvention takes the time it takes. Like trying to harvest a garden four weeks after planting the seeds, or inducing birth five months after conception instead of the usual nine, forcing an artificial timeline on a natural process courts disaster.”

Because the journey down the path to purpose isn’t an overnight trip, Mitchell advises building up a Reinvention Fund. That might mean, like it does for me, staying in your current job, downsizing and saving as much money as possible while taking steps on the side toward your new career. On many a morning, the only thing that gets me to work is knowing that it’s the source of cash for my Reinvention Fund.

To keep the momentum going, Mitchell suggests creating a list of tasks we can perform to help us move into our target field:

“Like most tactical plans, it begins with goals; I recommend setting monthly ones that are practical, realistic, and doable…. Don’t try to tackle the ‘big picture’ every day (e.g., goal for today: reinventing my career) – you’ll feel overwhelmed. Instead, pace yourself (e.g., goal for today: I’ll make three phone calls, write two letters, and find a new industry newsletter to read). Settiing smaller objectives will increase your chance of completing them.”

Put The Big Rocks In First

Once you’ve created your tactical plan, an indispensable resource for moving through your “to do” list in an effective fashion is Steven Covey’s book, First Things First. Here are some of the key lessons I gleaned from its pages:

  • Focus first on the most important tasks that can have the greatest positive impact. These are the “big rocks” that won’t fit in the jar of your life unless you put them in first, before you fill it up with smaller rocks and pebbles. A recent “big rock” for me was selling my condo. Not only did it increase my Reinvention Fund, but it gave me the financial freedom to pursue being a Peace Corps volunteer.
  • What are the smaller rocks and pebbles? Things that are far less important, or not really important at all. They may seem “urgent” at the time but don’t substitute the artificial high of an urgency or “busy-ness” fix keep you from the deep satisfaction of achieving a task or goal that truly matters. I nearly let a small rock (a previously scheduled home-service appointment) get in the way of a big rock (my first Peace Corps interview). Thanks to Covey, I knew the big rock had to go in first, so I called the small rock (i.e., the service provider) and rescheduled.
  • As you focus on a particular goal, be willing to suffer short-term imbalances in other areas of your life when your inner wisdom suggests that it’s necessary. For me, that means less time to work out and hang out with friends as I deal with moving and the Peace Corps process. I know I’ll rebalance soon and the temporary sacrifice is well worth it.

Finally, we have to be willing to revise our execution plans as things unfold, and let go of our attachment to a particular outcome. Case in point: When I was transitioning from law-firm practice to an in-house career, I set my sights on a particular job and was crushed when I didn’t get it. The employer? Lehman Brothers.

Like Katy Perry sings in “Firework”: “Maybe you’re reason why all the doors are closed, so you could open one that leads you to the perfect road.” If we follow our purpose and do the hard work to move down that perfect road, we will end up where we’re meant to go, even if the destination is different than we planned.

Path to Purpose Part 2: Exploration

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Now that T.D. Jakes has provided inspiration, it’s time to do some exploration to find our passion and purpose and begin moving toward it. Pursuing life’s purpose may require reinventing ourselves – either a little or a lot – which can be done at any age and any stage of our careers. I’m doing it on the cusp of 50, more than 20 years into my career as a lawyer. That’s not to say it’s easy. Nothing worthwhile is. The key is to invest the time and energy necessary to develop a good reinvention plan. Pamela Mitchell can help.

In The Ten Laws of Career Reinvention, Mitchell provides strategies for exploring and navigating the full arc of career change between different fields. Mitchell developed her expertise in career reinvention through the school of hard knocks. She started working on Wall Street but quit when she realized she was bored to tears:

“The white shirts were blinding me, the cigar smoke was choking me, and the conversation was boring me. Enough with basis points. I wanted to talk about something else for a change.

(Could’ve written those sentences myself!) Mitchell transitioned to a successful, 15-year career in the entertainment industry before giving that up to become a life coach and launch The Reinvention Institute.

The Ten Laws of Career Reinvention “is about using vision and creative thinking to repurpose your skills and find new outlets for your abilities without having to depend on the job listings du jour.” The book is divided into ten lessons, with in-depth profiles of people who reinvented themselves in a new career, together with concrete advice and exercises to put each law into action. Here are three laws from Mitchell’s book that are part of the exploration stage.

Law 1: It Starts With A Vision For Your Life

Mitchell explains that you need a clear image of your desired life first, and you can then calculate backward to design career options that will deliver that life:

“Career reinvention starts with a vision for your life because careers and jobs are delivery devices for the kind of life you hope to lead. They are a conduit for becoming the kind of person you want to be, experiencing the things you want to experience, having the things you want to have. Happiness in your career is directly tied to how much your work brings richness to your world. In order to be truly happy, your career must serve your life, and not vice versa.”

I like how Stephen Covey describes the power of vision in his book, First Things First:

“Vision is the best manifestation of creative imagination and the primary motivation of human action. It’s the ability to see beyond our present reality, to create, to invent what does not yet exist, to become what we not yet are. It gives us the capacity to live out of our imagination instead of our memory.”

Creating a vision for your life is a critical step on the path to purpose. A fun online tool for creating your vision is Pinterest, a website that lets you create multiple virtual mood boards and “pin” images to them from across the Web. My vision took shape on a large white poster board from Target (after a particularly bad encounter with “Dragon Lady” at work). On side one, I wrote the elements of the kind of life I wanted to lead. On side two, I wrote action steps to take in the coming months to move toward that life. It sounds simple, but its effects have been profound. On my worst days, I tap into the vision I created and it pulls me forward.

Mitchell provides exercises to brainstorm career ideas and get your creative juices flowing, such as focusing on “flow” activities (things that make you lose track of time), “inexhaustible interests” (things that spark an unending sense of curiosity), and tasks you gravitate toward in your current career. She also emphasizes the importance of allowing yourself to change and go after your passion and purpose, giving yourself “a permission slip to pursue a different and bigger life.”

Law 3: Progress Begins When You Stop Making Excuses

People generate an endless stream of excuses to avoid the effort and risk of pursuing their life’s purpose:

“It’s simple, really. Excuses are a manifestation of fear. There are few guarantees in your reinvention journey, but this I promise you: You will come face-to-face on a regular basis with fear. …. Fear is a healthy sign that you are venturing beyond your comfort zone, which you must do repeatedly if you want to move closer to your goal.”

“Many people never muster the courage to begin a career reinvention, so deep is their terror. They continually reach for the bottle of excuses to dull the pain of their fear. But until you master this Law and break yourself of the excuse habit, progress will be intermittent, and lasting change will be elusive. The moment you move past your fear and give up your excuses, you leave the shadows of your life and swim into an ocean of opportunity.”

Mitchell supplies strategies and exercises to help us release our excuses, to feel the fear and pursue our reinvention anyway. The “excuses” I had to release center around the false belief that I should focus on provision (i.e., money) rather than purpose. It’s taken me a few years to realize that an expensive home and closets full of purses and shoes don’t mean much without a purpose-driven life..

Law 4: What You Seek Is On The Road Less Traveled

Once you’ve created your life’s vision, faced your fears and stopped making excuses, you’re ready to choose which paths to explore. As Mitchell emphasizes, it’s critical to think outside of the box and try something new, your own road less traveled:

“The old thinking was that the well-traveled path had to be ‘right’ and the alternatives were necessarily riskier. This no longer holds true. In practice, what you’ll usually find on the road less traveled is simply more opportunity. The less obvious path – in addition to possibly being a better fit – forces you to think outside the box and therefore generate new ideas.”

“Force yourself to look at and think about other careers that are far outside the ‘safe’ confines of your current box. Imagine what you might do elsewhere, in other environments or scenarios, just for the fun of it. If you’re in finance, visualize yourself running a wellness center; if you’re a lawyer, imagine yourself as a chef. The point of this mental exercise is to force you to look at connections in a new way, stimulating your creativity.”

Mitchell offers suggestions for identifying and exploring unobvious career options, and for guarding against voices (inside your own head or from friends and family) that want you to stay inside the box where they’re comfortable seeing you. For me, journaling has been another way to contemplate unique career options and to deal with the voices that whisper, “Stay in the box. It’s safe in there.” The more time we spend beyond our usual boundaries, the more new opportunities will open up to us.

Exploring Entrepreneurship

If your passion and purpose might involve having your own business, your exploration should also include The Entrepreneur Equation, by Carol Roth. This book lives up to its promises to help readers:

  • Understand what’s truly involved in running a business.
  • Define what a business is (as well as a “jobbie” and “job-business”) and the risks and benefits of each.
  • Evaluate your motivations behind your drive to start a business.
  • Assess if now is the right time to think about starting a business based on your finances, experience, obligations and other circumstances.
  • Gauge if your personality is well-suited for business ownership.
  • Measure potential risks and rewards of particular business opportunities and entrepreneurship in general.
  • Decide, based on these factors, if you should move forward with entrepreneurship or pursue a different possibility.

The Entrepreneur Equation and The Ten Laws of Career Reinvention have proven to be invaluable tools in the exploration phase of my career reinvention, and I hope they can serve that role for you as well. In Part 3 of Path to Purpose, we’ll move forward from inspiration and exploration to the execution stage of living life on purpose.

A New Beginning, & Another Beginning’s End

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There’s a line in the song “Closing Time” that goes, “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” For me, my “other beginning’s end” is leaving my home to its new buyers this week. I’m stealing a “random acts of rainbow” idea from my friend Susan (who also recently moved) by leaving a bottle of champagne and a “welcome” card for the new owners in the fridge.

The beginning’s end of selling my place opens the door for the new beginning of pursuing my application for the Peace Corps. Today, I had my first interview with my Peace Corps recruiter. The discussion ranged from whether I’d go to a country where I had to wear a burqa (that would be very, very, very, very, very H-A-R-D for me, but I promised myself to be open to ANYTHING), to describing a time when I disagreed with how something was done but had to do it anyway (I went back to the “old skool” days when I, a mere girl, was unqualified to be an altar boy).

The interview went past the allotted 90 minutes and, at the end, my recruiter nominated me for a university teaching position in Asia. It will be several months yet before I know if the nomination leads to an actual offer and, if so, what country I’ll be heading to. (Please no burqas, please no burqas, please no burqas.) For now, it’s closing time, time for me to go out to the places where I will be from, and to leave a bubbly and random act of rainbow in my wake.

Lost and Found

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This week, as I sort through and pack up my belongings to move to a smaller place, two things are happening: (1) I’m shedding boxes and bags full of stuff that’s no longer me (why in the world did I accumulate so many things relating to shoes??); and (2) I’m finding old beloved things that I had forgotten all about (so THAT’S where I put the watch my dad got when he retired!), and I’m bringing them back into my life. I’ve also been following T.D. Jakes’ advice to “move into a new room” that makes me “dream again, think again, read again, learn again, a room with people who make deposits and not just withdrawals in your life.” Part of moving into that new room is doing this blog. I’ve encountered some very kind and helpful people in this new room, including Kate MacNicol, who recently reminded me that I should be reading Writer’s Digest.

Writer’s Digest used to be a regular part of my life when I was working on my Masters in Editing and Publishing at the University of Cincinnati, back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth. (OK, there were no dinosaurs, but there were no iPhones or Kindles either.) I lost that part of me when I went to law school, like a cozy sweater I put in a storage box and lost track of. By directing me back to Writer’s Digest, Kate helped me remember how much I enjoyed focusing on the writing profession before I got sucked into the black hole of lawyerdom. Finding that part of me again feels pretty wonderful. So thanks, Kate, for being a rainbow in my moving clouds this week!

If you’re also in the midst of moving into a new room, keep at it! Your efforts will pay off if, like T.D. Jakes advises, you take baby steps, wait for the payback, and have courage to take risks. And if you see a chance to help someone who’s moving into the room where you already reside (like Kate did for me this week), seize the opportunity to be a rainbow in their clouds….

Path to Purpose Part 1: Inspiration

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Finding and fulfilling your purpose — some might call it dharma — is what life is all about. Yet many people never find the path to purpose, or they get lost along the way, sidetracked by other things, or frozen in place by fear. This is part one of a three-part series, inspired by my dad, about the people and resources I’ve found to be excellent companions to get and keep you on the path to purpose. Part 1 is inspiration, followed by exploration, and finally execution.

As a German-Polish, recovering-Catholic Midwestian, I never expected an evangelistic southern preacher to inspire me to do the hard work necessary to fulfill my purpose in life. I basically equated the phrase “evangelical preacher” with Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, not exactly inspirational. And yet, that’s exactly what T.D. Jakes did through his appearances on Oprah Winfrey’s Life Class and Next Chapter, and his book called Reposition Yourself: Living Life Without Limits.

T.D. Jakes on Life Class

Jakes is pastor of The Potter’s House, a “mega church” in Dallas, Texas. While his talks are based on Bible stories, his messages resonate with all human beings, regardless of religious beliefs. Everyone will take something different away from listening to him speak. Here are the valuable messages I gained from listening to Jakes on Life Class:

  • If you’re not living your life on purpose, you’re just wasting time. (Guilty as charged.)
  • Passion and purpose are partners. (I hadn’t felt either as a driver in my life for quite some time.)
  • There’s nothing worse than working in an area where you have no passion, even if you have talent in that area. Talent and passion/purpose are not the same things. (Aha! I have talent for my current job, but no passion.)
  • If you’re the person in the room that everyone goes to for answers, it’s time to move into a new room! Go into a room that makes you dream again, think again, read again, learn again,  a room with people who make deposits and not just withdrawals in your life. (Definitely time for me to move into a new room.)
  • Move into the territory where you have passion, even if you’re not sure exactly what you want to do there. Do something you’ve never done before. Put yourself in an environment that’s conducive to where you want to go. (This is what I’ve started doing, and I can’t tell you how good and right it feels, like being born again.)
  • You may need to take baby steps, and wait for the payback. Don’t be impatient. (Still working on this one. Patience isn’t my strong suit.)
  • To live on purpose, you have to fully invest, and have courage to take risks. (So true!  Without courage to change, we can be stuck in the dreadful no-passion zone for life.)

Jakes on Repositioning Yourself

After watching Jakes on Life Class, I read his book called Reposition Yourself. One of the stories he writes about is that of  Jesus instructing Peter – after a long, hard and unsuccessful night of fishing – to go into more dangerous, deeper waters and try again. If my Catholic priest would’ve explained Bible stories like this, I would’ve gone to church every day and twice on Sundays:

“It’s interesting that Jesus tells Peter to ‘put out into deep water’ as if perhaps he has been casting in the shallows. Sometimes it’s easy for us to stay in the safety of shallow water, splashing and casting, wading and wandering around, without ever risking deeper water. We stay in our current position rather than asking for a promotion or applying elsewhere. We resign ourselves to our present relationship even after it’s clear to both parties that it’s going nowhere. The shallow water feels so much safer – we can both see and touch the bottom of the pool. But this apparent security also imposes limitations and keeps us moored in the safe harbor. Just as in Peter’s case, we often have to discover the hard way that the deeper water holds the fish!”

As Jakes explains, to get out into the deeper water and find the fish, you need the right crew on your boat:

“I challenge you to begin to design an environment that is conducive to where you are going. Most of us are stuck because we live in an environment that is based on where we have been. We may even cling to places from the past and ‘retro’ relationships that retard our progress. A healthy environment must include people who will support and encourage you, challenge and stimulate you. …. Do you have the right people around you for where you are going? Identify those who are navigationally right for you and build those relationships.”

Even if you’re monetarily successful, you can’t let that hold you back from going into the deep waters to pursue your purpose:

“Are you willing to humble yourself and do what’s required to attain your goals of success in all areas of your life? Will you allow yourself to act like a kid again, to think outside the box and to go beyond the socially acceptable behavior for someone of your stature? Too often we allow our success in life to hem us in and create a new set of limitations that really aren’t much different from the old ones, only with more expensive taste! We think that just because we can afford to wear an Armani suit and drive a Mercedes that we no longer need to look ahead and see where we need to be next. …. What does it matter what you have to show for your success if who you truly were meant to be remains hidden?”

Jakes’ words inspired me to start living my life on purpose, to take risks, and to move into a “new room” that’s conducive to where I want to go. If you’ve been casting in the shallows like me (and Peter) and need some inspiration to go into the deep waters, Jakes can help take you there, too.

Rainbows of the Week: Give Peace a Chance

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This week I completed my application for the Peace Corps. Yes, the Peace Corps. And no, I’m not crazy. It may not be the typical career path to transition from corporate lawyer to English teacher in South America, Africa or wherever they send me. But for reasons that make perfect sense to me — and it’s what we think of ourselves that really matters, after all — it’s a solid step forward on the path of pursuing my highest and best purpose in life.

I couldn’t have done this without the people who agreed to provide my recommendations: my current boss, my supervisor at Open Books (where I volunteer), and a good friend who’s a lawyer in the same industry as me, and who – I discovered when I asked her to provide a recommendation – is also considering applying for the Peace Corps! And I wouldn’t have done it without the information and inspiration gleaned from people who are currently serving in the Peace Corps and blogging about their experience, including the guy in Oro Ombo, the couple in Ecuador, and the woman in Lesotho.

My heartfelt thanks goes out to all of these people. The next stage is the screening process, which takes about a year to complete before I know where (hopefully) I’ll be assigned as a Peace Corps volunteer. So I’ll be around for a while yet.

My Peace Corps assignment for tonight: review and complete the “romantic involvement questionnaire.” I’m sure that’s just the first of many new and interesting Peace Corps tasks that I’ve never been asked to do in my career as a lawyer….

Connect to Source Part 1: Meditation

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Shortly after turning 40, I visited my brother Gary at his home in Tucson, Arizona. A retired homicide detective turned personal trainer, Gary has served as a sort of “life coach” for me, giving me nuggets of advice at critical points in my life. During one of our hikes in the mountains surrounding Tucson, I asked Gary what he thought I needed to improve about myself. He said I should work on my spirituality.

After having focused for years on law school and then representing Wall Street clients (the infamous one percent), I knew he was right. Gary’s comment started me on a journey to find ways to connect to the higher power (what some might call God) and my inner wisdom. I think of these things collectively as “the Source.”

This is the first of a three-part series about practices that have helped me “Connect to Source”, starting with inactive (meditation), to more active (journaling), to a melding of the mind and body (Iyengar yoga). Cultivating these practices has been transformative: it has given me a much greater degree of calmness of mind, self-understanding, clarity on life’s purpose and direction, compassion, and better psychological and physical health. And we all need those things to make it in today’s stressful world!

The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler says that: “In our spiritual journey, it’s important for each of us to decide whether a particular practice is appropriate for us. Sometimes a practice will not appeal to us initially, and before it can be effective, we need to understand it better.” I hope this series will help those who are looking to connect to Source find and better understand a practice or two that may work for them.

Why Meditation?

It may seem like a trendy, “new age” thing, but the practice of meditation is ancient. I think people are turning to meditation in droves these days because of the overload of information and thoughts bombarding us from all of today’s media and technology, which invoke stress or the “fight or flight” response. We all need a few moments each day to turn off the laptop, iPhone and Blackberry and have some “quiet time” to destress and reconnect to our true selves.

And that is what meditation provides. During meditation, your body shifts into a state of restful awareness, which is a counterbalance to the “fight or flight” response. You experience a decreased heart rate, reduced stress hormones, quiet breathing and strengthened immunity. When you regularly activate restful awareness through meditation, you experience these and other physical and psychological benefits.

Productive Meditation

Ultimately, as explained in The Art of Happiness At Work, your meditation practice will benefit not only you but all of the people in your life:

“Genuine progress occurs when the individual not only sees some results in achieving higher levels of meditative states but also when their meditation has at least some influence on how they interact with others, some impact from that meditation in their daily life—more patience, less irritation, more compassion. That’s productive meditation. Something that can bring benefit to others in some way.”

Primordial Sounds And Other Mantras

My meditation practice began at a “Perfect Health” week at the Chopra Center near San Diego, which was a wonderful and memorable experience. The Chopra Center gives instruction in primordial sound meditation, a technique rooted in the Vedic tradition of India. A primordial sound is a type of mantra consisting of three sounds or vibrations, the first being “Om”, the third being “Namah”, and the second being one of 100 primordial sounds based on the time and place of your birth. A primordial sound mantra might be, for example, Om Bijah Namah.

These words have no particular meaning and are used as a tool to interrupt the flow of meaningful thoughts. Silently repeating your mantra in meditation helps you slip into the space between your thoughts, sometimes referred to as “the gap”, and expand to quieter, more abstract levels of the mind. If you don’t have a primordial sound mantra, you could just as easily use Om Mani Padme Hum (a mantra commonly used by Tibetan Buddhists to invoke compassion).

What If I Can’t Get My Mind To Be Quiet?

A common misperception about meditation is that you should be in “the gap” the entire time. But meditation isn’t about trying to force your mind to be quiet. It’s an effortless, non-judgmental process to rediscover the quietness that’s already there, behind our internal dialogue that keeps our mind in a state of turbulence.

Many thoughts arise during meditation, and your mind drifts and wanders. Just observe this happening and return to your mantra. The instructors at the Chopra Center assured us that even Deepak’s mind wonders during meditation, from what he’s going to say on his next appearance with Oprah to the topic of his next book. Then he gently returns to his mantra. For me, the few moments of silent spaces between my thoughts during meditation are precious glimpses of inner quietness and expanded awareness. I think of them as the time when I get quiet and let God speak to me, which is a more pure form of “prayer” than telling God what I want.

No Rules, Just Guidelines

There are no “rules” to meditating, but here are some guidelines to help you get started:

  • It’s generally better to meditation sitting up, since lying down is associated with sleep.
  • It’s best to close your eyes, since keeping our eyes open draws our attention outward.
  • The best times to meditate are first thing in the morning, before breakfast, and late afternoon or early evening. At the Chopra Center, these two times were memorably described to us as “RPM” (rise, pee, meditate), and “RAD” (right after dinner).
  • Try to meditate for 30 minutes. You may need to start with 10 or 15 minutes, and work your way up to 30. Meditate for whatever time you have.

You can think about it, talk about it, and read about it, but unless you do it, you won’t experience the benefits of meditation. So whether it’s RPM or RAD, get started  (or recommit to) your meditation practice today.

Rainbow of the Week: Keep Showing Up, No Matter What

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I love doing this blog and writing, which is why I’m writing this post at 5 AM when I had planned to be running. But I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever get to the point where I can have writing – which is my passion – as a full-time gig. I was having one of those moments of nagging doubts when I read a post in Kristen Lamb’s Blog that gave me just the kick in the pants that I needed. Kristen worked in sales before transitioning into a career as an author, freelance editor and speaker.

This is what Kristen wrote that I needed very much to hear:

“There is no easy way to success in what we do. Whether we traditionally publish or indie or self-publish, there are NO shortcuts. Publishing success is a lot of work. Those who will succeed are the ones who can do this writing thing day, after day, after day, after day, who can keep blogging and tweeting and writing books and more books and more books even when it looks like nothing is happening. I have been blogging for three and a half years and have almost 800,000 words invested into my career. But I keep showing up, and keep showing up, no matter what.

We have to have endurance to be successful at writing. Whether you listen to Barry Eisler, Joe Konrath, Bob Mayer, Amanda Hocking, H.P. Mallory, James Rollins or Sandra Brown, they will all tell you the same story. Success took work, years of it.”

Hard work. Persistence. Patience. Thank you, Kristen, for reminding me that those are necessary ingredients in the recipe of dream fulfillment. That’s true whether your dream is to be a writer, to lose ten pounds, or to find a new job. We may fantasize about winning the lottery, but (a) you’re about 100 times more likely to die of a flesh-eating bacteria than you are to win the lottery, and (b) lottery winners have some of the most tragic stories you’ll ever hear. If you really want to live your dream, keep showing up for it, and keep showing up for it, no matter what!