To say these past couple of weeks have been “busy” is a gross understatement of the whirlwind the month of January has been for me. But it’s been the good kind of busy. The busy that makes you feel like you’ve finally hit your stride in a long race, where you can no longer feel your legs but you know you’re sprinting as fast as you can. Yes, that sums up my first month of 2012 quite well—a marathon that I’ve also been sprinting. This blur of business meetings, new clients and planning events has made it unmistakably apparent that time is among our most valuable assets.
As a child, my mother instilled in me this same concept. She would tell me to “be a good steward of your time.” Back then, I found this terribly confusing because my name was Stephanie, not “Stewart” but now, not only do I understand the phrase, I understand its importance. We need to protect our time like we would any other item of great value because ultimately how we invest our time directly affects the lives we lead.
My time is of particularly high value to me because it’s my product, it’s what I sell. When I take on a new client and create a communications strategy for them, I am selling my time and my expertise (which also took more time to achieve). Unlike a bakery that sells cakes, I can’t go out and buy more time when the demand for my services exceeds my product supply. It is with this realization of my business model that I’ve recently become more protective of my time. Just as a business wouldn’t give away their tangible products for free, I can’t put my time into projects and activities that don’t earn something positive in return.
So how do I protect my time? It comes from learning to do one of the hardest things in the world—saying no. If we allow it to happen, our time can easily be taken away from us by unproductive activities and other people who are not respectful of our time’s value. In the past, it wasn’t uncommon for me to fill my week with meetings and commitments that didn’t result in future business for my firm or even a meaningful relationship—only a loss of time for which I can never make up. So now before I commit my time to anything, I ask myself “Will this bring me joy, fulfillment or money?” If I can’t answer yes to at least one of these, I don’t do it (It’s important to ask yourself all three categories, because time on the earth isn’t just for earning money, it’s for doing what brings you joy and what fulfills your emotional and physical needs. This encompasses hobbies, charity, time with loved ones and exercise).
Remaining a good steward of our time takes a conscious effort, but it’s necessary for productivity and ultimately for success. I’ll leave you with this final quote to consider from a man whose time and expertise was so valuable to us all. Steve Jobs once described the battle for time as it relates to success in this way, ““It comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much.”
Recently I used the term the “Chaos Bubble.” It happened during a conversation in which I was describing how some people whose time is in such high demand actually become immune to the whirlwind of chaos surrounding them. So to properly define this new concept, a Chaos Bubble occurs when the heavy demands of your work and hectic lifestyle create a protective layer to the outside world and insulate you from the chaos.
I’m of course basing this off of several people I have met who have the “luxury” of experiencing this Chaos Bubble phenomenon. These people are in such high demand that their email and voice mail are consistently filled to capacity. Not a single new message can be received. Their phone rings but almost always results in a missed call due to a dead phone battery or because they’re in and out of meetings all day. Their secretaries or personal assistants are the gatekeepers. If you need input or an approval, your best bet is to get the message to their #2 or risk it bouncing off this Chaos Bubble never to be seen, heard or so much as acknowledged.
To reach such a threshold where chaos becomes a protection and no longer a threat, first takes going through many uncomfortable, and at times unbearable, levels of chaos. It’s fairly comparable to being in the eye or a hurricane. Outside of this inner circle a fierce storm of mayhem is constantly brewing, but inside all you experience is an eerie silence and false sense of calm. To get inside this eye, you may spend years being whipped by the winds and swirled around to the point of not knowing which end is up, but once you make it to the inner circle, the chaos spins around you—not within you.
For the most part, chaos is an unwelcome and heavily avoided part of life. But when the dinging and ringing of emails, iPads, cell phones and calendar reminders reach a high enough volume, they have the ability to create a white noise that cancels out their sounds all together—leaving just you and your thoughts inside your own Chaos Bubble.
It seems as though we are moving toward an “Unhappy” trend. By this, I mean we seem to live in a day and age where it is more acceptable to be bored, tired and miserable than to be publicly happy and content.
I remember so often asking someone–a co-worker, a friend, the cashier at Starbucks–how they’re doing and getting the same response: Oh, hanging in there…Good, until my alarm went off this morning…Minus being at work? Great! And when it wasn’t a gripe or complaint, it was usually a generic and apathetic response like: Good, thanks…Oh, I’m okay…Doing well. For many of my friends who would give me such answers, I knew enough about their lives to know they had plenty of great things taking place that they could share and talk about. Instead, they chose to settle for a sarcastic or emotionless answer, but for what purpose? To make those that are less happy feel more comfortable?
What I’ve come to realize is that it’s hard to be publicly happy and not have it taken the wrong way. Too often genuine happiness is perceived as bragging, boasting or being fake. Sometimes it is even seen as offensive or intimidating to someone who isn’t as happy as you are.
I have a lot of things in my life for which I’m grateful and happy. I started my own business to pursue my passion, have many meaningful and fulfilling relationships and have a flexible schedule that allows me to travel as I please. Yes, life is good. But these tokens of happiness have to be earned each and every day with hard work, dedication and sacrifice. I’m not kidding–those motivational posters couldn’t have summarized it better. What’s disappointing is that even after all of that hard work to create my happiness, I often feel guilty when I go to share this happiness with others. I feel like it’s easier to gripe and complain about little things, even the weather, just to make myself more likable to those who don’t allow themselves to be as happy.
The “Unhappy” trend is one I look forward to seeing pass. We need to get back into the trend of not just supporting each others’ happiness, but working to preserve and grow it. It’s as simple as the next time today you’re asked how you’re doing–respond with a genuine and positive answer about something good in your life.
I know we all have at least one thing in our lives right now that we can be happy about. Even if it’s just the 5 free minutes you had to surf Word Press and find this blog!
Some of My Pieces of Happiness
My cat and companion, Pinot who keeps working from home interesting.
The flexibile work schedule that allows me to travel as I please.
My day begins with technology. The first sound I awake to in the morning is the ringing of my phone alarm which I immediately grab—but not just to shut it off. Instead, I proceed to check the weather and then my email all while still lying in bed. If I head for a run, I use the RunKeeper app on my phone to map my miles and track my pace along with my iPod to ensure there’s not a moment of silence or serenity from the time my feet hit the ground.
Before 8am I feel so connected to the world, but yet I haven’t had one single face-to-face interaction.
Let’s rewind this scenario and this time take away technology. I might wake up and have a cup of coffee with my boyfriend instead of checking my email. Without a phone or an iPod to keep me busy, I might choose to walk with a friend and catch up on each other’s life. Without the technological noise, I’m now available to engage a neighbor in a morning hello and actually get to know the special people who live right around me.
So what role does technology play in our lives? It’s certainly the Great Connector, but just like any other tool—it’s all about how you use it. I can use smart phones and social media to stay connected with people all over the world; for this reason, technology bridges the gap. But the moment I refuse to “disconnect” long enough to interact with the world right around me, technology instead begins to build a wall—a fortress, really.
At one point or another, we have all found ourselves in at least one of these scenarios: G-Chatting with a friend sitting two computers away. Sitting at a restaurant where everyone at the table is looking at their phone, texting. Thinking the person in the bathroom stall next to you is engaging you in conversation, when really they’re on their phone. Breaking up via phone call, email—maybe even by simply ending the relationship on Facebook. Asking someone for directions only to realize they have an iPod in and didn’t hear a word you said.
These are such trivial examples, but they’re signs that bigger problems are on the horizon. When did we become a society more comfortable Skyping with someone continents and oceans away, but too uncomfortable to talk to the person bagging our groceries?
Technology is one of the greatest tools we will ever possess, but it’s up to us to use it to build bridges not walls.
Before I officially took off the training wheels and launched Bennis Public Relations, Inc nearly two months ago, I found my mind often fantasizing about the free and flexible time I might have as my own boss. I could make weekly trips to the farmer’s market, eat lunch on a park bench by the river and become a regular at the city library. I could use the free WiFi from a trendy café and sip lattes while I clicked away on my laptop or take an afternoon cat nap after watching the Price is Right. While some of these visions were both dramatic and unnecessary, I’m disappointed to admit that two months later, my “new boss” hasn’t allowed me much more free time to pursue life’s little slices of happiness to exist all around me.
Harrisburg's McCormick River Front Library
I can’t blame this on my boss, or maybe I can since I am my boss, but in either case I’ve decided to take the opportunity to close my laptop more often and step out into the bustling and beautiful world that exists whether I make time for it or not.
The week before my North Carolina vacation I realized I needed some new beach reading materials and so I stepped inside the Dauphin County Library for the first time since I moved to Harrisburg in December of 2009. While I’m now a proud owner of a shiny red library card, I can’t help but feel a pang of regret for not having done this sooner. The library isn’t big, it’s just one of several branches that the county manages, but it still evoked the same rush of excitement that I felt as a child eying up the rows and rows of colorful treasurers—all for my taking. And so I limited myself to just 5 books which I never read or heard of before but will know intimately, page by page, in just a few weeks.
Now that I’ve experienced the joys (and sorrows) of being a functioning, taxpaying, member of society, I feel that it is my civil duty to make use of all of the free resources this affords me. The County Library is just one. I’ve started a list of all of the other things this area has to offer that I’ve never made time to take advantage of before. So here’s the bucket-list-in-progress that I hope to get through before 2012:
Buy my fresh produce from the Farm Show Complex’s Farmer’s Market
There are some things that can and will never be taught in the classroom. Maybe it’s because those topics are seen as too radical or have been flagged as a lawsuit risk, but truly these are the missing pieces of wisdom that leave many college grads as an incomplete puzzle with still much to figure out in the real world. In the spirit of Back-to-School, this will be a 5-part series exploring the top lessons I wish would have been included in my own college degree. It’s blunt and it’s honest, but it’s sure to be interesting.
Lesson five: Tardiness is Unacceptable
The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali, 1931
I see this saying everywhere, but it has really stayed with me—
“Opportunity doesn’t go away, it goes to someone else.”
Partially due to this very saying I’ve become a huge stickler for timeliness and I first and foremost apply these standards to myself. Through experiences, both good and bad, I know that not responding to an e-mail, or message of any form, within a reasonable time frame could lose me a potential business opportunity. Applied to
another situation—showing up late to an event not only displays lack of interest, but could cost me key networking opportunities. These facts of life are ones I had to learn on my own, outside the walls of a classroom. While I was in college, it seemed as though time was irrelevant and I don’t just mean by pulling all nighters or staying out ‘til the sun came up.
Far too often I had professors who accepted late papers without even challenging the student to provide a reason. These were the same professors that would let students saunter into class fifteen, twenty, sometimes even forty minutes late carrying lattes in their hand looking anything but rushed, disheveled or apologetic. They would walk right in front of the professor, mid-lecture, and disrupt the focus of the classroom and make us on-timers wonder why we even bothered setting our alarms if clearly there were no repercussions. So maybe this boils down to a matter of principle and respect—no matter what my underlying issue is with tardiness, I see it as worthy of deeper discussion.
I wish my college professors would have stressed the importance of timeliness, which of course goes hand-in-hand with time management. As students, we would have benefited from learning that boundaries exist and when someone who is in a position of power over us sets such a boundary, we are expected to comply. This would have taught us to be more respectful, responsible and better stewards of our time. Those college years are crucial ones. We are experimenting with both the freedoms and obligations that come with living on our own. While we may be seeking our independence, we still need reminders that we don’t make ALL of our own rules and opportunities are like college co-eds—if you don’t pay them quick enough attention, they’re on to the next person who will.
In case you missed a few “classes”, here’s some reading homework:
There are some things that can and will never be taught in the classroom. Maybe it’s because those topics are seen as too radical or have been flagged as a lawsuit risk, but truly these are the missing pieces of wisdom that leave many college grads as an incomplete puzzle with still much to figure out in the real world. In the spirit of Back-to-School, this will be a 5-part series exploring the top lessons I wish would have been included in my own college degree. It’s blunt and it’s honest, but it’s sure to be interesting.
Lesson four: It’s almost never about WHAT you know
I wish my professors would have just been honest with us. How successful you are (basically) boils down to two things—who you know and how well you sell yourself. Especially for all the readers out there with a degree in Public Relations, Communications or the similar, you know what I’m talking about. Our communication skills, social competence and depth and breadth of our relationships are directly related to our success.
Throughout my years spent at Penn State, my classrooms were filled with hoards of Advertising and Public Relations students all training to be “master communicators.” Some students aced every test and could recite any answer a teacher asked of them, but they often blended into the background as soon as they put their hand down. The students who did make the biggest impression weren’t the ones breaking the curve, necessarily. They were the ones who could pull together an impromptu presentation with ease and confidence and could make a classroom of 500+ students laugh and feel as if they knew them personally.
This ties-in closely with Lesson three: In the real world, you’re not expected to have every answer. I’m not talking about the students too lazy to open a book or the ones aiming for a career as a professional “bull shitter.” I’m talking about the students who did more than write the concept on a note card and memorize it; instead, they absorbed the concept and immediately applied it to their communications strategy of selling themselves. I’m sure everyone has a few of these friends in their lives. They catch on quick, have an impeccable ability to read a situation and make lasting impressions that build their networks almost effortlessly.
So maybe this isn’t something that can be entirely taught in a classroom, but these are skills we all possess to some degree. I wish my professors would have worked to help us refine these skills through “social challenges” such as walking into a business and asking for an impromptu meeting with the owner/marketing director to pitch an idea or even attend a party where you enter as a complete stranger and leave with at least 3 acquaintances—these type of challenges would have tested our core social abilities and helped to build skills we would have used immediately in any career.
I knew people who, even as 20-something year old college students, were too timid or insecure to call a restaurant for their business hours or walk into a party if they didn’t know at least 5 people. Anyone, no matter their field of study, could have benefited from at least one course emphasizing social intelligence to supplement the “what you know” with the “how well you can sell it.”
Even if you’re at the top of your class, you’ll be that much more valuable to a future employer if you have the social and communication skills to convey this knowledge.
In case you missed a few “classes”, here’s some reading homework:
There are some things that can and will never be taught in the classroom. Maybe it’s because those topics are seen as too radical or have been flagged as a lawsuit risk, but truly these are the missing pieces of wisdom that leave many college grads as an incomplete puzzle with still much to figure out in the real world. In the spirit of Back-to-School, this will be a 5-part series exploring the top lessons I wish would have been included in my own college degree. It’s blunt and it’s honest, but it’s sure to be interesting.
Lesson three: In the real world, you’re not expected to have every answer.
Pop quizzes and cumulative exams have taught us to panic at the thought of not knowing every answer. But this neither prepares us for reality nor sets realistic expectations. If you think you know everything, you’re going to learn nothing from life. Instead, I wish at least one of my professors would have tested us not on our ability to memorize answers but to handle questions we had no way of knowing the answer to in a professional and educated manner.
This would have been the ultimate test to our ability to survive the real world.
I have yet to make a pitch to a client where I haven’t been asked at least one question that I had to go home, gather more information and get back to them about. I feel like being able to openly admit when you don’t know the answer is both humanizing and demonstrating your thoroughness of getting an accurate answer rather than faking one just to look good. I’m not saying DON’T be knowledgeable in your field, but focus more of your efforts on being a genuine and approachable person who has a sincere desire to seek the answers they don’t know. This will win you more business and more respect than by being a know-it-all or rather—a “fake-it-all.”
In case you missed a few “classes”, here’s some reading homework:
There are some things that can and will never be taught in the classroom. Maybe it’s because those topics are seen as too radical or have been flagged as a lawsuit risk, but truly these are the missing pieces of wisdom that leave many college grads as an incomplete puzzle with still much to figure out in the real world. In the spirit of Back-to-School, this will be a 5-part series exploring the top lessons I wish would have been included in my own college degree. It’s blunt and it’s honest, but it’s sure to be interesting.
It’s okay to NOT like everyone you work with.
Having provided the warning that this particular post is blunter than what I usually write, I’m just going to put it out there—Your job is to provide a product or a service, not to make friends. I feel like my professors forgot to mention the fact that unlike turning in a college paper, you can try your hardest and think you’re putting your best foot forward and people will still choose to not like you. It sure would have prepared me for a few jobs where, without reason, a colleague would be unbearable to work with. I struggled with the “why don’t they like me” questions and it truly became a work-hindering distraction.
If friendship develops among colleagues, which many of mine have, that’s a fabulous bonus, but it’s key to remember it’s neither necessary nor helpful to force a friendship that just isn’t there. If you find yourself in a situation where you cannot stand a co-worker it most certainly IS your job to be mature and respectful, but accept the fact that you won’t click with everyone and not everyone will or should like you. Sometimes the most efficient working relationships are the ones that stay at the office. You keep to the task at hand and have major incentive to complete it as quickly as possible. If you’re going to choose to let your differences divide you, open communication is essential. As soon as your differences hinder your ability or willingness to communicate, it becomes a roadblock to your work. Maturely confront the situation head on and refocus on your one, shared goal: getting the job done and getting it done well.
I suggest a required college class solely focused on office etiquette and how to handle those awkward and complicated work situations we will all inevitably encounter. Hey, I’d be more than happy to take my past experiences public and guest lecture if it means less grads will be blind-sided with this career road bump.
And now for one of my favorite compilations of office rivalry..
In case you missed a few “classes”, here’s some reading homework:
There are some things that can and will never be taught in the classroom. Maybe it’s because those topics are seen as too radical or have been flagged as a lawsuit risk, but truly these are the missing pieces of wisdom that leave many college grads as an incomplete puzzle with still much to figure out in the real world. In the spirit of Back-to-School, this will be a 5-part series exploring the top lessons I wish would have been included in my own college degree. It’s blunt and it’s honest, but it’s sure to be interesting.
Lesson One: Group projects can be completed alone.
There's no shame in being the 'Lone Ranger' if it's how you do your best work.
Group Projects –We all remember them and probably share similar horror stories for a variety of reasons. My own experiences are quite negative as well. I always felt forced into a group project where, for better or for worse, I would take over and do it all myself. And to be perfectly honest, I’m not blaming my group members as much as my dominating personality. I would have much appreciated a professor to extend the option of working alone. It wouldn’t have given me any extra credit or held my project to a special grading scale, but it would have given me the opportunity to find my entrepreneurial roots sooner. I would have more readily realized that what any 5-person group was doing, I had the capability of not only doing alone—but also the ability to create a better, more cohesive project overall rather than the slapped together, mismatched work of a group project handed-in in such a rush that the still-wet printer ink smears in the professors hands. I digress…
By making groups an option rather than a mandate, teachers could have taught us to find our true potential, challenge our work ethic and learn what working style best fits our individual personalities. Yes a large project may be big and scary when looked at as a whole, but a project of that scale has the potential to teach students time management and what may seem overwhelming and impossible for one person to complete really isn’t all that bad when broken down.
Don’t get me wrong, real work situations will require you to work in groups of all numbers and learning team work skills is crucial. What I’m suggesting is rather than those classes that ONLY allowed students to work as teams or in groups is to at least present the option to mix it up and try new working combinations. This would allow us to better grasp the scope of our capabilities sooner–and maybe this is so important to me because I believe they far exceed what we ever imagine possible.
To say these past couple of weeks have been “busy” is a gross understatement of the whirlwind the month of January has been for me. But it’s been the good kind of busy. The busy that makes you feel like you’ve finally hit your stride in a long race, where you can no longer feel your legs but you know you’re sprinting as fast as you can. Yes, that sums up my first month of 2012 quite well—a marathon that I’ve also been sprinting. This blur of business meetings, new clients and planning events has made it unmistakably apparent that time is among our most valuable assets.
