experimenting

October 22, 2014 by Christine

What I Got From Creating My Blog (and Why I’m Closing It Anyway)

It was a blast.

While, five years ago, I still had a traditional site here supporting a traditional consulting business, it felt like a liberation to go off and create a somewhat more contrarian offering called A Different Kind of Work.

But today, as I unveil the fundamental recreation of my core business here, I’m pulling the curtain down on it.

Look, it was a lot of fun and I got a heck of a lot from it:

I got some clients from it which, after all, was a core reason for creating it.

I made some great connections – either through the blog itself, or from its social media outposts.

It totally forced me to upskill myself in the geek technical skills department.

And the writing I did there, not only allowed me to produce some great pillar posts, it also enabled me to learn a whole lot about myself. As a coach. As a writer. As a person.

Kill your darlings

But here’s the thing…

I think there comes a point for many creations when they’re done.

I could plow on with it. I’ve tried to. ADKoW has been a darling of mine. But as Stephen King and others have said about writing, you have to know when to kill your darlings.

And I’m pretty through with it.

Plus, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about things at a deep level this year. And while so much of what I wrote on ADKoW was rule-breaking in it’s own way, it was all delivered in a kind of “tips and techniques” kind of way. And I no longer believe that the kind of approach cuts it any more.

That’s because I am starting to see that people and their businesses don’t need more tips. They are swamped with tips. Just look at the blog posts on any of the big business or personal development sites. There’s no end of suggestions on how to hack just about anything.

Consider too the way that most coaches and consulting companies work with their clients. There’s just an overwhelming mass of advice, information, tools and solutions out there.

What I’m starting more and more to get is that people come with the ability to solve their own problems. And that my job is increasingly is to help people see beyond the superficial. To dig deep. To understand their own fundamental psychology and indeed how everything actually works.

To take stuff OFF of people’s minds not add to it.

So that they can be more effortlessly themselves in whatever it is they’re doing.

Core business

But there was something about the essence of ADKoW that I don’t want to lose. I loved the freedom I felt it gave me to say what I wanted, without having to imagine that I needed to be careful of offending any corporate clients or bill payers.

I loved its ability to put stuff out there that was a little unorthodox.

There was – is – an audience for what’s different, edgy and contrarian in business. People often gave me the feedback about ADKoW that, in a world of noise and bollocks, it was refreshingly different.

So that’s not going to disappear. But what I have decided to do is channel that whole vibe through everything we do here.

Day to day

What that means is that, day to day we’re helping business people get clear about what they want to achieve and why they want to achieve it.

Then, helping them – basically – get out of their own way as they set about trying to deliver on their goals. With a clear mindset, and a good understanding about the real source of things like creativity, innovation, resourcefulness, and resilience, great performance becomes a lot less like hard work. And the results speak for themselves.

Feel free to read more about the specific service offerings that the business delivers by browsing through some of the pages on the site.

Honestly? It’s kind of what we’ve always done had we not been – for whatever reason – so apologetic about it.

Bigger picture

Underpinning all that we do we have a piece of emergent thinking which we’re calling Keeping It Real. It’s brand new and we imagine that we’ll use this philosophy as the foundation for a variety of forthcoming programs and workshops. You can see more about Keeping It Real here.

Emerging clarity

So, there’s a big creative shift going on here and, frankly, who knows what that will mean for websites or web presence in the future.

For now, however, what I’m clear about is that ADKoW has served its purpose and that we’ve reinvented things back here “mothership”.

And we’d love it if you’d come along with us for the ride as stuff develops.

So, be sure to give us your email address here and we’ll share content and news with you as we go along.

May 29, 2013 by Christine

5 Things You Should Know In Navigating Your Own Path

So you’re ready to turn away, if even a little, from who society wants you to be and to find your own path in life?

Good for you. I salute you.

But how?

Here are 5 things you should know:

There IS no formula

There’s no proscribed process.

Sure, the world is hungry for guidance and direction right now, and there’s a sea of gurus and experts with their own formulas on how to stand aside from the crowd.

And, while a lot of that advice might be useful, it can never give you the step-by-step to living your own life. Only you can discover that for yourself. And that’s an emergent, creative process.

But here’s a thing to consider:

You are already you.

There’s no becoming you at some point in the future once you’ve done whatever work on yourself.

You are already you.

So, listen to that inner wisdom and act on it. Don’t discount it, or screen it out. It knows. Put it out there through your behaviour and decisions, and let the process of life advise you along the way what’s working and what’s not.

It’s not logical

If you’re harnessing your own consciousness, you can’t use your albeit very good mind to figure out which actions or paths to take in life. There’s no strengths and weaknesses analysis required of this versus that. There are no weighted decisions to be made of one smart option versus another.

There’s no win-lose; succeed-fail. No if-then.

You are already loveable, secure, resourceful.

Trust that. Then watch to see what routes open up for themselves in you from that place. And take them.

It’s not about being attached to goals

Part of it not being logical, means it’s not goal oriented. It’s not planning out in advance everything you’ll ever do.

As it’s an emergent process, one of the things that loses its power, and indeed its strangle-hold over us is control.

Does that mean you should forget goals?

No.

Go ahead and express whatever vision you have and outcomes you’d like to see. But then let them go.

If you attach too much to goals, you’re in danger of behaving too much from a “head” place. Of trying too hard. Or forcing things.

Which in turn can drown out the wise voice in you.

Totally counter-productive.

So, have your big sense of purpose and direction by all means. But engage it in whatever emerges naturally for you. And let magic weave its own wand from there.

It’s not about “out-there”

There’s a lot of noise in our collective machinery at the moment. Email, Twitter, Facebook, TV, adverts… Lots of people and institutions vying for your attention and followership.

Navigating your own path means having a healthy skepticism towards all of it. Get selective about what you need to attend to and what you don’t.

Allow yourself periods of time when you’re just with yourself and able to hear your own inner signal.

By the way, that doesn’t require you to do formal meditation or anything structured. (My own favourite version of this is hanging out for an hour each morning in my favourite coffee shop.)

With space to think you might come up with things that are totally left-field for you. But let them marinate. If you listen, they may begin to feel not so far-fetched.

It’s not about trusting

Don’t make navigating your own path a heavy affair by loading yourself with the requirement that you trust this or that.

There’s no requirement that you trust anything.

Test things. Stay in action. Experiment.

Play.

If you’ve removed the need for things to succeed or fail, you’ve removed any requirement for you to judge yourself.

So, it all becomes factual. Information. This works, this doesn’t.

Which in the moment informs what to do next and where to next to turn. Navigating your own path is an active pursuit. You’re in the driving seat. Or on the footpath. Or whatever journeying metaphor you want to use.

A lot of people say that living your own life isn’t easy. That it’s hard. I don’t know that I buy that. Maybe at one time, but not now.

It’s different for sure. It requires a different attitude and a different take on things.

But in my own experience, the more you allow yourself to hear your own wisdom and let that guide you, the easier life feels. No matter the consequences.

But what about you?

What can you share about what you’ve discovered as you’ve begun to navigate your own life path?

November 1, 2010 by Christine

The Zen Of Team Meetings: How To Keep Your Head When All Around Are Losing Theirs

Team meetings can be both fun and productive in healthy business environments. But too often they’re the setting for peacock strutting and bruised egos; hot air-filled games that only stress you out and add to your workload.

How do you keep a cool detachment in the middle of that?

Choose your mental state

Whether you think about it consciously or not, what you get from a meeting is what you expect. Imagine a scenario of attack and defend and that’s what will play out. But set up the positive intention that you are going to share your perspective and be heard, and it’s more likely you’ll achieve just that.

Take time before every meeting to set up your mental and physical state. Five internally-focused minutes at your desk, in the cafe, or even in the restroom will allow you to find a meditative place in yourself. Breathe into your belly to ground yourself. Harness your confidence and positivity, and lock them into your core. Hold yourself upright to embrace and align your own power. Walk into the meeting room calmly assertive, and you’re ready for Zen-like rock and roll.

Dispel unhelpful past experiences

Business provides the setting for the recreation of early-life injuries. If you were ever judged, criticized, bullied, belittled or unsupported as a kid, work, and team meetings in particular, can reconstellate these experiences. And how you feel about them. Oh, your emotions are very present, and they’re prompted by real stuff in the here-and-now. But a large part of what’s going on is more memory than reality.

To achieve a Zen-like state in meetings, become a detective on your own behalf, sniffing out the triggers that hook you into feeling less-than.

Remember you’re no longer in your family home, playground, or boarding school. You couldn’t choose your responses then, but you can now.

Break the psychic time-warp spell by holding together how you’re feeling on the one hand, with here-and-now reality on the other. Feel the paradox alive in yourself and know you can kick it. Live in the present. Find the grown-up, resourceful way of dealing with any game playing that provokes you.

To give you an idea of how-to, here are 3 specific instances where game-playing can catch you. And how you can harness your Zen in dealing with them.

Being attacked

So, you give a progress update, or you do a presentation, and before you know it the guns are out, blowing holes in your argument.

Historically you might have bowed under the pressure, or retaliated. Either way, you’ve never come out winning.

The Zen way is to use the calm confidence you stepped into ahead of the meeting to help you talk back powerfully.

Ask questions to reinforce that confidence and buy yourself thinking time:

“Help me understand what you mean.”
“Can you say more?”
“What specifically don’t you like?”
“Tell me how you’d rather see it working.”

Be empathic:

“You’re not totally bought in to this, are you?”
“I hear your concern.”
“So you think this won’t go down well with Customer Services?”

Be assertive:

“I chose to take this approach because…”
“All the data we’ve got suggests…”
“This was a synthesis of all the views I collated from you last time.”
“As the owner and subject matter expert on this, I strongly believe that this is the best way forward.”

Challenge any inconsistencies:

“Last time I brought this up, you supported it. Now you’re criticizing it. What is your position?”
“Outside of this meeting you told me that you wanted red, now you’re saying blue. Which am I to run with?”

Keep your voice tone level, and your pace even. Keep your body posture open and receptive.

Being talked over

The voices in team meetings like theirs to be heard often, meaning you can struggle to heard.

If they start talking before you’ve made your point, you must stay assertive and interrupt. “I hadn’t finished. What I wanted to say was…”

If they take your point and run off with it at a tangent, bring it back. “That’s interesting, however, my point was rather…”

Being ignored

If you’re being polite, waiting for a gap in the conversation to talk, you may never get it. Don’t wait to be invited. Just start talking. And, if there are peacocks that may mean pushing yourself into the discussion and speaking before they’ve finished.

Being dumped with all the action steps

If you find yourself becoming the pack-pony for stuff to do offline of the meeting, challenge it. “I can do this for the next meeting, but I won’t be able to do that too. Which is the priority?”

Remember that Zen is all about self-mastery, something that’s the subject of continual practice and improvement. Instead of seeing team meetings as a drudge, see them as another opportunity to learn about yourself and grow. Another opportunity to polish and perfect. Try some of these things out and see what works and what doesn’t. Don’t think win or lose. While the other players may think the game exists on the outside, understand that for you there is only the internal game, and that your opponent is always only yourself.

So, the next time you look at your diary and see a shitty meeting coming up, decide to look forward to it and bring it on!
photo credit: moonjazz

October 8, 2010 by Christine

Writing Your Own Story Beyond The Corporation

Quit your corporate job for whatever reason and it’s not just the security of the pay check you lose.

Sure, there’s the kudos of your employer’s brand name, and your status conferring job title. But more than that there’s the loss of the whole story of who you are, the role you play and the script you enact with others.

Turn up at dinner with city sorts and introduce yourself as an Associate Lawyer for a Magic Circle firm, or a Product Manager for a Dow Jones company, and people think you’re someone. You’re character fits their map of what’s important in the world.

Go off in pursuit of your new age retreat centre, your virtual cup cake business, or your social media enterprise. Or just explain that you were made redundant in the last round of cuts, and see how people react then.

Will they get it? Will they understand what’s driving you? Will they see your value?

And do you care?

It’s a tough one, because we understand ourselves so much by the way we see ourselves reflected – or not – in other people.

But dealing with disapproval, or just downright indifference, is a vital rite of passage if we are to healthily leave the corporate theater.

My own story talks to this.

Until eleven years ago, I had big jobs for big firms. I wore the status I believed they conferred like badges of office. I drew strength and confidence from them.

I could say, I’m Christine Livingston, Human Resources Director, American Express, and people would be impressed.

I could turn up in a sharp suit and present tough messages to a Board of Directors as a Managing Consultant with Gemini Consulting and know I’d be listened to.

Leaving those personas behind to become a freelance HR/OD consultant, as I then did, and who was I? How would I distinguish myself from the thousands of others saying they did the same thing?

And was I crazy to imagine it was possible?

What made these questions even more difficult to wrestle with was other people’s reactions.

When I resigned from Gemini, my boss took me to lunch and told me I couldn’t leave.

“You’re star quality,” he said. “You’re going to go to the top of this firm. Hang in.”

When I stood my ground, he then began to question my mental health, and offered me a paid sabbatical while I sorted myself out.

Then there was the headhunter. A moment of doubt saw me, while still under notice, interview for a top Training and Development job. It was huge. I’d conned myself into imagining I might be able to have the kind of work life balance I wanted and pursue my professional interests through it. But starting to hear about the international travel requirements brought me back to reality. When I told the headhunter that I was withdrawing from the selection process and why, he was dumbfounded.

“You’re quitting a stellar corporate HR career to freelance? But why? You have no commitments; no family. Are you crazy?”

Then there was a former colleague. It wasn’t an obvious put down, but the offer of contract work, doing much more junior stuff than I was capable, delivered an ever so subtle insult.

All these things and more made me doubt myself profoundly. Maybe I was ill, crazy, less capable than I’d dared to imagine?

This was all so unexpected, confusing and immobilizing.

The breakthrough came when I began to understand that these people were voicing my own worst fears. Sure, they were expressing their opinion. But by voicing what a little part of me was secretly believing, their words cut deeply.

The moment I dared to confront my own concerns was the moment I could answer them. I owned that indeed I’d never been more clear about anything in my life; that if forgoing top jobs in order to create the space for life and relationships meant I was crazy, then crazy was good; that I was able and talented, corporation or not, and was going to own my level of ability without need of a job grading system.

My story still unfolds, but I’ll never regret choosing to write a new script. What’s holding you back from rewriting yours?
photo credit: roland