If you've been following some of my points on under- and overachievers, you may want to get my newsletter that goes with the new seminar series I'm doing later this summer on the Secret Rules of Career Success.
To get more information, send me an email to manasclerk atSign gmail dot com and I'll forward you the link.
Yes, there really are rules that people don't talk about.
Have you figured it out yet? There are things that I haven't said, of course. Your job is bad for you not just because it's not at the right level. It's also not using the right language of achievement. You haven't heard this yet, because we have needed to spend some time thinking about work levels.
And Flow. Do you remember when you last had that thrilling experience, to lose yourself in the work, to be beyond mastery, to feel the walls of your perception fall away? Somewhat akin to the alpha states achieved by some in Pentecostal worship services and raves.
When's the last time your work energized you rather than chewed you up?
But not all of us have options about work. But here's some secrets for you that others won't tell you.
The new church had a meeting to move forward in our start-up. There are a lot of issues that need more frank airing and dealing with (mostly it has to do with money and what having a functioning church would probably require, realistically). It seems obvious to me that we are not going to be an "outreach" church or "seeker sensitive". We're moving towards "teaching church". If you are going to be a teaching church, you will not be focusing on evangelism.
And that statement needs some unpacking.
You see, there are some things that any small religious organization that needs to add to its numbers must do. Spiritual training, developing its people, choosing certain values against other ones, specifying group boundaries, evangelizing, marketing the ideas, keeping the members focused, etc.
I'm in the midst of cleaning up the mess I've made of my writings (and doing a lot of necessary cleaning).
But next up: a big set of "Help! I'm An Adult Underachiever!"
And I promise real answers, not just platitudes.
Michael Bates, in a recent email, suggested that I take a look at what Julie R. Neidlinger, who besides having a fun last name, recently discussed her total failure at Ken Christian's "adult underachiever test".
(I should note that I have no affiliation or relation with Neidlinger or Christian, but I have spent a couple of enjoyable evenings talking with Bates when I've gone to Tulsa to visit the in-laws.)
I know why Michael thought I would be interested: I spend a great deal of my time dealing with high potentials and considering their plight. I would have to say that my definition of "high potential" and Christian's are probably wildly divergent. Mine are based on a measurable ability to do a particular level of work. Or, if you'd like, on someone's ability to be your boss. The "real boss theory" is based on my reading of Elliott Jaques and his friends, even those he would violently disagree with (such as Luc Hoebeke). I'm not sure what Christian's definition is based on.
To a point these things are true. But to a point they are simply another level of bullshit, since they can be true for anyone depending on what you think. They will never be true of someone like Ken Lay, and perhaps that's another problem.
But let's address Neidlinger's points, since they interesting. Actually, she sounds interesting and her art has enough going on to keep you from being bored.
I recently had the strangest set of conversations. A friend of a friend (yes, really) connected me with a guy whom he thought might be Stratum 7. At 41. He was passing through my neck of the woods (at least while working during the week -- I work away from home): would I want to meet up with him closer to the airport? Sure, I said. This could be interesting.
He and I talked beforehand. I ran the usual interview process just to get my bearings. Wow. I mean, I can't be sure, but I'm pretty sure. It seemed clearly to be a set of Stratum Five "named" big ideas that were strung together in a series, where this movement led to that movement which brought about this, which led to what we have now. So this is how it moved.
He'd been assessed before, he said, and it's what led to his current employment situation abroad as a contractor in "a difficult country". The company had him assessed and upon finding out what the consultant thought, had him promptly dismissed on this or that. But it was, according to him, more or less because they were smart enough to know that they were never going to be successful if they kept him around.
"You can try as hard as you want to to keep your head down and not be noticed," he said, "but it sometimes they get a clue."
I was intrigued enough to say, sure, let's meet for dinner over at Giordano's: I'll pick you up at the motel.
Dunnno, friend. Maybe it's the years catching up with me. Or the madness that I seem to have descended into. Or I simply broke a stratum and suffer the consequences. But my thinking has become unhinged from time somehow.
And, yeah, it's maddening to have everything back up in the air.
A friend sent me an email saying that he was trying to find his authentic self. A Sisyphean challenge, since there is no authentic self to find. There are inauthentic selves, perhaps, ones that are not a fit at all to your behaviours but they are few. It's not just that I spent my formative years thinking like a Goffmanian, nor my recent rereading of Ludwig's How Do We Know Who We Are?: The Biography of the Self, although that has definitely played a part. He makes a compelling case that there is no authentic self, only the scripts that we tell ourselves. I think that Carol Dweck would agree, too: there is no determinism but only what we make.
Of course, personality does indeed play a part but not as heavy as we think. Rather, it tells us how we are going to frame things. I don't actually care about many people, at least people in general, so if you try to frame things using people as a reference point, you'll probably lose me. But I often act in caring ways because I value the idea of caring. So I can frame the action in the idea and still act in caring, loving ways. And even this is not determined.
