You Have Not Because You Ask Not

This is a phrase that I’ve heard frequently in my life. Sometimes posed as that, other times as ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find. Either way, they both carry the same meaning. You have to go after it or you won’t get it.

This seems like such a simple phrase but, it wasn’t until recently that I finally got it, that it finally clicked.

No, this doesn’t mean that you will always get what you ask for or that you will have something simply because you asked for it. It just means that you don’t really know what the answer is going to be until you ask.

Take this for example.

I am currently producing a webseries but I ran into some issues when I realized that the premise of one of the episodes would probably be a copyright issue that could blow up in my face later. Now I could have just said, forget it, and thrown out the episode, but instead, I decided to ask.

I contacted the company and asked them for permission to use their product in my webseries. And they said yes! Not only that but they wanted to hear more about the webseries and how they could help.

Now that answer could have gone the other way, I could have heard no, and had to toss out the episode. BUT it was better for them to tell me no, than for me to tell myself no, not really knowing the answer.

That’s the thing about “You have not because you ask not”, you may not have it simply because you haven’t asked. Sure you might have been dropping hints, or hoping for a certain outcome, or thought that whatever it is you wanted was just not a possibility.

Did you ask though? If you didn’t ask then how do you know? The worst you can hear is no, but hearing no is better telling yourself no or just not knowing.

Is there something out there you’ve wanted and haven’t asked for? Then ask, and see what happens.

Image courtesy of Master isolated images at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Trust the Process

Ever have a moment in your life when you feel like you are being stretched thin? Where it seems like you have so much to do that you can barely take a moment to breathe? These past two weeks have been like that for me.

My hours at work have been all over the place, I’m producing a webseries that, honestly, is going really well except for one slightly big problem that seems to keep throwing things in my face, and I think there may be something wrong with my car.

I feel like if I’m not working on one thing then I am working on the other and I am just stressing myself out  with worry and thinking I’m not doing enough.

So I stopped.

For the past two days I’ve cleared my mind and stopped thinking about those problems and focused on other things I needed to do like cut the grass and go grocery shopping. I even watched a movie on Netflix while eating my dinner.

Of course I continue to hear that nagging voice in the back of my head telling me that I am wasting time and need to do more, but sometimes you just need to do what you can and trust the process. No, things won’t always come easily, but know when you’ve done all you can and when you need to take a break.

Today is a much needed break and tomorrow I hit the grind.

Myers Briggs: The Scarily Accurate Personality Test

Back when I was in high school I took a career development class in which we had to take the Myers Briggs personality test to determine our career aptitude. Even at that point I had a pretty good grasp of where I fit and what career I was going after, but it was still good to have further insight and affirmation.

It has been a while since then and my life has taken a few unexpected turns. It’s funny, you always have this vision of your life and how it will end up but it never really seems to turn out that way.

Currently I am taking a Life Coach certification course and reading books on that subject and one of the things that was recommended was, of course, the Myers Briggs test. Different stages in your life can give you a different answer each time you take the test.

When you take the test you answer a series of questions and the results determine your personality type. Then afterwards you are given a brief description of what your exact type is like.

The test is broken down into four areas:

• Extroverted (E) v. Introverted (I)
• Intuitive (N) v. Observant (S)
• Thinking (T) v. Feeling (F)
• Judging (J) v. Prospecting (P)

The very first time I took the test I was INTJ, this time I am INTP. As for the personality profile… it was weirdly accurate, even on the things I don’t like to admit to myself.

What was great about the site that I was on was that at the bottom of the personality summary there were countless comments all from people with the same personality type. Each one echoed my own thoughts, one even said “It’s like having your brain on a page,” which is exactly what it felt like.

I encourage you to take the test and find out more about yourself. Who knows it may help you discover something you didn’t realize or just let you know that someone else out there is just as weird and awesome as you are.

This is where I took the test and yes it is free: http://www.16personalities.com/

Well Meaning

Along your path to your dreams you will meet (or be related to) some well-meaning people who just don’t understand what you are trying to achieve. People who will only see your struggles and not your dreams. And you will try to explain to them what you are trying to do and they just won’t get it.

They will keep throwing at you what the “world” says to do, you know the normal things. They try to tell you that what you are doing isn’t how it works. They say that you are supposed to get a good paying job, where you work a set hours per week, with a set paycheck amount, then you work there for years, steadily putting money away, until you retire and collect your pension/social security.

That way of thinking is fine, but you don’t want fine, you want extraordinary. You want the life that they just can’t seem to grasp. Every setback is another opportunity to say that you are doing it wrong. Every struggle causes them to look at you with pity.

Until… you succeed.

Then suddenly their tune changes. Then they sing your praises or they criticize you, wondering what you did to get what you got. But don’t try to explain it to them, if they didn’t get it when you were trying to do it then they won’t get it when you’ve done it.

Yes, these people in your life mean well but sometimes you’ve got tune them out and continue to move to that beat in your head.

Living in the Now

It’s not about what you did in the past it’s about what you are going to do now. 

Can you think of something you regret? Something so big that you think that if that incident turned out differently than your life would have been better off? Did something immediately come to mind?

Ever talk to someone and all they can talk about is the past? You try to have a conversation with them about what is going on now but they only ever want to talk about what happened last month or year ago, always reminiscing. Or the person who always brings up that one bad moment in their life and they have recited it so much that you can repeat it along with them.

Are you that person?

I love talking to people who are forward thinkers. Sure they can tell you about their past and what they did yesterday but they always seem to link it with what they are going to do tomorrow or in the future. They are constantly full hope and possibility and just talking to them gets you looking at your own life and possibilities.

So if forward thinkers get you thinking of the future, then backward thinkers will have you thinking about the past, and yet only one of those you can do something about? So which one is more productive and which one should you actually do?

It is okay to acknowledge the past but make sure it doesn’t hinder you from look to the future.

 

The Cost of Getting Comfortable

Janice had this dream to become a great architect someday. She went to a top school and had top marks, and even a really great internship. She graduated, applied for jobs, and then… nothing. She had some great interviews even made it to second and third round of hiring fairs, yet she still couldn’t land a job.

Her six months were coming up and soon she would have to start paying back her student loans, so she started getting desperate. She went to a job fair and just applied to any place that seemed somewhat interesting. She ended up landing a lower end job in a mediocre company but was grateful to be somewhere so she could pay her bills.

Fast forward to six years later.

Janice has moved up several places in the company, she’s getting a really great salary, and she even has money to go on vacations and buy things. At work, her position keeps her busy. She is in charge of a few employees and there is always something to do. Each night she goes home exhausted with little energy to do much else.

Now and again she will stand in front of a construction site and just watch as a new building is being put up. She could stand there for hours just watching but usually she has to rush back from lunch before she is late for work. She doesn’t hate her job, there are actually a lot of moments in which she enjoys it. Yet in those moments in which she becomes really frustrated with her job she wonders why she is even still there. She wonders just what happened to her dream.

What did happen to her dream? Janice became too comfortable.

When things don’t always work as we would hope we come up with a Plan B. In this case Janice got a job so she could pay her bills. That job became her security blanket. She was able to pay her bills, save money, and go on vacations; all basic things we would all like to do. Of course she would take a nice promotion. Of course she would work overtime to get a little more christmas money in her pocket and that nice bonus. Why wouldn’t she? It was the easier thing to do.

But the thing is, the more she stayed in that job, the harder it would be to switch to her dream.  That job had created a nice groove in her life and climbing out would be hard, it would be terrifying. It would take away the sureness of her next paycheck. It could cost her everything.

Why is it that we only welcome change or push for it when we are in discomfort?

Following the normal grind is easier, it’s comfortable because it is what we know. Following your dream is hard, painful, and sometimes feels like you are being torn apart from the inside out. There are moments in which I am building my dream in which I just want to put everything on pause and internet binge for the next five hours. I’ll even suddenly create a busy lifestyle of going out just to avoid doing what i know I should be doing. That is until my introvert spirit begs for rest.

I’m uncomfortable all the time but that is a good thing because the moment I become comfortable is the moment I stop growing, the moment I stop pursuing. Let’s go back to Janice.

Janice has decided to stop being comfortable. Although she is exhausted after work she pushes herself to stay upright and apply for jobs. While she waits to hear back she continues to work on sketches and 3D renderings of buildings. She stops at that construction site again but this time she makes friends with the contractors and GM.

And at work she says no to those overtime shifts and a promotion that will require her to take on more hours. It’s hard because she knows that it is good money she turned down but she knows that her dream will require sacrifice and if she is really going to make this work than she can’t be putting her time into other things. She knows these next few months are going to be hard but in the end it will be worth it.

Timing is Key

In the fall of my senior year of college I had taken a course in entrepreneurial business. I was at this point in my life in which I decided I wanted to be a producer instead of a director and therefore needed to learn the business side of things.

From the description of the class we were going to learn how to start an online business and make money from it. I thought it would be cool so I signed up. What it turned out to be was a class on blogging.

You see at the time of the class the only sort of “blogging” I knew about was xanga, livejournal, and myspace. All sites where people just journaled their thoughts and feelings to the world. So right away I was worried about this assignment that would be the whole of my grade.

We were supposed, pick a niche, use blogger and create a website in which we continuously add content, and use google adwords to get money. Seems like a pretty neat class right? Well… at the time not so much. I couldn’t think of a single “niche” to create a website about. Matter of fact I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to put out for the world to see. AND on top of that we had to compete for the best site based on adword clicks and site visits?

So yeah I dropped the class in a hurry.

Fast forward to now where I’ve done a movie blog, a student debt one, and now this. Would that class be a great thing to have now? Yes!

The thing is, timing is key. Sometimes the things that annoy us in the past are the very same things that we embrace later. I mean how many of us hated vegetables as a kid but enjoy eating them now? How many of us hated when our parents would make us stay home or when there was nothing to do on a friday night but now we relish it? Or how about when you know someone (a friend of a friend) but it’s not till years later where suddenly you and that person really click and you wonder why you never clicked before? Timing.

Not everything falls in just like we think or hope it should because sometimes the timing just isn’t right yet.

Communicate How You Would Like To Be Communicated To

Let’s say you interviewed for a job or you are collaborating with someone on a project. You meet, you hit it off, and you end the meeting with the other person saying they will get back to you by a certain period time. You say “Ok sounds great,” and you part.

Now you are waiting, and you hate waiting, but you understand that the other person is busy, so you continue to wait. After all the designated time in which they said they would communicate by hasn’t arrived yet. Matter of fact it’s only been one day. You know you need to chill out but you can’t help it because you are so flippin’ excited for the possibility of what could come.

Then it happens. The designated time passes and you hear nothing. Not a single word. But you don’t sweat it because, again, you know they are busy and things happen so you just keep waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting, until you’ve gone from excited, to worried, to annoyed, to pissed off, and finally you begin to wonder if maybe it was all in your head and the meeting wasn’t as great as you thought it was.

So you decided to shoot them an email or give them a call to “see how things are going”. But they either don’t respond or they respond with a vague reply that does nothing to alleviate your pain and you are so close to losing it that you express to everyone (even that poor barista) just how frustrated you are with the whole stupid situation. 

But then you calm yourself down and decide to give it a few days before contacting the person again in hopes of getting a more concrete answer. You ask yourself just how many times you can call/email a person before they really hate you? 

Finally, after who knows how many times, you get an answer that says “Oh yeah we filled that position some time ago” or “Yeah I got really busy so…” or “I found something better so I decided not to do it” (yes that is a legit response I was sent). You then proceed to smash whatever digital device you have in your hand into tiny microbial bits so that Sherlock could not even decipher what it used to be.

Here’s the thing: we’ve all been on both sides of this in which we’ve wished someone had communicated more or in which we probably could have done more communicating. Sometimes when we are on the side of the communicator we forget what it is like to be the person waiting to hear back.

Nobody can see what the other side is doing and even if we become busy and are just swamped, it doesn’t mean that the other person knows that. And even if they do know that, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stop for a moment to acknowledge that they are waiting.

So if you say you we’re going to do something by a certain time and it’s not done, communicate that. If something is taking longer than you expect, communicate that. If the person reaches out to you and you realize that you have not been communicating: respond promptly, apologize, don’t make excuses, and assure them that you are working on it.

Even if things don’t work out in the end, you will have left a better taste in their mouth, knowing that you were open and honest in your communication with them.

Currently Reading: Pitch Perfect

Have you ever had a moment where you said something and wished that it didn’t come out of your mouth? Or have you ever walked away only to come up with the perfect response just a little too late? Or maybe you gave a speech and it turned out horrible? That is what this book, Pitch Perfect is about, those moments.

In this BIll McGowan breaks down the how you can effectively communicate in your personal and professional life. He introduces seven principles that you can apply.

What originally drew me to this book was the fact that my communications skills are somewhat lacking. It is not the fact that I do not communicate, it is more about how I come across. Many times I am viewed as cold or blunt when I don’t try to be. Also I have a RBF. Which essentially means that I always look angry even when usually I am happy. Sometimes I think that if I was just born with a happier looking face things would be a lot easier, lol.

The other thing I wanted to work on is pausing before I speak. I tend to stumble over my words, especially when I am excited. This is covered in his book under the No Tailgating Principle.

The speed in which you talk should be directly proportional to how certain you are about the next sentence coming out of your mouth.

He also covers how your posture, stance, facial expressions (especially when listening), tone of voice, and gestures play a part in how you come off either in a conversation or a presentation. And if you need to know how to graciously turn someone down or congratulate someone you don’t like, the book goes over that too.

Overall I think this is a great book to read. Each chapter is filled with funny anecdotes and real life stories that puts the book’s principles in perspective. The knowledge in it is easy to follow and you don’t feel overwhelmed chapter after chapter.

If you are looking to improve your communication skills this is a great book to add to your repertoire.

 

 

 

Make Your Own Adventure

I am a person who loves to travel, experiencing new things, and try new food. I get excited when something new crosses my radar. Just a few days ago I tried purple squash in a spring roll with mango Habanero sauce. It was delicious.

Then, this past Saturday, I went with a friend to Red Bull Crashed Ice. It was awesome. We were out in the cold and muddy ground (mud in January? What?!?!?!) and drank hot cider as we watched the US go up against other countries.

Sometimes we place such significance on going somewhere big (like Florida or Mexico) when we can easily have an adventure of our own right where you are. I’m not saying you shouldn’t leave your state, because you most certainly should, but when you can’t get away for days at a time or need to save time you can find many things to do right where you are.

But what if you don’t have anyone to go with? No problem, go by yourself. This is another big thing for me. I am always waiting to find someone else to go with me in order to go somewhere. I’ve decided that I am going to let people know when I am going to events and if they want to join me they can and if they don’t I’m still going to go. So should you.

So far I have up the Red Bull Crashed Ice event and look forward to doing much more. And it was seriously awesome cheering on the US. There is something about standing in a crowd, on a cold day, sloshing up mud, and yet cheering loudly that just gives you a sense of camaraderie. Got any cool travels you are doing on our own? Let me know I always love seeing what people are up to!