The Bamboo Project

Be a Career Inspiration, Not a Cautionary Tale

Throughout my working life, I've encountered people who made me think, "Kill me if I ever start acting and thinking that way." Generally these are people who are bitter and angry about their work, or who are so disengaged as to be practically dead. While I most notice those people who are aggressive about their career unhappiness, there are plenty of other people who simply disappear, I guess hoping to escape notice as their souls slowly shrivel up. 

At times, I've felt myself start to go down that road of deep unhappiness and pessimism. I see mostly problems, not possibilities and I focus on the suck, not the awesome. When my snark quotient goes way up and I find myself complaining constantly, I know that an attitude change is in order. 

As I continue on my journey to be more mindful and to engage in positive professional development, I find myself wanting to be more of a career inspiration, rather than a cautionary tale. I don't want people to walk away from interactions with me and think, "Please don't let me turn out that way. . . " 

In that vein, these 18 Ways to Inspire Everyone Around You gave me some good food for thought. Some of my favorites:

• Be authentic and true to yourself.
• Express your enthusiasm.
• Care about people. 
• Make people feel good about themselves. 
• Articulate what everyone else is thinking. 
• Share lessons from your successes and failures.
• Help people heal--instead of judging people by their past, stand by them and help repair their future. 

These aren't always easy for me to do, but I'm committed to the idea of being the inspiration I want to see in the world. 

How do you inspire others? What has inspired you? 

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Are you looking for a way to get support and more accountability in achieving your career goals? I'm running a bi-weekly Virtual Career Clarity Circle starting on February 27 that may be just what you need. Details and sign-up information are here. 

The Power of Positive Peers

Although we don't discuss it much, one of the most powerful influences on our personal and professional development is our peer groups. The people with whom we engage in regular conversations and interactions shape the questions that we ask, the problems that we see, how we approach our work and our sense of identity as professionals.

One thing I've been paying more attention to in the past year is the quality of my peer circles and the impact that my professional colleagues have on me. I started noticing that some people were really energizing and inspiring to be around, while other people tended to pull me down into the suck. Some people exposed me to new ideas, new ways of thinking, new questions and a focus on the awesome, while others seemed to see only the same old problems and no real solutions. 

Since I started paying attention to my professional peer networks, I've started becoming more intentional about my connections. I've begun limiting the amount of time I spend engaging with people who can only focus on what sucks and have been actively seeking to expand my connections to people who want to work on creating what's awesome. This has had a profoundly positive influence on my work and my thinking.

What I've realized, though, is that if we are not consciously thinking about what is going on with our peer networks, it's very easy to be pulled into a negative orbit. This is especially problematic if we are in a negative workplace and the majority of our professional interactions are with our co-workers. It becomes mission critical for us to find and connect with people who have a more positive perspective--those who want to work on building the awesome. 

For me, connecting with positive peers has been a two-step process. First is noticing the influence that different people have on me. I pay attention to how I feel when I interact with them. Do I leave an interaction feeling excited and energized and ready to follow-up on something we've discussed? That's a person I want to connect to more. 

The second thing I've been doing is looking for new people who share the qualities of those people who are currently in my network that have proven to be positive influences. Typically this means people who are curious, creative, focused on positive questions rather than on "problems," and who want to make a real difference. If I see people like this in a LinkedIn Group or some other on-line network, I try to make a special effort to reach out to them. I'm also intentionally looking for these connections in face-to-face interactions and purposely seeking them out to connect. I even tell them WHY I want to connect--because I see and value these qualities, which automatically improves the connection. 

Throughout all of this, I've also tried to be more aware of how I am connecting to other people--am I being the change I'm looking for in my world? This shift has forced me to look at the ways in which I'm negative, problem-focused, uninspiring, etc. I have had to look at how I can shift my own habits of interaction to be a positive peer, rather than a negative one. 

This process of forming positive peer networks and looking at my own actions as a peer has been one of the more important professional development practices I've engaged in this year. 

How are you forming the connections that are going to be most supportive for you? And how are you looking at your own behavior in this process? 

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Feeling stuck? I'm running another 7-Day Getting Unstuck session starting February 27. Details and sign-up information are here.

 

3 Tips for Increasing the Awesome at Work

Last week I wrote about increasing the awesome vs. decreasing the suck and how I think that the only way to decrease what sucks is by focusing on what's awesome. Since then I've been thinking a lot about how to increase the awesome in my work life--what is it that we can do to bring the awesome? 

Here are three tips I came up with from noticing my own practice. . . 

1. Tune into the emotions of Awesome. 

The surest route to the Awesome, I'm finding, is to tune into my emotions. Whenever I feel curious, inspired, energized, hopeful, engaged, connected, and/or like I'm having fun, I know I'm accessing the Awesome. When I feel unmotivated, frustrated, irritated or apathetic, I'm most definitely living in the Suck. 

Each day I'm trying to begin with attuning myself to the feelings I want to have during my work day, reminding myself about the feelings of the Awesome. I also set the intention of trying to notice my Awesome emotions throughout my day, acknowledging them to myself and others.

It's been especially interesting to acknowledge a shift in energy to other people. They immediately know what I'm talking about and become even more energized, tuning into their own emotions of the Awesome and wanting more of that. I'm trying to be more purposeful in in doing this, as I find that this acknowledgement increases my chances of having Awesome converations (see below). 

2. Ask Awesome Questions

In the past 6 months, I've become increasingly interested in the power of questions to move me and the people I work with toward the Awesome. I'm firmly convinced that the questions we ask are at least as important as the answers. And I've found that asking Awesome questions actually is part of what increases our connection to and feelings of the Awesome. 

Some of the questions that have been working for me:

• Why do I care about this situation? This reconnects me to purpose which connects me to Awesome. 

• What possibilities and learning do I see? Seeing challenges and problems leads me to the Suck. When I look at possibilities and learning, I find the Awesome.

• What do I want more of? When I tune into the emotions of the Awesome, I also notice what I'm doing at the time. Who am I with? What is happening? If possible, I will try to tune into the moment when the energy shifts from the Suck to the Awesome. Then I try to figure out how I can get more of whatever it was that created the Awesome. How can I inject it going forward? 

• If success was completely guaranteed, what bold steps would I take? This may be the surest route to the Awesome. Usually I find that what is keeping me in the Suck isn't that I don't know what to do. It's that I'm afraid to do it. Or at least to try. So asking this question leads me to take the bold steps. . . most of the time. 

I've also been trying to find the "big questions" underneath the smaller ones. What is the REAL quest that I am on? I look for the forest, not the trees and often this leads me back to the Awesome. 

3. Have Awesome Conversations

Although the Awesome can sometimes be a solitary pursuit, most of the time it is not. Even if I'm going to do the work alone, having the right conversations can help me better articulate my vision of the Awesome. They can also help me connect to people and resources that help make the Awesome happen. 

This year is my year of conversation and I'm finding that the more I seek out and lean into creating Awesome conversations, the better I feel and the better my work is. 

To me, the hallmark of an Awesome conversation is that it generates Awesome emotions. If I'm feeling the energy of inspiration, hope, and possibility, then I know I'm having a conversation that will lead to the Awesome. If I'm feeling like I want to stab my own eye out, I know I'm mired in a conversation that supports the Suck. 

Awesome conversations mean that I'm talking about what really matters. I'm engaging with the Awesome questions and I'm noticing and acknowledging the awesome emotions. Most importantly, I'm acting as a host, creating a space for the Awesomeness to occur, being open to what happens and giving up my pre-conceived ideas of how things should go. 

I have found that some people are more amenable to the Awesome conversation than others. While I believe that everyone wants to have Awesome conversations, I'm not as skillful as I'd like to be in drawing people into those if they aren't at least halfway there. That's actually one of the areas I want to work on--how to help people who are really stuck in the Suck to find and access the Awesome. 

 

So these are my 3 tips for increasing the Awesome. What are you doing to increase the Awesome at work? 

Tough Questions for Your Professional Development

Through a friend, I discovered the In Good Company blog and this excellent post on 5 tough questions entrepreneurs should be asking themselves.

Reading through the questions, I thought they could easily be adapted to anyone, whether they work for themselves or for someone else, so here they are. Just replace "business" with "job" if you're working for someone else.  

1: If you could wave a magic wand to instantly fix three things in your business, what would they be? 
(be honest, don’t just say “get more clients”…what do you KNOW is broken)
* What prevents you from fixing these things on your own?

2: What three things would you stop doing for the business if you didn’t have to?
* Why don’t you? What would make doing them better?

3: What are you doing only because you feel like you “should”?
* What would happen if you didn’t?

4: What important thing do you never seem to have “time for”?
* Why? What makes it hard to prioritize?

5: What have you given up for your business or to be an entrepreneur?
* Are you OK with that sacrifice?

How does answering these questions create movement for you? What new questions open up for you? 

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I have another career visioning session coming up on February 21. It's a great opportunity for you to get a clearer picture of your career in just a few hours. More information and the sign-up form are here. 

Emotions and Your Career

With my Career Clarity Camp, we're entering the home stretch and starting to integrate the lessons we've learned. One of the things we're working on this week is looking at the emotions we feel about the work we've been doing, which got me thinking about the power of emotions at work. 

Emotions at Work

One thing I've learned about work is that being "professional" often (usually?) means being unemotional. On a regular basis we are asked to check our emotions at the door, especially any negative emotions we may have like sadness, fear, anxiety, confusion, etc. But positive emotions, like joy, aren't often welcome at work either.  I think it's because emotions have a way of getting messy and "out of control." They are also distractions from just getting things done.  

The other issue with emotions at work is that so often we are rushing to DO things that it's hard to notice what we are feeling in the first place. We are just dealing with the the next thing on our "To Do" lists and it's hard to stop for even a few seconds to reflect on what we may be feeling. 

 All of this blocking of emotions, though, takes a toll. Emotions aren't really amenable to blocking. They just go underground until they explode in some way we would prefer they hadn't. Or they coil up inside us, clogging our creativity and our connection to ourselves. This blockage, in turn, leads to boredom and apathy. 

Working with Our Emotions

It's unfortunate that we spend so much time keeping emotions out of our work because they can be some of the most valuable clues we have to work with. Noticing where I feel energized or inspired or where I feel frustrated or anxious can tell me a lot about what I want more of and what I want less of at work. My emotions show me where there are problems or issues I need to deal with--work relationships that aren't' working or tasks that need to be looked at more closely. 

One thing I've encouraged the Career Clarity Campers to do is to make time in their days to pay attention to the emotions they're feeling as they go about their work. I've suggested that they stop once per hour or even 3-4 times a day to check in and ask themselves:

• What have I been doing? What activities have you been engaged in? 

• How do I feel about it? Note particularly the things you do that leave you feeling energized and interested. These may be things you want more of. 

• Who am I doing it with? See if there's something about the people you are working with or the conversations you are having that feels energizing to you. Or are you doing things alone? What does that tell you? 

 They then write down these experiences and their reactions and look for trends and themes over time. 

Tuning in to your emotions this way can be a great 30-day experiment.  Paying attention in particular to the things that are inspiring or energizing so you can bring more of it into your work is also one of the best ways to increase the awesome.

I've found, too, that when I focus on the emotions I'm feeling in a work day, I do a better job of connecting with people and with building richer relationships. I notice when an interaction feels particularly positive and I can acknowledge that with the person I'm talking to. This always creates an even deeper bond. I can also see where emotions like boredom or frustration are telling me that I need to revisit how I'm handling something. This often leads to more fruitful conversations on how I can revise what I'm doing. 

Our emotions should not be left at the door when we go to work each day. Not only does that not work anyway, but our emotional lives are rich sources of learning and connection. They are our authentic selves communicating with us about our experiences and relationships. We need them to do our best work and to have conversations that matter. 

So what role do your emotions play in your work life? Do you bring them with you to work or do you check them at the door? 

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Working Intentionally

Last week I had a really energizing phone conversation with one of my Career Clarity Campers, someone who has  jumped into the activities with both feet and is swimming joyfully in the experience. 

One of the things I've told the Campers to do is to pay attention to their work experiences, to identify what inspires and energizes them and then to look at how they can bring more of that to their work.   Essentially this is asking people to work with more intention, rather than letting work happen to them. 

This Camper has embraced the idea wholeheartedly, spending the first 30-40 minutes of his day thinking about what he wants to have happen, given the calls, appointments and goals he has for the day. For example, he's identified having more meaningful conversations as being an important value for him, so each day, he looks at how he can listen more carefully, dig deeper in discussions and provide really meaningful follow-up to people. 

He also uses this  morning time to hone in on what's really important for him to get from his day. He's looking for "what's REALLY important?" and finding that frequently it's nurturing connections, building relationships and spending his time on helping people make a real difference.

 He tells me that starting his day this way is energizing and inspiring and that the good results he's seeing are encouraging him to continue the practice even when that little voice inside him says he's should be jumping into email or some other more "productive" activity. 

What's interesting to me is hearing how working with greater intentionality is creating greater intensity for him. He told me that he's "reconnecting with the pleasure of his work," even having entire days where his work felt more like leisure and fun, rather than something he's getting paid to do. 

The tasks of his job have not changed. What is changing is HOW he does his work and, more importantly, how much of his true self he is bringing to that work. The more he focuses on what he wants from the experiences he's having and the more he approaches his work with an idea of creating a different experience, the more engaged and inspired he's feeling. 

 Essentially, the more intention and creation he brings to his daily work, the better it's feeling to him. 

I've found for myself that working more intentionally and focusing each day on what I want to create in my work has great payoffs. Even on those days where I'm having to respond to what other people want from me, I try to bring my intentions for what I want to create to those interactions. It makes a difference. 

So how intentionally are you working? How does working with intention change your experience of your work? 

Are You "Stuck" or Just Resting?

Tomorrow, I'll be starting a 7-day course on getting unstuck for people who may be feeling like they're getting nowhere fast. (Note--there are still slots available if this is you, so you may want to sign up.)

As I'm pulling final pieces together for the class, I'm thinking about the "frames" we set up around being stuck--the stories we tell ourselves when we find ourselves in this situation.  Often it's the stories themselves that are keeping us stuck. 

Probably the biggest story we tell ourselves is that we are, in fact, stuck.  Just look at some of the synonyms for "stuck":

• Trapped
• Caught
• Burdened
• At a standstill
• Without ideas
• Up against the wall
• At your wits end

The more I say "I'm stuck," the more real these feelings become for me. All I can think of is my "stuckness," which means all I can think of is how trapped, burdened and caught I am in my situation. And, of course, the more trapped I feel, the more I resist that feeling. But "stuckness" is like quicksand. The more we resist it, the more it pulls us downward. Not exactly a recipe for moving forward is it?

The other thing that happens when we think of ourselves as "stuck" is that we immediately start beating ourselves up for it. If you listen closely to your internal dialogue, you'll hear that little voice saying "Well you SHOULDN'T be stuck. What kind of person gets stuck? No one else is stuck--it's just you. There's clearly something wrong here and you SHOULD do something about it." We start judging and berating ourselves which, ironically, only makes us feel MORE stuck!

So what happens if we change the "frame"? If we stop seeing seeing ourselves as "stuck" and think of this pause as something else?

If we look at our lives as a journey, traveling on a path, then we know that in every journey there are times when you need to stop and rest. Sometimes we choose those moments, but sometimes those moments choose us. In any journey, there's the time you decide to stop for something to eat and there's the time that you get sick because you've been going too hard and have to stop for a few days. It's just how life works.

We also know that in any journey, if we look at a particular moment in time, then it feels like that moment goes on forever. But in reality it doesn't. Eventually we start moving again. We never stay in one place. You've been "stuck" before, but you didn't stay there forever. You always moved on. That's also how life works. 

So what happens if I stop telling myself that I'm "stuck" and start telling myself that I'm just resting right now? What if I just accept that for whatever reason, I'm not ready to move forward? There's nothing wrong with me, I'm not a "bad" person because I'm not ready to move. It just is what it is.  

If I think of myself as "resting," one thing I can see right away is that I can CHOOSE to rest.  I automatically feel better because I'm not trapped into this place where I'm at today. This isn't a burden. I'm not up against the wall. I'm choosing it. In this case, choice is a wonderful thing. It can instantly make us feel better. 

Thinking of myself as "resting," is also restorative and nurturing.  We need rest in our lives, so maybe this rest that I'm taking is necessary. Maybe the very thing I need right now is this rest. Maybe I can use it to take a closer look at my situation and see what it's trying to teach me--how can I learn from this place that I'm at right now? 

Finally, if we think of ourselves as "resting," then we can stop beating ourselves up so much for being where we're at. We can be kinder to ourselves and stop the negative self-talk that ends up making us feel more "stuck." We can just say to that berating inner voice, "I'm resting right now. I need this.  Leave me alone." 

I'm not saying that changing your story from "stuck" to "resting" is going to instantly change your life, but it does open up more opportunities for new ideas and action. It can give us the space we need to see another way. It can also show us the choices we have in this situation where we feel stuck, including the choice to look for new stories to tell about where we are. 

This is a strategy I've used several times in my life over the past year for both personal and professional situations. It has opened up some major doorways in my thinking and really transformed how I approach those moments in my life when previously I thought of myself as "stuck." 

So what happens if you stop thinking of yourself as "stuck" and start leaning into "resting"? How does it change the possibilities you see? And what other stories do you tell yourself when you're feeling "stuck?" How could those shift too? 

Two Steps for Making Your Career Dreams Happen

I'm at the end of Week 1 with my Career Clarity Camp and we're heading into Week 2, where we'll start to turn our career visions into some meaningful action. 

One thing I'm realizing as we go through this process is how often we sideline our dreams. We worry that we may fail in our efforts or that we will do something stupid or embarrassing. Sometimes we wait around for someone else to go first. We can also consume ourselves with activities that SEEM like they're moving us forward, but they really aren't. 

Here's what I've discovered in my life. If you want to make a dream happen, there are two things you need to do:

1. Acknowledge your dreams without shame or judgement. 

Too many of us are ashamed of our dreams. We feel like there is something wrong with us for wanting what we want.

A lot of people I work with, for example, are creative, artistic souls and they judge themselves for wanting more beauty, freedom, connection and  joy in their professional lives. These are typically not valued at work, or we pay them lipservice, so people get the message that these are frivolous desires. Nice if you can find them, but not practical. 

Have we all really bought into the notion of our society as simply a vast machine for "productivity" and "return on investment," such that wanting something more soul-filling is frivolous? I'm afraid that we have, based on the shame and judgement I see in people who say they want something more. 

And it is this judgement--both internal and external--that holds people back from really pursuing what they want. They hear that they must be "practical" and "realistic," which really means that they must give in to a culture that has lost sight of its humanity at work. So they do it, because it's expected, but they are dying inside. 

So the first step in making a dream happen is to embrace it, to love it and accept it without reservation, judgement or shame. You must name it and claim it for you to move ahead. 

2. Make them happen.

For those of us who have finally embraced what we want as necessary and worthy, the second step is to make your dreams happen. That sounds obvious, but it's not. Too many of us wait for someone to come along who will say "Hey--I hear you have a dream. Let me make it a reality for you." If you want to talk "unrealistic," that's where we get into trouble. 

To make a dream happen,  you will have to move it. You have to take risks. You have to experiment and explore and be willing to fall on your face. You have to accept the dark side of creation and be kind to yourself in that process. 

You also have to be willing to take the lead and be in charge, to put yourself out there in the world and be willing to be identified with your dream. You have to talk to people around you, let them know what you're dreaming. You'll be amazed at what comes your way when you are finally acting from a true place of acceptance and inspiration. 

Making your dream happen isn't an event. It's a process. It's doing something each day that moves you closer to what you want. It's a series of steps you take, one foot in front of the other, until you arrive at your destination. There will be stumbles and missteps, but the journey itself will be far more rewarding than staying in place without dreams. I promise you that. 

Accepting your dream and then acting on it--that's all it takes to make things happen. So simple, yet so hard to do. . . 

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My 7-Day Getting Unstuck Course starts January 31! If you're feeling stuck and need some help moving forward, you can sign up here. 

 

Are You Sharing Positive Impact?

In the past few days, I've had some amazing conversations with people about how things I've written here have affected them. Since having a positive impact is one of my most important values and motivators, hearing from people that what I write here makes a difference to them is tremendously rewarding. 

What occurred to me, though, was how often we DON'T tell people how something they've done has positively impacted us. We may be quick to point out where a screw-up or problem has occurred, but how often in the course of a work day do we stop someone and tell them of the positive impact they've had on us? 

I've been observing in myself, lately, my tendency to somehow withhold this information from people--to not take the time to express my appreciation for the gifts they give me in the form of insight or support. I'm great at thanking them for resources ("hey--really appreciate that link!"), but not so great at saying things like "I've been thinking about our conversation earlier and let me tell you how it helped me with something." 

I've been trying to be more intentional about acknowledging these gifts and engaging people in thanking them for the positives they provide in my life. More specifically, I've been trying to thank them for the impact their insights or wisdom or ideas have on me. I'm trying to take it deeper than just "hey, thanks for sharing," to show them the positive effect they have on me. 

Doing this has helped me build more positive work relationships, but it has also helped me to better see the positive forces at work in my career. By reaching out and letting people know that I appreciate their efforts and their gifts, I am more aware in general of the strengths and talents of the people who surround me. It has created a strange and wonderful "energy field" around me, a virtuous cycle where the more I acknowledge gifts, the more easily I can see them. 

I also realize, based on my own experiences with people sharing impact with me, how motivating it can be to hear that what you do makes a difference to someone, that it really matters. This is powerful stuff and it's what is missing in a lot of people's work lives.

I know a lot of people work in places where they feel invisible and unappreciated, where their efforts seem to go into a deep, dark hole. But we could start to make that feeling go away, simply in choosing to interact differently with each other. We could do a better job of reaching out to people who have a positive impact and letting them know that, for us at least, who they are and what they do really DOES matter.

Imagine the shifts we could start to make at work if we did this. I'm not talking in a generic, "You matter" kind of way. I mean specifically and authentically, an intentional act on our part to connect with the impact that people have on us and to share with them how important that is to our lives. 

I think we'd be surprised at what we could make happen if we did. . . 

Dreams for Sale: The Economic Monoculture and Its Impact On Your Career

To freely choose barter as the basis for work is to commercialize our relationships and ourselves. I treat myself as a transaction in the making. I value myself according to what I can get for myself. My market value becomes my only value. I am now worth what the market will bear. So why shouldn't I get the highest price possible?

Part of the price of becoming a transaction is that we allow our value to be defined by others: an organization, a boss, a recruiter, a partner, a lover. I become a commodity whose worth rises and falls according to the marketplace. I place my self-esteem in the hands of forces that I cannot control (my emphasis) I am happy when the price rises and feel depressed in periods of depression--and I am literally depressed in times of deflation.

                    --Peter Block, The Answer to How is Yes: Acting on What Matters

Over the holidays, I read  Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything by F.S. Michaels, who argues that we have an underlying cultural narrative that treats all human enterprise--work, education, spirituality, even our relationships-- in economic terms. In this economic model:

• Everything is a market, governed by the laws of supply and demand. 
• People become commodities with little intrinsic value.  
• Relationships become transactional, based on "what have you done for me lately?" 
• We are constantly looking to "maximize value" and measure the worth of any project or activity in strictly econonmic terms. If it can't show "return on investment" then it must not be worth doing. 

More from The Smart Set: 

“[E]conomic beliefs, values, and assumptions are shaping how we think, feel, and act.” It’s not simply consumerist greed, that sort of predatory capitalism wildly on display on Wall Street. In Michaels’s definition, the economic story is one in which communities are not as important as individuals, in which one’s placement and performance in society is the result of an honest assessment of abilities, in which progress is driven by people’s desires and the fulfillment of those desires. In other words, each individual person is an entity striving to satiate their wants through rational economic decisions and their success or failure to achieve those goals is a direct result of the quality of their performance. As the “winner takes all” hierarchy spreads and the middle class bottoms out in nation after nation, a competitive “If you have what I want, I have to take it from you” system takes over. Or, as Intel president Andrew Grove put it, “If the world operates as one big market, every employee will compete with every person anywhere in the world who is capable of doing the same job. There are a lot of them and many of them are very hungry.”

This story affects every aspect of our culture, from a medical system that punishes the ill with massive debts and withholds care from the poor, to the corporate ownership of our artistic treasures (Bank of America’s art collection stands at more than 60,000 pieces, and they are happy to rent them out to museums strategically in order to increase their estimated value), to the increased instability in almost every job market. Most of our politicians, if not all, would agree this is the most efficient way to run our world. And they will fight to the death to maintain this status quo, if not drive us deeper into the story.

The result is that everything in our lives is evaluated by its economic value. If you’re making an argument for putting a stop to mountaintop mining, best couch it in terms of lost revenue from pollution, the economic burden of those in the area made ill, and the potential for lawsuits. Fights for worker rights such as paternal leave are framed with stats showing that rehiring and retraining a new worker is more expensive than allowing a new father to stay home for a few weeks. Even human rights groups, charities, and environmental advocates have taken up the language of economics because, when we talk about what things cost us these days, we generally mean “financially” and not “morally.”

This grand story, unexamined and invisible, is behind the rise of "personal branding," where we are marketing ourselves on a regular basis, to "prove" our value to current and potential employers. We treat ourselves as a product to be bought and sold on the open market, rather than as human beings with intrinsic value. (Olivier Blanchard has a great take on this in R.I.P. Personal Branding).

It is also the story behind our willingness to treat workers as interchangeable cogs in the machine, as "costs" to a business to be kept to a minimum in order to retain shareholder value. 

In the economic worldview, nothing is worth doing unless there is a reward for it. Everything and everyone must provide "value" in the marketplace. All things must be quantified and ultimately measured financially.  It is a de-humanizing view of the world that distracts us from talking about "value" in anything other than economic terms. 

Here's the thing. Whether we realize it or not, most of us are buying into this narrative. We make our career decisions based on what the market will bear rather than on any considered thinking around what really matters to us. We put endless effort into maximizing our value and competing with others, into proving our ROI. 

But this is how we find ourselves trapped in work that saps our souls and in organizations that leave us feeling abused and invisible. This economic understory reduces us and distracts us from talking about what really matters to us as human beings, rather than as rational economic actors. 

Peter Block has some interesting questions to help us step back from this economic view of ourselves:

• What does it mean when we lose contact or faith in our ideals, or our dreams and desires?
• Why would we give up the pursuit of our desires, of what matters to us, if the right offer doesn't come along?
• Why have we placed our desires up for auction?
• When did we decide that we could live without what was important to us or postpone our desires until we have implemented an exit strategy? 

To this list I would add:

• What would my career look like if I wasn't worried about selling to the highest bidder?
• What really matters to me, regardles of how much someone else is willing to pay for it? 

Seeing the economic monoculture at work has helped me understand so much of our frustration and confusion right now. We know on some deep level that seeing everything in financial terms is reductionist and de-humanizing. Until we really understand how this story plays out, though, it's hard for us to put a finger on what's wrong. 

Seeing this, we can start to tell a different story. We can start framing discussions not in economic terms, but in more holistic, human terms. We can start asking different questions about what matters and about how we can define success and value beyond the financial. We can start to build for ourselves lives and careers based on what is intrinsically important to us, rather than on what someone else says is valuable based on what they're willing to pay. 

How do you think the monoculture impacts you? How could you think differently, not just about your career, but about other facets of your life? 

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