b.Inspired Cafe & Blog

Lord Deliver Us from Email

You might think that managing your email is too mundane a topic when it comes to feeding your soul or expressing your higher purpose.  My client Andrea discovered how important email can be.  Conscious spirituality and waking up inspired don’t come only from meditating on the mountain or reading esoteric Rumi passages. Inspired success happens 15 minutes at a time, including how we handle email. 

Andrea had a higher vision for what we’ll call her P Project. You know, a passionate, higher priority that she felt pregnant with and needed to birth into the world. In spite of scheduling time to work on this, two weeks went by without real progress. We gave her an assignment I call “Spy on Yourself.” Each day for a week, she actively tracked what was taking up her time and energy. We discovered that her email pattern had become the tail that wags the dog, eating up too much time (rather than Andrea intentionally creating her day aligned with her true priorities). Most of us get seduced by the immediacy of email, and fall into pseudo-productivity. We’re not slacking while sipping a martini, but we’re not working on the highest priority, high-ROI stuff either. Email is like a bag of chips-- impossible to read just one. To break this spell, Andrea committed to specific email times for 20 minutes each. Within a couple weeks, Andrea was celebrating real momentum and joy in her P project. The idea of scheduling and containing your email is not a newsflash. (I chuckle, recalling Steve Carell’s character in Little Miss Sunshine sarcastically zinging Greg Kinnear’s character with, “Thank you for that brilliant revelation. How much do I owe you?”) You will create a real breakthrough if you understand your unique habits and replace your default pattern.

Get Inspired 30 Day Challenge:   

1) Spy on yourself for a few days.  About once per hour, write down how you are actually spending your time and energy (for your eyes only, so be honest). This will be eye-opening  beyond just email. 

2) Get in touch with what inspires you—what you’d love to invest more energy in. It’s easier to say No to checking email when you have a bigger Yes to trump the temptation.

3) Develop your new email strategy. Make adjustments for what really sticks. Take a bow for creating your day, vs. letting it run you.    Good luck! Now I have to go not check my email.

Passion Meets Profit

You've heard the phrase, “Do what you love, the money will follow.” I’m certainly a fan of this premise (also the title of a book by Marsha Sinetar). However, in my very first month of coaching real clients more than 10 years ago, I recall thinking- "Boy, if taken too naively, this could lead to disaster or be cruel. What if you love 17^th century poetry?" I don’t want to be a wet blanket on anyone’s passions, but you might not be able to feed your cats with this. (The relentless optimist in me is screaming, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way. He could be a college professor or something!” but you get my point.)

To serve my clients well, I was compelled to develop a grounded, four-point model for fulfillment and true prosperity. The four basic questions:

1) What do you Love?

2) What are your Gifts?

3) What does the World Need?

4) What are others willing to pay for?

The core question becomes, “How do I create work in today’s market that allows me to tap into my passions and share my gifts in a way that serves a need and generates income?” 

In essence, this is about your true work in the world. In some cases your true work (or passionate vocation) may not be the means to paying your mortgage. Your passions and gifts may express as volunteer endeavors or as part of a work-life portfolio.

I have asked people “What would you love to do?” in various ways a gazillion times by now. When listening to their responses it’s important to highlight the distinction between what may entertain and amuse the ego and what would engage and arouse one’s true spirit. As you explore livelihood possibilities, ask yourself what you are sincerely feeding-- ego or spirit?

Over the years, this has evolved into "The Passion Matrix, fully loaded" with Values, Purpose, Fulfillment Factors and Environmental Trends in the mix. For this article, let's stick with the four basic quadrants.

On your own paper (or screen), draw a vertical line and horizontal line to create four quadrants and label them as follows:

1. upper left:
“PASSIONS”      
What you love
(And/or what gives you a fire in the belly, authentic interests, etc.)

2. upper right:
“GIFTS”
Your Gifts, Talents, Tools, Resources
(Hard and soft skills, strengths, knowledge, expertise, etc.)

3. lower left:
“WHO & NEEDS”
WHO are you drawn to serve (or have pay you?) What do they need?
(What the market demands…now… in the future? What the customer/team/ community needs...)

4. lower right:
“PROFIT”                
What others are willing to pay for

This is not brand new information, right? The magic happens in part because of the order in which you ask and answer these four questions. Cultural norms tempt us to start in the fourth corner- what we’ve always been paid to do, what opportunities exist already and so on. I’ve seen clients at all levels of management and income still gravitate to that lower right box, including a CEO fundamentally asking, “What company out there needs a new senior executive?” This ingrained pattern is backwards.

You really want to start in the upper left quadrant with “What are my passions?” Playing with this process can open up possibilities you had not considered and give you a launching pad infused with your natural enthusiasm and strengths. Even if statistics indicate that your passion isn’t popular, when your heart is in something, you are more likely to flourish, including putting in the extra effort to make it pay off financially. I must say that this is more about true prosperity than dollars. At this stage of exploring right livelihood scenarios, don’t let money be the tail that wags the dog. I am one example of someone who makes less money (than what I’d probably earn if I had stayed in my former work,) yet I am enjoying a much richer life. Of course, you get to choose what matters, what prosperity is for you and how the math works out.

In real life, it's not easy to answer questions like "What are your passions?" So, cut yourself some slack here. I continue to develop various "back door" questions and games to help clients with this discovery  process and livelihood possibilities. The four quadrants come in handy for energizing strategic planning for your business or team (e.g. starting with What are we truly passionate about?) getting ready for compelling presentations and so on. For now I hope this model plants some seeds for you to discover and expand your soul satisfying options for engaging in the world. Yes can pay attention to your callings and pay your bills.

Working Smart

A writer from Forbes.com contacted me about a story she's working on, which led to me surfing the web and I landed at this site, bnet.com. It looks like an interesting and well-organized collection of articles on all kinds of career development/"success at work" topics such as how to manage your boss, run a high- performance team, evaluate potential mergers and so on. I'll highlight a couple articles:

"Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time."

I've met the author, Tony Schwarz, chatted with him about the various influences we've both had in our work and admire his approach. I've come to appreciate the same notion (after coaching for 11 years) that we really need to focus beyond time management techniques and learn more about how to be effective investors of precious energy.

"A Field Guide to Bosses"

This is a fun, creative treatment of various boss types with some tips for how to best deal with each.