What is going on with the world?!?!

Within the past month, I've witnessed three people resign from their jobs (a coordinator, a manager, and a director), three people give notice that they will be moving from full-time to "on call" as they go back to school or take a new job, a recent hire quit before she got started, and a coworker's serious relationship just ended. So my question is, when does Amy get hit upside the head by the Universe?

World Domination Summit 2013

In January of 2011, I was sitting on a plane reading Chris Guillebeau's book, The Art of Nonconformity. In July of 2013, I was on a plane headed to the third annual conference that he puts together called the World Domination Summit. I was stoked. And scared.

What IS this thing?

The question most of the attendees struggled to answer. The reason is because it was many things to many people. Some people came for knowledge, some people came for networking, and some people came to witness a reality they wanted to attain. I came for all of these reasons. So the best packaged response I can give of the nature of WDS is:

A conference where people come together to inform and inspire each other to live creative lives in a conventional world; aka "Down with 9-5 cubicle life and get paid to do what you love!"

It's bold, but over 3,000 people believe in this and 2,800 were there to support each other and demonstrate that it IS possible.

Who was there?

People I didn't expect...and people I did. There were business people, technology people, health and fitness people, people you'd expect at star trek conventions (just seeing if you're paying attention ;) ), artists, musicians, writers, film-makers, performers...people in big industries and people who had their own start-ups. I expected the age range to be 20s-30s. That was so off. I would venture that most of the attendees spanned late 30s-50s. The next biggest group would be 20s-30s. Some were in their 60s and 70s. The youngest was 17, who came with her mom.

What did you learn?

Way more than I can ever share in a single post. The weekend itself was a whirlwind. It took me a few weeks of reading other people's blog posts to remember and digest it all. Some of the highlights for me were:

1) Gretchen Rubin: The greatest thing that determines a person’s happiness? One’s level of self-awareness: accepting who you are first, not who you would like to be. This was powerful for me. 

2) Tess Vigeland. Two bloggers summed up her presentation very well, so I'm going to copy and paste from their entry on 44 Chunks of Wisdom:

• 28. How do you know when it’s time to go? When you have too much self-respect to stay.
• 29. Go out leaving no regret.
• 30. I could have not have had more fun if I were bathing in a tub of kittens.
• 31. When you have your dream job, the irony is that you don’t spend a lot of time dreaming.
• 32. I’m supposed to tell you I’ve learned so much [leaving my job] that it’s been a growing experience. It’s been terrifying, awful, and heart-breaking.
• 33. The next person who tells me “just make it happen” gets a punch in the face.
• 34. How do I get back to remarkable? By re-defining it. Our jobs are not who we are.

32 hit my core. Her entire speech hit my core. When I left Wisconsin for Tucson, people were excited for me. I was excited for me. We were all like, "Oh my gosh! Amy's going to go achieve her dreams!" 32 is actually what happened. The experience was terrifying, awful, and heart-breaking. So heart-breaking...I actually felt betrayed by dancing like it was a person. 

3) Donald Miller: The psychologist Viktor Frankl suggested that ultimately we humans are on a search to find a deep experiential sense of meaning. When man does not find this meaning, he seeks out pleasure. The stuff we believe we want may not make for a happy or meaningful life. (Again, taken from 44 Chunks of Wisdom). I'd never thought about this before... 

Was it life-changing?

Absolutely.

Any great memories?

1) Just barely squeaking in to listen to Jonathan Fields. They told us several times the room was full, but I hung on in line. They came out and told us they could take three people. I was in that group. **Destiny** 

I later travelled out to a suburb of Portland to buy one of his books, Career Renegade, which was life-changing just to read. 

2) Seeing people of blogging celebrity status like Leo Babauta, Jeff Goins, and Jodi Ettenberg - whose stuff I've been reading and following for at least a year - doing things like getting lunch, walking down the street, and dancing at the after-party. You know, being normal people. 

3) Meeting a organic farmer the day after the conference. I was at a train stop and heading somewhere else when I saw her WDS swag bag. I went a few blocks toward my destination, but felt a strong pull to go back to the train stop and talk to her. So I went with the pull. I sat down next to her and asked, "What brought you to WDS?" It opened up a long conversation on "passion," thinking outside the box, and wanting to live a good life. I told her it felt really good to meet someone who didn't already have an established start-up and who wasn't a high-energy extrovert like so many others I'd seen and met. She felt the same. It was definitely a memorable moment. 

Parting Thoughts?

Coming home, I felt many things, including joy, sadness, and even desperation. I saw so many people who seemed to have their "thing." They had businesses and many of them were fantastic writers. I felt very behind. I had a little personal blog and I was barely making a living...while the guy next to me had a six-figure income (not kidding). Then I read a post from another blogger I follow, Matt, where he talks about not comparing your beginning to someone else's middle. After WDS, I connected with even more people who were there through their blogs and twitter. I realized that every. single. person. there. was remarkable and amazing. Some were in their "beginnings" and some were in their "middles." I know now to look to these people as guides and inspiration, rather than hold their accomplishments next to my own. Finally, I just have to say that it's really great to be one among these people - people to whom you can say, "I traveled across the country without a job, contacts, or a place to live in order to chase a dream," and they'll respond, "That's awesome! Tell me about your dreams..." How cool is that?? Overall, WDS was a great experience. I may go back again, I'm not sure. If I were to go back, it would be to meet more amazing people. As far as information goes, though, I think I have enough to last me a lifetime...and now I gotta get to work!

Those Who Watch and Those Who Help

I just watched a girl tell her mom about a conflict she was having with a part-time job offer and an extracurricular activity. Taking the job would require her to quit a music group she's been a part of for the last two years. However, she needed to start earning an income and get work experience. The girl said, "I don't know what to do." Her mom told her that she was 17 and she wasn't going to tell her what to do - she needed to make her own decisions. 

Growing up is hard. Learning to make good choices and bushwhacking a life path for yourself often leaves you confused, frustrated, and defeated. I know some parents prefer to teach by telling their kids to "figure it out yourself" when they make mistakes and get into tough situations. However, I have watched relationships between parents and their children go down the drain because of this philosophy and I'm not surprised. I'm not talking about kids who habitually make bad decisions, don't learn, and then run to their parents to bail them out. They could use some tough love. I'm talking about the ones who are really trying their best to do well. When parents say, "You're on your own," the kids feel abandoned during a time of need. At the very least, when they ask for help like the teenage girl did, it would be great if the parents talked about options, gave some advice, helped them make a plan...you know, gave them tools and taught them how to use them...made them feel like you weren't walking away. Doing this, I think, would prevent a lot of resentment and broken ties in families. 

There's that saying about teaching a man to fish so he'll eat for a lifetime. Nowhere in there does it say, "Tell him to figure it out and walk away." 

Renaissance Woman

During a few moments of quiet at the front desk, I expressed some frustration in a conversation with my coworker/friend, Judy.

"People my age are becoming more successful - they have jobs in which they can support themselves! I feel like I'm scrambling around at the bottom, not getting anywhere, and barely scraping by. Am I not working hard enough? Am I not enterprising/aggressive/resourceful enough? What IS IT that I'm doing wrong???"

"I don't think you're doing anything wrong," Judy responded. "You're a Renaissance woman." She then went off on a tangent about how she saw my life and listed all the stuff I was doing and then repeated the phrase, "You're a Renaissance woman!" I couldn't see her point.

"What do you mean by that??" I asked impatiently.

"You're doing things differently. You could easily get a 9-5 job, but you don't."

"I've had one. It's terrible on the body."

"See? You want something different. You're breaking away from the norm."

I wish the growing pains of being the designer of your life weren't so biting.

Legacy

Many of us will dedicate significant time and energy to a job or passion of ours that we eventually leave. Our health, economic, or family situation changes, or we simply move on. Personally, I have experienced several periods of intense dedication coupled with sudden abandonment throughout my life. After each one, when I am in the process of moving on and rebuilding, I often wonder if what I had just created was worth it. Did all that passion go into a black hole and leave me with only “fond memories” and “personal satisfaction?” Those cannot be my only payoffs. There has to be something more. Fortunately, an answer came during a conversation with my mom, who used to compete in triathlon. She told me about her friend and former teammate, Anna, whose story changed the way I viewed legacy and showed me how any work done through passion was never in vain.

Anna loved triathlon and poured her soul into the sport.  She commuted an hour to the city at least twice a week for swim coaching and squeezed in cycling and running workouts around a full-time job. Her dedication and hard work showed: she attended the world championships in 2004 and was in the running to return the following year. In 2005, however, weeks before her qualifying event, she suffered a shoulder injury during an open-water swim competition. She underwent surgery and had six weeks to recover. It was a gamble as to whether or not she would be fully healed, but she attempted the qualifier anyway. On race day, however, Anna was unable to finish. 

Over the next several months, she went to physical therapy and performed modified training, but the injury continued to linger. It gradually affected other parts of her body and limited her mobility; day-to-day activities were a challenge. Anna's friends and family watched her spiral downward over the passing months – which turned into years - and it was clear that her life had changed…perhaps permanently. Her training had fallen off sharply, but she continued to see herself as a competitor. She talked about changing her workouts as she moved from “off season” to “peak season” and spoke as if little had changed. She measured her training times and physical condition with her results and stamina of the past. To the heartbreak of those closest to her, she continued to plan for a return to her former competitive self. Unfortunately, that day did not come. Anna eventually stopped traveling to Madison and lost touch with most of her peers. People assumed she finally came to terms with her reality. It was not until my mom called Anna recently to catch up that she found out what became of her.

Anna’s competitive career did come to an end. Her emotional recovery from her injury was the most difficult, but she was healing. She lost many things that she was proud of and it took her a long time to move on from her dream she had hoped to realize. Physically, she managed to heal enough to run, bike, and swim on a limited basis and continued training for her own well being. Inadvertently, her practice caught the attention of a local high school track team, who asked her to help train the distance runners. Anna accepted. Working with high school athletes did not fill the void her injury left behind, but it did renew her energy for the sport she loved and she enjoyed sharing it with others.

The season Anna came on team, she discovered everyone was talking about a certain talented distance runner. Two years earlier, speculation started circulating among the city’s coaches and students about where this athlete would attend high school. He was already climbing the ranks in competitive circles and commuted to different cities for training. Next year he would enter somewhere as a freshman. A wave of celebration swept over the team when he chose their high school. At the first practice of the following season, Anna approached him to welcome him to the team. "It's an honor to meet you," she said, stretching out her hand, "Your running is legendary." He smiled, shook hers, and said, "So is yours." 

When a chapter in our life closes abruptly, we are sometimes left feeling empty, confused, or hurt. We may wonder what the point was if it ended without giving us a meaningful conclusion. The work we did, however - the household we ran, the people we healed, the fitness level we maintained - was a torch. We pass "torches," or inspiration, as we do our greatest work. In Anna's case, her drive to excel in athleticism was admired by and passed on to the young athlete. It may have seemed inconclusive in the context of her life, but in actuality it was preserved and emboldened by someone else. 

In the same vein, we can recognize that torches have been passed on to us. We honor the carrier before us by working fervently to keep it going and building on his or her foundation, thereby accomplishing great feats ourselves. When our time has finished, we should watch to see when, how, and who picked it up after us. This - the carrying on of great work - is the point of our passion. It may conclude unceremoniously sometimes, but our work is never lost. Furthermore, if Anna's story taught me anything else, it would be to thank those who inspired me. I may never see who picks up my work, but I can let my previous carriers know that when it was time to pass the torch, I was there at the hand-off. This is legacy.

Written for LocaLeben.

Then I just saw this quote...

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new."

-Socrates

Current of Change

I do not understand what is going on around me, but things are changing. I felt stagnant in my life until June. I sensed that I had gotten back into a current of movement and I knew things would be changing in a month or two. Essentially, something had to change at the end of July, because I couldn't continue my life the way it had been going. Now that we're getting closer to that point, I see the pieces moving but I don't yet know if they will fall in my favor. It's like watching a game of chess in which you are one of the players, but someone else is moving your pieces. You have no idea if you're going to win or lose. It's a really close match and you hope that whoever is in charge of your game knows what's going on and won't let you crumble.

What's more, many people in my world are going through change too. Specifically, people are finding new jobs and quitting the ones they have. And it's all positive: people are entering careers they've wanted to enter for a while or they're finding jobs that will be paying them more. After going to a conference in Portland and being back in a moving current, I am being hit by change on all sides - internally and externally. There is an energy flowing through Tucson, but - like I said - I don't know what it is...or where it's coming from or where it will take me. All I know is that I'm in it and I'm thrashing around a little trying to gather my bearings (my poor parents - I've been sending feverish texts and making anxious phone calls hoping they have answers for me).

I think things will calm down in two weeks. I'll let you know what happens then.

New Goals

After watching repeated episodes of Those-Who-Live-Wealthy-Lives while I walked on a treadmill at a low-budget gym, I decided to set new goals for myself. The first is that I will make six figures. It doesn't have to be for forever, but I want to taste it...and then go back down to 90,000 ;). The second is to live in a metropolis: New York, Chicago, or Miami will do. Other cities may apply for consideration. After watching an episode of house-hunters international, I'm also considering living in Singapore for a short time. It looks like fun.

A few posts ago, I wanted to be a graphic designer. That has changed. I'm learning that (LiFe LeSsOn #1) sometimes one "brilliant idea" is actually a segue to something else. Design (which I still admire and read about) got me into an art class, which put me in a non-profit.  Now I'm fascinated with how arts organizations work, and it looks like life is leading me down the path of arts administration. That's my understanding, anyway. It was on my potential careers list a few years ago and has now cropped up again. I'm ready to give it a shot this time. Go the distance and all that rah-rah. Art will be in my life and that's all I care about. Also, (LiFe LeSsOn #2) I'm learning that it's not a bad thing to jump off the cliff into a deep challenge (go to art school to live an artsy life), but it's also not a bad thing to use the skills you have (snazzy phone answering capabilities) and ease yourself down into the life you want. You get to a happy ending either way. This leads to me another conclusion (LiFe LeSsOn #3): necessity (cash & already acquired skills) and opportunity tend to lead you to your career more than your concentrated efforts do. I believe there's a saying, "Life is what happens when you're making other plans." True story.