I think that’s what you ask yourself when you start sharing thoughts publicly. For me, I’m no stranger to it – I’m just not used to doing it in away that makes me accountable for them forever.

That’s scary.

Think about it, everything I write on this blog will be accessible for essentially forever – or until wordpress figures out they can charge more to keep posts available. Then it’ll just be the HuffPost once I become famous (yikes).

But why am I rambling here? Well that’s a great question. I think its because of my colleagues/customers/connections, some of which have become very good friends. They’ve asked questions – questions about their career, questions about handling situations at work, and turmoil they often find themselves in. If you’re one of those people, you can rest easy – your secrets are safe with me.

Whats become apparent to me are two things:

1. Unique Experiences and a shared path – I’ve switched jobs a lot (not companies, but roles) – learned a lot, and I’ve been mildly successful (my kids eat well, so I declare victory). More important than the change, is the path. The path I have walked from the beginning of my career (until now) intersects with a ton of people, people who are trying to figure out how to get to the next point in their lives.
2. Not everyone is me, nor do they like me – and that is okay. To be honest, I don’t like everyone – so there you go. But something I’ve seen firsthand lately (and is quite intoxicating), is how sharing experiences I’ve had personally or principles shared with me can help others think about how they can move forward in the situations they find themselves in.

So that’s what I’m doing, I’m going to share these items broadly – which is a great forum for people who don’t like me – they can just read. If you don’t like that concept, thats fine – go over to reddit be an overnight millionaire (nothing wrong with reddit btw).

So what am I going to share here?

I plan on sharing principles and experiences that help me make decisions about my job, my life and how I interact with others. At some point if others have things they’d like to share, I’d want to help them share either through me anonymously, or through their own words as a guest who doesn’t want to pay for wordpress (yeah they got me).

Below is my first mini-post – to get us all thinking – enjoy 🙂 –v

For my first post I can think of anything better than this. The guiding principle shared with me by a great man:

“If you spend all your f-ing time helping others be awesome, you won’t need to worry about justifying to others why you’re awesome” – Chris Jackson

Chris (who I miss very much) said that to me, while him and I were walking through a Target, together…on a customer trip. He had rented a Mazda Miata on our customer trip to Southern California for two reasons:

1. Two northern gentleman escaping winter in Southern California deserve to have wind through their hair and this Miata was the only convertible.
2. You learn most from those close to you. (he took this one too literal)

Either way, we were discussing something I forget the exact context, but it had to do with a project we were both working on with a mutual party- but something spouted out of his mouth (frustrated while he was trying to find something):

“If they’d just work with us, we could all be awesome. If you spend time making others awesome, you don’t need to keep track of why you or your team or your product are awesome.”

Him and I discussed that point a few times, and I remember it as the first quote above (he added the colorful language in a later conversation) – it guides everything I do, and virtually every interaction I have with people I collaborate with.

So, if you continue reading later posts – this will probably come up a ton – I throughly believe it’s one of my guiding principles in life.

So why am I bringing this up now? I think we all have been nervous about what we are doing, or what we are delivering. In IT, we often feel pressured by the culture of “being right” – because if we are right we earn some imaginary number tickets we can take to the counter for the big bear (bear being cash at work :)).

Like our leaders will say, “Oh you’re here for the bear right? You deserve it.”

Think about the people you collaborate with – are there any common traits for the people that are sought out for their opinion? Sought out for help? Are there people that you or others avoid?

More often then not, those people you (and others) seek out are people who’ve been helpful in the past, those that have been ally’s when you felt like you were defending your change request with your life 🙂 – or provide perspectives to get you thinking about how you should solve a problem. They aren’t typically people who tell you what to do, but why/why not to do it.

So my challenge to you, try making someone else awesome. In a meeting instead of suggesting a different idea, or variation on a path – try reinforcing the idea of someone you agree with – “Wow…Celia’s idea is what I would consider the ideal scenario, that’s how we should proceed.” Maybe ask someone how you can help, and let them take all the credit (and I mean all of it).

Everyone at some point has tried to prove to others why they’re awesome, but seeing is believing – let people see you think someone’s awesome. It’ll really help, both of you.

I’ve spent plenty of time trying to prove myself as awesome, it was exhausting – imagine how others feel that are still trying – because they feel they need to.

That’s it for now – More later – at some point in the future.

Cheers –

MC

P.S. Share an experience if you’d like when maybe someone made you awesome – and how it made you feel – or don’t – its up to you.