"Work is love made visible." - Kahlil Gibran in "The Prophet"

My reflections today were inspired by remarks Ben Horowitz made about following your passion in his commencement address at Columbia this past May. I’m grateful to Peter Sheppard for sharing an article about those remarks on Facebook. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had the chance to read them. For years I've struggled with something Kahlil Gibran wrote in "The Prophet" and Horowitz’s comments provide a different perspective. Gibran wrote:

"Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.

And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distills a poison in the wine.

And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night."

I enjoy Gibran's work a great deal. He and Emerson are the only people I have quoted more than once so far as I begin these reflections each week.  Still, I have felt that my work has seldom passed his test. While I do not work "only with distaste", there is much in my work that I find distasteful. I first read “The Prophet” many years ago when I was in high school, and it resonated with my idealistic dreams about what my life could be. I hoped I would be able to find a career what would allow me to work with joy. Instead, I have found good work that allows me to make a difference but that seldom brings me joy and has little to do with my passions.

I have found my work distasteful much of the time these past 35 years. Managing the people who deliver and support IT services, working to understand the needs and experiences of those who use the services we provide, seeking to meet their expectations, and striving to foster a common understanding between these two groups has often been frustrating and discouraging. My frustration is eased by the respect I feel for the people who I work with and for the work they do. I believe that many of them have a greater passion for their work than I do. Ironically, I often feel more discouraged because I can’t meet their passion with my own.

This work is not at all where my passion lies and it is very difficult for me to do it with joy.  If I were to list those things I could work with joy to achieve, the list would include simple civilized things like cooking, gardening and making useful and beautiful objects from wood and iron. On the list would be sweet wild things like hiking in the mountains, swimming in tropical seas and Canadian lakes, and standing still in the silent places to feel their beauty. I’d wish to share that beauty and peace with the world. My greatest passion and joy has more to do with being than achieving. Living a life in love and connection with the wonder that fills and surrounds us all.

The list would include creative pursuits like writing and performing music and songs, drawing and painting to fill images with truth and emotion, using words to tell stories and write poems that evoke thoughts and feelings. It would include opportunities to make a difference by giving my time to help people. To open a world of ideas by helping them learn to read, to help make our world a more just and equal place for them, to help them have safe places to live and opportunities to experience their own joy and passion; especially in music and wilderness.

In his address to the graduates at Columbia, Ben Horowitz urged them not to follow their passions and he provided four good reasons for them not to. Instead, he told them “my recommendation would be follow your contribution. Find the thing that you’re great at, put that into the world, contribute to others, help the world be better and that is the thing to follow.” With apologies to Kahlil Gibran, I think Horowitz is on to something here. I still think that finding and honoring your passions is important to living a full, rich, and joyful life. At the same time, it can be very satisfying to contribute by doing something you are good at, even it that doesn't involve working in your passion.

Horowitz points to another possible measure of making love visible and one that I find attractive. His advice admits the possibility that we can find great joy in being of service to the world even when the work we do does not always allow us to work in our passion. I do believe that my work can be love made visible. I have made my own peace with the work I do on the basis that it allows me to make tangible my love for my family by providing us a living and more. While the work itself is not associated with the things I love, the living it provides allows my loved ones, and me, some opportunity to pursue our passions. Often, those passions lead us to where we can each make a difference.

Perhaps we can bake good bread, make good wine, and sing our best truth as sweetly as we can, and it will be joy enough to see these nourish our fellow travelers on this earth even if we do not burn with passion for this work. Maybe it will even be enough, for now, to be an administrator working with issues that are often distasteful if my work helps students prepare for their own giving to the world. While I've seldom worked in my passion, working to provide a living, and more, for those I love comes pretty close. Looking at whether my work makes a positive difference for others might even lead me to be pretty happy and satisfied.

Retirement will be a new adventure and offer me the chance to face these choices all over again. I wonder what I will choose?

If you’d like to read the article that inspired these reflections, it is online at:

https://www.themuse.com/advice/4-reasons-following-your-passion-is-overrated-plus-what-you-should-really-follow-to-be-happy

To listen to Ben Horowitz’s speech at Columbia, and for a trascript, please see:

http://a16z.com/2015/05/28/some-career-advice-for-all-you-recent-graduates/

“You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” - Khalil Gibran

This weekend, I volunteered at the Pioneer Yosemite History Center in Wawona, California to train teachers and the parents who will be helping them as they bring 4th and 5th grade students to Yosemite next May for the Yosemite Environmental Living Program (YELP http://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/education/elp.htm).  I’ve been involved with this program since 1988 and I’ve been training people to run the blacksmith shop station for many years.

The students will be studying Yosemite’s history all year and each of them will learn about a specific person who played a significant role in that history. When they are on site in the spring, they will be in character and in costume portraying the Yosemite pioneer that they have studied. For twenty-four hours, they will be John Muir, Totuya, Jessie Benton Frémont, Galen Clark, Bridget and John Degnan, and many other people significant in the history of this place. They will cook their dinner on the wood stove, ride the stagecoach, make a project at the forge in the blacksmith shop, and practice other skills that were important from 1850-1920.

Each of them will complete a project related to the contributions the person they are playing made to Yosemite’s history. Chief Tenaya may prepare to present on the significance of this place to his people, John Muir may write an essay, or a letter to congress, urging the preservation of wilderness, Totuya may design a basket she hopes to weave, Christian Jorgensen will likely paint a watercolor. Enid Michael may write about the flora and birds of this region and about her experiences as one of the first female rangers in Yosemite, and Bridget Degnan might write about her plans for the bakery she would start in the valley.

The goals of the program include helping students learn about why the national parks were created, and about the dynamic tension in the park service mission to preserve and protect these special places while providing for access and enjoyment, and giving them an awareness that these places belong to them. In a few short years, these young citizens will be voting and will participate in decisions that affect the future of these places. I’ve learned that the program provides an intensely memorable experience for the students and for the parents and teachers who participate.

I particularly remember two student of my wife’s from the late 1980s. Both had emigrated to the U.S. with their families from the refugee camps in Thailand. I remember meeting the first at a fabric store where she was working. This young woman, who had last seen my wife as she finished the fourth grade, immediately recognized her, said, “You were my teacher!” and wanted to talk about the YELP and her experiences there. It was lovely to hear her share these memories and we were thrilled to hear of her plans to enter the nursing program at my university.

I also remember one of her classmates who neither spoke nor wrote any English throughout their school year. He was an excellent student, had completed his report for YELP in his native language, and had it translated to English by a classmate. He portrayed Christian Jorgensen and had painted a lovely watercolor. When he walked out on the stage at the Town Hall Meeting where students share what they have done and discuss the future of the park, we expected that he would hold up his painting. He did, but then he surprised us all by looking at the audience and saying, “Hello. My name is Christian Jorgensen, and this is my painting.” The crowd burst into applause and cheers and the ranger turned to my wife and asked, “What just happened?”. When Sue explained that these were the first English words any of us had ever heard him speak, the ranger understood the response. I feel moved whenever I remember that moment.

My purpose in writing about the YELP today is both to make more people aware of this wonderful program and to emphasize what a profound difference we can make in the lives of others when we agree to give our time as volunteers. Inevitably, volunteering also has a profound impact on the lives of the volunteers. I am proud beyond the power of words to tell of the thirty years my wife has volunteered to Yosemite and the YELP. After many years participating in the program and volunteering at the fall training sessions, she chose to leave the classroom and give her complete attention to coordinating this program so that it could survive budget cuts and other pressures. For over ten years, she has played that role and she was recognized a few years ago as Yosemite’s Volunteer of the Year.

In these 30 years, Sue has touched the lives of well over 10,000 students, teachers and parents. Since the YELP program began in the late 1970’s, I’ve been amazed and inspired by the willingness of dedicated teachers like Sue and her colleagues, and their parent helpers, to take on the myriad details of preparing for and running these programs. Year after year, I’ve seen the difference it makes for the kids and the impact it has on the volunteers. Many choose to come back year after year to give their time and talents and there is a strong camaraderie among the members of this group.

The best moment of this past weekend for me was having the opportunity to thank the volunteers for what they do. After a day of training the parents and teachers how to facilitate the blacksmith shop station, I enjoyed sitting by the campfire eating a dinner of beef stew and cornbread they had cooked on the wood stove, and then played in the band for their Saturday-night barn dance in the gray barn in Wawona. Dean Shenk, the ranger and historian who supports the YELP, was kind enough to give me the mike for a moment between dances. I thanked the teachers and parents for volunteering and told them that it is only their commitment and dedication that make it possible for their students and children to have this remarkable experience. I admire what they are doing and I’m proud to be a part of that effort.

There are so many wonderful examples of how volunteers make the difference for others and each represents an opportunity for us to enrich our own lives as we serve others. I admire all of you who give your time to serve in hospitals, work for political campaigns and other social causes, volunteer for the Peace Corps, Habitat for Humanity, parks, arts and literacy programs, work with our elders, and make the difference in so many other ways. May we each continue to look for these opportunities in our lives and may we remember to share our appreciation for each other and our joy in this work.

“It’s the ordinary things that seem important to me” - Alex Colville

Again this week, I am on vacation with loved ones and just back from a relaxing stay at a beautiful lake in the Muskoka region of Canada. Today, I will publish another essay I wrote in late August so that I can devote all my time and energy to being present here with my dear ones. I’ll look forward to any comments you may share and respond to those when I get back. Being out of cell phone range is not always a bad thing!

I’m not certain where the “Jar of Life” story below originated, but one possible source is Dr. Stephen R. Covey. I know he used a similar story in teaching about time management. However this story started, I’m glad it did. It’s a favorite of mine.

One Christmas Eve, many years ago, I received an email from my sister, Nancy, with a story about a lecture given by a college professor. In the story, the professor faces a large lecture hall filled with students, reaches down under the lectern, brings up a large glass jar and places it on a table. Then the professor reaches down for an old metal bucket and proceeds to fill the jar with large, smooth pebbles. Finished, the professor turns to the class and asks, “Is the jar full?” There are many nodding heads and a few brave students volunteer that, Yes, the jar is full.

Smiling, the professor reaches under the table for a bucket of pea gravel and takes time pouring this in and jiggling the jar until it has sifted in between the pebbles. Looking up at the class, the professor says, “It looks like there was space in the jar for about half a bucket of gravel. Do you think it is full this time?” The students realize the joke was on them and, admitting they were wrong before, agree that now the jar is full.

The professor then brings out another bucket and proceeds to sift clean, white sand into the jar until all the spaces between the gravel are filled and the sand reaches the rim of the jar. Turning to the class the professor says, “Clearly, the jar still wasn’t full. Is it full now?” The students are a bit more cautious this time. After all, this professor seems like a pretty tricky customer! Ultimately, after some whispering and shuffling of feet, the heads nod and they agree that the jar is now full.

At this point, the professor reaches into a shelf in the lectern and, bringing out two glasses of red wine, smiles up at the class and slowly pours the contents of the glasses into the jar. The students look on expectantly wondering what will happen next, and also wondering what this all means.

Still smiling, the professor says to them, “Today, I hope you will learn one of the most important things I have to teach you. This jar is a metaphor for your life. The smooth pebbles represent the things that really matter to you and that will fill your life with meaning and joy. The sand represents all the other things that can occupy your time and energy but that are not really very important in the end. It is crucial that you learn to first make space in the jar of your life for what really matters. If I had filled the jar with sand first, there would never have been room for the pebbles. Do you understand?”

The students look down with various expressions of understanding and puzzlement until one brave young woman raises her hand and asks, “I think I understand, and this does seem very important, but what about the wine?” The professor smiles more broadly and says, “That is a very good question and I’m glad you asked. You see, this exercise demonstrates that even after you first make room for the important things in life, and then the busy demands on your time and energy seem to have occupied all the rest of your capacity, there is always room for a glass of wine with a friend.”

This story, which I hope I’ve done a good job of remembering and retelling, moved me deeply at a time when my life was continuing to become busier and more stressful. After reading Nancy’s email that Christmas Eve, I found an old Mason jar and some golf balls. I sat quietly by the fire with the sounds of our family around me and wrote on the golf balls words that represented the truly important things in my life. “Sue”, “CJ”, “John”, “Family”, “Friends”, “Home”, “Learning and Reading”, “Music”, “Health”, “Creativity” and “Passion”.

On some of the balls I added more words including the names of very special friends on the one labeled “Friends”. I made space in the jar for all the balls and screwed on the lid; smiling as I realized it bulged out on top a bit to make room for all these important things. That jar sat on the hearth by the fire until I returned to work after New Years. It has sat next to the phone on my desk ever since to remind me of what really matters. I feel happier and more peaceful each time I see it and especially glad to see the names of my loved ones there when I do.

I find that having reminders of what really matters in my office where I can see them throughout the day helps me keep my priorities straight. I’ll write more about this topic in a future essay and I’d be interested in ways you’ve found to do this in your offices.

"We shall not look back in anger or look forward in fear but look around in awareness." - James Thurber

Today, I am on vacation with loved ones and on my way to a beautiful lake in the Muskoka region of Canada. This week and next, I will publish essays I wrote in late August so that I can devote all my time and energy to being present here with these dear people. I’ll look forward to any comments you may share and respond to those when I am back in contact with the Internet. Sometimes, it is very nice to disconnect!

I am thinking about a way of dealing with difficult situations, and feelings, that I learned about as I got help with the depression that followed a serious illness. This approach, that has three key stages, awareness, acceptance, and action, made an important difference for me and I have frequently found it useful in the months that have followed my work with a wonderful therapist who helped me at that time.

This process of gaining awareness, moving towards acceptance, and finally choosing action has been helpful to me in my personal and professional life and I wish I had gained a better understanding of it earlier in my career. I had encountered these “three As” many years ago when I participated in the 12-step program, Al-Anon, to help myself learn how to deal with the behaviors associated with a dear friend’s alcoholism. They were certainly very helpful in that context and I see now that they could have benefited me more in other parts of my life over the years. At a high level, this process is one of taking time to become aware of my feelings about a difficult situation, allowing myself to accept those feelings as fact, and only then choosing action that will allow me to move forward in a way that will help me address the situation.

Awareness. First, I must take time to fully perceive how the situation is affecting me, how I feel about it, and how I am responding. One useful way of doing this is to consider what I fear will happen. Is there something important that I fear I will lose? Do I feel threatened in some way or pressured to act in a way that isn’t consistent with my values? By taking time to become aware of how the situation could affect me, and how I feel about that, I give myself valuable insight into what may be motivating my response and about concerns I might want to address when I am ready to act.

Acceptance. At this stage, I can feel tempted again to leap into action. After all, I know how I feel and what I am concerned about. Surely, that is enough and I can now act to put this discomfort behind me. In fact, it is important at this point to pause and take time to truly accept the situation for what it is. This requires me to be still, with an open mind and an open heart, and to come to a point where I can relate to what I have become aware of as fact. While I don’t have to agree with, or like, what is, I do have to truly accept the situation I am facing before I can choose action that is right for me. The Irish say “a tá sé” which means simply, “It is”. As I struggle to truly accept something difficult, I find this simple phrase a helpful test. Have I truly reached the point where I accept what is this simply and completely? Have I embraced it as fact and am I ready to use those facts to help inform my choices and actions?

I had a boss once, who I struggled with, who frequently said “It is what it is” in a way that felt less like acceptance than like frustrated surrender or an excuse for inaction. For a long time after we no longer worked together, I shied away from that phrase! I did find myself thinking when he’d say this, “Yes, it is what it is, but what are we going to do about it?” I look back now and see the impatience in that reaction. One of the most important things that I needed to learn to apply this approach to challenges in my life was that I must allow time for myself to work through the process. I have often felt that I wanted a solution to some problem as quickly as possible. While this is easy to understand, after all we’d all like to have feelings like sadness and discomfort end as soon as possible, it is simply true that it takes time to arrive at effective long-term responses to difficult situations. Only after I have gained an honest awareness of a difficult situation, and accepted what I have perceived as fact, will I be truly ready for action.

Action. Carl Rogers, a man who made great contributions to psychology, said “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” This wisdom can be applied to the difficult situations we face in our lives and careers. When I accept the situation just as it is, then I can choose to act. This is the time to thoughtfully consider the alternatives before acting with clear intention. Building on a foundation of understanding my feelings, fears, and motivations, able to work with the facts about a situation that I have come to accept, I can choose the action that is best aligned with my goals and values.

The most difficult situations for me are those where I feel powerless. Where I feel that something I do not like has happened, or is happening, that I cannot change. This can be particularly difficult when what I cannot change are the consequences of my own actions. For example, when I have acted in some way that has caused hurt, anger, and distance between myself and a loved one. In these situations, applying the same approach of awareness, acceptance, and action is even more important for my eventual peace of mind and recognition that I can choose, and have chosen, the right course.

In fact, there is always something that I can change. Sometimes, that something is within myself and my choice of action does not involve any overt steps to change external circumstances. You see, this is the stage when I can also choose the attitude I will bring to my response to a situation. Having gained awareness and acceptance, I am much more able to embrace an attitude that reflects a genuine understanding of my circumstances, allows me to take responsibility for my choices, and act positively to make the best of the situation. The greatest power for good comes in making a choice, and owning responsibility for the results, even when that choice is to accept, and adjust my attitude toward, what is without overt action.

In my professional life, I have faced many difficult situations where applying this approach would have been helpful. These have included budget cuts that have resulted in the need for layoffs, situations where actions by a member of our team have required that I take disciplinary action, when I have been at odds with my immediate manager or with the direction taken by leadership, and many others. During the past year, I have faced situations like these ready to apply what I learned from my work with my patient and helpful therapist. I found that, while the situations were no less difficult to face, I have been able to respond to them more effectively and with less personal stress and anguish than in the past.

I’ll close today with one more thing I came to learn during my recent work to work through the episode of depression that followed my illness. With help, I came to realize that there are gifts I receive when I face, and deal with, the most difficult situations in my life. From my illness, I am grateful to have received the gifts of learning once again how my loved ones, and colleagues, lift me up and help me through the hardest times, and of appreciating more deeply how sharing love with my dear ones is the most important part of life for me, and the gift of understanding how awareness, acceptance, and action can help me face the challenges ahead. I hope my sharing my thoughts about this will help you benefit from that gift, too. Awareness, Acceptance, and Action can help us find Peace and Gratitude.

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations in life ... that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Three phrases I keep working on using more often are “I was wrong”, “I don’t know”, and “I need your help”. I’d certainly be justified in doing that! Each one of these can be hard for me to say, and each for different reasons. Another important one is “I am sorry” although I’ve found saying that doesn’t usually make as much difference as I wish it would. “I’m sorry” seems to work better when combined with a very sincere “I was wrong” and best when followed by a genuine change in my behavior to prevent my making the same mistake again.

I’ve found that they best thing I can do when I make a mistake is to acknowledge it as soon as can and to own my responsibility for the consequences and for correcting them to the best of my ability. Sometimes, I will have provided wrong information, other times, I will have taken the wrong action. In any case, it is important for me to admit I was wrong. This is the first step to making things as right as I can and to finding ways to avoid a similar mistake in the future. Of these three important phrases, this is probably the easiest for me to say. It can be embarrassing to admit when I am wrong, and sometimes in the heat of disagreement it can be difficult to realize at first. Still, it is usually pretty clear when I’m wrong and the best way to move forward it to admit it. 

One day last week, I got a very nice, and gentle, email from a good colleague pointing out that there has been a typo in the greeting of the last four email messages I’ve sent to all our faculty and staff about some technology issues we’ve been having. Over the past four days, I have sent four messages to this group that included identified them as our “Faulty and Staff” Oh man, was I embarrassed! Fortunately, there was another update I needed to provide and I used that opportunity to apologize to all the faculty for this unfortunate error.

Over the next two hours, I received nearly 40 emails from people assuring me they were not offended, had done similar things themselves, and/or found the whole thing pretty funny. One of the messages was from the Director of our English Education and Credential Programs. I didn’t receive a single message from someone complaining! As mortified as I felt to have referred to our colleagues with the word “Faulty”, it was pretty great to see that kind of response when I apologized.

It can be harder for me to say “I don’t know”. For as long as I can remember, I have often been the one in my family, and groups of friends, who tended to know the answers to many questions. I admit many of these were pretty trivial! For quite some time, our boys referred to me as “The keeper of all useless bits of knowledge”. One day, our youngest mixed up this honorary title and called me “The useless keeper of all bits of knowledge” and that dubious title has stuck with me ever since! I’m glad to say that it always used with love and good humor and I think it’s pretty funny.

In my career in IT, I have amassed a great deal of knowledge and it has been important to know, or know where to find, the answers to many questions. I take pride and pleasure from being able to provide good information across a wide range of subjects and have enjoyed working to keep my knowledge current. While the scope and level of detail of my understanding has changed as I moved into management, it has remained critically important that I demonstrate a thorough knowledge of key topics.

I’m sure that the importance of my knowing, and the positive reinforcement I have received for this all my life, are important to why it is hard for me to say “I don’t know”. On some level, it feels like I’d better not have to say that too often! On another level, this phrase is one of the best keys to gaining a better understanding and can play an important role in building and maintaining trust with colleagues, friends, and family.

When I say, “I don’t know”, I give others the chance to provide the answers I don’t have, and I always have the opportunity to follow up by finding an answer or asking another colleague for the information. In the process, I can expand my understanding and give others the chance to demonstrate their knowledge. This process also helps me build trust with others that I will admit when I don’t have an answer, can be trusted to find one, and to demonstrate that there are other highly-knowledgeable members of our team that we can trust to provide important information.

“I don’t know” can also be a good first step to “I need your help”. When I don’t know, but I’m sure someone else on our team does, that is a great opportunity for me to ask for help. I think “I need your help” may be the hardest of these three phrases for me to say. I was raised to be independent and self-reliant and I tend to be proud that I can do it myself. I know that I have also suffered from a common issue I’ve seen many of my colleagues struggle with in IT careers. It often seems, and sometimes is, faster to do it myself than to ask for help, especially when the person I am turning to for help will need training and experience to complete a task as quickly as I could myself.

Asking for help is beneficial in many ways and I will keep working to do this more often. By saying “I need your help”, I can make better use of my time, achieve better results for my department and the university, give others the opportunity to contribute and grow, and build stronger working relationships with my colleagues. I also set a good example for the members of our team that struggle, as I do, with the temptation to do it all myself.

There is much that “I don’t know” and “I need your help” to learn. I ask you to share your thoughts and feelings about these essays through the comments on my blog, or Facebook, or Google+. I’ll do my best to admit “I was wrong” when I’ve got the wrong idea about something. I welcome your input!

P.S. If you’ve read this far and wonder about the picture above, it is one of our cat, Lucky, objecting to my harmonica playing. I don’t think I’m that bad, but he really doesn’t care for the harmonica! For some reason, this whimsical image fit today’s topic. Maybe I need help improving my playing, I don’t know what it is that bothers Lucky when I play, or maybe I’m just wrong to play when he is nearby!

“In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.” - Fred Rogers

As much as I would like to have found a way to avoid stress in my life, this has never been possible for me… so far. I am an optimist after all. Certainly, stress has been a significant part of my career in IT and learning to cope with it effectively continues to be one of the most important learning experiences in my working life. Remembering what really matters, the love I share with my dear ones, and the feelings inspired by peaceful places is a daily part of my life today and that is making a big difference.

From the beginning of my working life, and well before I got into IT 36 years ago, there were sources of stress. I’m sure this is true for all of us. From the speed and accuracy pressures associated with my work as a fry cook and bank teller, to the time management issues associated with working more than one job at the same time, and personality conflicts with coworkers, there were always opportunities to experience stress. As I began my work as an assembly language programmer in the banking industry, project deadlines became a part of my daily life. When I became a systems programmer the stress came from the possibility of affecting many people when I made a mistake.

The demands of working in situations where creative solutions to key problems must be found quickly can also be challenging and exciting in positive ways. As a young man, the times when I’d work all weekend with hardly a catnap to complete a conversion affecting two large financial institutions, or all night troubleshooting a major issue just in time to get the online systems back in operation before the branches were to open were exhilarating. Today, I still enjoy helping our staff think through difficult problems to find good solutions. Still, these high-pressure situations can create stresses that are unhealthy; especially when they are not well managed.

I choose to take a technical position at the university over staying in banking partly because the stresses associated with the job were less. I’m happy with that choice nearly 26 years later and I think I have avoided some stress as a result. Even so, project deadlines, system outages, and competing priorities can be a source of significant stress at the university. I am particularly conscious of the impact these can have on the managers and staff I have been leading. The years of the great recession, with their layoffs and tight budgets, put great demands on our teams at a time when the financial crisis was creating other stresses in their lives.

I have made a point of encouraging all the managers and staff I lead to look for ways to keep their lives in balance and helping them manage the stresses of our shared working lives. I’ve encouraged people to take time for important events in their family’s lives, to take real vacations where they can disconnect from work, and tried to help them keep the unavoidable work crises in perspective. I make a point of emphasizing how effectively they use their skills and experience in these situations and of remaining optimistic and confident about our ability to find and implement solutions. I encourage my colleagues to take advantage of the various wellness programs and activities offered by the university that can help manage stress and increase balance.

For me, the greatest stress began as I accepted a role in management. While I think I have been a good manager, and leader, I also think this requires me to work in ways that are not entirely aligned with my natural strengths and puts me in situations that I find uncomfortable, and stressful. As a manager, I feel I am called on to do work that directly affects the lives of the people who work for me and I take that responsibility personally. The pressure of change, and the increasing stress, as the scope of my role as a manager increased and I was responsible to some extent for the well being of many more people has been a real challenge for me. The difficult economy and limited resources added to that stress.

One way I tried to deal with this was to work more. It was not uncommon for me to work 50-60 hours a week as I tried to meet all the expectations of my vice president, and the needs of my managers and staff. This turned out not to be a very good strategy! I developed some medical issues that are directly linked to stress. Fortunately, most of these are more of a nuisance than a risk, but I know that poorly-managed stress over the long run can lead to serious consequences and that approach was simply not sustainable.

One of the stress-related health issues I suffered was more serious and I learned an important lesson the hard way. I won’t go into the details but this resulted in my missing months of work, caused some permanent damage, and it was over six months before I could return to work on campus full time. Only after the crisis was past did I learn that this condition could have killed me. To say this was a wake-up call for me would be a major understatement. Every crisis in my life has come with a gift, once I could recognize it, and the gifts from this one were some of the greatest of all. I realized more clearly than ever what really matters and I’ve changed my behavior.

I don’t work much more than 40 hours a week now and yet I manage to get done what really matters. I do a better job of asking for help, admitting when I don’t know and acknowledging when I am wrong. I got help from a therapist and have learned more effective coping strategies. I made the decision not to pursue any more responsibility and decided to begin planning for a specific retirement date. I also watch for the symptoms of stress-related medical conditions as I know these are the “canary in the coal mine” that can be my early warning system.

Some of the coping strategies I have found most helpful include writing, spiritual practice, meditation, and  exercise. I write almost everyday in old-school letters to loved ones and in a more private journal. I take time for my own spiritual practice several times each day, exercise regularly and meditate. My nightly walks under starry skies with our dog Zoe are a great! I practice what I learned from my therapist about awareness, acceptance and action and I will write more about that in the future. I have learned to set better boundaries between my work and home life and I take time to honor these as I commute home. I have added more reminders of what really matters to my office and these help keep me on the right track.

I hope you learn to deal better with stress sooner in your career than I have. This is an ongoing journey for me, I expect it will be for you, and it is one that we can take a more active role in shaping. It is OK for you to choose what is healthy for you and to say no to things that are now. May you find balance that allows your work life to be productive and rewarding while ensuring that those things that really matter in life, including your health, remain the most important, and rewarding, of all.

“All you can take with you is that which you’ve given away.” - moto on the sign under Peter Bailey’s picture in the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life”

My good friends at SHARE (http://www.share.org) celebrated the 60th anniversary of that wonderful organization last week in Orlando. I enjoyed seeing their posts on Facebook and following along with some of the news from another excellent meeting of enterprise IT professionals. SHARE has been an important part of my professional career, I've written some about this here already and I’m sure I will write about my experiences there several times in the coming months.

Today, I’m thinking about the value of SHARE and volunteering there as a way to learn about management and leadership. The positive impact that my engagement there has had on my career, and my ability to succeed in increasingly responsible positions, cannot be overstated. I was fortunate that my first mentor in IT, Gary Sandwick, valued SHARE participation and encouraged me to attend and get involved. There is so much I owe to Gary. He trusted me, taught me, and gave me key opportunities. Of all his many gifts to me, his starting me down the path to a volunteer career at SHARE had the broadest impact on my future in IT.

I first attended SHARE in Anaheim in 1986 and found the broad, and deep, technical program there incredibly valuable. In one week, I could update my knowledge of the technologies I worked with, learn about new tools and concepts, and meet many other IT professionals with common interests. I came away from that first experience with the beginnings of a network that would serve me throughout the remainder of my career, with many new ideas I could apply back at the shop, and with a keen desire to get back to another SHARE conference as soon as possible.

I also had my first taste of volunteering for SHARE that week. One of the many things this organization excels at is giving people opportunities to get involved that allow them to feel welcome, to succeed at each level, and to prepare for greater engagement and contribution. For me, the beginning was to help with distributing and collecting session evaluation cards for the MVS Storage Project. At this point in my career, I was a Systems Programmer on IBM 370 mainframes and I found my first SHARE family in the MVSS Project.

Although I didn’t have a commitment to attend every SHARE meeting, I was offered the opportunity to be a project volunteer and work on analyzing the session evaluation data by working remotely when I couldn’t attend. In these days before email and the Internet, I’d receive the evaluation data in the mail and return my analysis in the same way. I was hooked and wanted to do more as soon as I could!

I served as a Project Volunteer for a number of years and the lessons I learned, and applied as I moved from banking into higher education, helped me secure a commitment to attend both SHARE conferences each year. My greater availability allowed me to serve as a Project Officer, and Deputy Project Manager with MVSS before being asked to serve as Project Manager for a new project. Recruiting volunteers and speakers, and participating in the logistics of scheduling and supporting the conference sessions, helped me gain skill and confidence in supervising people and managing projects. Applying what I learned to my work as a supervisor helped lead to my being asked to join the management team in our IT department.

Shortly after I first became a manager at the university, I was approached about running for election to the SHARE Board of Directors. I was surprised, and delighted, to be asked as I had great respect for the people working on the Board. From my first opportunity to work with the Board, as a nominee attending a board meeting, I felt welcome and included in the work of the group. Although I was not elected, I was appointed to serve as Director of Human Resources and the next phase of my SHARE volunteer experience began.  Each new role at SHARE provided me greater opportunities to learn and grow and my work with the SHARE Board was the most valuable of all. After my initial work in Human Resources, I served as Director of Strategic Relations and then as Secretary. Each of these roles helped me grow in ways that were valuable at my “day job” and the experience I gained working with policies as Secretary has been especially valuable.

I served as SHARE Treasurer and then as Vice President and Director of Strategic Development and the experience I gained working with budgets, investments, and strategic planning has proven very valuable to me in my work at the university. I had a number of other opportunities to chair and serve on various committees and each provided me the chance to learn and grow. Unfortunately, I was unable to continue my SHARE career by serving as President. I would have had that opportunity, but I lost support from my then Director at the university during a time of difficult budgets. I regret that I was unable to complete my service to SHARE, and to keep the commitment I had made to serve as their president.

Although I had to step away from my role on the Board, SHARE never stepped back from me. Instead my colleagues there stepped up to help me find new ways to remain engaged. I continued as a “virtual volunteer” for a number of years, helping to develop some new offerings, have attended SHARE’s ExecuForum event and continue to participate with their Archives committee. I also enjoy returning to SHARE conferences for a visit with my old friends there whenever I can.

They say that what you get out of your experiences, depends on what you put into them, I certainly found this to be true in my work with SHARE. The organization offers many wonderful volunteer opportunities, and the secret to making the most of these is to accept that offer and give your best while remaining open to learning and growing through the experience. I know there are other great volunteer opportunities with many fine professional organizations and I hope you will each find a way to engage in these.

I’ve often said that my involvement with SHARE has been the best experience in my professional life and I remain as certain of that today as I ever have been. The spirit of sharing that is fundamental to this great organization fosters an energy and openness that allows us to give, learn, and grow together that is beyond anything else I have found in our profession. During the most active phase of my engagement with SHARE, from 1988 to 2010, I learned things that have made all the difference in my ability to contribute to the university. Even more lasting are the friendships that started there. I have many dear friends that I stay close to across the miles and I met my best friend of more than ten years at SHARE. These friendships will enrich my life and bring me joy always.