Ever have one of those contemplative moments that prompts you to step back and ponder what you really want to accomplish in your life? Happened to me last month.
Here’s how it began.
Charles Hamilton Sorley
I’ve long been fascinated by the circumstances surrounding World War I, and last month I was following the various commemorations and tributes surrounding the centenary anniversary of Armistice Day. (My curiosity first began with the stories from my grandfather who, in 1915, took a break from his studies at Oxford, and volunteered to drive an ambulance just behind the front lines at Pagny-sur-Meuse.)
In my reading, I was rediscovering the work of some of the poets of the Great War that I’m familiar with: Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and Rupert Brooke, in particular. And then I encountered the story of Charles Hamilton Sorley, who I know little about.
Charles Sorley was killed in action on October 13, 1915, during the final offensive of the Battle of Loos. Shot in the head by a sniper. He was 20 years old. In his breast pocket, written in pencil, was the poem that he is most remembered by, “When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead.”
It’s a most extraordinary poem. It’s quite short. I urge you to read it. Stripped of all sentimentality, it captures the gruesome reality of the Great War in terms that are stark, horrific, honest, and clear. When I read it, I felt amazed, awestruck, and envious as to how a 20-year-old could write with this clarity and beauty.
And, I’m left with this inspiration and urgency: What can I create? What can I do? Who can I help in a manner that will outlast my corporeal existence?
Life is short
I’m 64 years old. I’m a business coach now. I was an advisor before. I liked being an advisor. Yet, I love being a coach. I’m doing the best work of my career. If I’m lucky, I have another 10 years of good work ahead of me. If-if-if…I’m lucky. Tomorrow isn’t promised. Sometimes, life intrudes on the best-laid plans. And, I feel the clock ticking. I have much left to do.
Enough about me. How about you?
What do you want to do?
8 actions to re-energize your life and career
You may or may not have identified with my anecdote about Charles Sorley. Yet, I have little doubt that you have moments in your life where you pause to reflect on whence you’ve come and where you want to go. For the time when you reach this moment, may I propose eight exercises that might catalyze your deliberation and commitment?
1. Recommit to your purpose
Nelson Mandela said, “There is no passion to be found playing small…in settling for a life that is less than you are capable of living” With regard to how you perceive your role as an advisor, where do you rank yourself on the three levels that I’ve listed below?
- Level 1: Doing a job. You see being an advisor as a necessary chore, and your compensation is the primary reward.
- Level 2: Pursuing a career. You are motivated to do well not just for the money, but to enjoy a sense of accomplishment and the fruits of success.
- Level 3: Honoring a calling. There is a purpose larger than yourself that extends beyond fulfilling your personal needs for survival and ambitions for success. You want to fulfill a need in this world.
Honoring your calling is similar to ‘knowing your why,’ which is about connecting to a bigger purpose that gives your work and life meaning. Finding purpose lies at the intersection of your passion, talent, expertise, and values. There is nothing inherently wrong if you find that being an advisor is mostly “doing a job.”
However, what does your heart and gut tell you? Do you want to spend the rest of your life this way? If not, you’ll want to attend to this straightaway. To figure this out, do your research, go to the library, talk to your mentor, read a book, hire a coach…but don’t delay. “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. Everything else is secondary”…as Steve Jobs said.
2. Focus on the ‘now’
Ever feel that life is passing you by? Here’s a trick for slowing it down. Focus on this moment. Reading this essay. Your next conversation. Or whatever.
Research has shown that when you are focused on the moment, your brain becomes more fully engaged, and you actually perceive time as having slowed down. You start to feel more in control of your life and time, and you instantly feel like you are using your time more wisely. If you can live in the immediacy of the now, you can shift your focus from the past you may feel has been squandered, and start focusing on what really matters—the here and now. The person, conversation, or situation that is right in front of you.
3. Get curious
Being curious means making the choice to explore and discover. It means wanting to know more about what is happening and really understand it. It means wanting to put aside your concerns and thoughts and focus on what is happening in this moment so that you can get a grasp on it.
As a bonus, the more curious you get, the more you’ll want to do the things that matter. You’ll want to see how they play out in your life and whether or not they’re going to have the effect you think they will have. Joan Baez said, “As long as one keeps searching, the answers will come.”
4. Break out of the routine
Remember the last vacation you took where you did things that you don’t normally do, in an order that was not typical either? One of the hidden benefits of going on vacation is that you not only experience new things, you mix up your routine. You wake up earlier. You eat breakfast when you normally don’t eat until lunch. You watch the stars when you normally don’t look at the sky at night.
You can do this at home, of course. You will look back on that time, tomorrow, as if you did something worthwhile, simply because you broke your routine and focused on doing something different that mattered to you.
5. Take the 30-day challenge
Do you know the work of Benjamin Hardy? He’s an author, thinker, and motivator. He proposes that our identity of who we are is fluid and malleable. We have the opportunity to redefine whom we are…by consistently and boldly reshaping our behaviors. He first asks the question, “What’s something that we’ve wanted to do, but haven’t done?” Then, he proposes this. Why not try it for 30 days straight?
- Like 30 days of health and fitness?
- Or 30 days of facing a fear?
- Or 30 days of making requests of things that you want?
- Or 30 days of saying “No” to things you don’t want?
- Or something else?
Intrigued? Check out Hardy’s article on the 30-day challenge. He gives more explanation, and a template to get going.
6. Stop waiting for perfect
Salvador Dali said, “Have no fear of perfection. You’ll never reach it.” In this age of overachievement and perfectionism, it’s easy to think that we have to be the ‘world’s best’ in our particular field of endeavor: the best advisor, the best coach, the best leader, and so forth.
Yet, we’ll never be the best. We’ll never be perfect. And holding onto this ideal keeps us from taking the first step toward doing what we can with our own natural talent. “You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just the first step”…Martin Luther King, Jr.
7. Never compare
Teddy Roosevelt cautioned us: “Comparison is the thief of joy.” In this age of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, it’s so easy to compare ourselves to others. (I did it myself. Just moments ago. Compared myself to Charles Sorley.) The tricky thing with being an advisor is that this is an industry where you often come face-to-face with comparisons daily. To your peers. To other advisors. To your clients.
Here’s the thing. You can never use the outward appearance of someone else to know what’s happening on their inside. We all hide our secrets. The comparison game is as old as humanity. (Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.) And it rarely ends well. Which leads me to today’s final suggestion.
8. Just be you
Carol Schuldt died the other day. She was 85. She lived in a little house by Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Most every day for the past sixty years, she’d hop on her bike and ride south on the Great Highway, past the S.F. Zoo to the beach just below Fort Funston. Then, she’d strip down to nearly nothing and jump into the Pacific, communing with the ocean. (Check out this inspirational video. Note: Skinny-dipping is involved.)
As you see from the video, Carol was a joyously independent woman who did her own thing each and every day, fully inhabiting her life. She didn’t leave behind a big bank account, but she left a spirited impression on everyone that she ever met. We could all learn something from her and that irrepressible gift.
On a plateau?
Every person who I’ve ever coached reaches a point in their life where they could use a boost. (I don’t like to characterize this as being “stuck.” Words matter and if you frame your situation with negative connotations, you potentially hold yourself back.) It’s actually quite common for the most successful among us to reach plateaus in our career. We exhaust our innovations, and need to find new creative ideas. We achieve our goals…and need to identify new feats to accomplish.
George Bernard Shaw said, “Life isn’t about finding oneself. Life is about creating oneself.” One of the beauties about being a financial advisor is that, if you want to reinvent yourself…there’s only one thing that can stop you. You!
We all can learn how to use moments in our life as key inflection points that propel us forward in new and exciting directions.
- Where are you in your life and career?
- What is your purpose?
- Who are you serving?
- What would you like to achieve?
- What have you yet to accomplish?
- What are you waiting for?
I trust that you find this helpful.