I Want You To Do More Great Work

If you’ve been hanging out with me for any time at all you’ll know that I’m all about doing more of the work that has meaning and makes a difference … and less of the other stuff that fills up our days.

When I was exhibiting at the ASTD last week, I noticed there was some momentary hesitation in people when I gave this label of “Great Work.” Why? Because for some reason it sounds a bit … grand, a bit elusive, a bit beyond their reach.

And fair enough. But Great Work isn’t only for the saints, the over achievers and the fortunate few. It’s for all of us.

Here are four paradoxes about Great Work that I think speak to why YOU can be doing more Great Work.

• You don’t need to save the world. You do need to make a difference

To do more Great Work is not a call to abandon your everyday life and become a martyr to a cause. You don’t need to stop earning money, give up your friends, stop wearing regular clothes, nor do you need to start global movements, overthrow governments, spark revolution.

It is a call to do more meaningful work. What can you do more of that makes a difference, shifts the balance, has an impact, adds beauty, changes the status quo, creates something that worth being creating, improves life, moves things forward, stops waste, engages people, allows love. (You don’t have to do all of those. Just one will be fine.)  There are opportunities to do all of that all around you now.

• Great Work is private.  Great Work can be public.

It can be nice to get the applause, to win the medal, to get the pat on the back that says “well done.”  And sometimes Great Work generates just that sort of recognition.

But not always. Because it is a subjective matter – it’s what is meaningful for you – often Great Work is a moment of private triumph. You know you’ve done something that’s meaningful, something that makes a difference, something that stretched you and taught you and scared you a little.

In fact, if you’re just after public acclaim then Great Work might not even be the best route.

• Great Work is needed.  Great Work isn’t wanted.

What calls you forward to do Great Work is often a sense of, “I can’t take it any more – something different needs to be done.” Great Work shows up at the place where what you stand for in this world meets what needs to change.

But Great Work is often not wanted. Oh, it might well be talked about as wanted. Corporate leaders in particular are expert at proclaiming some sort of Great Work as the next quest for their organization. But organizations are deeply rooted in delivering Good Work and sustaining the way things are so that there’s minimum interruption to that Good Work.  To take a stand for Great Work means in some small (or significant) way to go against the flow.

• Great Work is easy. Great Work is difficult.

Sometimes when you’re doing Great Work, it’s a glorious thing. You’re in that state of flow, where things come easily, where you’re tapping into this power of possibilities, where time seems suspended.

But not always.

Great Work can be a time of grinding through it, of showing up when the Muse isn’t whispering to you.

Great Work can be a time of groping forward, stepping forward uncertainly when you’re not totally sure where you’re heading.

Great Work can be picking yourself up off the floor after the unexpected has just slapped you around a bit, and carrying on.

There are times when doing Great Work will test you. It will call on not just your skills and talents, but your resilience and your ability to support yourself.

Find Your Great Work

There’s a reason why nine Past Presidents of the International Coach Federation have given Find Your Great Work the thumbs up.

It’s your practical guide to doing more Great Work. 12 “maps” to help you figure out how to tackle the Great Work paradoxes and how you can find, start and sustain your own Great Work.

Ian Shaw, Head of Learning and Development at Nestle Purina Europe says this:

“If the meltdown of the world financial system means that the reset button on life has, without consulting you, just been pushed - then you need Find Your Great Work big time!… What struck me going through the book was just how accessible each of the tools were – just grab a napkin and get going. How simple to use, yet I was amazed at the depth of thought and reflection they provoked…. A great book to help people make sense of life today, and plan to do great, earth shattering, wildly optimistic things in the future.”

Grab your own copy here

The Great Work Interviews

I’m very proud of these - 25 minute podcast gems with people who are wise and funny, smart and practical.

If you’re a coach, you’ll probably enjoy Marshall Goldsmith’s conversation or perhaps Michael Port’s.

If you want to focus on productivity, the talk with David Allen is definitely for you.

An entrepreneur?  Listen to Guy Kawasaki.

Or if you’re trying to make change happen in your organization, try the interview with Sally Bonneywell of GSK or Rita Bailey past Head of SouthWest Airlines University.

You can listen (or download) all or any of them for free here

Don’t take my word for it

Smart people thinking out loud about Great Work.

What I know is, is that if you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.
Oprah Winfrey

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
Confucius

No person who is enthusiastic about his work has anything to fear from life.
Samuel Goldwyn

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas A. Edison

The best work is not what is most difficult for you; it is what you do best.
Jean-Paul Sartre

As for me, prizes are nothing. My prize is my work.
Katharine Hepburn

Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.
Buddha

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Theodore Roosevelt

I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven’t tried that for a while. Maybe this time it’ll work.
George Carlin

Click on the image below to make it readable (and laughable.)

Who needs chairs? Thanks to  John Pritchett cartoons.

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What it all boils down to… Thanks to PhD Comics.

Find Your Great Work Seattle workshop, Sunday June 14th

We’re rapidly approaching the midpoint of the year … how’s it been going for you so far?

I suspect you’ve been working a little too hard, fretting a little too much, feeling a little too overwhelmed at times.  (Or maybe I’m just projecting.)

If you’d like the second half of the year to have more focus, more support and - and here’s the bottom line - more work that’s meaningful and that makes a difference, then this workshop will be for you.

=> Check out the details here

We’ve got ten places left.  Come and grab one of them.

(Can’t make Seattle?  That’s sad … but no problem. Pick up your own copy of Find Your Great Work here.

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“Courage is one step ahead of fear.”  - Coleman Young

When I was growing up, one of my favourite books was on Richard the Lion Heart, one of the kings of England.  (You may have come across him as the always-absent King in Robin Hood.)

Nowadays, with a little more sophisticated understanding of world affairs, I suspect he wasn’t all that was noble and mighty in a war general and a king.  But I did love his name.  “Coeur de Lion.”  It just seemed to sum up all that I wanted to be.  Brave.  Bold.  Courageous.

As I’ve spent more time championing the Great Work movement, I’ve come to realize you can reduce to essence of doing more Great Work to just two things.

The first is focus.  Knowing what you stand for.  Knowing where the opportunity for Great Work lies for you.

And the second is courage.  That is, the willingness to actually do that Great Work, knowing that it’s never the easiest path to take.

Here are three things I’ve learned about courage.

• 1. It’s an act of the mind

“Courage is almost always a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.” -Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Even though the etymology of the word harks back to the Latin word for “heart”, the truth is that the battle to be courageous first gets played out in your mind.

On the one hand you have that little voice saying “play it safe, don’t be foolish, don’t step away from what you know.”

And on the other, you have the call to something a little bigger, a little different, a little unknown.

Notice the chatter. Rather than rushing through, linger a little at these crossroads.  If this is a discussion, then it means you’ll have a choice.

Who’s winning the debate?  Courage?  Or fear?

• 2. It’s an act of the body

“Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.” -Eddie Rickenbacher

A courageous act isn’t necessarily a grand thing.  It doesn’t necessarily involve fireworks and marching bands and unfurled banner against the sky.

But it does involve action.  A small step.

It might be a step towards something, the beginning of a Great Work project, a Yes.

it might be a step away from something, a breaking of a unproductive pattern, a No.

But it’s a step.

When your mind is log-jammed, sometimes the easiest way to break things up is just to get moving.

• 3. It’s a fine line

“Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained. “-Arthur Somers Roche

If the choice we face - and we face this in a thousand different ways every day - is between courage and fear, then it’s a delicate balance that can tip either way.

Just as if you let fear hold sway, it eventually cuts a deep channel (and Roche’s metaphor is actually a good description of the neuroscience behind the way we think), so to courage can cut its own path over time.

You will of course occasionally tip to fear.  But practice one, or ten, or a hundred small even invisible acts of courage a day, and you tip the balance inexorably to your favour.

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Six practical strategies to find your courage

“A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage.” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

How much of your talent is being lost to the world for the want of a little courage?

The truth is, everyone courage fails them from time to time.  That pesky inner critic gremlin-y voice in your head says “What are you doing?  Are you crazy?  Stop that!”  And you do, you dial it down and play it small.

But as various people have said, it’s not how many times you get knocked down that matters it’s how many times you get back up.  It’s just that sometimes, it can feel difficult to pick yourself back up once again.

So I’ve written an ebook with six practical strategies for when your courage temporarily leaves you and you’d like to get it back.

And it’s just $11.

You can pick your copy of Be Courageous here

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Free teleclass with The Coach Exchange, Tuesday, June 9th

On Tuesday the 9th at 12 noon EST, I’ll be holding a teleclass sponsored by The Coach Exchange.

TCE is a gathering place for coaches to find and offer support to develop, grow and promote their practices.

It’s free to join (there’s a premier membership level too), and it’s a genuinely great place for coaches to find community.

They’re even offering ways to attend the ICF and CAM conference at TCE’s guest - so check it out, sign up, and join us on the teleclass.

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Five reasons to listen to the Great Work Interviews

The interviews are pretty damn fantastic, if I say so myself.  My cunning strategy?  Find really interesting people and get them to talk about Great Work.  Simple yet brilliant.  Five reasons you should be listening:

1. They’re free.

2.  You get to see under the hood of famous people (David Allen, Marshall Goldsmith), senior leaders (CLO of General Mills, VP of OD at GSK), social innovators, authors … just a whole bunch of fab folk.

3. You’ll hear some practical strategies combined with some personal stories about how to let Great Work flourish in your organization.

4. You can listen to them on the web, or download them as an MP3.

5. And oh yes - they’re free.

Check them out here

Find Your Great Work buddy special

Click on the image below to make it readable (and laughable).

Just because … it has chickens AND Canadians.  Thanks to the always brilliant Savage Chickens.

Click on the image below to make it readable (and laughable).

Working at home is not all it’s cracked up to be. Thanks to Everyday People Cartoons.

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What happens when the power fails? Thanks to TheWeek.com

What if you lost everything?

David Hoffman is a documentary film maker. This four minute clip from TED
tells his story of losing every in a fire, nine days before his talk.

As I write this, I’m also listening to the unfolding tragedy of the Italian earthquake
with hundreds of people dead and lives destroyed.

And behind that, there’s the on-going distressing rumble of people losing jobs
as economies struggle to flow.

There’s something important, delicate, shocking about these reminders of our fragility
and our mortality. It stops us from the rush into busy-ness and the ordinary rush of life,
and forces us to face some important questions.

Hoffman asks one of them early on:  “Am I my things?”

At the moment, I think I know the answer to that one, but that query opens up the door
to ask something different:

“What’s most precious to me?” “How am I nurturing or looking after that?”

It reminds me of how few things really matter to me and how many people really do.

(Looks like I’ll be spending some of today on the phone.)

What have you found?

In the same TED video, Hoffman repeats a couple of times a mantra that has obviously
helped him cope with his loss:

“You gotta make something good out of something bad.”

I can’t really argue with that. The new-ish disciplines of change such as Appreciative Inquiry, Positive Psychology and Positive Deviance all talk about finding what’s
good and amplifying it.

And I’d also cast the net a little wider.

I want to ask myself: “Am I learning from this? “Am I noticing what I need to notice?”

Here’s what I’m learning about myself.

Here’s what I’m learning about the world.

And knowing that, what really matters?

Where’s the wisdom for me to find in today, today?

Don’t take my word for it

Smart people talking about getting lost and being found.

“Lost time is never found again.”
-Benjamin Franklin, American statesman

“And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

“Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.”
-Henry David Thoreau , American philosopher

“‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson, British poet

“You have learned something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.”
-H. G. Wells, British writer

“Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most.”
-Mark Twain, American writer

Click on the image below to make it readable (and laughable).

A perfect fit for my mother, my sisters, my girlfriends…. Thanks to everydaypeoplecartoons.com