Tag: Tuesday Takeaway

Publishing our first cookbook was nerve-wracking for me—not the cooking, recipe-testing or food-photographing, but the part that happened once the book was live on Amazon: Actually announcing it to the world and, you know, selling it.

[Insert full-body shudder here.]

I hated asking for the sale, and I’d get so uncomfortable pitching our book to prospective buyers and bookstores that I’d accept the very first pause or furrowed brow as a hardline “no,” dashing out the door as I simultaneously cringed and shouted, “Thank you for your time!” Nate took over the sales side of things (hallelujah!), and a quality that makes him an excellent salesperson I recently found echoed in Adam Braun’s The Promise of a Pencil:

 

“Never take no from someone who can’t say yes.”

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Editor’s Note: Since this article ran in 2015, Miki Agrawal has stepped down from the period underwear company she founded, Thinx, amid allegations of sexual harassment. She has said the claims were “baseless,” and told Glossy that since then, she has “learned a big lesson” and has organized her latest venture, Tushy, differently. I believe that we all deserve second chances, and the advice she shares in her book, Do Cool Sh*t, is still useful and relevant.

So, without further ado, here’s the original story:

Blame it on my time at O, The Oprah Magazine, but I love talking about purpose and calling and fulfillment and all of those buzzwords typically reserved for motivational posters and TED Talks. Often, though, those talks can feel like a dog chasing its tail: We keep circling this desire to lead a meaningful life, but defining that meaning gets us back to discussing what makes life meaningful. And so the loop traces itself, leading to plenty of talk, talk, talking, but not much action.

It was that desire to just do something that immediately attracted me to Miki Agrawal’s book, Do Cool Sh*t. Miki didn’t talk about doing things; she jumped out and attacked life head-on. I mean really: The book chronicles how she convinced the financial firm she worked for to let her leave early twice a week so she could play soccer for the New York Magic, only to tear her ACL, fight her way through physical therapy to make the team a second time…then tear her ACL again.

But that hardly stopped her.

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Remember those goals we created at the beginning of the year? You know, the ones we scrawled across that starry-skied printable, told our friends about and then promptly forgot about?

Okay, maybe we didn’t promptly forget about them. But at some point or another, life gets in the way, and those photos you promised you’d take daily or that exercise routine you swore you’d stick to suddenly fade away. (About 54% of people will drop those resolutions like a bad boyfriend before hitting the six-month mark, according to the Statistic Brain Research Institute.)

To ensure author Chris Guillebeau is always working toward his goals—or quests, as he calls them in his book, The Happiness of Pursuit—he sets aside a week every December to conduct an “annual review” of his life. It starts with two journal prompts:

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At any given point in my day, there’s a nonstop to-do list running through my mind, almost like the headlines ticker at the bottom of a news broadcast: Return library book. Buy more peanut butter. Check if we need flour, too. Are the eggs about to expire? Come up with a dinner idea to use them up. Call Mom. Reply to that email my boss sent…

It never ends, and it seems to become even more blaring when I’m sitting in a presentation or listening to a speech. (Meditation experts everywhere are shaking their heads right now as my lack of mindfulness, which I promise, I’m working on!) Sometimes, though, a simple phrase rattles you out of your own head, hurling that to-do list far, far away. At least for the moment.

Recently, it happened when Mark Nepo uttered the words:

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If I could recommend one gift to all high school and college graduates this year, The Crossroads of Should and Must would be it. Insightful, honest and punctuated with art, the book inspires you to closely examine your deepest-held beliefs about who you are and what you want to do with your life.

The book, based on an essay Elle Luna wrote for Medium, encourages you to uproot the things you’re doing in your life because you feel you should do them and get to the heart of what really matters to you — the things you feel you must do; that no matter how much you ignore them or try to push them aside, they creep back into your head, inextricably woven into the core of who you are and what drives you.

Of course, that discussion begs the question: How do you separate the ‘shoulds’ in your life from the ‘musts’? And on that note, how do you know if you’re chasing the wrong dream?

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Feeling like you’re trapped in the wrong job can be suffocating, making the moment you clock out feel like sweet relief—only to be drowned out hours (minutes?) later by the crushing realization that soon enough, you’ll be back.

That’s no way to live, and Jon Acuff’s new book, Do Over, proves life doesn’t have to be that way. He starts with a simple premise, that every career change involves falls into one of four categories—a career jump (think: promotion), career opportunity, career bump and career ceiling—and that each one can be combatted by investing in a particular skillset. If you’ve hit a career bump, for example, and have been laid off or fired, you’ll need to focus on improving your relationships, because your connections will be your greatest asset in scoring a new (better!) job.

The book is a manual for navigating any professional change, but two takeaways in particular really struck me in that “whoa—hold up and let me grab my pen, because this needs to be underlined, circled and possibly tattooed on my arm” sort of way:

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There’s a saying in journalism that rings so true a friend tattooed it on her body: Kill your darlings. Whoa, whoa, whoa — don’t panic. As morbid as it sounds, it has nothing to do with serial killers or crime sprees. It’s a reminder that in order to create something truly compelling and great, you often have to get rid of a clever turn of phrase you love or a quote that seems too juicy to ignore. If it doesn’t add to the story, it’s got to go.

And as a writer, artist or creative-person-in-the-world, that can be shockingly hard to do. We don’t want to let go of the good to make way for the great, because that nice-but-convoluted subplot or that “but it took me two hours to make!” graph on a Powerpoint presentation is good on its own, so it must add to the project’s overall greatness, right?

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‘Potential’ is a powerful word — it gives us hope or dashes it, depending on how it’s used. It’s something we’re always trying to live up to, yet something we hope we never fully reach. After all, how sad is it to think that you’ve reached your full potential, and there’s no chance for improvement or growth beyond where you are?

Sounds like death to me.

That’s why I loved Erwin McManus’s description of potential, and the journey we take in pursuit of fulfilling ours, in his book, The Artisan Soul:

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Painters, illustrators and other artists of all ilks create a two- to five-paragraph statement that introduces people to their work and, by extension, who they are. It’s displayed in galleries, so visitors can get a sense of the artist while taking in his or her work. It answers some of those questions that arise when you’re staring, head slightly tilted, at bunch of splattery, Pollack-esque paintings and wondering compelled the artist to create it.

And we think this idea should exist for everyone, everywhere. No matter how practical you are, you create art. Whether it’s with lines of code, answering a symphony of ringing phones, scheduling appointments like you’re the new high-scorer in Tetris, there’s an art to what you do, and it’s time to acknowledge it. An artist’s statement welcomes people to your work, writes Lisa Congdon in Art, Inc., and your own artist’s statement welcomes you to the art in your work.

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Deep down, I’m a peacemaker. I always want to smooth edges, help people understand the other person’s side, and deflate a tense situation as quickly as possible. That tactic has helped me as a manager, student advisor and coffee-date companion over the years, but there’s an ugly shadow side to that need to cool things down: When the confrontation involves me directly, I want to run. Fast.

But, since I’m pretending to be an adult and dashing out the door without ever looking back isn’t really an option (let’s be real: I’ll run out of places to run away to real fast), I shut down the argument by shutting down, before anything can happen. I tune out, occasionally nodding along while a little voice in my head shouts “wrong, wrong, wrong, and I can’t wait to tell [Insert Friend Who’s Most Likely to Be Available While I Vent Here] alllll the reasons why you’re wrong later.” The other person can walk away feeling heard and that we’re on the same page, when really, I’ve closed the book and kicked it under the bed. (I’m cringing just admitting this.)

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“Should” is a tyrant. It’s Amazing Amy from Gone Girl. It pushes you to be more self-disciplined, and at times, a better version of yourself; it can get you to finally floss, go to the gym and write thank-you cards. Sometimes all in the same day.

But it can easily take over your life, too.

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“Sorry” is today’s version of “like.” It’s practically a space-filler, joining together two sentences while simultaneously smoothing things over: when we’re running late (sorry), when our arm grazes someone’s in a crowd (sorry), when we accidentally hand someone two meeting agendas instead of one (sorry).

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