A Resilient Resolution: Setting Intentions in Stone

To be clear, I don’t aim to cheat. When it’s right in your face, it’s difficult to ignore the suggestion and the sudden knowingness that will help you pass.

When you have to be sneaky, accept that you should have studied harder, setting intentions in stone to ensure that you will never again be so unprepared, with the power to make it happen.

Seated in that gymnasium, I realized that I had studied long and hard. It was just what I had learned that surprised me.

A few rows in front of me was someone I’d recognized from class. He was writing.

Well, if he’s writing, I will too, I resolved.

I sat up straighter. I re-read the question. Picking up my pen, I looked at him again.

“He’s so cocky, I bet he’s starting from first principles,” I thought.

That narrowed things down, because there are only so many of those.

Just like that, I started writing. I kept poking my ego. I did the thing cocky smartasses tend to do, surprising myself with answers to those audacious questions.

Shockingly, my mark surpassed my role model’s mark; the guy I was cheating from, if I never once glanced at his paper.

Later in life, if I needed to be a certain way that wasn’t immediately accessible to me, I’d wonder who the best representative of that trait was in my life. I’d step into a performance of their personality.

Sure, I acted my way through life. But at least I was the one creating the protagonist. I’m genuinely grateful for all the people I’ve met, the opportunities to observe them, and the perspective to notice a talent or ability I could use.

Still, I asked myself, “Is that who I want to be?”

Lacking Alternatives

There have been times when the answer was a resounding no. But, there are exceptions when you say no and do it anyway.

A few times, I made an abrupt about-face. I resigned without a job to go to, I packed up and left, I stood up and walked out the door.

It’s not a threat or a promise, but a certainty that I will lack the energy to remain put. There will be a breaking point. When the willpower is used up, the brute force to look calm and keep going is too exhausted.

People always thought of me as quiet. Then came Toastmasters and mastering my end of the conversation. Then came the realization that I am a firehose of intensity and volume, and who can take that?

Quiet? I was silenced. The words backed up until they overflowed the gates. They are still pouring out.

This year, I resolve to continue the quest to master my words by introducing myself to new audiences.

Because if I did it, you can do it too. I’m not special. I wasn’t at the head of the class. I’m not even employed.

Because it can be faster, better, cheaper, and easier than you imagine. Getting there is the same – faster, better, cheaper, and easier than you imagine.

Don’t let your imagination hold you back from miracles. Good enough? No way. Good to Great? You should have already read that, tried it.

When you’ve run out of alternatives, you will be open to setting intentions in stone.

Tricks and Talismans

Until then, I’ve learned, everyone has their own idea – but there’s a block in the way of trying it out.

Maybe the block is removed, and it does work, and congratulations! Please tell everyone – especially me – all about it. I love adding new tricks to my toolbox for resilient resolutions.

Setting intentions in stone to find a job that would let me live where I wanted, and where I wanted – in a house on a lake, I landed in cottage country. Within a year, there I was, with employment in Product Development at an automotive company.

As dreamy as it sounds, it was not to last.

One workplace celebrated first-home ownership as the land anchor it would prove to be. Here, they called it a lobster trap, because you willingly swim in, only to realize that you can’t get out.

When it became clear that financial ruin was on the horizon at the company that paid my mortgage, I realized I’d better jump ship.

In the interview, I mentioned that I was looking forward to pursuing further education through evening classes and other opportunities.

Unfortunately for me, my job required me to be on a flight every Monday and Friday, in the constant company of a team. Is was at the end of my rope, financially and emotionally, as I paid my mortgage, rent, and parking tickets due to my inability to get to city hall in person any time from Monday to Friday.

So much for the classes and opportunities; I couldn’t even get the basics done.

The day came when I couldn’t take another day. I promptly left the apartment and began my emotional recovery at the house on the lake with its lack of internet, spotty cell coverage, and reliable wood stove.

Empty Promises and Helpful Hints

Finally, I was ready to sell and move, but I couldn’t get the oil tank filled. What began as misplaced paperwork became a job that wasn’t up to code, and another contractor was hired to find out that the truck stops delivery when the snow starts flying.

As the snow started flying, I set intentions to keep the woodstove running to prevent the pipes from freezing, rather than moving across the country and starting life over on the coast. If I did that, I’d only have to come back later and get this house sold.

With mental concessions made, I started awaiting offers, either for the house or for an interview, I used my season’s passes for the local ski hills and the snowboard that I brought home from Whistler. On any given day but Wednesday, you could have found me on the slopes.

It lasted until the end of February.

While setting intentions, I was heading to a new job that turned out to be disappointing when I realized that, when she said “You,” as in “You will be responsible for…” and learned she meant otherwise.

Naively, I thought she meant the singular, me, and not the plural, me and everyone else with the same title.

The French language is admirable for its ability to differentiate the two. In English, they sound identical.

Like a money pit of a house, I suddenly realized why the job was on the market. With so much infighting, forward motion was impossible. Without forward motion, the resume stalls, and the career gets stuck. Welcome to your coffin; I hope it lasts until you can retire, because all the infighting is coming from those who are already living that desperate, angry life.

I didn’t last. Setting intentions, I was sent to work from home.

In all this drama of employment dreams, the house hadn’t sold.

My senior manager said, “Well, that’s unsustainable,” he said when he learned where I lived. He didn’t know I lived a self-directed life.

Setting intentions in stone, my dream was always to be writing while looking out at a lake. That’s what I’m doing right now, if both the house and the lake are far bigger than they were then. That’s the part that was always going to sustain when the unsustainability hit, if short-term concessions had to be made.

When the promotion I didn’t want made it unsustainable, I moved, only to be laid off within weeks. I’ll tell you what’s unsustainable, and that’s my ability to be surrounded by people, all day long, day after day.

I love working from home, being out of the gossip circles, not knowing the current cool words, having no idea what people are watching or listening to, but in some cultures, working from home is the death sentence of isolation. I knew which one I had, and that gave me the runway to prepare for what was obviously coming.

Working for that company, everyone I met had a story to tell me of when they lost big time, and it was still a painful memory.

When you work for a company that has let people down consistently and constantly, colleagues give each other names mired in blame, shame, or playing the game.

When you work for a brand that is admired for its quality, innovation, and history, it is no wonder that colleagues give each other nicknames of gods, superheroes, and leaders.

How to know which culture you are about to join? Setting intentions digging to find out.

Really Working

In my experience, customer sentiment becomes internal culture, and then the internal culture feeds it back with equal disdain.

Setting intentions in capitalism means customer sentiment tips the scales toward a company’s demise. When that company is propped up by the government, they are also propping up that culture, those work conditions, that perpetual lack of quality because it’s unnecessary to change – we’ll just ask for more money. We’ll get it, because look at all these people we employ. Voters.

I didn’t realize until I was in it, trying to understand why this culture of slack and this pervasive poor quality could continue in the face of options. As I dug deeper, I followed the money.

I was shocked to discover that taxpayers subsidize not just Canada Post, but also Purolator, which they own but operate separately.

Why can’t they merge and be sold off, or if the government could be reduced to servicing only the parts that are deemed unprofitable by the industry? They pick it up where mainstream couriers leave off, and take it all the way home.

Can you tell that I am a Conservative? That, and I wanted to do real work, but in a toxic environment: “real work” is defined by social power structures, not by profitability.

Every Canadian should be entitled to a fair and equitable work environment. When the government props up those work environments, they risk becoming toxic. If you are going to give concessions to companies, how are you ensuring that the checks and balances on results remain in place? Otherwise, we risk rewarding spin doctors rather than innovation and hard workers.

Every leader is running an experiment, and to learn from it adequately, complete feedback is required. If that feedback is lost, so is the lesson’s point.

Doing Homework

You aren’t supposed to copy answers from someone, but you are supposed to leap from the shoulders of giants and learn from the experiences of others. Ask for hints, information, and spoilers, but don’t ask for advice, instructions, or absolution.

You aren’t supposed to be angry at life when it doesn’t unfold according to your plan, but you are supposed to gather the skills and resources presented, grow the patience required, apply the knowledge you’d already gained, and have faith that the universe is working on an upgrade to your idea. Don’t be passive, but responsive.

You aren’t supposed to become well-rounded when you clearly have weaknesses that others don’t, but you are supposed to see where others can fill in those gaps for you. Instead, you can hire, outsource, or stretch yourself, but don’t expect yourself to be able to do it all and be everything everyone wants you to be. Be yourself, and let others do the rest.

It could be for you, as it was for me.

“Do you know how hard it is to be yourself?” asks George Clooney’s Jay Kelly.

Yes, I do. It might be the hardest thing anyone does, as it requires saying no to everyone else. Everyone else. And no man is an island, they say.

Finding out who you are is the only thing that other people cannot do for you. It’s the only answer that you cannot copy from someone else, and indeed, if that’s who you are, then you’ve got some fine-tuning to do.

Setting intentions in stone means doing your homework this year. Spend time with you and only you, like it’s the only date that matters. It is the most crucial relationship that you’ll ever have, and it’s the one person you’ll never escape.

Personal Projects

With all the infighting, it’s a matter of us versus them. It all depends on where the lines are drawn. In the sand or stone? On the one with less power than you.

There was the Director of Quality, who told the story of a customer frantically looking for a package that was late.  The customer had pleaded that it was her wedding dress, so reluctantly, she went in search of it.  Finding it, she decided the contents were not a wedding dress, called the customer back, and told her she could wait until Monday. 

I’ve seen skimpy wedding dresses, including bikinis, but I don’t know just how small the package was.  There is no shortage of stories where the customer got the short end of a business promise told with the air of objection and justification.  So rare is a business that actually values its customers that Zappos has become an example in this space.

Your personal project is to investigate your own criticism, judgment, and blame. Are you far too critical of yourself? Maybe instead, you are far too forgiving?

Setting intentions in stone to start identifying what you say you believe, and whether that’s truly the case, is the quest for authenticity.

Some people may try to help you with this project, and they may be projecting. Projecting is lying for non-creative people. They are trying to deflect something, but instead of coming up with a creative alternative, they assign to you what they feel themselves. Alternatively, they are saying what they hoped was true, and either way, just let it bounce off you without any reaction, like a brick wall to a tennis ball.

Sometimes, doing absolutely nothing is an extremely burdensome workload and is observed by the uninformed as being completely lazy.