Live and in color - breathing shallowly, red-faced, and beginning to sweat, my mind races while I search for something to say. Looking for a sign, a clue, something for my mind to pick up on.
No, I'm not on stage right now. But feeling at a loss for words on stage has happened to me. There, I could at least respond to something else in the moment. Nor am I feeling this way in front of a group giving a presentation. Yet again, this has happened there, too. In front of a group I would ask for a cup of water, see how much time is left - something to momentarily divert focus, giving my mind a chance to connect to a congruent thought worth expressing.
Right now, in the "fight" mode of "fight or flight", I scan the surroundings, insisting my mind lose it's hold on the inner workings of my brain where it's stuck in the emotional, not the thinking side.
"What have you accomplished?", the question repeated in my head, as I momentarily looked at my interested companion slowly manipulating the coffee cup on the table.
I have noticed some people are better at being at a loss for words than I am. They shrug it off, letting the moment pass without incident. It seems there is no drama. Their hands don't shake, their skin tone remains the same and they stay even-keeled and non-plussed.
Perhaps they remark with simple responses such as, "Oh I don't think in terms of accomplishments," or "Who has really accomplished anything these days?", diverting the focus and redirecting conversation. Even suggesting a vulnerable response like, "Oh, nothing to write home about" while grinning, shifts the mood from serious to light-hearted.
But during the times when I wasn't prepared to respond with proof of my value, yet cared to, I, the literalist, couldn't identify anything worthy of note. Especially this particular day, when just starting out in an interpersonal skills business, looking across the table at a gentleman who thrives on statistics, analysis, systems and results. He wasn't going to be a client, and he surely wasn't going to refer me to those who needed me, for he didn't value what I had to offer. And at that point, neither did I.
Fortunately I have traveled down the road of understanding for quite some time now, while embarking on the journey of personal value. What a difference that makes when sharing one's message. Not only am I brief and articulate with the value, I no longer am suffering for the "inspiration" in the moment.
I now realize, when I don't know my value, I wait to hear it from others. And when they're at a loss for sharing it, I have nothing more to add.
It's questions and situations like this one that I dread as I come into the job market and face my first "big-company" interviews. Here's what rifles through my head when someone asks...
ReplyDelete"What have you accomplished?"
What I've accomplished as a young person is entirely subjective and more often than not, my own opinion matters the least of anyone involved. For example, some would say that I've helped to revitalize the Garden since you and the team hired me two years ago. I, on the other hand, think that the band and the church rallied around something new and themselves accomplished the improvements that they sometimes "credit," unfairly, to me. Who is right in their opinion? When I'm asked what I've accomplished, should I delineate the opinions of others if they shine more favorably on me?
I'm a twenty four year old, just out of college with a degree in music and a degree in economics. I've worked a few part time jobs and been a professional student in a wide variety of environments. I'm a highly capable individual, a hard worker, an unapologetically independent and creative thinker. I have strong beliefs and biases, I have most of the tools I need to accomplish anything I set out to do. I can lead and I can follow, I can initiate and I can respond.
But that doesn't answer their question. When they ask me to list or to describe what I have accomplished, I'll have to reply, "Nothing."
Being in a position where you have to admit that you've accomplished nothing, that the sum of your earthly works is negligible, that you've had very few effects on your environment that can be clearly illustrated and are at the same time relevant to the person asking the question...being in a position like that instills a great amount of fear and would certainly silence me.
Of course I could ramble about the birdhouses I built with my grandfather, the Christmas ornaments created in second-grade art class, the house that I roofed on a mission trip in high school, I could play them recordings of BGSU's Horn Club, and I could show them the papers I've written throughout my academic career. I could also go off on an esoteric personal narrative but, deep down, you know that's not what they're asking for. They're asking for something more, and you can't deliver.
If someone were able to speak in a situation like that, I would bow to them as the better candidate or call them a liar; one or the other must be the truth.
Over time, I'm certain that it will become easier to find examples of what I have done with my life that I can count as personal "accomplishments." On the other hand, perhaps questions like that are simply loaded from the beginning. Perhaps I should simply state that I find the premise of the question and the expected response invalid. Perhaps both now and in the future I should share that narrative; perhaps I should share not what I have accomplished, but what I aim to accomplish. If a company, a client, a friend finds no value in what I value myself, perhaps it is not a connection that needs to be made.
What a wonderful journey your answer has made, Colin. I rather appreciate the deeper, valuable philosophic approach comparing the minute tasks - full of value and soul - to the aspirations, while flat-lining with truth.
ReplyDeleteThere is beauty in the utter needlessness to answering such a results-focused question, which I admit to have asked.
I admire your risk of putting it out there. However you would respond, in a time like you mentioned, to a question such as this, would be, without question, another work of art. Valuable from your depth as well as from your inner character.
That's in keeping with the Colin I know and admire. Thanks for sharing, my friend. And now, young Plato, seek out a copy of Gut Check by Tarek Saab. On a number of levels it will grab you. Then share a thought in response.
Merri asked me to read your post, Colin. Probably she knows that I think in a very different way than she does.
ReplyDeleteI would argue the premise that revitalizing the Garden is not an accomplishment of yours. I agree, perhaps all the credit does not fall on you; however, there is accomplishment in being the catalyst a community needs to revitalize. There are talents and skills you possess that, being in that place and time, allowed others to follow you to a better place.
I wouldn't discredit the Garden revitalization as your accomplishment. If it feels better, give others the credit they are do in the process.
Please don't answer the question, "What have you accomplished" with "Nothing". You would do a disservice to those who entrusted you to do a job that you accomplished with great success. If you acccomplished nothing, than they accomplished nothing.
Precisely. I responded to Colin's philosophy. Kim responded to the immediate need.
ReplyDeleteColin, your talents are VERY evident in the way you've been leading the band, in allowing them to grow, in giving them a space to create and improve and in being an example of it all in, with and through them.