The continuous expansiveness of being

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco @TheValoress

I spent Memorial Day weekend in San Francisco. It was my first time there and the only time I’ve traveled to a place without any prior research or preparation whatsoever. My unpreparedness had stressed me out somewhat, but thankfully my close friend in SF served as the best tour guide and host one could ever ask for.

The entire time I was there, I just went with the flow of things – I drove to places near and far, snacked on take out dim sum and other delicious cheap foods that didn’t require sitting down or reservations, randomly met up with friends and had a kickass time. Despite not having planned any part of the trip, I ended up checking out all the best parts of SF, and even Stanford, Facebook, and Salsalido. After the weekend was over, I realized I had not relinquished control over my life like this for a really long time.

A part of me was overwhelmed by the experience because it showed me a side of life that asked me to be busy but not intentionally so. It felt like an extra inch of breathing space for me, and in that space, I found clarity and inspiration, a blurry and shifting sense of calm and harmony that felt like purpose. It stirred my imagination and made me feel extraordinarily alive, and as a result I felt more creative than I’ve been since before I moved to New York.

These moments where something deep inside of you stirs suddenly are always worthwhile to note. These moments are never about concrete goals, nor are they about fulfilling needs. Rather they’re really to there to raise awareness for how you can live more authentically.

Those who are also addicted to traveling understand these irreplaceable moments of clarity that come with the experience. A sense of calling, not of how life MUST be but how life CAN be. You begin to realize that all the boundaries and structures you impose on your own life day after day are in fact merely figments of your own imagination, that they are sometimes sufficient but not necessary.

Recently over coffee, a friend told me that in planning out one’s career, most people tend to believe that in order to continuously add value, we must narrow down over time- narrow down knowledge, narrow down expertise, narrow down skill sets- but this process necessitates our sacrifice of an inherent balance of capabilities and competencies that is core to extraordinary leadership (and extraordinary success). I thought about this a great deal and I think there is a fundamental difference between narrowing down your focus, and narrowing down your skill set. Having a specific set of skills is incredibly important, but at the same time, he’s also right – your focus cannot stay at the level of your skill set. Instead you must continuously broaden it, look to adjacent areas for inspiration and connections, and see the forest for the trees.

For me, the same goes for life choices not career-related. Seek to be large and expand. Look for those stirring moments.

Love,
V.

When you can do anything you want…how do you do it?

The hardest part of my job is the latitude of freedom I have to “do the right thing”. I love the feeling that my opinions really matter, that my work really counts towards a certain tangible outcome, but at the same time, it’s taken me a lot of effort to become comfortable with so much ambiguity – so much so that I almost wish that on some days, especially when the work is high-stake, someone can just come and tell me exactly what to do.

In my first year, the fear of “making a mistake” was often paralyzing. I would literally spend days flipping through my research and meeting notes, and delaying producing a deliverable until the very last minute. Then with amazing gusto and whatever genius was leftover from my grad school essay-writing days, I would pull all-nighters to pump out the deliverable, meet the deadline, and keep the clients happy.

Over time, it’s become clear to me that this kind of behavior is not sustainable. While I can’t change how I’m being managed (both up and down in the organization), I can change how I work. Below are several key understandings I’ve come to amass while on the job. I think on some level it’s such a fitting reflection of how we decide to live life as well.

1. More freedom really does mean more responsibility 

More responsibility – this means more balls to juggle, and differently sized ones, too. This requires that you perfect your planning skills to effectively balance the meeting of immediate deadlines and how to drive results home long-term. If you keep your eyes too focused on the immediate present, as you execute through time some part of the project will fall through the crack, and the results may be unsalvageable. Or worse, you may not end up recognizing a key opportunity.

The biggest trick here is to never forget that no one is going to walk behind you with a whip, telling you when to do what. As you take a proactive stance to own a project, you become accountable for its outcome – if it doesn’t go well, you may still end up being the person to blame even if some part of it was never your fault in the first place.

2. Be your own critic 

Very often, in a situation where you’ve been managing a project, you will know it best – where all the moving pieces are, what their statuses are, what are the pain points and contingencies. While others’ feedback are important, you can provide yourself with much more useful and objective feedback on how you did. Just because your boss says you did a great job doesn’t necessarily mean it’s 100% reflective of your developmental needs. Just because your boss says you did a terrible job doesn’t necessarily mean you’re useless.

Don’t shy away from this self-reflection process – critically examine your performance and be honest with yourself. Perhaps you’ll have trouble benchmarking your performance objectively – try to speak with your peers and learn how things are done in their companies, and how things can be done better where you work. Keep a library of “golden” deliverables for reference and consistently hold yourself up to that standard of work.

3. Pace yourself and delegate

The opposite of not owning the outcome is to let yourself work to death and own every outcome. I know this is something I personally struggle with – I have trouble “checking work at the door” when I get home, I have trouble saying “no” to a new project because I get so excited about adding value to something new and full of potential, and I have trouble accepting the limits of my capabilities (because sometimes I feel I have no limits).

Overtime I realized there are two types of people: the type who can do, and the type who can tell others what to do. If you think of this as a Venn Diagram, the part where the two circles meet, you get your “effective leader”. I used to think that it’s easier to tell others what to do, because there is the common misconception that if this happens, you’re not really doing any work.

This could not be further from the truth. If you’re really good at telling others what to do, you first need to have a big picture understanding of what needs to be done, then break this down to execution steps, then communicate it to the person doing the work including your expectations of the outcome and why doing a good job is important .Then you must let it go, take a step back and not micromanage. Then, chances are the outcome won’t be exactly as you’d anticipated, so you’ll have to go back and forth and make iterative changes, while not making it seem like you’re an obsessive compulsive asshole manager with no regard for other people’s feelings.

But you must learn how to do this, because no man is an island. Just relying on your own capabilities might be easier temporarily – you’ll be extremely efficient, focused, and your life will be simple and uncluttered. But over the long run you will be exhausted, and this is neither good for the company nor for yourself. Better to learn how to leverage resources around you, because this is actually how the world works. Trust me, I’ve learned this the hard way.

4. Don’t forget what’s truly important – the people around you 

When you’re fairly junior in the workplace, like an analyst in some firm, your role is mostly just an Excel/PowerPoint monkey. This is fine as it builds fluency in the technical competencies from the ground up – after all, we all need to pay our dues somewhere. That being said, don’t get caught up in solely the technical competencies, because one day something else will become a much more important skill set for you – how you deal with people. How to amass the right team, make them work effectively together, communicate your expectations and lead them to the finish line, and motivate them and engage them along the way. Your time is limited, which is exactly why you shouldn’t focus solely on task execution – make the time to stay in touch with your network, talk, talk, and talk some more.

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That’s all for now, folks. I feel very strongly about this piece because I’m still in the office and trying to stay afloat Monday Madness, so this piece really serves as a sound reminder to myself as well. Hope your Monday was indeed a Funday, and not ironically.

Love,

V.