Finding your way to your next great career

Several weeks ago I listened to a radio segment about a guy fresh out of college, but without a lot of direction for his life. His solution to that problem was to try a lot of different jobs for a short while--a week or a month. After a year of working this way, he wrote a book about his experiences. My first thought was, “Ah, you stole my dream.”

I’ll just go out on a limb and admit it. No matter what I have done for a living, I’ve always had a wandering eye. With the exception of a two exceptionally deep love affairs with work, no job (or career) has ever been enough to hold me. My longest run was 12 years in a single profession, divvied up between two employers and a self-employment stint. I fought hard to get into that profession. After working my way in, I achieved a degree of mastery that was enough to merit interesting assignments, professional credentials, and awards from my peers. But I couldn’t imagine an entire lifetime of the same work. I wanted to know more about what was out there. Was there something else I was really intended to do? Was there someone else I had the potential to become? Doesn’t everyone wonder that?

Whether you share my wanderlust or life has dealt you some cards that force you to think about what‘s next, you may be interested in a new book designed to help you figure stuff out. The Leap: How 3 Simple Changes Can Propel Your Career from Good to Great includes access to an electronic assessment tool that allows you to evaluate how close you are to your sweet spot--the overlap between your passions AND your strengths. According to author Rick Smith, most people won’t be truly satisfied until they fine a career that combines both elements.

If you view your prospective career change as a slam-dunk effort where you figure everything out quickly and march through a series of chronological steps, you may be disappointed by Smith’s encouragement to experiment and iterate. Nevertheless, I have to say that this approach worked well for me. I volunteered and part-timed my way into both new careers. That gave me a chance to try before buying and allowed me to get experience in a low-risk way.

Evidently, I share a common denominator with other career changers: we don’t think of our changes as reinventions. With each change, I found I became a little more like myself. After I announced my most recent career change, my husband tried to make me promise that this would be the last one. I wouldn’t do it because I knew part of my life’s work would be allowing things to unfold, discovering how past experiences might fit together in ways I just couldn’t anticipate. For some of us, it’s the journey and not the outcomes that are going to matter most when we are laying on our deathbed. There are tradeoffs and compromises, especially if you choose something more than just what you are good at.

Perhaps the most important tip The Leap offers for fulfillment in work is to set your own standard for success--don’t just follow along. Without that standard, you may wake up one day with a life that someone else wanted--not yours.

Strategies for success from our friend and handyman, Dave

When we bought our house 12 years ago, it came with an unusual amenity––a handyman. On the day of the closing, the owners handed us a bundle of information about the house, including the name and telephone number for the handyman who had done virtually every repair and modification during the time they owned the house. We may have purchased our way into to this relationship, but since that time, Dave has become far more than a handyman to us. He is our friend and a source of continual inspiration. I can’t begin to tell you the number of household riddles and problems he has helped us solve because he pays attention when we do not. From leaky faucets to remodeling projects, we’ve come to depend on his talent, wisdom, and keen awareness to solve some of our stickiest problems.

One day this winter, I called Dave and asked him to come over and help us hang new drapes. He hadn’t been here an hour when he looked across the creek bank about a quarter of a mile away and asked, “Is that a coyote?” I squinted, but I couldn’t see a thing. I ran upstairs and found our binoculars. After a few minutes, we spotted Mr. Coyote under an evergreen tree, taking a nap. “I’ll bet that’s his favorite napping spot,” Dave observed. For the next few days, I watched the spot and discovered that Dave was right. We walk by that window every day but we had never noticed that the coyote arrives about mid-morning and hunkers down for a nap beneath an evergreen on the opposite bank.

This isn’t the first time I have wondered what Dave might know about us because of his acute powers of observation. We asked Dave to help us install some shelving in the basement two summers ago. After evaluating all the choices at Lowe’s and Menards, he was indecisive about what materials we should use. After some deliberation, he finally came back to the house and asked me to ride with him to see what was available. On the way, he rounded the corner at a busy intersection, slowing down and looking intently over my right shoulder. “I’m sorry Crystal, but I’m going to have to stop and figure something out here. I’ve passed this spot three times this morning and I have to know what that big glob of mess is.”

Dave pointed to a golden, abstract object about 20 feet away on my side of the road. In the middle of the street, he turned on his emergency flashers and stopped the truck. He got out and walked downhill toward the object of his curiosity. I saw him tap it gently a few times with the toe of his boot to see if anything about it was alive. Finally, he picked it up and hoisted it up over his head as though it were a hat. He came back to the truck laughing. It was only a can of foam insulation, exploded by the heat of a sunny day, but Dave could not go on with his day until he knew the nature of its origin.

Aside from occasionally wondering how much trouble Dave has gotten into because of his curiosity, I can’t help but marvel at his gift for living in the present moment. Because of that trait, he always seems to have a keen awareness of what’s going on around him and what’s important. When someone in his family has a need, Dave will drop everything to tend that need. Watching how he deals with his family, anyone can see that Dave understands how fleeting life can be. He takes it moment by moment. It seems less as if life is happening to him and more as if he is happening to life. When he is with us, he brings everything he has and everything he knows to that moment. You get the feeling that Dave would die happy if he could just help you resolve your problem. He has nowhere else to go and nothing else to do but help you—unless, of course, one of his kids calls. We’ve grown to admire that trait more with every year that passes.

What a gift! What would happen if all customer service, all business, all jobs or careers, all personal relationships were imbued with this sort of curiosity and awareness? It could be like heaven on earth. Let me share three great titles that could provide similar inspiration for you. I just love all three of these books for the insight they bring to life, business and careers.

How to Achieve A Heaven on Earth: 101 Insightful Essays from the World’s Greatest Thinkers, Leaders, and Writers, edited by John E. Wade

Upstarts: How GenY Entrepreneurs Are Rocking the World of Business and 8 Ways You Can Profit from Their Success, by Donna Fenn

The Risk Takers: 16 Women and Men Share Their Entrepreneurial Strategies for Success, by Renee & Don Martin

Learning to be still

Is there anything like sitting down with someone, expecting to receive the death sentence for something you’ve done wrong and having them bless you instead? When you get a blessing like that, you want to understand the anatomy of it. What special trait allows people to offer this kind of heaven-on-earth? I can’t help but believe that such gifts are really suffering transformed into something beautiful. It doesn’t matter who we are or how fortunate we are in life, we’re all bound to suffer from our cravings, our aversions or things we just can’t seem to accept or forgive in ourselves or others. One of the best known but least understood ways of coping is prayer and meditation.

If you, like me, look to books to improve your life, read Be the Change: How Meditation Can Transform You and the World. Although it is filled with a lot of eastern thought that won’t jibe with a Christian’s perspective on the world, it elaborates on a process that’s biblical in its origin: transformation of the mind through meditation.

You can read this book in stages, a few pages a night. What you’ll get is a careful dissection of meditation from a wide variety of people, from the famous to the ordinary. It is loaded with short descriptions of how people view meditation and practical advice for making it part of your life. This book is an in-depth study of how inward changes really do change the world around us. If you’re a practicing Christian and you often find yourself rushing through your prayers, you’ll find it a useful tool for learning to be still, which is really the beginning of transforming your suffering into something beautiful.

Bonus Book for Kids: Don't miss this adorable picture book to share with kids on the joys of practicing yoga, Stretch, by Doreen Cronin and Scott Menchin.

A divine lunar lesson unfolds

Without the dense clouds that hovered over Indianapolis, I would have seen a full moon on my way home from dinner last night. Never mind the overcast skies. I still felt its brilliance. As sure as the moon needs the sun’s light in order to shine, last night the Creator of all that’s good gave me a not-so-subtle reminder that life is one continuous strand of unmerited blessings and favors, most of which we can’t fully appreciate until much later. I took it as a nudge to acknowledge my dependence on divine gifts, to remember that I am always right where I should be, and to know with certainty that the Almighty is in charge of everything. Here’s evidence to wit.

I ventured out in an arctic blast last night to attend a yoga class that will count as a requirement toward my eventual certification as a yoga instructor. When I arrived for class, I discovered that the instructor I hoped to observe was detained by work. Swallowing my disappointment, I spread my mat and met his substitute, a lovely woman who welcomed me and asked if I’m a regular in the class. I introduced myself, sat down, and waited for class to start.

The woman next to me overheard our conversation and quietly asked, “What did you say your name is?”

“Crystal,” I answered.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked.

She looked familiar. But I’ve moved around a lot and I'm always meeting people who remind me of someone I once knew. I began sorting through a mental database of friends and co-workers. There was a flash of recognition, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around the possibility of it. “I’m Brenda,” she said. In just a heartbeat, I felt as if the doors of my life were flung wide open and I could see down a long corridor that led right back to the start.

Who is Brenda and why does she matter to me? Let me count the ways: 1) I might be a college dropout today if it weren't for Brenda. 2) She loaned me a bed from her guest room when I moved into my first apartment with nothing more than clothes and a few pieces of silverware. 3) She opened a window on a world so vast that I began to trust life might hold more possibility than my 19-year-old imagination could fathom.

Brenda was responsible for guiding me toward a major when I had no idea what to do with my life. As a confused college sophomore, I had briefly considered dropping out of school. At the time, all I could see was the money my parents were wasting while I muddled through, trying to figure out who I was and what I could be. She was just a few years older than I, but Brenda was legions wiser and she used that wisdom to mentor me, convincing me that I could write. She showed me how I could make a living at that.

Brenda was responsible for helping me get a job as an undergraduate assistant when I had no qualifications or skills. How could she see any potential in someone who was so incompetent and naïve? Where did she find the patience to train me? The money I earned provided pocket change when tuition, books, and room and board were semester by semester miracles for my middle-class family.

During my sophomore year, she used her influence as a graduate assistant to send me and another student to a speech contest in Laguna Beach, California. Accompanied by Brenda, Dennis and I saw the Pacific Ocean, tasted really good coffee and dined on fine cuisine, all for the first time. Before that trip, neither Dennis nor I had ever ventured beyond our small-town, mid-western existence. He was demonstrably unimpressed by California. To me, the trip was far more than a speech competition. It was a breathtaking window on a world full of promise.

After last night’s class, Brenda invited me to join her and a group of her yoga buddies for dinner. It’s been almost three decades since I lost track of her, but I have never forgotten her wit, sense of humor, wisdom, and kindness, all of which are still very much in tact.

She was there last night only because her friend was the class substitute teacher. I was there only because my husband was out of town and I thought it was a good opportunity to catch a class. The gift of our reunion last night was no fluke. It was an affirmation that we can never know how much our life may matter to another person.

Here was the divine lunar lesson delivered for my edification and yours:

• When someone in your life is confused, share your wisdom.
• When someone in your life has lost faith in self, believe in them.
• When someone in your life will benefit from it, use your influence.
• When someone in your life has need, share your resources and material possessions. 
• And finally, when you have the chance, be totally grateful for all the people in your life who have bestowed those things on you.

Thank you, Brenda, for making a huge difference in my life.

The gift of your physical afflictions

A wave of understanding washes over you when you realize for the first time that something in your body is broken and probably can’t be fixed. Repaired, remodeled, or medicated maybe, but not fixed. At least not in a way that puts it back as it once was.

Over the past few months, I’ve been fully bathed in this realization. I go to bed at night, hoping that the catch in my knee will be better in the morning after a night’s rest, wondering whether the boots I’ve been wearing are causing the problem. Or regretting my decision to clean the fireplace mantle by moving the mirror that hangs there, resting its flat part on top of my head. The method and urgency of a clean mantle seem sort of stupid, especially now that my neck is ouchy. I’m starting to see that it could stay that way. Like permanently. Maybe it won’t be like the afflictions of my youth: I spend a few days in bed or resting and I'm all better.

Having near perfect health for almost half a century, it took me a while to catch on to the notion that, blessed as I am, body parts will wear out, no matter how fortunate and careful I am. It’s a shame I didn’t come to this realization sooner because what follows is a better place for anyone to be.

How can this be considered progress? Let me answer this three ways:

1. Physical afflictions build gratitude and awareness. When you realize things are not perfect but they could/eventually may be so much worse, you start to understand what living in the moment really means. The way your body is all designed to work together today? It’s nothing short of miraculous. The many days of your life that you have operated totally free from physical pain? It’s worth more than money in the bank. The way you can use your body as is, afflictions and all? A way to redeem yourself for not fully-appreciating all that good health. You’ll probably take better care of it, notice it, and make better choices now that you see what a blessing it has been. 
2. Physical afflictions build spiritual tenacity. When you realize the temporary nature of your own body, you will naturally incline your ear more toward the spirit. When my body was strong in every way, I couldn’t really grasp my mortality. I owned health. And I had no real need for a newly minted body to house my spirit. More and more, I see how all the good stuff I get while living in my physical body has been a complete gift. And I feel a debt to my Creator for giving me all that good stuff. Shoot, even the afflictions I have are gifts because they’ve helped me grow to this realization. In this life, we get mountains and valleys, ups and downs, one right after the other. In the next, all joy inside a brand new body that doesn’t wear out. It’s not all that hard to see that a life leading to this kind of permanence is all that really matters. Every day and every possibility is more precious. Less about me and more about using my gifts.
3. Physical afflictions build compassion for others. (Especially for those who are older or more afflicted than you are.) You start to understand the grumpy old lady who is always ready to bite your head off for no reason at all. One day of achy knees isn’t quite like a whole future filled with achy (or excruciating) knees, or the secondary afflictions that set in when you can’t walk properly. Once again, you see how connected the body is, how difficult it is to adjust, find and do things that will make you feel better. You realize that you can’t judge a person by what you see or hear from them. You might even make a quiet resolution about the sort of person you want to be if your body, despite all good care, should lose the portion of strength and health that you have always had.

Of course, it would be so much better if we could be abundantly grateful, aware, compassionate, and spiritually tenacious without affliction. As you read this, I hope you’re blessed with all these traits and a life free from all unnecessary suffering.

Later this week: Two great books for kids who may benefit from seeing another kid triumph over adversity, plus two books for adults—one on marriage, the other on meditation.

Yoga Medicine for Your New Year’s Resolution Hangover

Are you suffering from a New Year’s resolution hangover? After binge-writing a list of the many and assorted improvements and experiences I want in 2010, I do feel your pain. For self-improvement junkies like me, the prospect of mapping out a life that will be perfect at some future point in time is like cocaine to a crack-head. I realize this, yet I still engage in the insanity.

Here’s how we think: After I give up sugar, grow my own vegetables, purge and organize every closet in my house, make slipcovers for my office furniture, limit the amount of time I spend online, quit judging other people, make cases for my yoga mats, make eye pillows for my students and classmates, read several books each week, play golf this summer, commit 30 minutes a day to prayer and meditation, make a purse out of some old neckties, clean the laundry room and garage, make roman shades for my patio doors, e-mail at least one friend a day and see at least two lifeline friends each month, make 15 minutes a day to pick up the house, make 10 minutes a day to file incoming paperwork, do at least one thing each day in service to others, deepen my knowledge of online marketing, take a class on teaching yoga for kids, finish the taxes by February 15, organize all my loose recipes into notebooks, purge and label all the files in our file cabinets, do a little housework at least two evening a week, continue my fitness schedule of four workouts each week—AFTER I do all this (while holding down two—no wait a minute—three part-time jobs) my life will, of course be perfect, worthwhile, satisfying. I’ll be 95-years-old. But I’ll be—well—satisfied. You get the drift.

Stephen Cope’s book, The Wisdom of Yoga, sheds yogic light on this crazy cycle. It involves three afflictions of the human mind that are the source of nearly all suffering.

1. Cravings. Our tendency to lean forward into the next fantasized moment in the future is called rãga (clinging, attachment, attraction, hunger, ambition).
2. Aversions. Some resolutions are about stopping things we know are bad for us. Yoga masters might have classified this as dvesha —aversion to the experience. This is what tells us to stop, leave, or look backward to a previous state of comfort.
3. Delusions. Finally, we may completely disappear from the moment by creating a delusion, a mind state known as moha. We do this by creating a false picture of reality based on how life should be (which is always different than the way it actually is) or through complete avoidance. (e.g. Don’t make me look!)

Cope’s book is drawn from the Yoga Sutras, a brilliant piece of writing that explores man’s spiritual and psychological nature. He says we crave accomplishments and experiences (rãga), run away from things (dvesha), or create delusions for ourselves (moha) because we don’t fully experience our lives as they already are (avidyã).

Is all longing afflicted? All aversion afflicted? All delusion afflicted? Of course not! There are times that these things serve us well. Cope’s book maps the territory between the healthy and the afflicted state of mind. What makes a mindset afflictive?

1. Afflicted mindsets are disturbing. We feel uncomfortable and unbalanced in our very being.
2. Afflicted mindsets are obscuring.  This state makes things worse or better than they really are. Either way, our perceptions aren’t true or accurate. We overrate some things. Or we fail to notice the bad effects of others.
3. Afflicted mindsets are separative. Something is separating us from our happiness—love, material things, success, achievements. Once we have those things, we’ll feel complete. This is reflected in the life of King Solomon who pursued pleasure, success, love, purity, peace, wisdom--everything known to man. In the end, he said the whole purpose of man was to keep God’s commandments—to commune with God.

Yogis believe that we penetrate these layers of afflicted mindsets through meditation. In meditation, we access a more luminous part of our mind that is already acquainted with happiness as a natural state. Having freed ourselves from these afflictions, we make truly conscious choices—not patterned ones that are made less out of choice than conditioning.


Although this blog does not usually cover matters of religion, as a practicing Christian, I feel duty bound to say this much: If you want a book that teaches you how to live a more peaceful life on earth, study the Yoga Sutras. If you want a book that teaches you how to live a more peaceful life on earth and for all eternity, study the Bible.

In my opinion, the Yoga Sutras echo God’s wisdom in many ways, but you might find a few errors and omissions when it comes to peace that leads to heaven. To the Christian, happiness on earth is far less important than eternal peace with God. Christians believe that meditation, prayer, and godly actions give everyone a shot at the real prize--eternal peace.

If there’s a comparison to be made between the two books, here’s my best (but oversimplified) shot at it: the Bible tells us exactly what God wants us to do to be truly at peace with Him—not just at peace with ourselves. (We’ve already acknowledged that the latter isn’t quite enough because we sometimes lie to ourselves.) The Yoga Sutras reveal some manmade techniques we can use to work our way through some of the more difficult aspects of living to that standard.

If you binged on making resolutions for 2010, Cope’s book might encourage you to look more realistically at your aspirations as insight about yourself. The real value of New Year’s resolutions may be what they reveal about our motivations and our state of mind. The Wisdom of Yoga provides an accessible way to see the Sutras applied in everyday life.

A sizzling book of inspiration for anyone who cares about kids

During my sophomore year of college I had a professor who shared this mantra with his students: be one on whom nothing is lost or wasted.  Use every experience to learn, grow, and become the best that you can. Although its meaning was somewhat lost on me at the time, I understand it completely now. I was reminded of Dr. Backes’ passion for teaching and learning as I read Rafe Esquith’s book, Lighting Their Fires: Raising Extraordinary Children in a Mixed-up, Muddled-up, Shook-up World.

This book is a thoughtful discourse on how we can and must do a better job of raising and educating kids today. It’s a must read for any educator, parent, or youth-centered professional, especially if your enthusiasm has waned or you’re beginning to believe that your effort is similar to rowing a boat upstream. The author has been there himself and acknowledges the cultural inertia that leads to this sort of discouragement.

America’s education problem, Esquith says, stems from being overly concerned with giving kids the material things they need to be educated (e.g. laptops and textbooks) and insufficiently concerned with providing tools and processes that will make a substantive, lasting difference in their lives, giving them the ability to think. He enumerates the ways in which we betray kids, sometimes with the best of intentions and sadly, sometimes with no intention at all.

Although he writes passionately about the changes we need to make at home and in the classroom, the book is salted with humility. That helps the whole thing go down a little easier. Especially when you realize that the bedrock values he believe kids need to reach their full potential are probably antidotes for what ails many of us grownups today—arrogance, selfishness and a host of other character defects. For how can we equip kids with these skills and traits when we lack them ourselves?

Throughout the book, Esquith cites literature and films that reinforce lessons extraordinary kids must learn. As a practicing children’s librarian, I just love that. There is nothing quick, formulaic or simple about his approach to raising kids who succeed in life. Esquith admits it takes a complex mix of prolonged and seemingly small acts among the adults who steer them through childhood and adolescence. Even when kids learn discipline, perseverance, humility, discernment, time management, generosity, delayed gratification, gratitude, personal responsibility and courage, they can still slip up and make poor choices.  Toward the end of the book, there is a wonderful section to help parents and kids evaluate colleges and universities.

Although the author isn’t a parent, he is an award-winning teacher who knows whereof he speaks. His former students, many from underprivileged families in Los Angeles, have graduated from some of the most prestigious universities in the world. He has received numerous awards including the president’s National Medal of the Arts, the American Teacher Award, Parent magazine’s As You Grow Award, People magazine’s Heroes Among Us Award, and Oprah Winfrey’s Use Your Life Award—not that the outward trappings of success mean anything to him. A thing worth doing should be done for its own sake—not to impress others. Getting that wrong is just one of the many ways Esquith says we can warp kids into doing the right things for all the wrong reasons. Esquith’s wisdom can do more than help kids be successful. It can help develop the habits and character that make for a happy and fulfilled life. Read it and you’ll vow to do better by the kids you’re responsible for teaching or raising.

Keep the glass half full in 2009

My Dad has never liked Chicago. It wouldn’t make him unhappy if Cook County lobbied for statehood and won it. As far as he’s concerned, they can have everything north of Springfield for themselves. Dad probably shudders every time he thinks about raising a kid who loves Chicago enough to visit at least twice a year. He lives four hours “downstate” (as they say in Chicago) just 100 miles or so from St. Louis, where Cardinal fans are one of the few things more abundant than people who bash Chicago. That’s why it’s so surprising that Dad is a lifelong Cubs fan. “Everyone around here roots for the Cards,” he said when I asked him about that. “I guess I wanted to be different.” That’s how I feel when I listen to the news these days—like a contrarian.

Normally, I can wrap myself around fear in a heartbeat. It’s easy and somewhat legitimate to do that in today’s circumstances. What’s harder, but so much better for us, is to remember who we are and where we came from. Most adults today were loved and taught by people who survived and thrived through hardship—people who saved baggies and cottage cheese containers, folded foil and wrapping paper, and stretched a gallon of milk by mixing it with its powdered version and water.

Carrying Meals on Wheels to the elderly when they themselves are elderly, they never retire or quit. They resole their shoes, install their own windows, clean their own gutters, reupholster furniture, and eat from gardens for as long as they possibly can. They never paid others to do what they could do themselves. They expected life to be tough because it was. As kids, some remember nearly dying from delight when they got an orange at Christmas. Surely we learned something from them that will propel us forward!

When our family got together over Thanksgiving, my brothers and I were remembering Flossie Miller, an elderly widow who lived next door when we were kids. As far as we could tell, Mrs. Miller lived mostly on savings, (it may have been millions or next to nothing) Social Security and the $1 piano lessons she gave us. She didn’t have a car and she was too old to walk, so she sent my brothers to the store for mush, bread and sweet milk. (People of her generation referred to whole milk as sweet milk.) We can’t remember much else on the grocery list, so we imagine those things made up the bulk of her diet. Mrs. Miller accomplished a lot with very, very little. She handled herself as a refined and proper lady, in need of no one’s pity even with what seemed a meager existence. I think about her example and I know we’ll make it no matter what.

Just before his death in October, Studs Terkel, author of Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, had this to say about the current state of affairs: “I think if we don’t remember what happened in the past and if we don’t remember there’s a way out, it’ll be an iffy question as to which way we go. The lessons of the Great Depression? Don’t blame yourself. Turn to others. Take part in the community. The big boys are not that bright.” He says it well, especially for a guy from Chicago. Right Dad?

Parables from the golf course: 12 tips for the professional communicator

I know nothing about sports, but several years ago I started learning to play golf. It’s a game that so closely parallels the beauty and cruelty of life that I find endless meaning in it. When I can’t play golf, I find myself thinking about the game. I’m starting to realize that the lessons of golf also apply to good communication. Here are a dozen lessons I learned on the golf course:

Lesson 1 — Style is no substitute for substance.
I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on golf lessons. People say that I have a beautiful swing. That’s of small comfort to me because I only hit the ball 150 yards at my very best. The truth of the matter is I haven’t got the real stuff of a solid swing yet. No matter how good it looks, it isn’t true, it isn’t reliable, it isn’t right. Something is missing. It’s the same with communication. A lot of organizations say wonderful things, but they can’t live up to them. As communicators, we have to help our organizations speak the truth as plainly as possible, no matter what’s in the corporate air.

Lesson 2 — Like good communication, golf unites people.
That’s why people combine golf and business. I never understood this until I played. I’ve played with complete strangers, teenagers, couples, and old men, all with varying degrees of talent. When you’re as bad as I am, there is nothing like playing in a best-ball scramble and seeing your team use one of your shots to earn a birdie. On its own, a shot might be worthless. But when the team’s best players put their ball in the sand or brush, my shot down the middle of the fairway, 150 yards from the hole, is useful. I finally understand what all the high-fiving in sports is about. It’s physical shorthand for saying, “We are one and we are good.” That’s what good communication does. It helps people rally around the same cause. It builds upon the synergies of all the players.

Lesson 3 — The relationship between ability and desire is not always direct.
I am not naturally athletic. But I believe that to some degree people can master things for which they have no talent. That’s what keeps me playing golf. My desire far outstrips my ability, so I try to practice a lot. I know people who are incredibly gifted but have no passion for their talent so they don’t practice. Being a true professional means you must practice, whether you are good or average. Whether you feel like it or not. You have to keep showing up and trying or you will never get better.

Lesson 4 — Every good player must learn the fundamentals.
The only way you can be consistent is to know the fundamental aspects of the game. Unless you do, every success will seem like a fluke. The game is hard enough without that burden. Learn the fundamentals, review them and practice them often. They’ll never let you down. Besides that, people will show more respect for you on the course if you know the rules of the game.

Lesson 5 — Few are good in every aspect of the game.
I have been thrilled by my performance on the fairway but disappointed when I got to the green. Sometimes my putts far outnumber my fairway shots. Why? I don’t practice one of the most important aspects of golf — the short strokes that put the ball in the hole. I focus on the long ball but forget that it’s the precision of the putt that can make or break my game. I lose sight of the details. That can happen with communication too. Find the things you do really well and do them as much as you can, but keep improving on your weaknesses.
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Lesson 6 — Progress is not always a straight line upward.
One summer my husband and I played golf with my brother and his wife for the first time. The course was so beautiful, I was so relaxed and played so well that I thought I might have turned the corner on golf. Two days later I went to the course with great expectations. That’s when I learned the harshest lesson in golf — that excellence can be elusive. Cherish your successes. Revel in the things you do on behalf of your clients or your organization, but don’t expect to win a Gold Quill or write a Pulitzer every time you work. It can take a lot of the fun out of the game when you do that. Playing for fun is important. Sometimes we do our best work when we don’t place a lot of unnecessary pressure on ourselves.

Lesson 7 — Remember the past and learn to calibrate your swing.
You should always know how far you can hit the ball based on your past performance. Don’t pay attention to the clubs other people use. You have to know how far you can hit the ball with every club in your bag. Everyone must memorize what’s best for them and apply it to the game that’s in front of them. In golf and in communication, brevity is good. Taking too many practice swings can make the other players restless.

Lesson 8 — Disregard Lesson 7.
Put the past behind you. You can be your own worst enemy if you don’t. I’ve ruined a beautiful day of golf because I couldn’t take my mind off mistakes on the previous hole. I’ve seen other people do the same thing. It’s easy to let your mistakes become an inferno. Pretty soon, you’re playing with a scorch-and-burn mentality. Nothing good can come from that.

Lesson 9 — Even gifted players will make serious mistakes.
Their desire for progress or victory causes them to take risky shots and make bad decisions. When they’re a little arrogant about their game, it’s difficult for others to resist gloating over their mistakes or telling them what they should have done. When their mistakes hurt others, it’s especially hard not to shame them. I once played a round of golf just ahead of a group of serious golfers who were determined to speed up play. When their impatience reached a crescendo, one player got out of his cart and started yelling at the sluggish group two holes ahead of him. He hadn’t realized what we could plainly see. The group beyond ours included a physically handicapped player whose difficulties slowed the pace of play.

People should be accountable for their mistakes, but as communicators, we can play a unique role in these situations. We can help people learn from mistakes and move forward without bludgeoning people who already know they are wrong. We shouldn’t be afraid or embarrassed to associate with people or organizations just because they’ve made a mistake. Sometimes that’s when they need us most. Both golf and communication are about being your best and helping others be their best. The best communication has many winners and few, if any, losers. And good players learn quickly that they must not strut.

Lesson 10 — Be careful who you listen to and don’t let anyone convince you there are shortcuts to becoming a pro.
When I started hitting the ball consistently to the left, a friend told me to compensate by aiming my body a little to the right. That way, she reasoned, the ball would end up near the target. Though my friend is wise in many ways and she can drive the ball further than any woman I know, she has never really studied golf. She is my friend so I don’t contradict her. I just silently refer myself back to Lesson 4 — learn the fundamentals. Aiming your body at the target is one of the fundamental rules of golf. That’s true in communication, too.

Lesson 11 — Wisdom comes from surprising sources.
If a six-year old can accurately guess the club that Tiger Woods will use on a certain hole, maybe I should reconsider Lesson 10. A few years ago, a friend’s six-year old son was watching Tiger play the Masters on television. Somehow he accurately guessed Tiger’s club choice on a difficult shot. He had only been living a year longer than I had been playing golf and he had the wisdom to assess Tiger’s dilemma. Imagine that. Our prejudices can cause us to misjudge a situation or a person and harm our decisions. As communicators, sometimes we have to dig a little deeper to get the right answers. We can find solutions in unexpected places and among surprising people.

Lesson 12 — Unlikely things can happen.
Easy shots can be missed. Impossible shots can be made. Both of these things happen to all players. Knowing this keeps us on our toes. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my work that I could have prevented if I’d been more careful on the easy shots. But I still believe that one day I might be good enough to step up to the tee, take a slow, deliberate swing and get a hole-in-one. It’s not likely, but it is possible.