The Hump as Teacher

It is what we have to get over. It means fac­ing and over­com­ing an obsta­cle of some kind, usu­al­ly involv­ing some kind of action that feels uncom­fort­able or stren­u­ous in some way. Often, it comes at the begin­ning of a project. “I just need to get over the hump of get­ting start­ed, then I’ll be okay.” 

The more impor­tant the project, the greater the amount of per­son­al change and effort called for, the old­er the issues that make the hump what it is, the big­ger it seems. In a pre­vi­ous post I men­tioned the need to reach out — that’s just one exam­ple of get­ting over an ini­tial hump. But there are so many oth­ers — pay­ing the tax­es, clean­ing out the garage, writ­ing the next chap­ter, fill­ing out the appli­ca­tion for the job. All humps, all changes from sta­tus quo and com­fort zone. What a top­ic. I can hard­ly get start­ed writ­ing this — if you know what I mean!

The brain-based learn­ing experts might say that such moments are best over­come by sim­ply act­ing, doing some­thing new and pos­i­tive to build a sense of accom­plish­ment and well-being, in turn reduc­ing the size of the hump. Like run­ners sit­ting in the blocks, won­der­ing if we can run the race neg­a­tive feel­ings may wash over us. But when the gun goes off and we actu­al­ly start run­ning, our sense of strength begins to reap­pear as we take on the full motion of our bod­ies (and our spirits).

This would nor­mal­ly be the place for a blog­gers list: Five ways to get mov­ing, etc., etc. While such lists have their place, on this sub­ject I tend to think that’s both too sim­ple and too com­plex. The only choice is to go a lit­tle deep­er. The chal­lenge, it seems to me, if it is a real hump, is to return to its source, to see it pre-emi­nent­ly as a teacher and guide, help­ing us nego­ti­ate an espe­cial­ly pen­e­trat­ing under­ly­ing fear that must be con­front­ed in order to be overcome. 

Having Value

I want to point to just one of these fears that can be a major hump for peo­ple in lead­er­ship roles of all kinds — it’s the fear called, “I have no val­ue.” What’s par­tic­u­lar­ly tricky about this one is that it hides so suc­cess­ful­ly in oth­er guis­es, such as fear of fail­ure or mis­takes, lack of con­fi­dence, or fear of rejec­tion; maybe fear of los­ing (or being a los­er); maybe even fear of being too self-serving. 

“I have no val­ue” can be the mas­ter pup­peteer pulling all of these strings. We might seem to cut the strings on one of the pup­pets only to find anoth­er quick­ly danc­ing our way. 

I believe that this pup­peteer is also some­times (but not always) behind fears of reper­cus­sions and cyn­i­cal respons­es at work. That mas­ter fear can be too hard to acknowl­edge, so we escape from the con­fronta­tion with the pup­peteer by attack­ing each oth­er. Work­place cul­ture is full of the pup­peteer pro­ject­ed onto oth­ers — boss­es, employ­ees, peers. If you reflect on sit­u­a­tions of blame, espe­cial­ly mutu­al blame at work, you’ll often see the pup­peteer in action in crit­i­cisms of oth­ers and neg­a­tive beliefs about them.

Well, I’m mix­ing metaphors pret­ty bad­ly here, but the hump we may feel as we get start­ed on any­thing real­ly impor­tant can be evi­dence of that inner pup­peteer, ques­tion­ing whether we bring val­ue. Got it?

And if that is the case, then the inner work is to exam­ine this notion of per­son­al val­ue direct­ly, where we have it, how it is work­ing in our lives, and what expec­ta­tions of our­selves we are tru­ly car­ry­ing. I don’t think this can be reduced to ques­tions of self-esteem, per se. This is a deep­er hole. It can’t be cov­ered over with evi­dence to the con­trary — that we have brought val­ue here or there in our work or lives. That’s not the point. Rather, it’s a hole that’s meant to be there in the same way a well is. It’s actu­al­ly a secret strength that those aware of this hole expe­ri­ence. We have to go down to find the water.

A Drink with a Friend

I was hav­ing a glass of wine with a friend of mine last week, a busi­ness own­er who I great­ly respect; some­one who has the admi­ra­tion of his employ­ees and clients and whose busi­ness has been very suc­cess­ful in spite of the reces­sion. He was recount­ing some­thing that real­ly struck me. “Have you noticed,” he asked me, “that some­times when you gen­uine­ly com­pli­ment anoth­er per­son it brings them to tears? It can’t be just say­ing, ‘You’re a rock star.’ It has to be much more spe­cif­ic, some­thing that oth­ers don’t see and maybe even the per­son does­n’t see.”

I’ve heard oth­ers talk about this moment. One, a pro­fes­sion­al ther­a­pist, saw it as touch­ing a per­son­’s birthright, mean­ing the thing that defines who he or she is, the thing par­ents may nev­er have seen and point­ed out to their child from the begin­ning. There are so many books on find­ing per­son­al strengths and gifts now, it seems like evi­dence of a wide­spread yearn­ing to find this core. My friend went on to say, “All that crap out there about giv­ing peo­ple feed­back, ‘nam­ing two strengths or five strengths or what­ev­er before nam­ing a weak­ness’ — all that has done is cre­ate so much dam­age.” And know­ing him, he was also not say­ing that every exchange should be a com­pli­ment, phoney or oth­er­wise. He was sim­ply say­ing that such behav­ioral rules are not the answer; that such moments can’t be faked as a tool to get what you want as a leader.

He’d learned and was con­tin­u­ing to learn, just like we all must learn, just like I am per­son­al­ly still learn­ing what that val­ue is. I mean, how could you tru­ly notice this in oth­ers if you could not find it also in your­self? How could you notice it in your­self unless you had also noticed it in oth­ers? It’s a two-way street, one that ties us togeth­er as human beings, as enter­prise com­mu­ni­ties. He went on to say, “When you notice it in oth­ers and tell them about it, you build trust with them.” And I would only add, when you see it in your­self, you also build trust with you. And trust — with oth­ers, with self, with the uni­verse — does seem to be the way through.

So my blog­gers list has only one point today: if you want to get past the hump, use it as a teacher. Like all great teach­ers, it’s like­ly to be there to help you find out some­thing very good about your­self. Doubt that this is so speaks to how pow­er­ful we have been taught these fears are and how much con­trol we’ve giv­en them — until our own birthright shows up, until in a moment of truth we find the water and are brought to tears.

Technorati Tags: Self-Knowledge and Trust. Link to blog posting. Link to Oestreich Associates website.