When you are under something, it is above you.
In order to see it, you look up at it.
Looking up at a thing can mean you revere it, you honor it.
Provided it’s not weighing you down (and for this hypothesis), you naturally support something you are under. You humble yourself and are in deference to it. And if you love it, you serve it.
By contrast, being over something means it has transpired for you.
Dismissed to the point of eye rolling. Cancelled, even.
When you are standing over something, it is beneath you. Smaller than you.
When it is beneath you, it’s likely that you feel bigger than it.
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For today, a moment of reflection of this year — my over and under.
I had a full year of independent self-employed work: 100% of the marketing and in-bound business was driven by me or my network. It’s taken years of living in the Bay Area for this network to be supportive in this way, and it’s a critical component of self-employment. My network from living back east for half of my life (Boston, Providence, New York) continues to create work opportunities, as does my continued involvement with AIGA and more recently the StartOut and Queer Design Club communities.
This year has been a mix of shorter term operations consulting (months); longer term operations consulting (almost the whole year, plus some carry-over from 2018); coaching design leaders in team strategy and collaborative innovation approaches; teaching a class at CCA; speaking in South Dakota, Seattle, Helsinki, and Toronto; workshops, both in conjunction with conferences and independently; guest critiques in San Francisco and Seattle; and a few visual design and rebranding projects for private clients. Some of the time I’m a brand designer; others, I’m an organizational therapist.
I am grateful and humbled by — in other words, under — the ways in which networking and building relationships, each at different vectors or orbits, has brought possibilities, and then how some of these have turned into engagements. As one example, I met Alla Weinberg years ago when we were both at General Assembly. She then went on to work at Salesforce, and recommended me for a long-term consulting engagement there, helping the Business Technology Innovation Team start their operations practices. When Alla was formalizing a new, independent coaching venture, Margot Bloomstein and I teamed up with Alla and her business partner Duncan to strategize, position, and brand Spoke + Wheel. Even though 3 out of 4 of the project team had collaborated in the past and had great rapport, there was an additional, palpable fluidity because we were branding a coaching and team optimization practice with a shared humility.
There are other examples: My CCA students who learned how marketable and employable their multidisciplinary talents truly are, and how to tell the story of their work. Or the participants of a workshop at a private equity firm, where marketing and sales teams hadn’t clearly aligned on their target customer, and had a small transformation in a few hours, resulting in the notion they should “do this more often.” And the faculty and staff of the NYU Gallatin School, who hired me to help them with their internal operations and later came to realize they need help telling their own story. In these and still other cases, it’s not solely or simply about being kind, asking bigger picture questions, doing the work you’re hired for, or even networking and making connections. It’s a fundamental difference of approach to serving, lifting up. This shift contains the magical additional power of allowing yourself to feel valuable.
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I’m over feeling not valuable, or believing I’m not valuable. I occasionally feel this become self-fulfilling; thinking you’re not valuable can lead to empty words or pat advice. Or worse, saying the thing others expect you to say. I’m over not feeling able to push through self-doubt to say what I feel, speaking from my heart and instinct.
I’m over working in environments where fear and favoritism are palpable, where my physical self can pick up on this and become triggered. Where politics and nepotism are the drivers of decisions. What’s worse is when there’s no openness to self-assessment, evolution, positive change.
I’m over work environments favoring the what when where and how, before there’s time and consideration for the who and why.
There were a few opportunities this year that fizzled out, from postponing a kickoff, misaligned expectations or priorities, or general entropy. If there was interest or budget but then priorities changed, I have always inquired what influenced the change. Sometimes I learn and other times it’s empty word salad.
That said, I’m simply beyond feeling like it’s too late to do something you want to start yourself. If you’re alive and reading this, it’s not too late.
Approach it with respectfulness and intention, and that will allow others to get behind it.