Being Confidently Unsure

We all profess that we do not know everything. For sure, there will always be instances where we are asked a question that stumps us. That said, I think its important to remember that there is a difference between "not knowing" and acting as though we are "incompetent because we do not know". The former is reasonable and proper, the latter is unnecessary and potentially damaging.

A mentor once taught me that "you do not need to know everything as long as you know who knows, or where the answer can be found." Consideration of this axiom is critical if you want to develop the ability to be "confidently unsure". Often I encounter people who don't know something, which is one thing, but then they are viscerally ashamed and unnerved by the fact that they do not know as though they additionally lack confidence in the fact that they are resourceful enough to find the answer. This always tempts me to doubt their competence. I wish that this person were more skillful in: 1) simply expressing that they do not know, 2) expressing why they do not, 3) assuring me they will find the answer, and how, and 5) engaging me in a collaborative discussion about my suggestions for how they might find the answer.

Understand that as say this, I have compassion as this is hard-developed skill on my part. I internalized from my upbringing that I should always know the answer to every question, and that not knowing was a sign of stupidity or laziness revealed as a lack of preparation. I have matured to understand that this is not the case, though I still struggle with this at an emotional level at times. I have learned to reframe to understand that "no one has every answer but everyone has almost all the answers" and that it is better to maintain the posture of the "curious student" who can learn more than the "incompetent" who should have known it all.

Additionally, I now accept that those who think I am stupid are going to think that no matter how many answers I can produce. They will even make my correct, answers out to be wrong because they are not into giving benefit of any doubt. That is more about them than me. These types will always be with me. It is part of being in the world. It is just a test that can be passed, so its good to let this go.

So all that said, let's study to be more "confidently unsure". If you do not know, own up to it. That is a part of your humanity. Assure people you can find the answer and even collaborate with them to get suggestions on how you might. This is a mark of resourcefulness, a key success skill. Be accountable to find the answer in the timeframe and format you committed to. Do not vaccillate, dissemble, give shaky body language, be overly apologetic, or self condemning. Doing this inspires others to worry about whether you can find the answer. Even if you really cannot find the answer after all your searching, you can confidently own up to that by being ready with an explanation of all the methods, contacts and resources you used in trying. This shows the effort you put in and will often trigger some memory in the person you are engaging which then helps you do get closer to an answer.

Be confident even when you are unsure!

iPod/iTunes: A Training & Development Tool?

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On Using Twitter

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Time: What Are You Making With Yours?

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Enthusiasm: The Dance that Attracts Investment

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What readers are saying:

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Everything Comes To Pass ...

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If I am humble ... Part II

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The Stinkiest Manure Can Build The Strongest Plants

A year ago I moved in to a garden district of Philadelphia called Chestnut Hill that is just bustling with every kind of tree, bush, plant and flower. More than at any other time of my life I have been intimately witnessing how vegetation behaves throughout the 4 seasons of the year. This spring, while observing the generous use (and peculiar odor) of manure all around my residence, it occurred to me that this awful decomposition of nature is also one of the building blocks of the strongest and most healthy plant life.

Well, as in nature so in life because the immediate next thought for me was that in my life the strongest and healthiest aspects (plants) of my character have been born of the stinkiest, most difficult and unpleasant situations and people (manure). I did not wish for this manure in my life but it has had a fertilizing effect nonetheless, and in retrospect I am thankful for it. This retrospective has caused me to be more tolerant and even grateful for the present fresh manure in my life, which by the way is laid at my root in all seasons of the year, not just the Spring. I take this attitude because I know that with the right combination of other elements, i.e., patience, persistence, lovingkindness, etc., this manure will further strengthen the plants of my character.

Take a different look at the manure in your life today and see it as "character fertilizer", not only as the s*#t it also is.

Getting Good at Being In A Bad Mood

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Giving Ourselves (& Others) Credit

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Thanks in advance for reading the book and spreading the word about it.

Finally, please rate it at Amazon.com, BN.com, GoodReads.com, and other websites where books are sold and reviewed. 

What readers are saying:

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Work: Service or Slavery?

This blog post has relocated to a book, The WiseWorking Handbook. Please visit it there.  

Please purchase a copy at Balboa Press (http://bit.ly/1wfqwBU). 

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Thanks in advance for reading the book and spreading the word about it.

Finally, please rate it at Amazon.com, BN.com, GoodReads.com, and other websites where books are sold and reviewed. 

What readers are saying:

"The WiseWorking Handbook is written in a down to earth, engaging style.” - Bud Bulanich

"Get this book. Read it. Keep it handy for when you need a little inspiration or some solid advice on how to work wisely and increase your value at work.” - Bud Bulanich

Giving Others (& Ourselves) A Break

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Thanks in advance for reading the book and spreading the word about it.

Finally, please rate it at Amazon.com, BN.com, GoodReads.com, and other websites where books are sold and reviewed. 

What readers are saying:

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"Get this book. Read it. Keep it handy for when you need a little inspiration or some solid advice on how to work wisely and increase your value at work.” - Bud Bulanich

If I am humble, I cannot be overcome.

This blog post has relocated to a book, The WiseWorking Handbook. Please visit it there.  

Please purchase a copy at Balboa Press (http://bit.ly/1wfqwBU). 

For signed copies, reach me at craig@wiseworking.com. 

Thanks in advance for reading the book and spreading the word about it.

Finally, please rate it at Amazon.com, BN.com, GoodReads.com, and other websites where books are sold and reviewed. 

What readers are saying:

"The WiseWorking Handbook is written in a down to earth, engaging style.” - Bud Bulanich

"Get this book. Read it. Keep it handy for when you need a little inspiration or some solid advice on how to work wisely and increase your value at work.” - Bud Bulanich

Failure Needs No Plan

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Please purchase a copy at Balboa Press (http://bit.ly/1wfqwBU). 

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Thanks in advance for reading the book and spreading the word about it.

Finally, please rate it at Amazon.com, BN.com, GoodReads.com, and other websites where books are sold and reviewed. 

What readers are saying:

"The WiseWorking Handbook is written in a down to earth, engaging style.” - Bud Bulanich

"Get this book. Read it. Keep it handy for when you need a little inspiration or some solid advice on how to work wisely and increase your value at work.” - Bud Bulanich

Valuing The Givers More Than The Gifts

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For signed copies, reach me at craig@wiseworking.com. 

Thanks in advance for reading the book and spreading the word about it.

Finally, please rate it at Amazon.com, BN.com, GoodReads.com, and other websites where books are sold and reviewed. 

What readers are saying:

"The WiseWorking Handbook is written in a down to earth, engaging style.” - Bud Bulanich

"Get this book. Read it. Keep it handy for when you need a little inspiration or some solid advice on how to work wisely and increase your value at work.” - Bud Bulanich

The Power of “Yet”!

This blog post has relocated to a book, The WiseWorking Handbook. Please visit it there.  

Please purchase a copy at Balboa Press (http://bit.ly/1wfqwBU). 

For signed copies, reach me at craig@wiseworking.com. 

Thanks in advance for reading the book and spreading the word about it.

Finally, please rate it at Amazon.com, BN.com, GoodReads.com, and other websites where books are sold and reviewed. 

What readers are saying:

"The WiseWorking Handbook is written in a down to earth, engaging style.” - Bud Bulanich

"Get this book. Read it. Keep it handy for when you need a little inspiration or some solid advice on how to work wisely and increase your value at work.” - Bud Bulanich

Consider the Unrealized Tragedy

As human being we are wired for noticing what goes wrong, and to a greater degree, what may go wrong (though it usually does not). It is this hard wiring that makes us good planners and survivors. Like all else in the cosmos, when taken to an extreme, this inclination is unhealthy. Balance is needed. 

This balance is aided by the consideration of the “unrealized tragedy”. The “unrealized tragedies” are all the things we anticipate and expect to go wrong which do not. It is the plan B that was not needed, the conflict that did not happen, the delay that did not occur, the good health, and even the life, that got extended, whether that be an organization or an individual. These are all points for gratefulness and affirmation. It is these “unrealized tragedies” that give us the evidence that, more often than not, things do go well. This is particularly important to meditate on when in the midst of a bad day, month or even year.

This meditation calls to mind the scripture, Psalms 91 which alludes to the many tragedies that regularly happen in life but which “shall not come nigh thee”. I am moment to moment grateful for these "unrealized tragedies".

I find that in my daily rush of planning contingencies and losing peace and sleep over "potential tragedies" I cannot anticipate or plan for, considering the “unrealized tragedies” of my past and present, helps me to keep things in perspective.

How You Use Your Reasons Determines Whether You Get Results

This blog post has relocated to a book, The WiseWorking Handbook. Please visit it there.  

Please purchase a copy at Balboa Press (http://bit.ly/1wfqwBU). 

For signed copies, reach me at craig@wiseworking.com. 

Thanks in advance for reading the book and spreading the word about it.

Finally, please rate it at Amazon.com, BN.com, GoodReads.com, and other websites where books are sold and reviewed. 

What readers are saying:

"The WiseWorking Handbook is written in a down to earth, engaging style.” - Bud Bulanich

"Get this book. Read it. Keep it handy for when you need a little inspiration or some solid advice on how to work wisely and increase your value at work.” - Bud Bulanich

Patience & Persistence: 2 Practices Worth More Than The Effort To Develop Them

This blog post has relocated to a book, The WiseWorking Handbook. Please visit it there.  

Please purchase a copy at Balboa Press (http://bit.ly/1wfqwBU). 

For signed copies, reach me at craig@wiseworking.com. 

Thanks in advance for reading the book and spreading the word about it.

Finally, please rate it at Amazon.com, BN.com, GoodReads.com, and other websites where books are sold and reviewed. 

What readers are saying:

"The WiseWorking Handbook is written in a down to earth, engaging style.” - Bud Bulanich

"Get this book. Read it. Keep it handy for when you need a little inspiration or some solid advice on how to work wisely and increase your value at work.” - Bud Bulanich

Feed your Gifts, So They Can Feed You!

When I was a child my grandmother used to use a proverb, Feed a cold, starve a fever. I have been think about this alot the last few weeks as I have been battling bronchitis. (Read more about this at WikiAnswers)

As I have been mulling over this, it has triggered thoughts of what we starve and feed in our own lives. This mulling then triggered memories of a Native American tale about the twowolves that reside in each of our heart, one good and another less so, and how the nature of our characters rely on which wolf we feed the most in our daily lives. (Find this tale at InspirationPeak)

So you might be asking what this cold-fever and Native American tale talk has to do with wiseworking. Well, it occurred to me at the end of all this musing that these former truths apply to our careers and work in that we have all been gifted to perform uniquely well in any number of roles and capacities for the purposes, in part, of feeding ourselves, our families and the world but too many of us are not able to do this well because we have starved our gifts. Thus a new proverb, “Feed your gifts, so they can feed you”. :-)

In my personal and observed experience, I find that we as human beings usually spend more time feeding our fears, doubts, procrastinations, risk averseness, ignorance, discouragement, etc., than our gifts, potential, learnability, patience, persistence, self-encouragement, etc.. In this habit of failing to feed our giftedness we starve ourselves and those around us. This is manifest as:

• unfulfilling work
  
• underemployment
  
• subpar compensation
  
• unused educations
  
• miscellaneous physical, emotional and psychological maladies 
  
• poor self perception and image
  
• strained and unsatisfying relationships

Interestingly enough, this is a poor habit with a simple, though not easy, solution: change your thinking and actions diet. I say your thinking and actions because this is where the potential of your giftedness is made or broken. Examine what you do with your time and make changes in both your thinking and your activities so that you attend progressively more to building your giftedness and contribution and progressively less to those ways of thinking and action that starve them. As you make these changes, you will see that your ability to feed yourself, your loved ones and the various communities you are blessed to be in, will increase.

As this ability grows you will have enough for yourself and for others. You will move from being a follower to a leader especially in the area of your giftedness. You will be the head and not the tail, Deuteronomy 28:13a - And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath;

Takeaway: Examine and revise your thinking and actions diet so that you better feed your gifts, and by extension are better fed.