One of the most powerful ways to bypass our thinking brains is to use visuals. Images have a way of opening us up to different stories and information in ourselves that our verbal, logical brains tend to block. I've also found that images can get us talking about the issues that may be more difficult for us to discuss and they provide us with great metaphors for developing deeper insights.  One of the tools I've enjoyed using the most is the VisualsSpeak Image set. It's been an invaluable asset to me in face-to-face workshops I've done on careers, leadership, learning and teambuilding. It helps us have interesting conversations and gain greater clarity about the situations we are discussing.  VisualsSpeak has now added an online version of the tool that allows people to select and arrange images into collages through their web browser. I use itwith  clients who want to explore issues around careers and leadership and in my online workshops. Amazingly, they're offering free access to people who want to to explore their vision for their career, so you get a chance to try it out! How it Works 1. To use the tool yourself, go to the VisualsSpeak Image Center and sign up to do the free "Exploring Your Vision for Work" Image session. Note--you must be using the Firefox, Chrome or Safari browsers. You can download Firefox here and Chrome here--both for free. (You should be using these anyway--much better browsers than Internet Explorer!) There's also a beta version for the iPad.  2. You will then receive instructions via email on how to log-in to the Image Center and create your collage.  3. Once you've complete the collage, you will receive an email on how to work with your image. My favorite strategy is to print it out, glue it into my career journal and then write down keywords, thoughts, etc. that occur to me related to the image.  It's also been helpful for me to discuss the image with someone I trust. I get into a sort of stream of consciousness story about what I'm seeing and the person I'm talking to is able to identify key themes and patterns they may hear in what I'm saying. They may also be able to ask my questions or make their own observations.  My Vision for My Career To give you an idea of what you're collage might look like, I went in and did a career visioning session for myself, which I annotated and uploaded below. Note that I added the notes using Jing, just to give an idea of some of the ideas that came to mind after I'd completed the exercise. I have much more complete notes in my career journal.  Working with the Image For me what's helpful about using the visual process is that I am able to get a richer vision than when I just write. Images are about metaphor, so they help me hit on some key insights that I would have missed otherwise.  For example, in my collage there are a lot of nature images--more organic, holistic pictures. It wouldn't have occurred to me that this was important, until I noticed it in the collage. Once I did, I became aware of how that's a feeling or experience I want to incorporate into my career.  Also notice that I have several circle/spiral/rounded images. Symbolically, circles can indicate many things, including unity, wholeness, cycles and focus. When I saw the circles, I realized that these were additional insights that wouldn't have occurred to me in just writing about my vision, but that are important to me nonetheless. Seeing them in my collage, I'm able to explore and incorporate them into my overall vision.  Want to Try It For Yourself?  If you want to try the Image Center for yourself and then do some more exploration and discussion with a group, I'm running two free webinars in November you may want to join. The sessions are on November 15 and 29 from 8-9 p.m. EST and you can get more information and sign up  for the webinars here.  I've found that working together with a group to debrief on your image can be a really powerful way to gain greater insight than just working alone. In the webinar I'll walk you through some key debriefing questions, show you examples, and give you some ideas on how you can keep working with your image to shape and refine your vision. You'll also get a free workbook you can use to record your insights., as well as some additional links.  Even if you don't want to join us, I strongly encourage you to try out the tool. It really can give you some amazing insights into what you want to do with your career.  ______________________________________________________________________________ Want priority registration for events, special discounts and other goodies? Then sign up for The Bamboo Project newsletter! If you sign up before January, 2012, you'll get my free "Looking Back/Looking Ahead" activities. Each day for 15 days, you'll receive an email with a specific question that can help you reflect on what you've learned in 2011 and get you started planning for 2012. It's a great way to jumpstart your career for the New Year!  

For those of you who may be thinking about going out on your own, I highly recommend Rosetta Thurman's upcoming Side Hustle Boot Camp. It's a day-long, live online event scheduled for November 11.  All who attend the Side Hustle Boot Camp will experience and receive the following: A powerful message from keynote speaker A’Lelia Bundles, the great-great granddaughter of Madam C.J. Walker, the first black female millionaire Practical business and marketing tools, tips and information from successful women entrepreneurs as well as expert speakers who understand you and your journey A One-Page Business Plan that will help you clearly define the next steps for moving forward in your business The Side Hustle Workbook, a copy of all training materials put together in a downloadable workbook format with worksheets and resources for you to take action on both during and after the live event Recordings of all sessions for you to continue to learn from after the live event (these recordings are downloadable to your computer for you to listen to whenever and wherever you want!) A supportive online community to nurture your entrepreneurial spirit and foster valuable connections with other like-minded business women . . . all from the comfort of your own home or office! (all sessions will be held live via webinar from your computer) I've known Rosetta for several years now and she provides nothing but high quality, inspiring stuff. It could be just the jumpstart you need to get moving in a new career direction.  You can see the agenda here and register here. Don't think about it--just do it!

Fifteen years ago, after a weekend career retreat I ran for myself, I walked into my full-time job and quit. I realized that for a variety of reasons, the position was no longer working for me and I wanted to move into something else. With two kids heading into summer daycare that would eat up a good portion of my check, it seemed like quitting to work full-time on new opportunities for myself was the best option. I would actually save money at that point by not working.  I spent the next several months reading books across a variety of fields, engaging in deep conversations with some incredibly smart people who challenged my thinking and gestating some ideas for how I wanted to shape my business. It was my own intense professional development course and it allowed me to build and sustain my self-employment for the next several years.  One thing I've learned from my own experience is that sometimes taking a step back is the best way to move forward. I was reminded of this when I saw an article in CNN Money on turning underemployment into a new career opportunity. I was particularly struck by one story in the post: Some readers report they've deliberately taken a step down in status and pay in order to move their careers in a different direction. "I've done it more than once over the past 30 years," writes Mike Frederick. Most recently, in 2007, when his department was eliminated, he turned down a couple of promotions to take a lower-paying staff job in his employer's corporate university. "No one could promise me I'd ever get back to my previous level of management in that department," he recalls. Not only that, but the job called for tech skills that Frederick lacked. "I had a lot to learn and the odds against my success seemed daunting," he recalls. Even so, his employer funded a series of courses he needed to take: "What clinched it was the chance to learn a new career at no expense to me." Fast-forward three years and, "after many long nights of studying on my own and hard work during the day applying what I learned", Frederick is "at the point where I wanted to be," he writes: In a management position in an IT training department. What the experience taught him, he says, is that "taking a step down may be your best bet for ultimate success." Frederick's advice: "Find out if your company is willing to provide the training you need or will pay for college courses. Don't be afraid to ask and, after you make the move, don't look back. Focus on the possibilities ahead of you." It's very easy for us to get caught up in feeling that the only way to move forward is by . . . moving forward--or up. But when it comes to our careers, it's often the steps backwards or sideways that can generate the most momentum and satisfaction.  In my case I left full-time employment to build a business. I've known other people who had side gigs that helped them explore new opportunities and identities that eventually turned into full-time work. And there are plenty of people who have been laid off and then use that time to re-think their careers, re-tool and move off in a different direction, happier than they'd been before.  Don't always assume that the best career moves for you are going to be through advancement or "moving up the ladder." Often we do this without thinking and find out it isn't what we wanted at all. Instead, be open to the lateral moves and the moves backwards. Like me, you may find these give you a chance to re-tool and refresh your career, moving you in a direction you hadn't even considered before.  __________________________________________________________________________________ Trying to figure out your next career move? Check out my upcoming 4-week Career Clarity Camp, starting January 9, 2012. You'll get 4 weeks of activities, 5 live events and lots of support as you figure out where you want to go next. It also makes a great holiday gift for someone in your life who could use some clarity!

A tweet from Stephen Downes that's been hanging in my head for a few weeks: This may be the biggest challenge to ongoing innovation. Most humans are not good at feeling perpetually incompetent. It is frighening and a blow to our egos to think that we may not have a firm grip on our work.  We tend to fight situations that make us feel like we don't know what we're doing. If we feel like we're floating on a sea of uncertainty and confusion, we do everything we can to return to the dry land of our familiar skill sets.  But if we are to be innovative, we must learn to embrace those feelings of incompetence. We have to learn to reframe them as opportunities for  learning and growth.  We also have to change what we regard as "competencies." The skills we need to fully engage in continuous innovation are meta-skills, not necesarily grounded in the kind of narrow technical skills we've come to see as expressing our competence at work.  Our competencies have to be larger than our current job or industry.  Innovation comes from having a larger vision for what we do, from heterogeneity and cross pollination.  To thrive in a world of uncertainty and continuous innovation, we need to: Embrace learning in all its forms, including learning from mistakes. Becoming a better learner should be our major focus. It is the one competency we can count on in a constantly changing world.  Cultivate beginner's mind.  Operate from a growth mindset. Fight homophily and expose ourselves to a broad array of ideas, people and strategies.  I'm still learning to be comfortable with incompetence. It's an ongoing challenge to put myself out there and to say "I'm not sure" or "I don't know." The perfectionist in me can really put up a fight. But I've come to believe that when it comes to learning, growth and career development, those may be very important words for me to say. Each time I utter them, I'm forced to embrace yet again that I'm in uncharted territory. And that's where all the discoveries are made.  _________________________________________________________________ Sign up for my newsletter! You'll get priority registration for events, discounts and other special "Members Only" stuff.  And if you sign up now, you'll also get 15 days of activities to help you reflect on 2011 and plan for 2012.  

"The succesful careerist may find that the darkness embroiled at his center is the part that wishes to fail in order to open other neglected parts of his life; when he becomes his failure he no longer has to carry that career success as a burden. He can explore avenues that he previously might have labeled under that dreaded American swamp-dwelling monster failure.  --David Whyte, The Heart Aroused.  I work with a lot of successful people, people who are accomplished and competent and generally doing well in their careers. While I have tremendous admiration for these folks and what they've done, increasingly I find myself feeling sorry for them, too.  What I see is how their success holds them back from going after the things they really want. The more successful they are, the more their ego holds on to the identity they've constructed to create that success. It becomes more difficult to take risks when you're successful. What's the impetus for it, first of all? What you've been doing is obviously working. But risks also present the possibility of failure and of incompetence, things that the ego, wedded to its success, fights valiantly to avoid.  I've also noticed that succesful people, considering the possibility of a career change or new adventure, think that maybe they're "crazy." They actually use that word--"crazy." Because in our society it's insanity to want something other than success and the stability that it brings. You get a lot of pushback from people in your life when you start thinking that maybe success isn't all it's cracked up to be.  You get a lot of pushback from your own ego, too. That's who's telling you that you're crazy.  So I see successful people who know in their hearts that they are ready for a change. But their success conspires against them. It whispers to them that they should stay where they are and they have a hard time shutting that down.  For some of the successful people that I know, the next stage is that they begin to secretly hope for a lay-off or some other professional "catastrophe" outside their control that will allow them to put down that burden of success.  In this way they can then be allowed to explore that new territory they're longing for without having to actively give up the success they built for themselves.   They also will not have to deal with other people in their lives who don't understand how success has been holding them back. Now they can point to the external events and say "See-this happened, so now it's time to explore another path." Success can be a wonderful thing. But it can also bring its own pitfalls and challenges. It can be our biggest barrier to change and to pursuing new adventures and identities.  We can hope for some external event that forces us to change or we can deal with our success head-on. When we feel the need for change, we may first have to see how success is holding us back from embracing it.  _______________________________________________________________ Want some help in re-defining what success means to you? Join me for my January 10, 2012 Career Questions session when we'll use the VisualsSpeak Image Center to help you come up with a vision for success that works for you. 

I have been captured by two stories this week. The first is the moral debacle unraveling at Penn State University where a work culture that focused on hierarchy and protecting profits and reputation at all costs led apparently normal human beings to protect a child rapist for 10 years. The second is this article in The Guardian, which points out that our current economic woes are in large part due to the rewarding and celebration of psychopathic behaviors in the workplace.  What these two stories have in common is a focus on a morally bankrupt definition of "success" that, in turn, values and rewards character traits that would normally be considered pathological. Consider this from the Guardian article: In a study published by the journal Psychology, Crime and Law, Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon tested 39 senior managers and chief executives from leading British businesses. They compared the results to the same tests on patients at Broadmoor special hospital, where people who have been convicted of serious crimes are incarcerated. On certain indicators of psychopathy, the bosses's scores either matched or exceeded those of the patients. In fact, on these criteria, they beat even the subset of patients who had been diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorders. The psychopathic traits on which the bosses scored so highly, Board and Fritzon point out, closely resemble the characteristics that companies look for. Those who have these traits often possess great skill in flattering and manipulating powerful people. Egocentricity, a strong sense of entitlement, a readiness to exploit others and a lack of empathy and conscience are also unlikely to damage their prospects in many corporations (my emphasis). It would be easy for us to dismiss stories like what happened at Penn State as the moral failings of particular individuals. In fact, many of us will do so. It allows us to say "well I would never do something like that."  In doing this, however, we miss the larger lesson we need to consider--how our organizational systems and notions of success create an environment that actually breeds this type of behavior.  Put a good person in a bad system and I guarantee you that eventually the person will crack. The forces are too large to resist for most people. And our normally unconscious way of moving through the world often means we aren't even aware of how the system is influencing us. We begin to behave in ways we don't even recognize.  We need to take a careful look at what REALLY goes on in our workplaces. Not the platitudes we spout about "teams" and "caring for our workers," but what our actions and rewards tell us about who we are at work. A searching moral inventory (as they say in AA) must be conducted for us to be clear about what actually happens vs. what we tell ourselves is happening.  When money and profits are our Gods, we will inevitably develop a culture that rewards those who "do what it takes" to keep the profits going. The problem is, at work we often pretend that it isn't about profits so we can ignore the ways in which the profit motive is shaping our behavior.  Don't get me wrong--I think we need to pay attention to money. But when we create a cult of success that is defined by money and profits, it inevitably creates a culture that leads us down the wrong path.  I also am concerned about the culture of fear that permeates many of our workplaces, particularly since the recession began. When people are worried about losing their jobs and their livelihoods, how does this shape the decisions they make at work. How often do they look the other way?  We can take the easy way out here--reading these stories and judging the people involved as being different from ourselves. But I would challenge us to go deeper than that. To ask ourselves how the systems we create and live in cause us to make decisions and engage in behavior that goes against what we think we believe.  Some questions to consider along these lines. . .  How often do you cringe when you see or hear of a decision or action at work that feels morally wrong to you?  How often do you talk yourself out of your interpretation, arguing to yourself that there must be reasons you aren't aware of for the decision? How many conversations do you participate in where you later ask yourself, "why did I say that?" because you recognize that words came out of your mouth that don't sound like who you really want to be?  How often do you see managers and higher-ups saying one thing and doing another? Or saying that the company values certain behaviors and then someone is rewarded for doing the opposite?  It is critical that we ask  these questions about ourselves and the organizations in which we work. It is critical that we engage in conversations about the cultures we are creating, the behaviors we are rewarding and the reality of who we become in our environments. Are we creating cultures that support and reward the best in people--or are we creating monsters?  __________________________________________________________ Sign up for my newsletter! You'll get priority registration for events, discounts and other special "Members Only" stuff.  And if you sign up now, you'll also get 15 days of activities to help you reflect on 2011 and plan for 2012.  

I'm doing some work in some very broken systems lately. The problem is, the people involved don't want to see it. They trot out the one shining example of how things ARE working and try to pretend that this one example is the rule, rather than the exception.  This is a problem I think we all fall prey to. It's what keeps us in bad situations, whether they are at work or in our personal lives. We use that one example of the good to convince ourselves that all the rest of the things we see are fine--or at least not as bad as we may suspect.  Several weeks ago I wrote a post on how we can stay stuck by denying reality. One of the ways we do this is by trotting out the big examples that negate all the smaller ones that add up to tell us the situation is not what we pretend it is. We focus on that one GREAT thing and ignore everything else.  While I aspire to and believe that we should focus on what is working, what is right and good in our lives, I also think that we can't do this to the point where we deny reality. When we do this, it keeps us stuck. It keeps us from creating something new and better in our work and in our personal sphere.  So my question for today is: What exception are you pretending is the rule in your life?  __________________________________________________________________________________ Trying to figure out your next career move? Check out my upcoming 4-week Career Clarity Camp, starting January 9, 2012. You'll get 4 weeks of activities, 5 live events and lots of support as you figure out where you want to go next. It also makes a great holiday gift for someone in your life who could use some clarity!  

When I first started planning several months ago for more seriously offering career clarity and professional development workshops, one of the things I was considering was pricing. What do I offer and how do I price it?  At one point a thought popped into my head. I could offer everything I do for free, asking people to only pay after they received the service according to how much value they felt they'd received. Basically, set your own price based on the worth of the service.  This felt right to me on some deep level. It tied in with my reading of Lewis Hyde's book, The Gift, which talks about how certain kinds of transformation shouldn't be commoditized by turning them into transactions. It also was related to my sense that when you are trying to offer something to the world that's based on your own sense of gift and purpose, this should be done freely, without turning it into a transactional process.  But then, I began to question my inutition. I started going into scarcity mode, thinking to myself "Well how can I support myself this way? What happens if I offer everything for free and no one finds value in it and I don't get paid? I still have a mortgage and bills. I must be CRAZY for considering this idea." The more I thought about the notion, the further away from my initial inspiration I got and the more I got into the negative, scarcity mindset. My ego, which loves to remind me of all the ways a situation can turn bad, went into full-on damage control, trying to get me to understand that this is just NOT the way to do business.  Still, the thought persisted.  Last week I stumbled across a post from Nancy White on the concept of social artistry. What I discovered is the topic of another post--very meaty, important ideas there--but two things about social artistry took me back to my original pricing thoughts. The first is the idea that social artistry is about "using who you are to open space for learning." This idea of using who you are reminded me of my earlier Lewis Hyde reading and that gift of transformation.  The second concept was "radical imagination." Social artistry is about using radical imagination to create social change and transformation. What could be more radical than trying to make a living from "free"? What is more radical (for me, anyway) than trying to live from an abundance mindset, rather than from scarcity?  So what does all this have to do with careers? First, it reminds me that sometimes we receive inspiration about our next move from our intuition. It can be a whisper or a shout, but at some point, some voice inside us will say "you should try this!" But then, what do we do with that? If you're like me, sometimes you let the "voice of reason," (who is really the voice of scarcity and fear) talk you out of that inspiration. You will then head down a path that seems "reasonable," but on some level, really wrong for you and where you want to go. Realizing that you're on a path that feels wrong and unsustainable is part of the journy back to your inspiration.  Another way to handle that initial flicker of an idea is to experiment with what your intution told you. Experiments aren't permanent. They are a way to test out your intution, to try out that idea that seems "crazy," but just might actually work.  In my case, it's experimenting with how I run my business. In your case, it could be experimenting with a new identity or activity that takes you a little closer to where you want to be. The point is that we don't want to let our scarcity and fear thoughts talk us out of experimenting with what our intuition suggests. As Jonas Salk said, "intution can tell our thinking mind where to look next." Our gut instinct can be our BEST source of knowledge, but only if we choose to at least try it out.  So in the next few days, I'll be announcing my new pricing structure as an experiment in what happens if I trust my gut, rather than going with what seems "reasonable."  What intutition will you experiment with today? 

A disturbing article in Forbes this week on why Millennial women are burning out by 30: Today, 53% of corporate entry-level jobs are held by women, a percentage that drops to 37% for mid-management roles and 26% for vice presidents and senior managers, according to McKinsey research. Men are twice as likely as women to advance at each career transition stage. One rationale is that men are more likely than women to do things that help their personal wellbeing at work, thus negating burnout, according to the Captivate Network. Men are 25% more likely to take breaks throughout the day for personal activities, 7% more likely to take a walk, 5% more likely to go out to lunch, and 35% more likely to take breaks "just to relax." But it's not just Millenials who find themselves here. I've had plenty of conversations in the past several months with mid-career women who feel equally burnt out and are longing for quiet time to reflect and think through their next moves. This is one of the reasons I'm going away for a weekend retreat with 12 other women in December. We NEED time away.  Creating Your Own Sabbatical Academics have long had the sabbatical to refresh and re-charge, although many times they also use that time away to write books or do research. Unfortunately, space and time to just "be" and to reflect on things that are important to you is one of our most precious commodities in our time-crunched age.   I've discovered that no one is going to hand me quiet time. The only way I'm going to get it is if I take it for myself. I have to see it as a priority in my life, as important (if not more so) as the actions I take and I need to make space for it to happen.  Here are some ways that you can try to find some space for yourself, even on a "time budget": Use the first hour of your day for rejuvenation, reflection and relaxation. I wrote a post earlier this year on how the first hour of your day sets the tone for the rest of the day. In that post, there are several ideas on how you can use that first hour as a sort of mini-sabbatical.  Make Time for What Matters--Britt Bravo has an excellent series of guest posts in which various professionals share how they make space. Some good ideas here that might help you in creating your own sabbatical or retreat.  Take a One-Day Sabbatical--I've done this several times myself and have begun pushing it harder with some of my career clients. It's best if you can schedule a few of these out over the course of several months, so you can get a sort of cumulative effect from the process.  You might also find some ideas in this article on micro-sabbaticals.  Plan a Weekend Retreat--A few months ago I emailed some friends I knew might be interested in going away for a retreat. Within a few days, I'd rounded up 12 other women who agreed to go with me to the Pendle Hill Retreat Center in Wallingford, PA. We're renting a house and will have access to beautiful grounds, an art studio, library and great locally-sourced meals. Here's our draft agenda if you want to try this idea with people you know. You can also do a solo retreat--this guide might be helpful to plan with.  Regardless of how you do it, it's critical that you find time in your busy schedule for reflection and renewal, especially if you are in a creative or helping career. That "down time" is essential to rebuilding our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.  ____________________________________________________________________ I have a new pricing policy! I'm experimenting with offering all of my online workshops and retreats on a "pay what it's worth" basis. (Here's why.)  You take the course and then at the end, you'll pay me according to the value you received. It might be crazy, but I'm giving it a shot! Check out what's coming up here. 

We have to face the fact that most men and women out there in the world of work are more stale than they know, more bored than they would care to admit. Boredom is the secret ailment of large-scale organizations. Someone said to me the other day "How can I be so bored when I'm so busy?" And I said "Let me count the ways." Logan Pearsall Smith said that boredom can rise to the level of a mystical experience, and if that's true I know some very busy middle level executives who are among the great mystics of all time.                              --John Gardner, from Personal Renewal As I work with people at mid-career, many of them quite successful by any conventional terms, part of what I realize is that they are gripped by a profound sense of boredom. No longer pushed forward by the sheer momentum of establishing themselves  and "moving up the ladder," they begin to look around and ask, "Why am I doing this anyway?"  Or maybe they don't. Maybe they just keep doing what they've been doing, but they are dogged by a sense that something isn't right anymore. They can't quite put their finger on it, but if they could, they would recognize that it's a deep, soul-sucking malaise. Boredom can be good, if it ultimately drives individuals to seek something new, to ask new questions and explore new territory.  As a child, boredom for me was often the fuel I needed to invent new games or engage in other creative projects.  And some research suggests that bored people seek new meaning in helping others.  But boredom can also be a problem. It can fuel hostility to "outsiders," making us more insular and less open to new ideas and approaches.  Boredom is stressful, too, in an insidious way that is de-moralizing and ennervating. It drains us of energy and enthusiasm, keeping us in a zombie-like state that is good for no one. The antidote to boredom is self-renewal.  Back to John Gardner: If we are conscious of the danger of going to seed, we can resort to countervailing measures. At almost any age. You don't need to run down like an unwound clock. And if your clock is unwound, you can wind it up again. You can stay alive in every sense of the word until you fail physically. I know some pretty successful people who feel that that just isn't possible for them, that life has trapped them. But they don't really know that. Life takes unexpected turns. I said in my book, "Self-Renewal," that we build our own prisons and serve as our own jail-keepers. I no longer completely agree with that. I still think we're our own jailkeepers, but I've concluded that our parents and the society at large have a hand in building our prisons. They create roles for us -- and self images -- that hold us captive for a long time. The individual intent on self-renewal will have to deal with ghosts of the past -- the memory of earlier failures, the remnants of childhood dramas and rebellions, accumulated grievances and resentments that have long outlived their cause. Sometimes people cling to the ghosts with something almost approaching pleasure -- but the hampering effect on growth is inescapable. As Jim Whitaker, who climbed Mount Everest, said "You never conquer the mountain, You only conquer yourself." . . .  Learn all your life. Learn from your failures. Learn from your successes, When you hit a spell of trouble, ask "What is it trying to teach me?" The lessons aren't always happy ones, but they keep coming. It isn't a bad idea to pause occasionally for an inward look. By midlife, most of us are accomplished fugitives from ourselves. We learn from our jobs, from our friends and families. We learn by accepting the commitments of life, by playing the roles that life hands us (not necessarily the roles we would have chosen). We learn by growing older, by suffering, by loving, by bearing with the things we can't change, by taking risks. Boredom can be a disease of mid-career, but it's a disease with a cure. We just have to know it when we see it and then take steps toward self-renewal.   Are you bored at work? What are you going to do about it?  ___________________________________________________________________ Want to begin your own journey of self-renewal? Sign up for one of my upcoming online workshops and take advantage of my "pay what it's worth" pricing offer.