The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 106 - Shipping

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jennifer.

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: I had a little aha moment the other day. And I haven't shared it with you yet, because I was like, "Oh, I think we've done an episode on shipping. I think we've talked about shipping." I'm like, "We've explored that from every which angle, haven't we?"

Jen: Nope. No, we have not.

Pete: And then I did a quick search, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, we've never done an episode on shipping. That seems bizarre." So, that's what we're about to do. We're going to unpack shipping.

Jen: Let's do it. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: Do you think we should first define what is shipping?

Pete: I mean, most definitely, Jen. That's what you do best. You start with a definition. So how do you think of...how do you think of shipping?

Jen: I think of sending a piece of work off into the world that someone other than me will be engaging with, whatever the thing is.

Pete: I like that. Yeah, I think it has to be sent to at least one other person, is how I think about shipping. So I'm sharing my work (my work being a blog, a podcast, a piece of creative writing, or film or whatever, anything that you've created), you're sharing that with at least one other person and you might think of it as shipping. It's a very common expression used in software development. They talk about shipping software, so it's kind of stolen from that. And so it's very relevant to, I mean, every episode that we've ever talked about all of the work that you do with creatives, all of the work that I do with creatives, all of the work that we as a combination do with changemakers, because so much of it is about not only creating the idea but then shipping it, sharing it with the world.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Pete: It's also the point where a lot of fear, and doubt, and insecurity comes in. Like a lot of people enjoy the creation of the work, but it's actually the shipping or the sharing that becomes the scary, hard, uncomfortable part. And so the reason this sort of sparked the aha moment the other day is one of our mutual friends and listeners of the podcast, Jenna Pastuszek, she was talking about shipping. So I was running a workshop with her and about fifteen others, and we were just sort of unpacking this idea of shipping. And she started talking about how she thinks of herself...she's very good at metaphors and analogies. And she sort of painted this picture of her on the dock, and she was letting various ships go out to sea. Some of them were small. Some of them were big. Some of them had other people. Some of them were just like a solo ship. And just hearing her talk about it, I had this aha moment of like, "Oh. You're not actually on the ship. You're on the dock." And it was this...it was a similar aha moment to what I had when you and I were talking about the arena episode. Where I had this vision of like the one arena. Is it one arena, or is it like all of these other different arenas? And I hadn't quite thought about where I stand. "Are we in the same arena? Are we in our separate arena?" And all of that. So, it reminded me of the similar aha moment. For some reason, I had thought that when we ship something to the world, share it with another person...and if you think about it very visually, as something leaving the port. For some reason, I thought I was on the ship when I did that. Or, you were on the ship when you did that. And hearing Jenna say, "You are on the dock," actually felt kind of freeing and kind of liberating. So, I'm just going to pause there for any thoughts.

Jen: I have thoughts. Okay. It's going to come right back around to the standing on the dock metaphor. There was someone in my industry (who is no longer in my industry), but she worked as a coach with actors. And I really did not resonate with her work at all. And one of the things she said to actors a lot was, "Send out as many ships as you can, and see which ones come back to you." Something about that idea always rubbed me wrong. So I started thinking about instead carrying a quiver of arrows on your back, and sending an arrow out to a very specific target and trying to hit the target in the bullseye. So when I'm thinking about you sitting on the dock of the bay watching your ships go out, I would like to think about the dock that you're sending your ship to. Not just that you're sending it out into the open sea and, like, hoping it survives and who knows where it might land, but instead, "I'm shipping it from here to there." And then, someone else is standing on the other dock to receive the ship.

Pete: Ooh, that's so good. So good. Okay. So I'm just going to share what happened in my brain when you were sharing that story, because it was quite a roller coaster. As you were saying that, my first reaction was like, "Ooh, I'm not sure about this, Jen." Because one of the things about sending a ship out from a dock is we don't necessarily have control over what might happen with it. It might be interpreted by someone slightly differently. It might be shared with another person. And so I was like, "I'm not sure." And then I realized that, "No, no, no. Even though it might be seen by other people, even though it might be shared by somebody, even though it might be viewed or interpreted slightly differently, the point is you have the intention to send it to a place, or to a person, or to a group of people from the start." So it's basically a metaphor for, or an analogy for "who's it for" and "what's it for". And so before you let the ship go, you go, "Okay, ship. Let's have a talk. This is where I want you to go, who I want you to go to, and this is what it's for." And that's the intention you send out there. And then at the same time, it's sort of a "both, and". You recognize that you don't have full control over that and that it might be seen and interpreted slightly differently by other people, but it's heading to that "who's it for" that you intended. Is that kind of what you were saying?

Jen: Yes. Okay. Now it's like, woah, we're going for all of the possible things that could float in water references. [laughter] I'm thinking about, like, when you do a message in a bottle. The whole point is you have no idea where it's going. It's like, "Ooh. The mystery that maybe in a year or maybe in one hundred and fifty years, someone might find this bottle washed up on the shore but they'll have no way to contact me and let me know they got it. It will just be this thing that sent out into the world, and I never knew. " That's not what we want to do with our meaningful work.

Pete: Mmm. I love that. I love that. I also feel compelled to ask you to say "buoy", as we're talking about...

Jen: Peter Shepherd. Listeners, what he is referencing is the word "buoy", which over here in the great state of Massachusetts where I'm sitting right now, we pronounce "buoy".

Pete: [laughter] It gets me every time.

Jen: We got into a whole fight about it. And then he said, "Pronounce the word 'buoyant'." And I said, "Buoyant." And he said, "See?" [laughter] So, I stand corrected.

Pete: Buoyant.

Jen: Buoy. It feels weird. Okay, I have one other point to make. When you were talking about all of the resistance around shipping...that there's so much joy and fulfillment in creating the work, and then comes the moment when you've got to send it out there, and there's all this fear and all of this resistance. I decided we could add yet another fear to the Fear Menu. And we could call this FOS: Fear of Shipping. But like every other fear on the menu, it has the same main ingredient which is the fear of people's opinions. That that tension and that resistance we feel around sending our work out there is because we fear, "What will people think of this?" And that just feels important to call into the conversation.

Pete: Mmm. Yeah. I also think we, from memory...I'm trying to recall the conversation in this this workshop I was running, and we went down this sort of rabbit hole exploring the dock idea. And one of the things that I found really interesting, as the folks were talking about this idea of being on the dock and letting the ships go...and it was sort of like, that moment that we all know (those that have shipped their work), when you ship it, it's quite like sort of scary, and exciting, and it's kind of like a big launch. Like when you launch the Big Ideas Lab, it's like, "We're launching the Big Ideas Lab. This is exciting." And then like two or three days pass...

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Pete: ...and you're kind of standing on the dock, and you're like, "Well, I hope that's gotten where we intended it to go."

Jen: Yep.

Pete: And so it becomes like, what do you do post that initial launch? Post that initial ship? And so, we talked about a bunch of ideas around that. You know, to stay with the analogy, do you clean up the dock and get ready for something else to come in? Do you wait patiently? Do you send out a reminder, like, fast boat to catch up to the big ship to remind people? I don't really know. I'm stretching the metaphor now. But like what do you do...basically, what does one do post- launch, post- ship? Once you get over that FOS, what happens next?

Jen: Well, interestingly, the skill I think needs to be cultivated is actually a pre- launch skill, which then continues into the post- launch. And that is...so this goes back to, where is the dock you're sending the ship to? And how long does it take to get from here to there? That is something you want to calculate before you hit send, before you hit publish, before you drop it in the mailbox. You want to know, how much patience are you going to need to practice before you check up on your ship? So if you, for example, are sending your manuscript, your three-hundred-page manuscript to someone...asking them the next day, "Did you read it yet," is way too soon. So there's some pre- work that has to go into the actual shipping process, so that you can maintain both your patience and your sanity while you're allowing the work to do what it needs to do. And then after a predetermined (by you) period of time elapses, then you can go after the ship and say, "Hey, did this arrive in the desired port?"

Pete: I think that reminder piece is so important. I have observed so many instances of people sending a ship into the world, shipping something (one of their projects) to somebody, not hearing anything for a few days or for a week, and then being like, "Well, they hate me. That ship never arrived. And it's never going to go anywhere."

Jen: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Pete: And I'll nudge that person: "Well, what if you just like followed up and checked in?" And so often, they will write back and go, "Oh, thank you so much for following me up. I really appreciate it. I'm looking at this. I'm interpreting it this way. Blah, blah, blah." And then, you'll get the feedback that you need. And so there's something, like, still so underrated in that follow up, post- the big event.

Jen: Mm-hmm. I agree with you. I'm a big fan of following up. And that's one of the reasons why I like to have that...well, here we go. Our theme of "Jen likes to plan". That's why I like to have the plan ahead of time. I'm sending this out. And if I haven't heard anything in four days, I'll follow up. Now, the four days is just an arbitrary number I just pulled out right now. So, it depends on what the project is. Can we talk a bit about quantity of ships?

Pete: Definitely.

Jen: This is a question I was asked really recently, which was like, "How are you shipping so many things so frequently? And how can I do that, too?" And I want to just like raise a cautionary flag and say that for some people, having many projects on at once is how they do their best work. And for other people, that will not get their best work out of them. So I want to encourage people to do a self-awareness check there, and ask yourself: when I've done my best work in the past, have I been doing more than one thing at a time? And if the answer is yes, then you might consider building more than one ship at a time and sending them out either to the same port side-by-side, or in different directions. But there's also something to be said for building one beautiful ship.

Pete: Mmm. I really like that. I think a way of thinking about it (because I think about this in my own work) is how you have to show up in order to ship that thing, or in order to...like, who are you in that context, in that project? So for me, I have quite a few projects on-the-go at any one time. If you're externally looking at it, you might go, "That's a lot of projects. You're doing one-on-one coaching here. You've got the podcast with Jen. You're writing. You're doing workshops. You're doing keynotes. Like, how does that...how do you even keep control of all of that?" And the thing that always helps me is I get to show up as the same person in all of those contexts. So, it's not actually that big of a context shift for me to coach a leader and have a conversation with Jen to record a podcast. Because it's leveraging the same skill set. It's leveraging the same posture of being able to show up, be curious, ask questions, hold space. And so, there's something in that. Like, in looking at, "Am I someone who could have a lot of projects on-the-go at once? Or am I someone who should just focus on one particular thing?" There's something in like, what is the skill set that you need to use for each of those things, or for that one thing? And if it's the same skill set across the board, in my experience that's been where it's like, it sort of makes sense to or it's okay to have a few projects on-the-go.

Jen: And for me, what I would just add is that certain kinds of projects can be made more efficient with repeatable systems. So, like, if I need to ship a blog post every week, I'm going to find the best way to create that blog post. I'm not going to reinvent it every week, whatever my creation process is, because that way I can be consistent. And I can use my creative energy for a new kind of project that might not have a system in place yet. So, I think that is also important. And I just had one other thing, Pete, which is going back to your "I'm standing on the dock," metaphor. That if you were actually on the ship, you wouldn't be able to be working on anything else. That you need to be standing on the dock.

Pete: I know, I know. I hadn't quite pieced that together until Jenna helped me see that. I guess the thing that I go back to is FOS: Fear of Shipping. And maybe you have ideas for...I mean, how do you think about FOS? How do you think about navigating that fear of putting something into the world? Because I just, I mean, I feel myself even get caught up by that. And, you know, that's where I think imposter syndrome lives. That's where I think insecurity often lives. Around, "Who am I to do this thing? Why should I share this work?" So, what...do you have a strategy or technique for how you handle it?

Jen: Well, I think being a theatre artist, I have had to deal with FOS on a daily basis. Not only for myself, but with literally all of my clients. And what I recognize is that perhaps the antidote to FOS is the pursuit of risk taking. That when you are actively seeking to take risks and you feel that little pang of like, "Oh my gosh, this is scary," that means you've actually arrived at the risk. Not the, "This is hard," because there you've maybe arrived at a challenge and you know that its's going to be hard, but you also know how to get to the other side of it and what it might be like to be on the other side. But when you're taking a risk, part of what is inherently there is that you don't know how it's going to turn out. And so if, at least from my artistic perspective, if you want to always be growing and expanding, you have to be seeking out risk. So when you feel that FOS, that fear of shipping, it's like, "Ooh, I arrived at the right risky dock. This is a good sign that I should hit send."

Pete: Mmm. I like that a lot. I like that a lot. I think the thing to keep in mind, certainly one thing I try and keep in mind is the only way to make change is to ship. Like, you can't possibly make the change that you want to make in the world, help the people that you want to help in the world without sharing your work with them or with someone. So for me, it's the generous act of creating change, or the generous act of helping other people that requires the practice of shipping. And I do think it's a practice, and one that we can cultivate each day, each week, each month, whatever that frequency looks like for you. So, that's how I think about it.

Jen: Do you think that there is something...I'm really having this aha moment right now. Do you think that there is something in FOS, in the act of shipping and the fear of shipping, that is specific to something being new? In other words, if I were to ship you something that somebody has shipped before, would I be afraid to ship it? Probably not. Because there's nothing new in it. It's just sort of like the same thing. So perhaps also, when we think about what it means to be innovative or creative or future focused, that FOS actually points to the fact that there's something in your creation that is new. I don't know.

Pete: Yeah. I'm trying to come up with an acronym. Perhaps, FOPOOMO. Which is-

Jen: I am done. What? [laughter]

Pete: Let me explain. Fear Of People's Opinion Of My Opinion. So-

Jen: Wait, I've got to write this down. Fear Of People's Opinions Of My Opinion. What?

Pete: FOPOOMO. [laughter] To your point, I don't fear saying, "Hey, Jen. I read this great book, and I think you might enjoy reading it." I don't have FOS of shipping that to you, because it's someone else's work. So, is it...and I'm very willing to be proven wrong because I've made this acronym up on the spot. Is it that we actually fear the opinion of sharing our own opinion? Which is like, "Hey, I created this thing based on an assertion that I'm making about the world." And that's the scary part.

Jen: Yes. So, here's where I think we've landed this ship. Whether it is FOPO, or FOS, or FOPOOMO, the only way to make change is to ship your work.

Pete: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.