The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 182 - What Comes Next?

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: Hello, Jen.

Jen: I want to explore some strategies with you today, for answering a question that has been gnawing at me.

Pete: Ah, yes.

Jen: Okay. Ready? Here's the question.

Pete: Is it one of those ones that haunts you?

Jen: Mmm...yeah. Okay, here it is: What comes next?

Pete: Oh goddamnit. I feel like you know that that's a question that is forever in my brain. So alright, let's unpack that. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: So the listeners probably can't see, but I like had a visceral reaction...

Jen: He's like squirming.

Pete: Squirming. It's kind of like when you walk through a cobweb, and you're like, "Oh my god, what was that?" That's how I feel when you ask me that question.

Jen: Yeah. It's been on my mind a lot. And just to put us all at ease, I have no expectation that we're going to be able to answer this question in the next twenty minutes. But instead, I want to think about how to go about exploring the possibilities of that question. And I know you can relate to this, Pete. I'm just at this place right now where I'm like, "Huh. I feel like I need a new goal. I'm not totally sure what my goals are right now." Like, everything's fine. But I'm missing this, like, spark of ambition that I like to have. So, how can I make my goals a little bit more ambitious? What comes next? I feel like in the last two years, I have cranked out some pretty crazy things. And like high-five, myself...did a great job. But now that the dust has settled on that, I'm like, "Oh. I don't have this urgent problem to solve. What's next?"

Pete: Mmm. The word "urgent" is really interesting in thinking about this, at least for me anyway, in terms of like, do you think we or you or anyone...it's almost like we're conditioned to if we don't have something urgent, we should think about creating something urgent. Like is part of this, I guess what I'm saying...and I'm kind of speaking to myself here. Kind of - I'm definitely speaking to myself. Is part of this that one struggles to sit with homeostasis? Like, we struggle to sit with not having the goal. Is it actually the discomfort of not having something, as opposed to the genuine need to create something new? Is that making sense?

Jen: It is. I mean, I think it's a...for me, it feels like a combo package.

Pete: Yeah, yeah, the ol' combo platter.

Jen: Yeah, the ol' combo platter. So firstly, it was so obvious what was wrong in my world, at least for the last couple of years. And it was so easy for me to get pissed off about what was wrong, which gave me a very clear idea of what needed to be solved. And then I went on the exploration of, "How can I be a contributor to the solution?" But now I'm like, "Maybe I'm not mad enough. Maybe I need to look around, and really get ticked off." Which honestly, has been a great strategy for me in the past. And I've done keynotes about this, like, "Look around, find out what pisses you off, then imagine the idealized version of a solution for the future. And then, what can you do to try to bring that about?" Okay, I'm coaching myself right now. Clearly, I need to do that.

Pete: Yeah, this is great. But also a slippery slope, I feel like. You don't want to forever be living your life looking for things that are pissing you off, right?

Jen: Well, yeah, but I guess when I land on the one that lights me up and makes me feel ambitious, I'll take a pause on the seeking anger portion of this episode.

Pete: That's part of our recommendation: seek anger. I think you described this, it's making me think of like the strength and the curse of having a growth mindset. Right? Like, I feel like this question of what's next is a very healthy part of being someone who is trying to learn more, trying to grow more, trying to contribute more, trying to be more generous, more empathetic, more of a leader, whatever. If one adopts that posture, I think part of the strength of that is you're always thinking, "Okay, yeah. What's next? What else can we do? What else could I learn? Who else could I help?" Which is amazing. And I think what I was sort of alluding to before is like part of the curse of that potentially is like...again, Pete, I'm speaking to you. The potential curse is, can you ever be comfortable, or satisfied, or fulfilled with where things are or how things are? And can you be present enough to be grateful for the things that you do have, or the things that you have created? And so I find myself straddling this tension of, "Yeah, it's awesome that you're always thinking about what's next, Pete. Great, like growth-minded and like there's always something to learn," and, "You got a pretty good life. You're doing some pretty great work. You got amazing people that you're surrounded with. Like, sit with that too." You know?

Jen: Mmm, yeah. Well, [singing] "I will never be satisfied." I just won't. I won't. I can't. (For all you Hamilton fans out there.) I'm not satisfied with the feeling of satisfaction. Okay, I don't really even know what to do with that, but that is true for me.

Pete: Wow.

Jen: I don't find the feeling of satisfaction satisfying. I'm like, "Okay, satisfied. Let's go. Let's find the next thing."

Pete: "Let's do something else. What else is pissing me off?" Yeah.

Jen: Are you familiar with the concept of a BHAG?

Pete: A big, hairy, audacious goal. Yeah, I'm familiar.

Jen: That's right. Big, hairy, audacious goal. And I think I need a big, hairy, audacious goal, like something that seems so ridiculous but it makes me laugh when I try to map it out. Where I'm like, "How the hell is this going to happen?" I feel like I need to go on a quest to find my big, hairy, audacious goal, which leads me to like one other possible aha moment that I'm having...which is making me want to throw up. I might have outgrown my vision. Like I have a very clear vision of what I'm building, but I'm realizing it might not be big enough.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah, or it might have been big when you set that vision five years, ten years ago, two years ago, but as you've gotten closer to it being reality, it's become smaller. Oh, that's interesting.

Jen: Yeah. So, I've got a lot of whiteboarding to do. I'm going to have to go back and listen to our whiteboarding episode.

Pete: A throwback.

Jen: Yes. And you know, I just got a new gigantic whiteboard for my office, so I feel some sessions in my future.

Pete: Mmm. Yeah. How do you think about a BHAG? Maybe that's helpful to just like unpack for a second. What is a good...BHAG is such a fun thing to say. What does a good BHAG look like?

Jen: Well, a version of thinking about this or like a way of thinking about a BHAG would be to...you've talked about this recently on an episode where you talked about the Airbnb founder and like, "What is the five star, six star, seven star experience? And like, how do you even get beyond ten stars?" And this is similar to an episode we've done in the past about 10x-ing something. Let's say I set a goal that this year, "I'm going to raise x number of thousands of dollars for the scholarship program," and it's a reasonable goal. The BHAG version of that could be something like, "I'm going to raise a million US dollars this year for the scholarship program." And it's not that I need to meet that goal. That is BHA-HA-HA-HAG. But what it does is, it makes me think, "Well, if I was really looking to raise a million dollars for the scholarship fund, what would I do?"

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: "Well, I might create some concert series. I might, you know, reach out to donors that I thought were completely out of my reach. I might, you know, hire someone to do PR." I mean, there's so many ways I could work to achieve that, rather than making my goal so small and I'm like, "Well, I know exactly how I'll achieve that."

Pete: Yeah, yeah. "It's just a mild stretch from where I am now."

Jen: Right.

Pete: Ooh, I like that. It's such a good rhyme with that 10x episode, which is around instead of thinking about, "How could I stretch myself by 20%," what if I had to stretch myself by 1,000%? Like, how would you even go about thinking about that? Because in changing the way that you think about it, you might unlock something that...yeah, you might not end up with 1,000% but like you might end up with 500% or something. So yeah, the BHAG. Hmm. BHAG and 10x. The other thing I like in the way that you think about this, which I think maybe differs from sometimes when I get trapped in this what's next thought, is you're thinking about it through the lens of abundance and possibility of like, "What else could be possible? What next could I envisage?" And I think that is amazing. And it's something I want to strive to be able to adopt. I think where I can get caught, which may or may not resonate with some listeners, is what's next from a scarcity mindset, which is when I'm not doing my best thinking, which is like, "Cool. So this project is about to come to an end, and what are you going to do with the big void that's coming up, Pete? What are you going to do with that big void? Like scarcity, you're going to run out of opportunities, or ideas, or revenue," or whatever the thing is that I'm feeling particularly scarce about. And that's where to me, the curse of this growth mindset or this question comes in (which is definitely just personal), is, yeah, what's next through the scarcity lens, versus what you're doing, which is almost like dreaming through an abundant lens.I love that.

Jen: Ooh, this feels like such a rich and important distinction, and reminds me of yet another past episode of ours called The Freelancer Cycle where we talk about how you just keep in this loop of, "I have a project, it's lighting me up. Oh god, the project's nearing the finish line. Oh gosh, I will never work again. I'm all washed up. I should throw in the towel. Oh, look, here's a new project. Let me get wrapped up." Yeah, and it just goes in this circular pattern. But I think it's really interesting to explore, how do you move from a scarcity mindset to an abundance or a possibility mindset? Like, what do you do for yourself when you're in that place, Pete?

Pete: I had this exact thought this morning. Like I can catch it, I can see it, I can hear it in my, you know, internal chatter, the scarcity. Like, "What's next? What's next?" Like, "You will never work again." And I was doing my morning pages this morning, and the question I posed to myself, which felt helpful in the moment while I was journaling, to try and switch from scarcity to abundant was, "What's the gift in this?"

Jen: Ooh.

Pete: So, "What's the gift in you finishing up a great project, and there potentially being a bunch of space to fill with another project?" And so I started thinking about, "Well, the gift is that I have all of this space to say yes to something that excites me. The gift is, I have an opportunity to decide what project I want to work on. And like, there's a lot more agency." And I was basically riffing on or noodling on in my notepad, the various positives and gifts that can come from finishing a project. And there's plenty. Like, there's a lot. And in fact, I think often we, or at least I, what I noticed in my journaling was the thing that you get when you finish a project is often the thing when you're really busy that you crave, which is agency, time to breathe, maybe time to just like re-strategize what your year looks like or what a holiday might look like or what another podcast with Jen might look like. I could spend the week doing a Think Week, which is yet another episode that we've done before. Like, there's so many possibilities that come about as a result of finishing a project or even just like entering that thought process of, "Hmm, what is next?" So, that's how I tackled it. I'm sure there are many other ways.

Jen: I think that is such a beautiful question, "Where is the gift in this?" I'm going to definitely adopt that. I want to just offer up something else as well, which is the, you know, "I'm never going to work again," I'm so familiar with that script, not just because I have used it on myself, but I hear my clients say this all the time, I hear my husband say this all the time. You know, "This might be the last play I ever direct." And history has shown that that is simply not true. Like, you have had small spaces between projects, but you haven't had these long stretches of time where no one has expressed an interest in working with you. At least in the time I've known you, that has not been true. And same thing for my husband. Every play is the last play he's ever going to direct, and yet a couple weeks later, he starts rehearsals for the next play. And that's just proven to be true time and time again. It's fear trying to convince you that nothing is coming, but fact is telling you that things always come.

Pete: Yeah. Yes. Which, I really understand intellectually. And I can laugh at myself for even having these thoughts, because of what history would suggest. And yet I'm reminded of something a psychologist once said to me, which was, "Humans are a little bit rational, and mostly emotional."

Jen: Yes.

Pete: And so I think that it's the default to emotion, of like, "Ah, everything is emotional, and I'm an emotional human being, and everything is scarce." Which is...yeah, I mean, really all you can do is catch it, observe it, and then how I've approached is just try and reframe it through a question.

Jen: Catch, observe, reframe: COR.

Pete: Catch, observe, reframe: COR. Which, I don't know if this is an aha moment or like too sweeping statement, is a pretty good strategy for navigating most of the fears or stories we tell ourselves. Like if I think about imposter syndrome and the imposter two-step (which I have spoken about ad nauseum), it's around catching the fact that you feel like an imposter, observing it, and then attempting to reframe it. So I just, I wonder if COR is like a little...

Jen: A core belief?

Pete: A core belief for anyone to think about, "What fear am I having? Can I COR this?"

Jen: A core structure? A core framework?

Pete: Yeah, I got it. I got it. We've got to strengthen our COR, strengthen our COR.

Jen: [gasp] Strengthen our COR. I love this. It makes me just tickled with delight every time we coin something on this podcast. It just makes me so happy. Even like...COR is pretty good, I have to say. We've done some really, really bad ones too, and even those fill me with joy.

Pete: I have no idea what you're talking about.

Jen: Alright. So Pete, here's what I think we've bounced back and forth on. That first of all, clarifying vision is very, very helpful in being able to set a goal. And once you've established a goal, you could challenge that goal by making it a big, hairy, audacious goal, a BHAG, perhaps a little whiteboarding, perhaps some journaling, stepping into the path of possibility. If you're feeling that lack of abundance, that scarcity, you can ask yourself a provocative question like, "What is the gift in this?" And rather than needing to immediately answer the question, "What's next," it's a time for exploration and like rejuvenating how you are envisioning your future.

Pete: Yes. And when you hear your little fear voice...which, I feel like we need to coin something for "fear voice" but let's just go with "fear voice" for now.

Jen: Yep.

Pete: When you hear your fear voice come in, remember to brace and strengthen your COR: catch, observe, and reframe.

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