One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
—Andre Gide
Whenever we’re in the midst of transformation, we can expect to be uncertain. We are leaving behind the old and preparing for the new. This blog post, an excerpt from my book, Professional Destiny, is the next installment of last week’s discussion about Moving Through the Void.
“Get comfortable with uncertainty—it’s the time of our greatest opportunity. A time when all possibilities are open to us. If we hold our vision and resolve to take a step toward it each day, we can be assured that great uncertainty only lasts for a while. This too shall pass.
Oftentimes even when we start our journey, our fear of failing returns and our hope of finding our purpose fades. We have no proof that things will turn out the way we want so we are hesitant, or even unwilling, to take the risk. Sometimes it takes a great deal of pain to get us motivated. Our fearful beliefs immobilize us and slowly but surely kill our spirit. We can feel ourselves being drawn back to the comfort of familiar territory—even though we haven’t been happy there for a long time. We become more anxious and wonder if we are crazy for wanting to do this.
Sometimes fear can be good. It can motivate us into action, especially if we fear our situation will get worse if we don’t act now. But it is not good when it paralyzes us from moving forward. This is the point when we look into the unknown, feel our fear, take a deep breath and step forward anyway. Do it even if you’re scared.
If you are willing to do the thing you are afraid to do, you often do not have to. Face the situation fearlessly and watch it dissipate.
Most things we worry about never actually happen. So worrying is an unproductive emotion that drains our energy and creative forces. Sometimes we just need to find humor in our fears.
The longer we stay in an unfulfilling and unchallenging situation, the more resigned we become—and the more we risk losing our individuality, unique gifts and edge.”
It’s essential to catch ourselves when we feel the urge to stay complacent. While change can involve letting go of things that are familiar, the cost of settling in an unfulfilling situation may greater than we originally think. So, while uncertainty might not feel good at the moment—get comfortable—it can open our eyes to things we wouldn’t normally see and may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
The void is a place you go into when you’re “in between.” It could be you’re in between jobs, in between relationships or you’ve just had a child leave home and you’re wondering what to do next. It’s a state of being when you let go of old things and prepare to move into the next level of growth. In the void you leave behind familiar patterns, habits, thoughts and actions. Think of a butterfly in a cocoon. The cocoon is the void. Just as a caterpillar enters the cocoon to be transformed into a butterfly, you go into a void to prepare yourself for your next level of transformation. You are preparing to fly high.
The void is a time when you’re shedding something that no longer fits the person you are becoming. It can be quite uncomfortable unless you learn to accept it as a natural and essential state. It’s a time of transition and may feel like all of your foundations are falling away, leaving you nothing solid to cling to. In other words, you know what the “no” is (what you’re leaving), but you don’t yet know what the “yes” is (what you’re moving to). The tough part is that the new is not quite here, but the old has not completely left.
This place of uncertainty, of not knowing—can be disconcerting, especially for those of us who like to plot and plan our life. It may feel like a time of not-doing or emptiness. Yet, it is meant to be a time to stop knowing in your usual way, so that you can begin to learn things in a new way. You may even feel that things are falling apart or that things that used to come easy to you, are no longer working. This is because you are meant to move on.
The void is a time when you:
are expanding beyond your old habits and patterns
learn to think in new ways
replace things that are no longer working for you, with things that do
The following is an analogy I shared in my book, Professional Destiny…
“Imagine Tarzan swinging from vine to vine in the jungle. He can’t move forward on a new vine, without letting go of the vine he was on. If he holds on to the old vine and doesn’t grab the new one, he’ll go backward. If he tries to hold both vines, he’ll get stuck. He must let go of the old vine and grab the new one to ride forward to his destination.”
The void is that exact moment when you let go of the old vine and reach out to grab the new. You leave a place of security to venture into the unknown. The secret is to embrace this transitional time. It’s an opportunity to rest up, recharge and explore an expanded range of choices. Don’t worry if the new direction hasn’t quite shown up yet. Your job is to be open to all of the new possibilities so that you can recognize the best one ahead of you.
Our time in the void can last for hours, days, months or even years. Since all people go into a void at some point in their lives, and many of us experience it multiple times, how do we make the best of our experience there? Enjoy it! Just like the cocoon is to the butterfly, the void is a natural and essential state for your transition. It’s necessary to experience it to shake up your familiar structure in order to free you to think and act differently. You’ll move through it faster if you don’t resist. Rather than focusing on how uncomfortable you are, accept the unfamiliar and focus on the new opportunities that are open to you. You may not see the end-game at this point, but take the first step and the next steps will come. When you reach the turning point, circumstances will start appearing that are better and more satisfying than what you experienced in the past.
If all else fails, change your vocabulary. Instead of thinking of this time as a “void,” think of it as a “vacation.” You might as well enjoy it, because—like it or not—you’re going to be in it! Embrace it as your time to leave behind the old, prepare for the possibilities ahead of you and emerge fully ready to experience the new.
When we make a decision to take a risk and venture out on the journey toward our Professional Destiny, we are often confronted with deep-seated, irrational fears of survival. It is then that our “little voice” (a.k.a inner critic) takes over and tells us all the reasons we are guaranteed to fail. Next, after it scares the daylights out of us, it tells us to be cautious, go the safe route and be secure.
My little voice told me all the reasons I should stay in a job that was making my stomach hurt and my mind numb. It told me I couldn’t survive without the security it provided, and I had no experience doing something new. It told me that most people fail. Many do. But, failure comes in all shapes and sizes… and, painful as it is, can also be a great blessing.
The other night, I watched the video of JK Rowling’s commencement speech at Harvard. I don’t know why I never watched it before, but it was fantastic and struck a chord. She spoke with deep wisdom and humanity about the benefits of failure and how it changed the course of her life.
When Rowling was in college, she was convinced that the only thing she wanted to do was write novels. Her parents, however, coming from impoverished backgrounds thought that her “overactive” imagination would never pay a mortgage or land her a successful job. They wanted her to take a vocational degree, and she wanted to study English Literature. They reached a compromise that, in the end, satisfied no one and Rowling agreed to study Modern Languages.
It was failure that set her free. She tells the crowd…
“A mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew. Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality. So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
It’s not possible to live without failing. To avoid failure would mean that you are compromising your deepest desires and being so cautious that you are simply existing, not living. Ultimately, the knowledge that we can survive our deep fear of failure—and come away breathing—can liberate us to achieve our greatest success.
Diane LeBleu (left) with one of her first clients, Jennifer Hough. Both are breast cancer survivors.
I am pleased to introduce a story of a multi-talented woman who was inspired to make a life and career change after reading Professional Destiny a few months ago. Meet Diane LeBleu—former management consultant, now breast cancer survivor, entrepreneur and mother of four. According to Diane, the message in Professional Destiny helped her articulate a vision, harness her gifts and remember what she loves to do—which she had forgotten while focusing on her growing family. This is her story in her own words…
“I studied Communications and Business Management in college. I also loved to write. I chose Trinity because of their good communications program and I really enjoyed it. At the time, I did an internship at a TV station thinking I might be a reporter. It was fun… I listened to police scanner, and all that. Then one day one of the producers told me that people made more money waiting tables than he did as a producer. That was sobering. I graduated in 1991 and the economy was in the tank. I had college loans – and I thought to myself, ‘what am I going to do here? What are my choices?’ I had financial obligations, so I took a job at Andersen Consulting. I was a business and technology consultant for nine years. It was fine and the pay was great. My husband and I had no kids and were making a lot of money. Then we had our first child. I tried to keep up the corporate consulting thing with a baby and then my husband got sent to Newport Beach and I got sent to Simi Valley. Between us, we had two apartments, a home in San Antonio, a baby, a nanny, two demanding careers and a crazy work schedule. It was completely unsustainable, so I quit. We decided to move to Austin.
My husband started a business and I joined a company, providing sales support. While I was there, we had more children and I was working three days a week. I wasn’t crazy about what I was doing, but it was a job—it was okay.
Our fourth child was born in May and I realized that I couldn’t go back. With four kids, I decided to use this time as a sabbatical to figure out what I really wanted to do. I had been doing the consulting thing and I was good at it and making six figures, but I didn’t love it.
I finally realized, ‘I can’t go back to IT consulting. It will kill me. Money is a great motivator, but I just can’t do it.’ My husband told me, ‘just figure out what you want to do and go do it. I’m tired of living with an unhappy woman!’
The first two years of being home with four kids under eight, and no family in town, was harder than getting up at 4:00am and helping my husband with his business. I didn’t sit down all day. It was physically hard. I was 110 pounds and up all night with the babies. I knew that staying home full-time wasn’t right for me.
I read Marcus Buckingham’s book, Now Discover Your Strengths, which is a great book. It confirmed for me what I thought my strengths were – achiever, harmony, relator, input, connectedness.
I was serious about this sabbatical – I needed to figure out what I wanted to do. I didn’t want just a job, I wanted a career. Someplace to picture myself in 5, 10, 20 years. In between diaper changes, I used the resources at hand. I read Purpose Driven Life, which I loved and I’m a big Stephen Covey fan. I even spoke with a professional coach who charges $150/hour. I was serious! And then I started writing again.
I had to go back to work, but I faced an inner struggle with need to earn some money and my desire to write a book. I had started the Austin chapter of a writer’s group called “The Writing Mamas Salon of Austin” and I was ready to plunge in. I went to Hungary. I was going to write a story about my best friend Holly Wright’s experience as an expatriate living abroad with her family and I went there to do research. As soon as I returned from Hungary with all my research and notes though, I found a lump. It wasn’t completely unexpected since my sister had breast cancer at 33 and my aunt had it in her 40s, but it totally changed my plans. I was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer and was scheduled for surgery in January. I spent the time enjoying my family, meeting with the writing group and contributing to a blog called ‘Mama Bird Diaries’ which ultimately landed me a guest post on the NY Times parenting blog, Motherlode.
I went through the chemotherapy when I found your book through another author at Writing Mamas. I read Professional Destiny and realized I was stuck on the vision thing. As the book says, it all starts with a clear vision—if you don’t have one, you can end up wasting a lot of time. The book helped me determine and articulate my vision. I asked myself, ‘what are your strengths, what do you love to do?’ I didn’t know. I’d been serving my family for so long that I’d forgotten. The discipline of figuring out what you like to do is hard and reading Professional Destiny gave me a mechanism to help do that.
I did the three-column checklist and wrote down what I love to do, what I’m good at and what I loathe. I realized that I really like helping people and staying in touch—and I’m good at it. I also noted that I remember everything about people—I even remember my neighbors’ and their kids’ birthdays from 20 years ago! I asked myself, ‘how can I harness these gifts, how do I make money doing this? I’m a relationship person and I want to help people solve their problems.
Then I met a woman who’s a partner at Asset Strategies Group and was putting on seminar for women. She talked about Mass Mutual products and I was really compelled. Mass Mutual is a company that is very advanced in underwriting life insurance for breast cancer survivors. Once you have breast cancer you usually become ineligible to get life insurance— and it can be a major problem. I wanted to help people and I realized that a career like this was perfect for me. All my gifts and experiences lined up: I had been an entrepreneur, I had a gift for building relationships with people, I love solving problems—and I had survived cancer. I did some soul searching and decided that representing this company would provide a career that meant something to me.
I feel uniquely suited to do this well. I can remember all my client’s details and make recommendations to fit their lives. It is satisfying to me and beneficial for them. I understand their challenges. What’s more, I enjoy being my own boss with the added benefit of having meaningful interaction with others. I realize that I’m paying my dues right now and my hope is that in 10 years, I’ll look back and realize that I was able to make a nice living, help cancer survivors like myself, and build long-lasting relationships.
This opportunity lets me combine my experiences and put them to use in a positive way. I like that. In fact, I plan to call my business Pink Lemonade Financial Services. ‘Pink’ for the breast cancer survivor aspect, and ‘Lemonade’ because we’re making lemonade out of lemons.
In the spirit of the holidays, I thought I’d change things up and dig out a light-hearted fairy tale I’d written back in 2006, when Professional Destiny wasn’t even yet a manuscript. Enjoy!
Once upon a time there was a little boy named Henri. Henri grew up in the perfect home with adoring parents who met his each and every need. Everyone he met looked at him with love, then cooed and showered him with attention. He viewed his new surroundings with wonder and awe—life was a curious, grand adventure!
When Henri got a little older, his parents brought him to his first musical performance. He was mesmerized by the singing and dancing, and simply couldn’t get it out of his head. He decided right then and there that he wanted to be involved in theatre—and perform onstage. He asked his mother and father for music and dance lessons, but to his dismay, they looked slightly concerned and tried to steer him in a different direction. In fact, he thought they seemed a little upset. He was puzzled. Luckily, on his tenth birthday, his favorite aunt came along and enrolled him in music and dance classes before anyone could object. He loved every moment and his teacher said that he had a gift. Bursting with pride, Henri eagerly shared some of his new dance moves with members of his fifth grade class—and it was a terrible experience. A few of the boys that he thought were his friends, mimicked him and told him he should play football instead. He felt betrayed and silly, and started to doubt himself since his friends and family all thought it was strange. Maybe the others were right. Henri decided never to speak of it again and quickly put his dream out of his mind.
Many years later, Henri went to college and decided to follow in his father’s footsteps. He studied finance and accounting. He didn’t really like finance but that’s what paid the bills, or so everyone said. Henri had learned from his painful fifth grade experience—and strived to be just like the others. During his senior year, though, fate stepped in. Henri had to fulfill one last “arts” requirement in order to graduate, so he enrolled in a drama class and once again was swept away by the thrill of theatre. He began writing musicals on the side as a way to distract him from the dreariness of finishing his finance major.
Henri graduated with honors and moved to New York. He became an investment banker and sure enough, did make money. A lot of it. He bought an upscale apartment, lived the high life and ate out every night. Henri navigated through life well enough, but couldn’t shake the feeling that something significant was missing. On the outside everything looked great, but on the inside he felt achingly empty. It was like his heart had a hole in it. He even considered anti-depressants.
Then one day, he met a girl on the subway. Her name was Rose. Rose wasn’t the type Henri usually dated but she looked happy and had a sparkle that he hadn’t seen in a very long time. He felt drawn to her—so he asked her to lunch. She told him that she worked at the Children’s Hospital and was in charge of entertaining the children who were treated there. Many of them had serious, life-threatening diseases like leukemia and cancer. Two nights later, Henri went with Rose to a watch play at the hospital. As he looked around and saw the children laugh, he realized that his heart felt full for the first time since he was a child. Before he could stop himself, he volunteered to write a musical for the next show, and she accepted.
Henri didn’t know what had come over him. He was a busy, important man and now he’d committed himself to this time-consuming project. He thought about backing out, but something made him go on and finish.
Several months later, as Henri sat with Rose on opening night, he was a bundle of nerves. The musical began and Henri looked around and saw himself surrounded by hundreds of brave, young children who had momentarily forgotten their illness, and sat mesmerized and laughing. In that instant his heart felt so full that he thought it would burst.
Henri became a changed man. He found himself writing more musicals and plays and he found himself spending more time with Rose. Soon he realized that she was the one for him and within months they married in a small church nearby. They decided to pursue their dreams and with a little trepidation, Henri gave up his job on Wall Street.
Life became a bit more challenging for Henri, and he and Rose had to make some financial sacrifices to get by. His friends and parents were concerned about him. Those same doubts came back, the ones that made him put aside his dream so long ago—only this time, he refused to give in to them.
The more energy Henri put into the musicals, the better they got. Soon they were beginning to be produced off Broadway and critics were taking notice. His shows attracted larger and larger audiences, until one day his favorite musical ended up on Broadway. It was a dream come true! Henri never looked back after that. He became an “overnight” success in New York (of course, we all know it wasn’t overnight!) and he brought laughter and entertainment to thousands of people.
Night after night as the theatres were packed, Henri and Rose reserved front row seats for the children who had inspired this journey. As he sat watching those little faces fill with joy, Henri experienced a sense of satisfaction he had never known before… and with that feeling deep in his heart, he and Rose lived happily ever after.
It’s this sense of joy and contribution that motivates each and every one of us. And for this holiday season, I wish you all this same kind of deep fulfillment that Henri and Rose journeyed to find.
Professional Destiny® is about finding the career you were born for. I've created this site to help you in your pursuit. Here, you'll find excerpts from my book, as well as new ideas and stories to help you make the most of your natural gifts. We're a community, so please join the conversation!
One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
