Growth, Development, and Doubt as a Dowsing rod (8-31-16)

By now fall is just around the corner and school has already started, so it’s a perfect time to kick off a series about a series about learning, growth, and development. This week we’ll look at how to use doubt as a dowsing rod to show us where we can grow.

In case you’re unfamiliar with what a dowsing rod (or divining rod) is it’s a tool that people have used (and some currently use) to find things, usually water. Imagine the old days in the wild west. A person would take their Y shaped branch and walk around the land while the dowsing rod would “point to” where the underground well is. As the person would walk the branch would bend and change directions, guiding the person to the destination. The dowsing rod would show them where to dig, and once they dug deep enough they would find a well. Isn’t that a neat concept? Imagine having a dowsing rod that you could use in life to help guide you to things.

Me, Doubt, and Day 1 of my new role. True story. For those of you who have read this blog for a while, you know that Doubt tends to visit me from time to time, especially when I’m trying something different. It was the first day of my new role and I was having lunch with my new boss. She begins describing my project to me. I was thinking, “This sounds really cool!” Then I started thinking, “This sounds really big. I don’t know how to do the stuff she just described. Can I even do the stuff she needs me to do?” That’s right. I hadn’t even made it through lunch on day one before Doubt started to set in and I started to imagine myself as a failure. Awesome! (rolls eyes at himself)

So you’re probably wondering what Doubt has to do with a dowsing rod. There I was with doubt creeping in when I had a mindset change. What if doubt didn’t have to be paralyzing? What if doubt could guide me somewhere like a dowsing rod? What if doubt was the thing that drove me to a place to find truth? What if doubt was just a way of showing me where I needed to dig deeper to find a well to nourish me and help me grow? Doubt doesn’t have to be scary. Doubt can be a tool that we can use to find something worth finding.

The challenge: Are you allowing doubt to paralyze you or are you using doubt as a dowsing rod to guide you to learning?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Put Doubt to Work (2-3-16)

This week’s entry falls under the “Just in case you ever feel this way, know you’re not alone” category and is inspired by a conversation I had with Belinda months ago about how doubt isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, if Doubt it is used correctly it can help you avoid mistakes. I started a new role on February 1, and so far I haven’t been fired which is a win! Anyway, leading up to the start date I was mixture of excitement and nervousness. As it got closer and closer to February 1^st, Doubt started to creep in. One day when I was talking to myself while I was driving home, and Doubt was being obnoxiously loud and started heckling me from the couch, saying all kinds of stuff, “What if you fall on your face? You know you’re dumber than they are, right? What if they just don’t like you? What if you can’t pick this up fast enough? What if you can’t learn it all? What if you just don’t fit in this job? What if your skills don’t transfer over very well?”

It was in the middle of this spiral of negative questions that I had a mini-epiphany. Pretend for a moment that you lived in my house. I would expect you to contribute. I would expect you to clean up after yourself and also help with chores, split food costs, etc. My rationale is that if you are going to be part of my home, then you are going to be a helpful part of my home. I wouldn’t tolerate free loaders eating Doritos and watching TV all day.

So what is the epiphany? Doubt was the Dorito eating freeloader, and I didn’t have to tolerate that garbage. Doubt needs to productively contribute if he wants to live in my brain, so I put Doubt to work. As I was talking to myself I used Doubt to make lists of all the different reasons why I should have doubt, all the things I didn’t know, all of the things that made me nervous and scared. Doubt didn’t like it, but I made him get really specific. What was it about not knowing that should give me anxiety? What could I do to avoid falling into certain traps? Doubt worked out so hard during that conversation that I think he lost 30 pounds. So after I went through this conversation with Doubt, I shifted gears and asked Curiosity to step in. I said, “Curiosity, I have all this stuff that I don’t know. How about you go and try to figure it out? Can you find a way to make it all fit together?” Where Doubt is overwhelmed by all the things I don’t know, Curiosity comes in and says, “There are so many unopened boxes of stuff to learn! It’s like Christmas!”

My mind shifted from fear to the wonder of being able to learn new things. Anytime you start something knew, you’ll run into Doubt. Doubt will heckle you from the balcony. When this happens, are you putting Doubt to work or are you letting Doubt be a dark cloud freeloader?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Be Bold- Doubt, Challenge, Embrace (7-29-15)

This week’s blog entry is inspired by a colleague who works in market research. She is one of those people who always finds a way to ask a question or share a thought that rearranges your universe like when you found out Pluto was no longer a planet. In this case, she shared some thoughts with me about doubt and being bold that I think are worth digging into.

Last week we talked about the negative impact of self-doubt. However, as Belinda pointed out, not all doubt is bad. In fact doubt can be very useful. It can make you question and keep you from making big mistakes. Here is a quote from her that stuck out to me, “I am a believer in doubt, challenge, and then decide and embrace.” How often do we do this vs. deciding on our opinion and searching for data to support our conclusions? The moral of today’s story is to be bold and use doubt to challenge your assumptions about the way the world works, this is the only way we can challenge the status quo.

Let’s pretend it’s the late 1400s. I tell you that the sun revolves around the earth. We are the center of the universe after all. Then all of a sudden this guy named Copernicus (see pic for awesome hair) comes around and says that the earth actually revolves around the sun. How could that guy be serious? I know that the sun revolves around the earth. That’s a given. That’s the way it’s always been. Fast forward to today, and if I told you the sun revolved around the earth you’d think I was crazy. See, Copernicus had the guts to use his doubt to challenge, decide, and then embrace truth.

Be bold and use doubt to challenge your assumptions about the way the world works.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Self-doubt and being Bold (7-22-15)

This week I want to talk about self-doubt, one of the biggest barriers to bold leadership. Bold ideas lead to bold actions, which lead to change. Wherever there is change, there is doubt nearby ready to rain on the parade. Can I do this? Am I making impact?

Doubt can lead to fear, but it can also give you the chance to be strong and vulnerable enough to face these fears. As I work on becoming a better leader I try to be strong enough to face these doubts and be vulnerable enough to share my doubts with others to get a little help. Here is a story about sharing this doubt with someone.

Two months ago, I had a meeting with a colleague. During the conversation she gave me a couple of compliments and I said, “Thanks. You don’t know how much I needed that today.” I then continued to tell her about how Doubt had been on my shoulder for the past few weeks whispering. It didn’t make any sense. I should have been flying high after killing it at TEDx and making great progress on work that could change the way we do things. Instead, Doubt was there whispering, bringing me down.

My Doubt said, “What are you doing here kid? You don’t belong here. You’re not a business guy. You know they just keep you around as a distraction right? They don’t need you. The emails, the jokes, the energy, the creativity, all of that crap you like, all of that stuff you think is important… well none of that stuff you do actually means anything to anybody. We’re here to run a business and none of that stuff you do hits the bottom line. If you left tomorrow it wouldn’t matter. You are nothing more than a smiling DISTRACTION. That’s what they keep you around for…”

I’m human. Doubt happens. So I share that stuff with my co-worker and we talk through it. We talked about the insecurity and how it’s hard for me sometimes in this role because there isn’t a clear scoreboard to help me understand if anything I am doing is making a difference. We also talked about whole list of other topics relating to my doubt and insecurities, and I found that talking through it made it go away.

Be bold long enough and Doubt will come. When it does, remember how strong you are. When it does, remember your friends make you stronger.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry