Disclosure Revisited

I’m thinking about disclosure all over again. The quote is: “You can’t be what you can’t see.” This is why I’ve told my story.

I think whether a person discloses and when they do so comes down to this other maxim: “There’s a time and place for everything.”

Historically no treatment providers have offered persons with mental illnesses advice on how to stand up for ourselves and not get taken advantage of.

Individuals diagnosed with a mental health condition ordinarily do not commit crimes. We are at a 23 percent greater risk of being victims of crimes.

More so because some of us often live in dangerous neighborhoods.

The fact that people living with mental illnesses become victims of crime is why I say: not so fast in disclosing your mental health on the job to coworkers.

I realize that a lot of people with this kind of history would like to tell their coworkers and others. If you ask me it would be OK to do so only if you could respond confidently and with a steel backbone should a coworker you tell try to use the information against you to ruin your reputation or interfere with your job performance.

My friend Robin who told a coworker he had schizophrenia in turn had that coworker tell their supervisor. It cost Robin a promotion he was in line for and then didn’t get.

The fact is too that some of us (I and others I know) choose not to talk about illness and symptoms unless it’s with each other.

When I give speaking engagements I begin for only 5 minutes by talking about what happened to me. Beyond that I focus on real-life strategies for coping with living in recovery today. Positive insights that anyone who struggles can use despite their type of mental illness and its severity.

After doing this over 20 years I know that peers want practical advice not feel-good platitudes or fluff like “If you believe it you can be it!”

In the coming blog entry I will talk more in detail about disclosure in light of a book I read last week.

Rocking Authenticity At Work

This radical idea struck: To write in here about the competitive advantage you have in not conforming.

Albert Einstein was a genius. Was he hanging out at the water cooler all day chatting with colleagues? Likely not.

Danny Rojas the Container Store’s Sr. Manager of Talent Acquisition spoke on this theme in an interview on the Container Store website:

Re: the fallacy of blending into the company culture and the benefit of a DEI ethic:

Rojas thinks that your being different–your individuality–can improve the culture of the company you work at.

How can you and I best add to the dynamic: By remembering that “not conforming” is not a free pass to acting convfrontational with coworkers.

I have a definite idea about the old chestnut of “acting true to yourself.” I believe everyone living on earth in this lifetime is here to experience karma. It’s not the punishment for prior sins. It’s the gaining knowledge of what you didn’t know before–like the evolution of your soul animated in this body and mind.

As not everyone we interact with is pleasant or dandy I think accepting others as they are and letting them be themselves is the key to inhabiting planet Earth with less friction and animosity among those of us with opposing ideologies.

Expecting a person to show up as their authentic self is key. This should be the playbook for interacting with people whose worldview is different from ours:

I accept and affirm how others feel. I make them feel seen and heard. I uphold that they are safe to express what they think and feel in my presence. I honor and celebrate their individuality.

Right. Not everyone else is going to operate this way–and not often likely toward a person living with a disability. Yet this is the ethic I think we should strive for.

At work you’ll rub elbows with the world. Though I failed big time working in the corporate and law offices I credit that early first experience with exposing me to coworkers from different walks of life.

Acceptance should be reciprocal: I allow you to act true to yourself and you allow me to act true to myself.

What about when a person has a mental health issue and they’re employed? Coming up my extended take on disclosure.

Brain Doping

Last week I read on the internet about an alarming trend:

Office workers engage in “brain doping” by taking ADHD pills like Adderall to enhance their performance. The drugs enable these staff members to achieve superhuman output on the job.

Just. Why. Not ever have I been a fan of getting a job in a corporate office. Unless you are like my friend Robin. He obtained an MBA and had a 20-year career in business.

A corporate career might suit you and other followers. I wouldn’t entirely rule out working in an office. Provided management treats employees right.

The fact that people are brain doping on the job shows how insidiously harmful late-stage capitalism is when businesses put profits before people. Then workers put earning money as their reason for working and brain doping. Getting ahead in corporate America should not come at the expense of our sanity.

About two or three years ago a former Amazon office employee published an expose of her time working at that company. The book was titled Exit Interview.

Amazon expects office workers to come in on Saturdays when their managers call them on the phone that morning.

This is unlivable. This is unworkable. The Exit Interview author wrote that after working at Amazon for 12 years she couldn’t recognize herself in the mirror.

In the coming blog entry I’m going to write in more detail about the insanity of businesses–and even non-profits–demanding total allegiance at the expense of our mental and physical health.

I urge followers not to engage in brain doping.

Building a Better World

This is the last entry in the 3-part blog carnival.

Jose Andres and his World Central Kitchen volunteers show up after hurricanes like Maria in Puerto Rico and in conflict zones Feeding the Hungry.

Andres and his crew have done what the Red Cross and U.S. government could not. In the Middle East they built a solid usable jetty. The U.S. spent $300 million building a temporary floating structure nearby that collapsed.

Andres didn’t think he could feed the millions who needed food. His game plan should be replicated by us: Start with one subgoal at a time.

Andres knew that the people living in those other countries were the best experts to tell him what to do when the World Central Kitchen staff showed up.

In fact, Andres is against hosting Zoom meetings to figure out the plan. Meet a person in person is his belief.

Change the Recipe is only 175 pages. It should be bought to refer to time and again for a refresher in hope that a single individual can alleviate the suffering in the world. Each of us can start volunteering in our corner of the world for the cause we’re committed to.

Asking the recipients of help what they need is far better than thinking you know what they need and pre-assembling a care package to give them.

Even before I published Working Assets the career guide I had at least three peers read the manuscript to tell me what they thought of it.

Living life without taking risks is no life to live if you ask me. Andres saw the need that creating World Central Kitchen could fill better than others could fill that need.

This is the key to succeeding: Filling a need your target market has and being the best at what you do.

Breaking Some Eggs

Change the Recipe by Jose Andres talks about how to build a better world by breaking some eggs. In a way breaking the rules by breaking eggs is also the way to get ahead for yourself. In turn each of us should think about breaking those eggs to help others succeed.

Creative minds can achieve more for ourselves by collaborating with others and helping them out along the way. Lifting other individual’s boats rises the tide in our favor too.

In Change the Recipe Jose Andres the chef has a chapter titled Build Longer Tables Not Higher Walls.

The fact that bellicose men rule the world and start wars against each other is not something we should accept as the normal operating business of government.

Andres at the end of this chapter states:

“When you share a meal with someone, or lots of people, you learn more and can help more. And helping people rebuild their lives where they are is far more successful than building walls to keep us apart.”

So-called “migrants” flee their countries and come to America or places like Italy and Greece because civil and other wars have displaced them.

The World Central Kitchen that Jose Andres founded steps in to feed the people where they are. The WCK helps those individuals feed themselves doesn’t just give them a handout.

One brilliant solution Andres had was to make sandwiches when hot stoves weren’t available. Andres bought the sandwich ingredients from a local farmer at a market.

Change the Recipe gives “recipes” for how to build a better world. Each of us one person at a time can contribute mighty effort by “breaking some eggs” in our own way.

The fact that each of us is just one person shouldn’t deter us from trying to build this better world for others and for ourselves too.

Early on in recovery our goal should be bettering ourselves. Then with our feet planted on this ground we can aspire to help others. 

Changing the Recipe

Coming up I’m going to post a 3-entry blog carnival dedicated to a new book published in April that I think everyone should read.

Reading books like Change the Recipe has always been a gift of joy and inspired living for me.

In all ways and from disparate sources I glean the information I can use to better myself. In turn I seek to help readers followers and audience members better themselves by sharing this information.

Maybe my life ethic shouldn’t be a surprise as I obtained a master’s in library and information science decades ago.

Like Mary Oliver asked famously in a quote:

Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Finding out and going and doing what calls out to you could help a person Enjoy Life when they struggle.

I chose to devote my life to public service.

The goal I have for reviewing books in here is to inspire followers that the keys to self-development are right in front of our eyes.

Read on for a review of the latest book that changed my life.

Getting a Job After College

The book above the Prepared Graduate I recommend to every college freshman to read to be proactive while in school. Instead of being reactive after you get the degree.

One thing I take issue within a big way: she gives a sample pitch letter to send a person on LinkedIn in an attempt to snag an internship.

No—not at all should your first sentence be: Hope you’re doing well. It should refer to a new achievement of theirs and talk about why this victory impresses you.

(I learned this in a Zoom event the Roadmap Coach Christina Bryan hosted for leveling up your presence and persona in your career.)

Then the pitch should list how it would benefit them to hire you as an intern. To infer that doing so will enhance their reputation not just score you a job post-graduation.

After this you can list your school and your major. It’s the same thing as asking for 10 or 15 or 20 minutes of a person’s time to talk about questions you have about the field and line of work (traditionally called an information interview.)

Like I wrote 2 years ago in Working Assets your sales pitch should be about how you can help them with a project near and dear to their heart.

The one last issue I have is with the end of the subtitle attesting that you will be able to Step Into Your Purpose.

Should a 22 year know their life’s purpose so early in their lifetime on earth this time around? I would say this is where creating an Action Grid while in school or collecting SSI or SSDI can help. I talked about the Action Grid in Working Assets my career guide.

The subtitle should be “Step Into Your First Purpose” as in your first purpose at this stage of your life. In my last semester of college, I only wanted to publish books and invest in the stock market and travel to Sicily.

Still told The Prepared Graduate has other winning advice. The number one call out is getting a job related to your major while in college. Instead of taking any old job like flipping burgers to pay your bills. What if you can’t get an internship or job linked to your career while studying?

Be creative. Teach yourself a skill it would impress a hiring manager to know that you have. Start a professional podcast on the subject you’re studying for. Keyword in that sentence: Professional. Join a club on campus linked to the career—like the Student Marketing Association if you’re getting a degree in the field of marketing.

Plus, a professional organization devoted to your career might have a student membership option. Join—as the fee can be lower for a student.

Working Hard at a Job

In here before I’ve reviewed the book The Pomodoro Technique about a time management strategy for completing tasks at a job or elsewhere.

You set a kitchen timer for 25 minutes in which to work on part of a project. When the timer goes off you set it for five minutes in which to do nothing and rest.

Then set the timer for a new 25 minute time period. Use 3 or 4 “pomodoros” in the morning and 3 or 4 “pomodoros” in the afternoon.

The author of the book and creator of this technique had used a kitchen timer in the shape of a tomato. He is Italian and pomodoro is Italian for tomato. Sounds so much better than The Tomato Technique right?”

I think using pomodoros is an effective way to pace yourself throughout the workday and not get frazzled. The Pomodoro Technique is a way to work hard in the right way.

Research indicates that the more hours you work at a job every week over 40 hours the less productive a person is. The goal should not be warming a chair for 50 hours. It should be doing your best work within an 8 hour workday routinely. With little need for overtime. Except maybe during a crunch period like the launch of a new product.

Too each of us workers should take one break in the morning and one break in the afternoon. Even if the break is just 15 minutes.

One career strategist years ago recommended taking a 2-hour lunch on your job. I wouldn’t go that far unless you’re networking at lunch or meeting a client.

Coming up in the next blog entry a review of a book for college students who would like to get a job after they graduate. In keeping with my love of library work the author of this book urges young people to find a job that reflects their life’s purpose.

One Alternative Career

I think that a job in a library could be one great alternative career.

For decades I haven’t been a fan of thinking the only job you should get is in a corporate office.

Working in a public library the pay might not be great however the benefits could be better. Like getting a pension. And the opportunity to open up a 403(b) as an additional source of retirement income.

A 403(b) is the non-profit sector equivalent to a 401(k).

The benefit of a public library job is that it’s a pre-set 7 hours-only workday. You can show up in Converse high-tops or combat boots.

In a future blog entry I will talk about a library job in more detail.

You should be interested in working with people. It would help to be chatty at the customer service desk.

You can host programs like arts-n-crafts or a writing workshop.

A library job can often be a union job too. I’m so not a fan of working in a corporate office.

In the coming blog entry I’ll talk about the right way to work hard at any job. You want to be able to get ahead without losing your head.

Loving Our Jobs

In my career guide Working Assets I make one specific positive distinction:

It’s possible to have a job you love. Even if you’re not doing what you love on the job.

To wit:

You might not want to become a professional chef in a kitchen with all the demands. Instead you can bake cakes for coworkers to bring to your job to share in the staff kitchen.

I think everyone should buy and read a copy of Working Assets by the way. It’s on Amazon. The competitive information tells readers everything you need to know.

In my view it’s foolish not to ask for professional help when creating your resume. Ninety-five percent of the first draft resumes other people create to give to me for a review are terrible.

With 2 simple changes the resume can go from awful to AWEsome. Trust me. Staff at a public library are often trained to help patrons create resumes and conduct job searches.

It’s a FREE service that doesn’t cost you a dime. Unless you donate money to the library as a charitable contribution.

So–how can a person find a job they love. It could take trial and error. Yet it shouldn’t take 9 years like it did for me to realize that I shouldn’t be working in corporate offices!

In Working Assets I talk about creating a short-term Action Grid to figure out what kind of job you’d like to work at.

In a coming blog entry I’m going to focus on non-traditional workplaces.

In a future blog entry like I referred to before I will write about working hard the right way on a job.