What Are You Doing It For?

Sprout Sweater Episode 6 - Eulogy or Resume?

Join Dave Algeo aboard "Sprout 1" and take another journey into your inner world where mind, meaning and metaphor collide.
This episode Dave explores the 'why.' Why are you doing it all? Working so hard, gaining those qualifications, experience and experiences? Does it contribute to a bigger purpose or are you seeking to bolster your self-esteem? Dave explores how the latter can lead to a never ending process of accumulating titles, accolades, etc leading to a great resume, but perhaps not so great for the eulogy. And how can you find a different way of living - by committing to a way of living - being whilst you are doing.

Dave Algeo is a writer, coach, trainer and speaker empowering others to live big, by identifying the small but significant things that can transform the life we are living. Join Dave on the good ship 'Sprout1' as we explore the inner galaxy of the human mind, and find the sprouts that make the biggest difference. These are the sprouts you are looking for.
Search for 'Sprout Sweater' in your favourite podcast feed. To find out more about the podcast, and episode show notes at Podcast — Stress(ed) Guru and more about his in person and online events at www.stressedguru.com. Drop Dave a line at dave@sproutsweater.com to ask questions, offer feedback or suggestions for future podcast content.

Episode 6 Show Notes, References and Links

The following is a rough draft of the content (not a full transcript - more notes forming the basis of the podcast recording

What are you working towards, a great eulogy or a sparkling resume?

Welcome aboard, Sprout one. I'm your host, Dave Algeo, Chief Sprout's Sweater. Buckle up and enjoy the short journey into our in a world where metaphor and meaning are put through the mind mangle in a bid to discover strange new perspectives on life, the world and our place in it.

Episode 6 - What are you doing it for?

Don't forget, if you find that the demands of life and the meaning of it all is leading you to sleepless nights, tossing and turning deep and not so deep questions rattling around your head, then hop on over to sproutsweater.com to sign up for my sleep checklist and my soon to be released free operation snooze sleep improvement programme. Start getting your head back and your shit together so you can start getting life back on your terms at sproutsweater.com.

What are you working towards, a great eulogy or a sparkling resume? I was listening recently to the Peter Attia Drive the drive podcast, and he had Hugh Jackman on the show and they were discussing a lot of different things. A great podcast episode, you'll find the link to the show in the reference links. I do recommend it. Now, ironically, it wasn't Hugh Jackman that introduced this idea of eulogy or resume it was Peter Attia, the host of the podcast. He disclosed he's in the process of writing a book and he disclosed in the conversation with Hugh that he had made a commitment to work towards a great eulogy and focus on that rather than building or continuing to build a great resume.

Now, that struck me as really, really powerful. So you think about eulogy. It's what somebody will say about you at your funeral. A bit of a dark topic. I get that. But let's just, let's just park the negative aspect of it and just think about this, because how many of us are working on something about which people will highlight and remark and talk about at your funeral, or will that eulogy sound a bit like a resume to your achievements, the qualifications, your experiences? And I don’t know about you, but I'm not sure I'd like the latter as my eulogy. Now, I'm not knocking a resume or working to build a great resume, after all, building our experience, getting qualifications, working in different roles, challenging ourselves in different ways, doing different challenges and hobbies in our personal life. Yes, they can make up a great resume, but they can also be very fulfilling that can lead to great opportunities and adventures in life. But I guess that begs the question, if you are working on building a great resume, why? What is the why? What is, what are the reasons? What are you doing it for? Because I think sometimes we can fall into the trap of building our resume for its own sake or building it to satisfy needs within our self-esteem. If you've got a clear purpose and a passion and a direction, and part of it is to get certain experience, get certain qualifications then brilliant. But how often is it that we can be driven by a need to satisfy a gap in our self-esteem? So let's just kind of talk about esteem, self esteem first. And again, I've got a reference to this. But I found a great quote that defines self-esteem, which is a big woolly topic.

But I like this one - ‘to esteem a thing is to prize it, to set a high mental valuation upon it; when applied to persons, esteem carries also a warmer interest of approval, cordiality and affection. In common parlance then self-esteem is the extent to which one prizes values or approves or likes oneself’. I think that's a great little way to encapsulate it. And there's a big focus within psychology and within self development on building our self-esteem or how do we manage ourselves when our self-esteem is low. And, you know, I speak to many people who kind of would actively see and acknowledge that their self-esteem is a bit fragile, whether at times because they've been through tough times or because it's just generally not at a high level. And I can acknowledge that. And, you know, I think it's important to potentially work in that area to look at, well, how can we do that? What can we add in terms of coping strategies to help you cope with the negative things that might lead to you beating yourself up more, more harshly in that kind of thing? However, self-esteem is often based on other things. It's that collective appraisal of ourselves based on a number of different factors. So, for example, we can get a lot of self-esteem potentially from, you know, our career, our salary, our status, our level of qualification, our place in a community, our faith. If a few, particularly religious, you might have a strong faith and believe yourself to be worthy because of that or a good person or I'm a kind person or I'm very helpful. I do a lot of stuff for other people. I really do put myself up for other people and all admirable things in their place. But we can base our sense of worth on those things.

But here's my question.

What if we were to lose one of those things, as many of us from, you know, within our lives do from time to time, we might have a crisis of faith, for example, or you might lose that job for whatever reason or that status or something may happen, which means that you lose your place in a community or your home, for example. Things happen. And if we have our self-esteem rooted in those things, then whilst it may be when things are going well, reasonably high and solid, it's potentially based on a not so solid foundation. And when that foundation is rocked, our self-esteem can plummet. This is where I want to draw back to this idea of what are you working towards the resume and if it's genuinely in service of a bigger or a higher purpose great, however, is is it to scratch that itch, to support that need to boost our self-esteem in a particular area? I'll be better when, I’ll get that qualification, if we just move to that house things will be OK, you know, I get that promotion, if it's those things, then it's not about and that's rubbish or worthless because they're not that's part of life. But it's also about acknowledging that we potentially don't want to put all our eggs in one basket, all our self-esteem eggs in one basket, because if we lose one or two of them, it can have a significant impact on our self, sense of self, our identity, our place in life and our worth.

So what about the bigger picture, your purpose?

That is a biggie. But that's where the eulogy idea comes in. What do you really want people to remember? What would your eulogy be like? What would you like people to say about you and how true to you, to the real you would that be?

Here's my take for for what it's worth, I want to make a difference. I want to get a message across and see how it can help somebody else. But let's face it, I guess many of us do, even if that's in the lives of our families or our community and actually on a side note that can actually be looked down upon from some people that it's not big enough. You're not, you're not thinking big enough. And I think that's bollocks. It's huge, actually, to be somebody that can have a significant place in the lives of your family. Again that eulogy idea that you mean and have mattered in ways that they will appreciate and remember that you weren't always aware working or that you weren't always distracted with, that you had memories and moments with those people. How how much more wonderful and powerful could that be? And meaningful? I mean, that in itself is a mission isn’t it? I want to do that. But I set up my business because I wanted to develop a lifestyle and have an adventure, create freedom you know - that time freedom, that geographical freedom, that financial freedom. All still works in progress, by the way, but that's what I wanted to set it up for. And, you know, I've lost my way from time to time in business, the pressures that have arisen as I've had to learn how to become more business savvy, I guess, and to build a solid foundation with my business are perhaps a part of the original seed of that idea, wanting to make a difference, wanted to develop a lifestyle and have an adventure. But as well as that I want to share messages that means something and that can change or help. But, and this is a realisation that I've had over the last few years. I want more than that, I want my work, my business and my message to move me and to connect with something deeper inside me, I guess my soul for want of a better phrase. And that's as woohoo as I'm getting you'll get no more of that from me. This is what shifted my work as a speaker, coach, trainer and podcaster is a realisation that I was not connecting with something deeper and that deeper need for me to create. I'm creative, but I had I think , I had become a bit typecast as the ‘sprout guy’, was great for business, but not necessarily for that deeper, richer part of me that wanted to express itself.

Here's an admission. I realised that I want to create beauty that moves or shifts. I want to work on ideas from the silly to the sublime. And I want to move myself and others not in a purely entertaining way, but in a way that helps them see differently and that meets my needs as a creative person. Art. And that's a story I had to adopt because anybody who knows me, knows that my handwriting is appalling. A friend of mine once said that reading one of my police statements was like watching a spider climb out of an ink pot and slowly die as it crawled across the paper. I'm no artist, or at least I believe that. I thought that. And then along came the Sprout's and the daily sprout videos and my writing and I realised there's more to this than neat handwriting. There is more than one way to be an artist, and that's when I decided to view my work, all of it the speaking , the coach, the training as art, as creating art, art with meaning and art that shifts or is capable of shifting. As I said, I'm very much in the process, but that's one of the key decisions I made. And in order to develop as an artist, I began to view this all of this work as a craft and ironically, taking some of the decisions within my business to stop doing a lot of things, helped me create some space for that creative aspect of myself to develop my craft. So whatever comes out of that, for good or not so good, I'm an artist, I'm in business. And that's vital. It's non-negotiable. But the heart of me, I am an artist and I approach my work as a craft. And I guess this is gets to the heart of the narratives that we tell ourselves and who we are telling ourselves. Who we are behind the labels that we apply. I'm just a, or I'm a born this or I'll never be or who am I to think? And this idea of the eulogy of a resume for me is to try to help you cut away the chaff because we can be so busy building our resume, getting those things added to it, adding to our experience. Often for it'll be better when for a future purpose or state or end goal. And actually, what about now because life is happening right now, and it is this and what we do with our lives right now that I feel is most comment worthy in the eulogy. What people most remember of us, you, me, and that gets to the heart of who we are, because how many of us in building our resume are forgetting that there is a core part of us that is wants something else that wants to express itself in different ways that may not be an artist, that may not be your language, it might be an adventurer. And I use that phrase a lot. It might be explore, it might be to care, to support, to do something different. It might be hidden in the work you're already doing, but clouded by the responsibilities, the demands and the duties and things that you have to get done or that you put in there in order to not confront that inner voice that is saying there is more. I've talked about that in previous episodes, but it's about putting it in the context of what do you want people to be seeing? Looking back, looking back at your life.

So I finish with this, Neil Gaiman, Author of one of my favourite books, The Graveyard Book, brilliant book, is also I think, the co-author of Good Omens with Terry Pratchett, the late, great Terry Pratchett. But in one of his commencement speeches, he gives some of the best advice I feel that we can give, we can take to heart ourselves, and that may well resonate with you. So here's what he said. The one thing you have that nobody else has is you, your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw, build and play and dance and live as only you can. The moment that you feel that just possibly you're walking down the street naked, that's the moment you may be starting to get it right. Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and all other ways that life can go wrong and when things get tough, this is what you should do. Make good art.

So how about viewing your life as a masterpiece in progress, dust off the canvas, rinse out those brushes and get to work?

I hope you've enjoyed your flight aboard 'Sprout1'. Visit sproutsweater.com for show notes and information on how to get the podcast feed direct to your Apple podcast, Spotify, your favourite podcast, feed visit sproutsweater.com. And touchdown.

Dave

Dave Algeo, Stress(ed) Guru

Speaker, trainer and 'Men's Burnout+ Coach (coaching from burnout to break-through)

dave@stressedguru.com

Helping you create success with (not at the expense of) wellbeing.

References and Links:

1. ‘The Peter Attia Drive’ Podcast episode ‘Hugh Jackman: Reflections on acting, identity, personal transformation, and the significance of being Wolverine’ - accessed 13/07/2021 - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hugh-jackman-reflections-on-acting-identity-personal/id1400828889?i=1000528586041

2. Blascovich, J., & Tomaka, J, (1991) Measures of Self-Esteem, Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Attitudes, pp. 115 accessed 13/07/2021 at http://pdf.xuebalib.com:1262/xuebalib.com.43624.pdf

3. Gaiman, N, (2008), The Graveyard Book, Bloomsbury, UK