let's talk about feelings at the end of cascadiajs 2013

FAREWELL CASCADIAJS

JENN TURNER, &YET@RENRUTNNEJ, [email protected]

Sunday, November 17, 13


On January 6th, 2011, I was working for the United States Department of Energy as the lead technical writer and editor for my organization, Site-Wide Safety Standards (http://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/SiteSafetyStandards).

The work was ambitious in that it aimed to unite multiple major contractors on the Hanford Nuclear Cleanup Site under a single set of safety rules.


I enjoyed the challenge of negotiating with the contractors to bring all the parties to a consensus. The team I worked with eagerly anticipated the reward of our efforts – a substantially safer environment for workers on the Hanford Site, a vast employer to people I knew within every stretch of my life.

?Sunday, November 17, 13

When I was fired that same January morning, a number of feelings washed over me, but the one that struck me most was relief.

That was the best job I'd had in my life, the most fulfilling work I'd done to date. Why would I feel relieved to be free of that?

You know that famous David Foster Wallace commencement speech (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaVrn1Sz0H8)? The one about water? There’s a part of that speech that’s particularly fitting, and it goes like this:

“THERE ARE THESE TWO YOUNG FISH SWIMMING ALONG AND THEY HAPPEN TO MEET AN OLDER FISH SWIMMING THE OTHER WAY, WHO NODS AT THEM AND SAYS ‘MORNING, BOYS. HOW'S THE WATER?’”


“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning, boys. How's the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes ‘What the hell is water?’”

WHAT THE HELL

IS WATER?


That was me. I was a young fish. I was so emersed in the execution of my job, that I didn’t see how my ignorance to my environment there would inevitably drown me.

Let me show you what kept me from completely drowning.


This is Mila (http://milasaidwhat.tumblr.com)

She is 5, her favorite subject in school is recess, and when she grows up she wants to be a rockstar or a leopard.

She is still kinda new here and is a mostly untainted human being, despite my efforts.

And she is the reason I do everything.


Kids are really funny. I never saw myself as being a kid person, or a mom. But I am now. And it’s an eye-opening lesson to learn that you can’t just adorn them with the right clothes, take them to the right schools, give them all the right toys and educational tools, and then one day they just get into Harvard, or spearhead a relief mission.

Like most other parents, or adults in role model positions, I want the best things for my child. I want her to grow up to be smart, and strong, and kind, and confident, and secure.

I want her to grow up to be a good person.

I’ve found that for you to grow a good person, you have to show them what a good person looks like. Acts like. Speaks like.

And after I got fired, I realized that I didn't know how to show my daughter these things.


Today I’m not writing technical documents or editing them. I work at &yet (http://andyet.net), an experiential software company devoted to people and passion. People ask me what I do at &yet, and I’ve learned that the best answer most often is “A LOT.”

But, I'll back up to 2011 and tell you what my expectations of the workplace at that time, through a combination of what culture had taught me, what I had observed, and what I had experienced first hand.

Maybe you can identify with some of these.

THE WORKPLACE WAS A PLACE

WHERE A BOSS TRADED YOU MONEY

FOR YOUR TIME.Sunday, November 17, 13

The workplace was a place where a boss traded you money for your time. (If you were fortunate, you enjoyed how you spent your time, otherwise you just counted it down.)

IT WAS NOT A PLACE TO BE COMBINED WITH MOST TO ALL

ELEMENTS OF ONE’S PERSONAL LIFE.


The workplace was not a place to be combined with most to all elements of one’s personal life.

(This includes first and foremost talk of feelings or relationships.)

AT THE WORKPLACE, YOU

MUST BEHAVE LIKE YOU ARE AT A WORKPLACE.


At the workplace, you must behave like you are at a workplace.

Let me also say that I had learned that the rules are different depending on whether you’re male or female.

And on top of my perceived set of workplace rules, I had the fact that I’m a sexist working against me.

YEP, I’M A SEXIST.


I'm a recovering sexist, now, just to clarify.

YEP, I’M I WAS A SEXIST.


If you don’t understand how it is that a female can own a sexist attitude or view, then let me help you out.


Not to go too far back, but from the time I was very small up until quite recently, I saw a world that didn’t value me in the same way that I knew, in my very core, I had value.


My female role models “had it all” – great marriages, great kids, enviable careers, 3-4 close girl friends, were amazing hostesses, knowledgable nurses, accomplished household paper work filler outers, and did all of this with perfect hair and a maybe it’s Maybelline flawless face.

I looked at myself and looked at them, and thought, “Welp...no fricking way.”


So I looked to my male role models. They got to be the receivers of all of that cool stuff that the females did. And all they had to do, from my point of view, was have a decent job, and be there. And on most holidays that meant, just getting to watch football and eat.

I looked at myself, and looked at them, and thought, “Yeah, that’s what I want.”


So I modeled my life that way, and tried to assimiliate to a man’s lifestyle, and looked down on the so-called “girlie-girls” for trying to do it all or have it all, usually with the end goal of impressing a man.

I believe now, that my sexist attitudes formed out of painful insecurity and out of self-defense, fearing that I would never be good enough to be one of those “have it all” types.

This self-protective barrier multiplied my ignorance exponentially to potentially harmful workplace situations, since I didn’t even view myself as a target of sexism to begin with.

Yet, more often than not, during my work with the Department of Energy, I found myself feeling very uncomfortable, whether I was alone in my office, or in the middle of a meeting with 20-30 other people. I was doing work that I loved, but I felt on edge doing it, and I had no idea why. I chalked it up to imposter syndrome, and my lack of tenure on the site. Most of my coworkers had 20-30 years on me, and could be my parents, or grandparents.

IMPOSTER SYNDROME


Do you guys know what imposter syndrome (http://counseling.caltech.edu/general/InfoandResources/Impostor) is, by the way? If not, it’s the feeling that even though you have evidence all around you of your success or accomplishments, still feeling, inside, like you’re a fraud or a phony. It’s supposedly more common among women, although I would venture to say it’s probably most common among people.

Who doesn't feel like a phony some times?

DEMO ?


Use Talky! (https://talky.io/)

?Sunday, November 17, 13

Anyway, I couldn’t understand why some emails made me so angry just to read, or why I felt like I was going to throw up or jump out of my skin when my male boss would go out of his way to physically touch me, never inappropriately though so what was my problem? I’m sure he’s only doing it to try to comfort me, so why do I feel like I have to hide from him?

I felt like “I’m living up to my workplace expectations of 1, 2, and 3, and I’m doing work that I love, so why isn’t this working”?

The answer is I simply didn’t have the tools. I didn’t have the knowledge to understand what was happening around me, and to me. I didn’t have the vocabulary to communicate about it either.

What I couldn’t see then was that I did not feel safe at work (http://www.newandimproved.com/newsletter/2080.php). It’s pretty ironic, given the scope of my work at the time – creating a substantially safer worker environment for all workers on the Hanford Site.

I internalized my confusion about the situation, and I don't know you can relate to this, but I blamed myself.

And for a while after I was fired, I wasn’t motivated to change. Honestly, I felt like, that place was just screwed up, and if they wanted to let awesome people go just to prove a point, that was their perogative, not my problem.

Because to admit that I didn't feel safe at work, meant admitting I was needy.

I was afraid it would make me look weak.


It wasn’t until I found myself living “The Good Life™”, living in the place I belonged, with the people I loved, doing the work that was mine – on purpose, and struggling with it that I started on this path, which would lead me here to talk to you today.

My teammates Adam Brault (http://adambrault.com/2012/11/02/my-realtimeconf-closing-talk-on-fear) and Luke Karrys (http://lukelov.es/talks/2013/07/21/passion-and-purpose.html) have talked about this definition of the good life in past presentations, and I would encourage you to check them out.

LIVING IN THE PLACE I BELONGED




LIVING IN THE PLACE I BELONGED WITH THE PEOPLE I LOVED




LIVING IN THE PLACE I BELONGED WITH THE PEOPLE I LOVED DOING THE WORK THAT WAS MINE




LIVING IN THE PLACE I BELONGED WITH THE PEOPLE I LOVED DOING THE WORK THAT WAS MINE ON PURPOSE




WHY ISN’T THIS WORKING?


Luke’s talk in particular really struck a chord for me, in that he described the set of challenges that arise when you find yourself in an environment that allows you to bring your whole self to work – and discovering that you come up short.

That’s exactly where I was at too. But the difference is, instead of getting fired for my confusion, someone encouraged me through it.

WHY IS ANY OF THIS IMPORTANT?


So, why is any of this important?

I have a better question for you.

HOW IS IT NOT?


How is it not?

We stand today as some of the most talented and privileged members of society. As Jan Lehnardt pointed out in his analogy (http://writing.jan.io/2013/08/16/lets-start-a-revolution.html), developers have actualized the goal of alchemists in that you are able to create gold out of air.

So how have we reached 2013, and not made focusing on the entirety of humans beings and their diverse and varied abilities our goal?

Our baseline?

How are we comfortable pointing to a model that dehumanizes our workers, ourselves, real people and say “Yes, that’s the one I want.”


Well, for one, history tells us to.

Work environments have long focused on encouraging rationality over emotionality.

“This emphasis on rationality emerged as an administrative paradigm partly as a defense against the perceived dysfunction and pejorative connotations of emotion.” http://hum.sagepub.com/content/48/2/97.full.pdf+html

It’s true that feelings are unpredictable, and that can be an uncomfortable thing. But what about the negative impacts of denying people to be themselves entirely at work?

What about the impacts of denying children the ability to be themselves entirely at school?


In her article "Can Emotional Intelligence Be Taught?" Jennifer Kahn (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/magazine/can-emotional-intelligence-be-taught.html?_r=2&) profiles several American schools that have been educating young students on social-emotional learning, because they recognize that "emotional skills are crucial to academic performance.”

She states that:"So-called noncognitive skills — attributes like self-restraint, persistence and self-awareness — might actually be better predictors of a person’s life trajectory than standard academic measures. A 2011 study using data collected on 17,000 British infants followed over 50 years found that a child’s level of mental well-being correlated strongly with future success.


Similar studies have found that kids who develop these skills are not only more likely to do well at work but also to have longer marriages and to suffer less from depression and anxiety. Some evidence even shows that they will be physically healthier."

LEVEL OF MENTAL WELL-BEING CORRELATED STRONGLY WITH FUTURE SUCCESS



LEVEL OF MENTAL WELL-BEING CORRELATED STRONGLY WITH FUTURE SUCCESS MORE LIKELY TO DO WELL AT WORK



LEVEL OF MENTAL WELL-BEING CORRELATED STRONGLY WITH FUTURE SUCCESS MORE LIKELY TO DO WELL AT WORKTO HAVE LONGER MARRIAGES



LEVEL OF MENTAL WELL-BEING CORRELATED STRONGLY WITH FUTURE SUCCESS MORE LIKELY TO DO WELL AT WORKTO HAVE LONGER MARRIAGES TO SUFFER LESS FROM DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY



LEVEL OF MENTAL WELL-BEING CORRELATED STRONGLY WITH FUTURE SUCCESS MORE LIKELY TO DO WELL AT WORKTO HAVE LONGER MARRIAGES TO SUFFER LESS FROM DEPRESSION AND ANXIETYWILL BE PHYSICALLY HEALTHIER



FRAMEWORK FOR SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL

LEARNING


Just from having some sort of framework for their mental well-being. Their mental and emotional health.

So how is this accomplished?

Working toward an emotionally safe environment is a continual process, so these methods are a work in progress.

VENTING


I’m still learning to be better at this. Don’t deny yourself what’s really an opportunity to work through the intensity of your feelings as you get them out. We encourage venting at &yet.

My advice in this area though, would be to be cautious of the person you’re venting to. When I’m pissed, my gut instinct is to go to the person who’s basically going to tell me what I want to hear.

“Yeah, that situation sucks. You totally deserve to be angry!”

When truly, what I need to hear is perspective.

Perspective just makes me smile. Do you know what I mean? I can be like, fury of a thousand blazing suns furious, heading out on a witch hunt, and then perspective comes along and goes, “Nope.” And then I just have to smile and feel like an idiot.

But the great thing is that it then gives me a greater vantage point for how I handle the next time.

EMOTIONAL NAPALM


There’s a huge exception to this rule. If you’re in a conflict with someone, you need to work on the getting the tools to deal with conflict. Don’t go venting to everyone except for the person you’re in conflict with, because that’s like spreading emotional napalm around.

Don’t spread emotional napalm.

DON’T LET IT FESTER


I am the worst at this. Wait


Not this Fester.


I am the worst at this. My lack of emotional know how always tries to tell me that the way I’m feeling is wrong, and I just need to “Cowboy up,” or “Man up” or “Get over it.” And for a long time that’s what I did. Or tried to do. For 25 years.

As a skilled expert on repressing emotions, I’m here to tell you that it flat out doesn’t work. It might seem like it works for a time. Those emotions that you tell yourself to get over, they don’t go away. They fester. Like a boil, or some other gross image you don’t want in your mind right now.

And do you know how much unnecessary energy doing all of that repressing and festering takes out of you? A LOT.

Because repressing turns into festering and festering turns into bitterness, and soon you’re just consumed with how much that situation/other person sucks and it turns into an overwhelming obsession that you would do anything to escape.

THE SHORTEST PATH IS RIGHT THROUGH IT


The shortest way through your emotional episodes is right through them. The best thing you can do is to acknowledge the way that you feel, and respond appropriately.

I've learned this the hard way. I went through a situation for a full year, where a person that I worked with was continually offending me, but I was so afraid of what would happen if I confronted them about it.

So I did what any mature adult would do, and held onto my offense and grumbling and grudges and was miserable.

You know that feeling, where you would do anything to avoid interaction with that person who offends you so much. Maybe it's just me, but I stressed about having to see them or interact with them.

It wasn't until I had been in counseling for about five months, that I was finally able to gain a different perspective, and then I knew what I had to do.

Which was go to that person and apologize immediately, and work persistently on changing my perspective of them. Because they had no idea they were offending me so deeply, because I never told them about it.

So, please learn from my example, and if you're festering about something, promise me today that you'll figure out some way to stop and get out of that horrible place.

It’s not easy. In fact, it’s pretty hard. I’ve learned this stuff over the past two years and a lot of the time I still feel like a toddler.

CHECK IN


One thing we do at &yet, that I’ve never done at any other workplace is our system of checking in daily. Our friends at Lincoln Loop (http://lincolnloop.com/) have created a tool called Ginger, which we use on a semi-daily basis to describe how our day went and assign a number from 1 to 10 or whatever numerical value is truly appropriate for that day.

Sometimes I put a 10, sometimes I put a ?

This is particularly helpful in staying in touch with our remote workers, but what I find truly interesting is how reading Ginger regularly syncs me up with my team and endears me to them.

Some of our teammates are truly fearless in their honesty about their lives, but it never fails that the honesty expressed there is met with just as intense compassion from other teammates.


This is an example of my own check in from earlier this week, in which I was feeling anxious about giving this talk right now. And my awesome teammate Philip Roberts responded.

Earlier I mentioned another teammate suggesting I get some help.

And you know, I could have been angry about that. And truthfully I was embarrassed.

But I looked at my daughter, and looked at my life, and thought I would not be able to stand it if Mila was 30 years old, and had emotional problems like these.

So I listened.

They pointed out to me, that I might be framing things wrong to begin with and showed me this book.

POSITIVE INTELLIGENCE

SHIRZAD CHAMINE


Reading this book, “Positive Intelligence: (Plus long salesy subtitle, just ignore reading the subtitle and use that energy to start reading the first page) by Shirzad Chamine actually changed my life. http://www.amazon.com/Positive-Intelligence-Individuals-Achieve-Potential/dp/1608322785/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333486168&sr=

How many people can say that about a book?

But it’s true. Remember how I was just describing a bout of self doubt in terms of questioning my feelings. It was much worse than that actually, I questioned everything. Self-esteem issues and imposter syndrome aside, I was plagued by self doubt and reading Positive Intelligence actually helped me learn the to identify those thoughts and neutralize them.

The things I learned from that book completely changed the way I think about and understand myself, so I will never stop singing it’s praises. If you’re curious, but not enough to read, go check out the Positive Intelligence website. There’s some assessments and stuff that I think is definitely worth checking out. http://positiveintelligence.com/

But really you should just go read the book.

NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION

MARSHALL B. ROSENBERG


This is another great book, which Isaac Schlueter recommended in both talks he gave at NodeConf EU and RealtimeConf this year. I definitely encourage you to hear what he has to say about Leadership and Compassionate Communities. http://www.amazon.com/Nonviolent-Communication-A-Language-Life/dp/1892005034/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384755206&sr=8-1&keywords=nonviolent+communication

In both talks, he shares his experience as the lead Node developer and author of npm, and introduced to me for the very first time the idea that it was possible, without any magic or coercion, to turn negative interactions into positive ones.

What do you mean I can go from having conflict to a positive experience? Remember what I was saying earlier about conflict?

Nonviolent Communication is the key to getting out of it.

The method detailed in NVC aims to give readers the tools to both express and receive how they are honestly through their observations, feelings, needs and requests.


Here's the structure:

When I see [this]I feel [this]Because I need [this]So could you [this] ?

Let me give you an example of how this works.

WHEN I SEE [BLANK]





WHEN I SEE [BLANK]I FEEL [BLANK]






BECAUSE I NEED [BLANK]






BECAUSE I NEED [BLANK]

SO COULD YOU [THIS] ?






Okay, that doesn’t really address anything other than my internal conflict, but you get what I mean.

WHEN I GIVE A TALK



WHEN I GIVE A TALKI FEEL FREAKED OUT




BECAUSE I NEED TO NOT BE ON A STAGE




BECAUSE I NEED TO NOT BE ON A STAGE

SO COULD YOU ALL CLOSE YOUR EYES ?



NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION

MARSHALL B. ROSENBERG


I thought Isaac summarized the intentions of the book fantastically so I’m going to quote him here:

“The reason why NVC works as well as it does, and can powerfully change negative interactions into positive is that it teaches us to be strict in what we send, and liberal in what we receive, so as to to guide our fellow humans towards positivity. Practicing NVC means that we radically change our focus, and limit the messages we send, or even allow ourselves to think or respond to.”

NVC also has a great website which can help break down methods specifically for conflict resolution, workplace interaction, personal growth, parenting, etc. You should check it out. http://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/index.htm

THIS IS HARD TO DO.


This is hard to do. I screw it up every day.

No one is a professional at handling feelings.

I still screw it up, and make bad choices. I’m a little quicker to apologize, genuinely for those mistakes, but they still happen all of the time. But, as they say, anything worth doing well, is worth doing poorly at first. And here’s another cliche that is still slightly true-ish:

“Practice makes perfect.”

Yes I slip into my old Jenn ways of self doubt and passive-aggressive tactics, but I’m able to recognize (most of the time) when this is happening, and take action to rectify it.

Making my emotional health a priority has made my life significantly better in every single area.


It’s given me

Substantially better communication skills in general.Understanding and empathy for teammates and friends.Patience for loved ones, friends, teammates.Long term understanding of my daughter’s big-picture needs.And the needs of other people in my life.

I want to show you a quick video that I think accurately portrays the impact that prioritizing emotional safety can have. https://vimeo.com/22808564

COMMUNICATION SKILLS


It’s given me




UNDERSTANDING


It’s given me




UNDERSTANDINGEMPATHY


It’s given me




UNDERSTANDINGEMPATHYPATIENCE


It’s given me




It's truly amazing the difference one person can make.

How many lives are going to be changed for the better as the result of that teacher's ability to see that the overall needs of those children were not being met?

This is not just for children.

THIS IS FOR EVERYONE.


This is for everyone.

This is how I know.


My most favorite parenting triumph in all of Mila’s five years and 3-ish months of life happened recently.

She told me about an older girl who was teasing her and telling her that she wasn’t cute.

She told me her response to the older girl proudly:

"I don’t care what you say, my mom loves

me just the way I am."


"I don’t care what you say, my mom loves me just the way I am."

And that might sound cheesy, in the vein of jokes about young awkward men having well-meaning mothers, but it signified a change in Mila’s growth to me.

From seeing herself as a shadow of a person, believing undoubtedly exactly what the other kids taunted her about, to seeing herself truthfully, as valued, and loved – exactly as I see her.

And all it took was one person who cares and loves her, to encourage her and tell her the truth about herself.

That’s the benefit of emotional health right there. And if I can learn enough in the past 18 months to put Mila’s self growth into action, then I’m excited for a long future of helping her to succeed.

The only thing I can do to ensure my daughter's success is to change myself.

That's all any of us can do.

EMOTIONAL SAFETY IS A PERSONAL

RESPONSIBILITY


I could stand up here and list benefit after benefit or quote statistics, but at the end of the day emotional safety is a personal responsibility.

YOU HAVE TO BE MOTIVATED TO

MAKE IT A PRIORITY.


You have to be motivated to make it a priority.


This tiny human is my motivation to be better. To do better. To try harder.

What is your motivation?

WHAT’S YOUR MOTIVATION?CONTACT ME ON TWITTER @RENRUTNNEJ OR EMAIL AT

[email protected]


Please join me in welcoming all of the Cascadia.js organizers up to the stage.

WE <3 THE CascadiaJS TEAM!


let's talk about feelings at the end of cascadiajs 2013

Technology