Shaken then stirred

Our early twenties is a time when many of us seek a better understanding of our lives – either professionally or personally. It can be confusing for many people and figuring out how to approach this phase can be a little daunting. I’ve been giving it a little thought myself lately and in the spirit of a good spirit I’ve come up with the Martini theory. Shaken then stirred.

Shaken.

You’re in a job and just cruising. Your days blend into one another. Stimulating, invigorating events don’t happen enough. Getting shaken is a move or change in lifestyle or professional development. Shaking your life up is not natural, and doing it is often a little scary. Leave your job, or ask for a new role. Challenge your friendships – are they providing you with the stimulus you need to grow? Get out of town if you need to. Get a little scared.

Shaken – the catalyst for stirred.

Stirred.

Once the froth has settled, you’ll find the benefits of being shaken are bouts of sudden clarity around the direction you want to take your life. Being stirred to do something, make a change or start a new business is an exciting time and can be quite challenging. But if you get stirred, be prepared for a host of new experiences to occur as a result.

Drunk?

And the product of being shaken then stirred? Well you could say it’s being drunk – drunk off success.

The Martini theory is only in its early stages of development at the moment and it would be great to hear your thoughts or experiences, if you’ve gone through these phases before yourself.

An apple a day

We all know the saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”. And whether fact or an old wives’ tale, apples are bloody tasty things to eat.

Now, I’m proposing a new way of thinking of an apple a day. Food for thought? Absolutely.

Consider thinking of an apple as a nice, round, juicy piece of knowledge or an experience. Something that you can really sink your teeth into. Something that you didn’t know before, or something you did that really made you go - ”yum!”

Today my apple was found in a visit to Te Papa National Museum in the Blood, Earth, Fire exhibition. Here I watched a short film titled My Place.

“‘My Place’ introduces striking and beautiful places around the country where people will show you the place that is most important to them – their place!”

Doesn’t sound overly life changing, but in fact it really made me understand that passion exists in many forms and many pastimes. And for many people this passion is connected to the land. Luckily in New Zealand we have many naturally inspirational places (which probably makes finding apples quite easy). I left wondering where “my place” could be…

What tomorrow’s apple might be – I don’t know. But I’m keen to get out of the office and find one.

(Note: I recommend your apples are not work related experiences or knowledge. Let them be connected to your hobbies, interests or just daily life beyond work).

And because apples are best when fresh and crispy – make sure you pick them from different “branches” and in different “seasons” - that’s places, people or encounters.

Make sense?

With these apples you’ll get more than just clean teeth after eating (or is that an old wives’ tale too?)

Crunch.

 

Michael Albert “Sir Real Red Apple Man”, 1994

The world – back from Beijing

The Olympics are finished. And so the world wakes up from the dreamy state of stupor it has been under for the last 16 days. Productivity returns and normal programming resumes.

I think it’s fantastic that we still have an event that can bring the world together in a celebration of human achievement. Say what you will about this year’s hosts, but the achievements of the athletes will live longer in our memories than any political problems.

In fact it’s Olympic achievements that bring generations together. As Phelps touched the wall for his eight medal and became part of Olympics history, Gen Y’s shared this moment with those who saw (or more likely heard) Mark Spitz achieve a similar feat in 1972. 

I was browsing the International Olympics Committee website the other day. It’s a fantastic resource of information and history and really puts the Games into the perspective of human achievement – as opposed to the games as a pure ’spectacle’ –  which perhaps the last few Games have fallen a little guilty of.

Well worth a look.

You’re dead- or are you?

I read with great interest David Lee’s article on Guardian.co.uk titled There’s life after death if you’re online. 

The piece focused on what online organisations such as Facebook are doing with people’s profiles when or if they die. I’ll leave you to read the article yourself but I think this can only become a bigger issue in the coming years.

I mean if you passed away tomorrow I doubt the first or even last thing your family would think to do is remove your social networking profiles – not to mention the fact that they can’t even log-in to your account anyway. This may be a good thing initially, as your friends could post messages of condolence, but what about those friends who don’t realise? 

Do you continue to exist forever?

How online organisations, and in fact, families deal with erasing the digital footprint of an individual in future is a very interesting topic. One which will only affect us more and more as our online lives become more complex.

Gen why worry?

I read with interest Linley Boniface’s comments in an article she wrote titled Gen Y, I have news for you on Monday. Read it on Stuff here.

With the prospect of a recession likely, Linley is preparing for the downturn by cracking down on the family budget and updating her CV – in preparation for any loss of job –  an anxiety that’s the result of years of facing ”many slowdowns, economic downturns, contractions of the market and recessions.”

Yet she was surprised when talking with those under-25’s, that the same worry was not there.

“I’ve been interested to note my younger friends seem blissfully unflustered about the possible impact that a tanking economy might have on jobs. As far as the under-25s are concerned, the notion of recession is about as relevant to them as cassette tapes, snail mail and phones with cords.”

Yes Linley, it is difficult to imagine recession as we have not had to face a major one in our lifetimes, let alone our working careers. Should we worry though? Yes, according to Linley:

“…it’s amazing that so many Generation Y workers have insufficient imagination to foresee a time when their services will no longer be fought over and cherished… Here, then, younger readers, is a message from my generation to yours: shit happens. And it usually happens at work.”

How many times have I heard other generations lament the attitudes of Gen Y in workplace? It seems to be an issue that crops up very regularly and almost always in relation to career development and job security.

Quite frankly, I think they’re all a little worried about the fact that we’re not worried.

As young workers, we don’t have the experiences of the past to hold back our ability to be positive in the face of possible adversity. Many of us also don’t have the mortgages, families and health problems that our older co-workers may suffer. In short, we’ve got little to worry about losing.

Naivety? Perhaps – but instead of worrying what might happen during a recession, we take a ‘wait and see’ approach. I think the youthful naivety of our generation actually helps us in times like these.

But what if we lose our jobs tomorrow? Well, as Linley says, “shit happens” and we’ll be just as confident to pick up our CV and find another job as a result.

So a message from my generation to yours Linley: recession need not mean depression. And this definitely applies to work.