Life, Work & Wonder

Tag: mental-health

  • I’m Grateful That Online Chess Is A Mirror For me

    I love playing online blitz chess.

    Sometimes in life we need a mirror.

    To tell us how we’re doing, how we’re coping, because sometimes even the best of us need a little outside perspective to keep us grounded. For me, that’s occasionally my spouse, who thankfully isn’t afraid to point out my bullshit in real-time when it happens. But a spouse shouldn’t also have to always be our mirror.

    Which is why I’m so grateful I have chess.

    When I have a few minutes and only a few minutes to kill, I play online blitz chess. I like that it’s quick (a maximum of 20 minutes but often less than 5 or 10 minutes), forces me to think, and also provides some competition against strangers (I don’t like competing against friends and loved ones since I feel guilty when I win).

    Despite my chronic fatigue I am restless and impatient by nature, so I want a quick unpredictable game and so play aggressively since it creates a faster game with fewer moments of predictable sloggery. Sometimes playing aggressively means I win quickly, and just as often it means I end up looking pretty silly.

    This is where the mirror is.

    When my head is clear and I’m feeling okay with my current daily life, I win a lot more often than I lose. I beat some pretty good players, often by checkmate, and my score climbs to the 1000s (which isn’t great for a serious player but is okay for a hack like me). When I’m tired or stressed or pre-occupied with something in life? My score plummets. Today it was in the 800s and sinking fast, and I am making some pretty foolish errors.

    This means I have some things going on in my life. Or in my mind. Which in fact I do since I’ve had a busy week of commitments while also trying to send our youngest off to camp for three weeks which created some chaos in our house as we got her ready. I’ve also been working a lot for not a lot of money (a risk of my career).

    When life gets stressful, and my chess score plummets, this means I need to be extra mindful. It probably means my cortisol levels are up, and heart rate is a little higher than average. Which means I need to fight coping techniques. Maybe take some perspective that this too will pass. Or take a night to order some pizza and chill. Or take a nice walk next to the creek near our house. Or to just take some deep breaths.

    I think a part of being a healthy human being for working persons like me (I have no clue at all what life is like to be luxuriously rich and/or entitled), is being self aware. Of knowing when we’re under stress during a particular day or week or even month. Then doing what we can to take extra steps to bring the stress levels down.

    Sometimes (like this week) I’m not aware that I’m feeling more than average stress. In those weeks I’m grateful for a mirror. Sometimes that’s my awesome spouse. But thankfully — like today — it also is online blitz chess.

  • Going To Be A Career Day Speaker

    A week ago there was an email from my kids’ high school looking for adults willing to be a Career Day speaker wherein we prepare a 15 minute presentation about our career and then present it to the students during Career Day. I volunteered to talk about what it’s like being a Seattle Real Estate Agent. Today I learned I’ve been approved and will be presenting. I can’t tell you how excited I am!

    There’s that old joke that more people are afraid of public speaking than death, which means people would rather be the person in the casket than the person giving the eulogy. And time was that I thought I was a terrible speaker and hated giving speeches.

    But I’ve learned in recent years that I’m actually pretty decent at giving speeches when I like what I’m talking about. Following a prescriptive Corporate Powerpoint Presentation with all the typical “look how amazing we are” slides? I’m awful. Giving a QBR presentation? Very hit and miss depending on if I like the team and the presentation isn’t too formulaic.

    But give me a topic I want to talk about, give me some time to ponder how to go about presenting it, and give me an open format to work with, and often I’m decidedly okay giving a presentation and I actually like it and can be relatively funny.

    In late 2019 my moronic manager took my client presentation and tweaked it a short time before I was supposed to give the presentation in person while jet lagged. It didn’t go very well. Partially because he turned it into the same eye-rolling presentation a million other software companies deliver to the poor prospective clients, partially because the last second changes didn’t give me time to prepare the new presentation, partially because the changes ripped apart the flow I’d been rehearsing in my head for a few days before the speech, and partly because of the time I would have been physically (eating) and mentally (breathing) preparing for the speech I was trying to learn his last minute tweaks. When he tried to do the same thing two months later, I ignored his changes and did my original presentation that client presentation went much better (spoiler alert: we lost the first client opportunity and won the second).

    A few months later I gave a presentation to medical students about my experience with a rare lung disease. I had a few weeks to prepare, had an open format to work with, and was passionate about the topic. The result when I gave that speech? It went great! So great that even my ex-wife who was embarrassed by everything I did at the time and was in the audience as a medical student herself even seemed remotely impressed.

    I love real estate. I love being a real estate agent in Seattle. So I’m excited to talk about my career in a few weeks. And excited to talk about my career to a group of high school students who are trying to figure out this career thing. I’m grateful to be given the opportunity and am looking forward to preparing and then giving the presentation.

  • Pride Is Folly

    Pride.

    There was a time I had too much pride.

    Waaayyyyyy to much pride.

    It was pride that prevented me from being too open and out there in public. For example, I dreaded sales calling because of pride. And didn’t have social media accounts because of pride. And never ever allowed dirty dishes to be in the kitchen because of pride.

    Pride brought my spirit down when there was a flaw with my house or car. It made me sensitive (and lash out) at criticism (“f— you!”). It made me fret too much about silly statistics, like batting average or shooting percentage or quota attainment percentage. Who cares what I batted in recreational softball??

    It was pride that embarrassed me when my (now ex) wife promoted her business and herself, like that time she stood on the street corner and handed out Halloween candy with her business card on it. I remember having to quietly work so hard to swallow that pride, to let her do what she needed to do without commenting that it was embarrassing seeing my last name being handed out on a street corner.

    And it was pride that drove me to always look my best, to make sure my hair was good and my body was firm and I stayed youthful looking.

    In short, pride made me worry too much about how people perceived me.

    Then lung disease grabbed me in 2011. Put me in a hospital bed. Made me tired. Nearly killed me. Then, by some incredible undeserving miracle, it loosened its grasp on me and retreated, sparing me and letting me not only live but live without an oxygen tank (a 50/50 chance)!

    Maybe best of all, when lung disease retreated, it also took with it my pride. Which I think is a good thing. In fact, it’s a great thing.

    I could care less how people (except Larissa) perceive my career. Or whether they remember me as a good athlete or smart or not. Or see me as attractive or not. Who cares?? What does it change or matter??

    In 2019, when my hurtful ex-wife chose trying to shame me about various things rather than just honestly saying she wanted to move on with her life (i.e. chose gaslighting and shaming rather than transparency), I guffawed at her. “I won’t be judged by you,” I said. “I beat lung disease. What the f— have you done?”

    That was the moment I realized that I was truly confident. That lung disease spared me from the judgement of others. Because when we’ve faced the specter of death, not much in life can scare us after that.

    Now I don’t care how people perceive my career. Or think I’m goofy. Or roll their eyes at my goofy rambling face-book posts.

    It’s incredibly liberating.

    Today I made myself vulnerable. Posted on Facebook and Instagram and my LinkedIn page that I was holding an open house tomorrow. 15 years ago there is no way I would have done that, but today I only felt happy that I could do my best to promote Larissa’s client. It felt good.

    Meanwhile, I could care less if ultimately people on LinkedIn think I’ve had a successful career or not. I know the truth. What do I care how some random person perceives me based on my profile? This also feels good.

    Pride is folly. Because at the end of the day we’re all human and vulnerable and fallible. No matter how perfect we are or rich we are or even strong we are, we’re just a bout with lung disease or cancer away from death. This is humbling. And it’s beautiful.

    Here is to being pride free. And the incredibly luck that is beating terminal illness. I’m so grateful.