authenticity

Come Out at Work: With Dyslexia, Part II

Haig Chahinian

We’ve covered the subject of revealing your dyslexic nature at work before, yet a book full of new supporting evidence is prompting us to get excited about it all over again. Doctors Brock L. Eide and Fernette F. Eide have written The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain (Hudson Street Press, 2011). Mm… the title basically says it.

To dive right into the good stuff, a review in Scientific American Mind relates:

[People with dyslexia] can excel at “big picture” thinking. [They] frequently prefer thinking in narrative form, a proclivity that makes them natural storytellers, and they tend to have exceptional spatial navigation skills, visualizing 3-D structures with ease.

Turns out that in addition to film and TV star Whoopi Goldberg, novelist Anne Rice, actor Danny Glover and entrepreneur Richard Branson live and work with the strengths that dyslexia brings. The Doctors Eide offer that:

It is time to stop classifying dyslexia as a learning disability and start appreciating that different brain-wiring patterns allow people to process information in unique ways. When it comes to learning, they argue, there is no good or bad, right or wrong, only a difference in style, which should be fostered rather than corrected.

Right on! The folks we’ve referenced in this post have flourished not in spite of their learning style, but because of it. Again from the Scientific American Mind article, you see:

Being dyslexic allowed them to break from conventional ways of thinking to dream of fantastic new worlds and create alternative solutions to vexing problems.

We’re not going to call dyslexia a “learning disability” again. It’s a learning difference, a learning style.

Do you have dyslexia? National Coming Out Day will soon be here. What are you waiting for?

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The New Currency?

Haig Chahinian

Money plays a primary role at work. Whether in dram, dollars, yen or euros, cash is the unit in which profits are measured, and how employees are compensated.

It’s also significant in our career counseling practice. We persistently encourage individual clients to link their achievements to the bottom line of the organizations where they work. This way they fortify their resumes, or LinkedIn profiles, or their vocabulary when describing themselves in an interview.

This may change.

Star of the TV show Roseanne’s Nuts, Roseanne Barr is prompting us to reconsider our understanding of money as currency. Having initially endeared herself to us in this scene from Roseanne—

(Roseanne and Dan [John Goodman] are in the kitchen, with a man lying motionless on the floor. Roseanne checks his pulse.)

Roseanne:  He’s dead.

Dan:  Are you sure? Check again.

Roseanne:  I can count to zero!

–we were enamored again, in a recent interview with the Village Voice‘s Michael Musto, wherein Barr pontificated on the economics of living. She says:

It keeps you smart to remember that things don’t come from money, they come from seeds.

It’s interesting to think about, no? At an essential level, so much of what sustains our daily life comes not from money, but first from seeds:  fruit, vegetables, wood, medicine, grains, to name a few.  Seeds are so crucial to life on earth that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault has been created near the North Pole. It’s a bank with 2.25 billion assets under management. Should any doomsday scenarios hit, nations may be able to make withdrawals — of seeds, not cash. Seeds may indeed be the new currency; we can’t eat cash!

So as we examine the essence of what’s within us in order to reveal and engage our whole selves at work, perhaps it’s time we start looking at what’s essential around us, too.

How connected to seeds is your work?

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Fit In, Stay True to Your Self

Haig Chahinian

We were away the last few weeks, and worked to enjoy summer time with family. During our break, we really let our hair down. That is, we stopped shaving (photo near right). The feeling of a fuzzy face was fabulous.

After Labor Day it was time to go back to work, and we typically toil in buttoned-up office environments where conservative, formal appearance is valued.

Read: no beards allowed.

What were we to do? We could remain unshaven, stand firm on our freedom of self-expression, and rebel against the unwritten rules. No corporate culture would dictate how we present ourselves to the world!

Then, the night before our first day back to a hermetically-sealed high rise, we shaved. Did we give in? Worse, did we give up? Yes, and no. We gave in to the “look like the rest of us” dynamic of the places where we often conduct work, yet we did not give up.

We like to practice what we preach, and bring our full selves to work. In making the decision to fit in superficially–meaning, on the outside–we freed up the considerable energy it takes to reveal and engage the full spectrum of our internal wherewithal. Which is what we appreciate the most.

So it was a little humiliating at first to shave off the beard we were growing to love. Yet the trade-off of homogeneity on the outside for diversity on the inside is worth it. We fit in and align ourselves on the surface with people at work, so that we can be free to leverage the less common parts of our selves that truly represent who we are.

How does fitting in at work help you stay true to your self? And what are the benefits?

Come Out at Work: As Undocumented

Haig Chahinian

If you want to change the world, that is.

We’re reminded of the pain and anguish that can be part of revealing your true self at work. While exposing our vulnerabilities often makes us stronger, it can also come with great risk. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas knows first hand, and in the New York Times he recently asked the journalistic questions to himself and published the story of coming out as an undocumented American.

Born in the Philippines, at the age of twelve Vargas was sent by his mother to live in America with relatives.  He earned a merit-based scholarship to California State University San Francisco, and through diligent work–and sometimes illegal means–as a first year student he gained employment at The San Francisco Chronicle. Vargas built on this experience, and procured journalist roles at other preeminent media outlets such as The Philadelphia Daily News, The Huffington Post and The Washington Post.

But his identity as an undocumented immigrant took unsustainable amounts of energy to hide. In the Times, he recounts: Read more →

When is it OK to Change Your Mind? [video]

Haig Chahinian

Let’s get right to the answer: always. It’s always OK to change your mind at work, as long as you remain thoughtful and emotionally grounded in your decisions.

Case in point: New York State Senator Mark Grisanti (R-North Buffalo) who spoke on Friday during the Marriage Equality Act floor debate. Said Grisanti:

I have never in the past four months researched an issue or met with so many people and groups on a single issue such as this.  I have struggled with this immensely, I can tell you that.  I have read numerous documents, independent studies, talked with a lot of people on both sides of this issue.

As a Catholic I was raised to believe that marriage was between a man and a woman.  I’m not here however as a senator who is just Catholic.  I’m also here with a background as an attorney, through which I look at things and I apply reason.

I know that with this decision, many people who voted for me will question my integrity a short time ago.  I tell you though that I have studied this issue.  For those that know me, they know that I have struggled with it.

To those whose support I may lose, please know that in the past what I was telling you, and what I believed at that time was the truth.  But by doing the research and ultimately doing what I believe to be the right thing, to me shows integrity.

I would not respect myself if I didn’t do the research, have an open mind and make a decision  — an informed decision — based on the information before me.  A man can be wiser today than yesterday, but there’ll be no respect for that man if he has failed in his duty to do the work.

I cannot legally come up with an argument against same-sex marriage.  Who am I to say that someone does not have the same rights that I have with my wife who I love, or that have the 1300-plus rights that I share with her?

We admire the way he openly works the various parts of him self: Catholic, senator, attorney, man and husband. And in addition to the signing of the glorious bill into law, the result of his actions include Governor Mario Cuomo’s accolades. The New York governor referred to Senator Grisanti as “people of courage and people of principle.”

To be sure, in exploring the act of changing your mind, we don’t mean reacting impulsively, or not remaining true to what you believe (*cough* CindyMcCain). We’re talking about the necessarily introspective re-consideration of an idea or belief.

Watch Senator Grisanti’s whole, yet brief, speech.

What have you experienced when you’ve changed your mind at work?

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Come Out at Work: With Graves’ Disease

Haig Chahinian

Superstar Missy Elliott has revealed that she’s living with Graves’ Disease, the autoimmune disease linked to an overactive thyroid gland. Symptoms can include insomnia, irritability, heat sensitivity, muscular weakness, eye changes, lighter menstrual flow, rapid heart beat, and hand tremors. In a public statement she said:

I was diagnosed with Grave’s Disease about three years ago but it really hasn’t slowed me down at all. I rocked my performance on VH1 Hip Hop Honors’ tribute to Timbaland last year. I’ve written and produced a bunch of Grammy-nominated, #1 hits… I toured the UK, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. And on top of all that, I’m working on my new album. I feel great. Under my doctor’s supervision, I’ve been off medication for about a year and I’m completely managing the condition through diet and exercise.

While Elliott may not be in tune with the nuanced influence of her physical condition on her work, we can sense the relief she feels in relating her life events of the last three years. She simply wants to be heard and understood.

It seems so simple: being heard and understood on the job. Yet experiencing both can be truly powerful, and bring you great joy.

Have you listened to — and understood — a coworker of yours today?

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Newest Crop of Champions to Come Out at Work [video]

Haig Chahinian

There’s been a rash of prominent professionals declaring their gayness recently. Remarkably, in their respective industries few have come (out) before them, probably because these fields lean toward the macho. Take a look at the rundown:

  1. Don Lemon, CNN reporter and news anchor
  2. Jared Max, ESPN New York 1050 sports radio host
  3. Georgia State Representative Rashad Taylor (D-Atlanta), and
  4. Rick Welts, president and chief executive of the Phoenix Suns — it’s a basketball team.

We’re totally touched by the sentiments these fellows expressed about the process of revealing their true selves on the job. Consider:

Don Lemon, in an interview with the Washington Blade, said “I just feel like a new person,” and

[In coming out now,] at first there was a perceived risk. That, you know, my livelihood would be taken away, that people would shun me, that people would ostracize me, that people would turn off the television and not watch me. Sometimes the fear of the unknown is worse than actually knowing, right? Now that I’ve come out, and I’m on this side, then now I’m living in that risk and that fear. Maybe there are people that won’t watch me. Meh! I’ll have to deal with it. Maybe there are people who are going to write bad, dirty things about me. Meh! I’ll have to deal with it. Before I was dealing with the possibility, which isn’t real. So now I’m living it. So now I’m walking, and taking those steps, and every single day, if it does indeed happen, then I’ll just have to deal with it. And I’ll have to discuss it. If it doesn’t happen? Then all of that fear was for naught. So the actual fear was losing my livelihood. Who knows? That could still happen. But you know what? I don’t think so. I tend to believe in the goodness of people.

Next, Jared Max put new meaning in “Maxed Out in the Morning”, his ESPN radio show, by declaring live on air “I’ve hidden behind what is a gargantuan-size secret here in the sports world. I am gay,” and then Read more →