career development

What Does Jennifer Vidbel Plan to Do After 50 Years?

Haig Chahinian

As you recall, Jenny Vidbel is the animal trainer of the Big Apple Circus — which is coming back to town! Below is a transcript of the second segment of our recent interview. Read on to learn:

* how Jenny’s parents would have threatened her as a teenager
* about the peace she experiences at work,  and
* what she hopes to be doing fifty(!) years from now.

So, you were a teenager. With rebellion?

JV: No, we were on a circus, my grandpa’s circus, and we moved every day. We were in a different city every day, and there’s a lot of work. My sister and I had our jobs that we did, and it was with animals. We had a petting zoo that we would set up. We’d care for the animals, feed and water and clean them and do all that. So there was rebellion? No, there was just no time for it.

HC: You didn’t say “I’m not going to be in the circus, I’m going to be a lawyer!”

JV: No.

HC: To upset your parents.

JV: I think if they wanted to threaten us, they would say we were going to go home.  And you know, go to public school and live a normal life. That was the threat for us. (Laughter)

HC: I remember you mentioned that your parents were very supportive – if you wanted to be a dancer, whatever you wanted in your life, to stay home, they were supportive, so there wasn’t anything to rebel against?

JV: There really wasn’t.

HC: In your upbringing.

JV. Yeah.

HC: So you were able to focus, and develop your love for the animals.

JV: Yes, absolutely. My sister went a different route; she wanted to be an aerialist, so that’s what she did. My grandparents were not thrilled with that because there’s danger, a great deal of danger involved. But they supported her, and she’s an accomplished aerialist.

HC: Aerialist, not acrobat.

JV: No

HC: There’s a difference.

JV: Yeah, acrobats are on the ground. Aerialists are in the air.

HC: Not a trapeze artist?

JV: A trapeze artist is an aerialist.

HC: Is a kind of aerialist.

JV: Yeah.

HC: So this is something we learn as well, the differences of artists within the circus. Tell us more!

JV: When I was 12, my sister wanted to do aerial – when we were 12, we’re twins – I loved my grandfather’s little white ponies, I just adored them. And he had eight of them. I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I started out with one, and my herd just kept growing. As I got more experienced and really started learning about horses, that’s what I wanted to do.

HC: Looking back, a 12 year old knows things, also a 12 year old does not know a lot. As a 12 year old – I hear you say it with such certainty – how did you know? What indication did you have of your certain knowledge of what you wanted?

JV: I was around my grandfather my entire childhood. He had this great love for animals, and that’s where he spent his time. He was in the barn, with his animals, all day. He would do his last barn check at midnight, and he was up at six in the morning to be right back down there again with them. I followed him, that’s where I wanted to be. There was just no question. And it wasn’t really even a thought; I didn’t have this goal, or this idea that this is what I was going to do. It was what I was doing. And I loved it. I didn’t want to be anywhere else.

I was home schooled, my grandmother was our teacher and I just could not wait to get out of the house. I was a very good student because of that. We couldn’t leave, my grandmother was very strict with the school. We got up in the morning and we could not leave the house until we were finished with our lessons for the day. So I was quick. I’ll read, I’ll do whatever you want me to do. Please I want to go to the barn, please. So it was great motivation, I just wanted to be in the barn around all those animals.

And to be around my grandfather who had this love. I wanted that too.  I wanted his passion and love for what he did. He was so happy no matter what, and here I am doing the same thing. You would see my grandfather in the pouring rain trying to fix a tent, or a flat tire or whatever because it’s part of the business. Not only setting up and tearing down the tents and stables, but the in-between, the traveling. When you’re carrying a lot of animals in a trailer, you might get a flat tire, you might break down. But you do everything with joy. This is what we do and we love it.

HC: You talk about work almost like it’s the air you breathe.

JV: It is. It’s the hardest thing to explain. When people talk to me about my job, I say it’s not a job. It’s so far from a job. I’m doing what I love to do and I get paid for it and that’s amazing to me — that I can make a living out of this. It’s kind of like a hobby or it’s my passion that I’ve made into my career. It’s great.

HC: Congratulations on finding this, and living it, and thriving, so clearly. How do you know when you’ve done a good job?

JV: In whatever I do, if I’m starting a new project, there’s just kind of a peace that comes over me. If I’m unsettled in something, then I’ll slow way down and I’ll think I’m not going in the right direction. It has to feel 100% right. I think I’ve really succeeded when I’ll have these questions and I back right off and I look kind of to a higher power and go with what feels really peaceful. Sometimes it means just waiting, waiting for the right answer. And I will, and it always turns out perfectly. Not the way maybe I had planned, I had these ideas and if they don’t feel right I quickly back off. In the end, here I am at Big Apple Circus where I’ve wanted to be my entire life.

HC: Is that right?

JV: Yes.

HC: I want to get to that. “It turns out perfectly.” I heard you saying. And what I understood following that, is “perfectly as it was, perfectly as it is.” You have an acceptance, and so it is perfect, as it is.

JV: As it is. It wasn’t maybe the plan that I had, but this is far better than I could have dreamt up. I just went with it instead of being stuck to this path, this idea. I just went this other way and it turned out just beautiful.

HC: So Jenny is describing a kind of barometer of sorts, inside, that you pay attention to, that lets you know how you’re doing, guides you in some ways. I think a lot of people at work get sort of cloudy, that barometer, that internal measurement gets foggy, it’s hard to pay attention to. You relate such clarity in being guided by what you have inside.

JV: Yeah, and It’s a funny thing to try and explain. But you really need to have peace. You need to have peace about where you’re going. You don’t have to have clarity, but you have to have peace.

HC: What does that mean, “peace?” Read more →

5 New, Must-Have Skills for the Rough and Tumble 2010s

Haig Chahinian

Speaking of makeovers, the definition of human capital is getting a much-needed refashioning by David Brooks, author of the just-published The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement.

He describes a “new humanism,” and breaks it down into 5 poetic-sounding terms: attunement, equipoise, metis, sympathy and limerence.  From his op-ed piece of March 8, 2011:

Attunement: the ability to enter other minds and learn what they have to offer.

Equipoise: the ability to serenely monitor the movements of one’s own mind and correct for biases and shortcomings.

Metis: the ability to see patterns in the world and derive a gist from complex situations.

Sympathy: the ability to fall into a rhythm with those around you and thrive in groups.

Limerence: This isn’t a talent as much as a motivation. The conscious mind hungers for money and success, but the unconscious mind hungers for those moments of transcendence when the skull line falls away and we are lost in love for another, the challenge of a task or the love of God. Some people seem to experience this drive more powerfully than others.

Trip out, right? These sound like traits of godliness. They also sound somewhat similar to emotional intelligence and social intelligence. The question is, if you’re not the Dalai Lama, how might you develop these skills? Brooks refers to them as “deeper talents,” which suggests that some people have more of a natural ability in these areas than others.

The first step is to identify that these skills are something you wish to develop. Then, considering their complexity, you might benefit from working with a professional guidance counselor like an executive coach or psychologist.

Which is to say, talking about your self relative to acquiring more limerence, metis and equipoise is a helpful way to equip yourself to navigate the world of work in the 2010s, and beyond.

Do you identify as having any combination of these 5 skills? Which ones, and how?

Celebrity Career Makeover: The Inauguration

Haig Chahinian

Sometimes it’s annoying to focus on public figures, and yet it can also be fun. On our TV show “Career Talk Live: And What Do You Do?”, we’ve had a segment called “Celebrity Career Makeover” in which we fashion a new career for a popular performer. And now we’re bringing it to wholewidework.com!

In this feature, we take a look at a relatively famous person, consider their transferable knowledge, skills and abilities, and thus propose a more accessible occupation for them. Since fame is often fleeting, it’s useful to be prepared for any circumstance.

For this inaugural post, we have a story about actors with actual dual career tracks. They don’t need a makeover, because their backup work plan is already established — in the field of science, no less! For your consideration, from the New York Times “Science” section dated February 28, 2011:

Mayim Bialik, currently in “The Big Bang Theory”:

Dr. Bialik has a Ph.D. from U.C.L.A. in … neurobiology. “I tell people, I am a neuroscientist, and I play one on TV,” said Dr. Bialik.

Natalie Portman, recently anointed an Oscar for her work in “Black Swan”:

She went on to Harvard University to study neuroscience and the evolution of the mind.

Hedy Lamarr, best known for “Samson and Delilah” (1949):

[Lamarr] was a rocket scientist on the side, inventing and patenting a torpedo guidance technique she called “frequency hopping,” which thwarted efforts to jam the signals that kept the missiles on track.

And our favorite, Danica McKellar, who played Winnie Cooper on “The Wonder Years”:

[McKellar] graduated summa cum laude in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles, where she helped devise a mathematical proof for certain properties of magnetic fields — a theorem that bears her name along with those of her collaborators. She also writes popular books about math with clever PG-13 titles like “Math Doesn’t Suck” and “Kiss My Math.”

When you work to access the full spectrum of your intelligence, you can be a star, and study the celestial stars.

Which celebrities’ careers would you like to see made over?

Image of McKellar via

How to Display Your Sexuality at Work

Haig Chahinian

We often hear statements like “what you do in your bedroom should stay out of the boardroom” — patent wishes to disregard how sexuality influences our work. Sex does play into our work, often subtly. We have pictures to prove it.

Raynard Kington was recently elected as Grinnell College’s 13th president, and soon thereafter the University of Southern California (USC) celebrated the inauguration of Max Nikias, its 11th president. The corresponding photos, or lack thereof, tell a poignant story about displays of sexuality in the workplace.

Dr. Kington’s history of professional accomplishments is substantial; the former acting director of the National Institutes of Health was responsible for spending $10.4 billion as part of President Obama’s economic stimulus package, and his educational background is a triple-threat–MD, PhD and MBA–all from the most prestigious universities. He has a partner and two children, and they live together in the president’s home at the college.

As a husband and parent, he certainly conforms to the traditional image of the college president as family man.  He’s also different from the norm because he’s gay.

Now here’s the kicker: the photograph of Dr. Kington above is posted on his blog and originates from the NIH. The image of Kington with his family on the left is embedded from an unfamiliar source. Because as far as we can tell, Grinnell College has no official portrait of President Kington with his family.

Why not?

To seek an answer, let’s look at Max Nikias, USC’s president, who has a whole page devoted to glossy images of him and his family (below right). We strongly believe that presenting a polished picture of the Grinell “first family” is not a matter of limited resources, because Grinnell’s endowment stood at $1.26 billion in January 2011.

Rather, it looks like an issue of displaying sexuality at work. As a straight-identified man, Dr. Nikias openly puts his heterosexuality on display simply by standing next to his wife. Whenever you’re with your spouse or significant other, it’s hard to hide that you’re a sexual being. And it’s common for prominent leaders to showcase their spouses and offspring in their work life. Politicians and college presidents come to mind, for example.

On an unconscious level, this is a question of coming out for Grinnell’s president, even though he’s already out at work. He even has it somewhat easier than others, with a spouse and children. On one hand, he comes out any time he references his partner, and on the other, should someone see him with his child and refer to his “wife,” he’s likely compelled to correct them with an automatic “my husband.” Rarely would he need to speak the words, “I’m gay.” Still, being out at work is a multi-faceted experience, and in this case we’re examining the visual publicity aspect.

Thus, we encourage Dr. Kington to present–online and off-line–a more formal image of his family, which would be helpful for Grinnell College, and for society at large.

We have a dream that one day we’ll all value the influence of our sexuality on who we are and on the work we do, so that someone like Zach Wahls will know better when speaking in favor of marriage equalityand against House Joint Resolution 6 in the Iowa House of Representatives. Raised by his biological mother and her same-sex partner, he concludes his remarks with, “the sexual orientation of my parents has had zero effect on the content of my character,” and the audience erupts in applause

In the workplace, and in the cases of Raynard Kington’s sons and Max Nikias’ daughters, this rings false.

So what’s a good way to display your sexuality at work?

With pride. Pride in your family, and pride in your self.

Exploring Ethnicity + Motherhood = Brisk Business

Haig Chahinian

Today is Chinese New Year. Coincidentally, the Internet is ablaze with commentary about Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother – 7,728 comments (and counting) on the Wall Street Journal piece alone. In this new memoir about raising two children, Chua reflects on her Chinese-American ethnicity coupled with her identity as a mother, to outrageous effect. There have been rebuttals, a public letter of support by her daugher, numerous appearances on television, countless book reviews, and ultimately:  brisk sales.

Currently #2 on the New York Times’ “Best Sellers List,” the polarizing book has become a phenomenon stemming largely from Chua’s candid discussion of how she’s raised her daughters. The examples already feel legendary. From the New Yorker review:

Chua’s rules for the girls include: no sleepovers, no playdates, no grade lower than an A on report cards, no choosing your own extracurricular activities, and no ranking lower than No. 1 in any subject. (An exception to this last directive is made for gym and drama.)

Publishing a memoir typically requires plumbing the depths of your existence in order to identify and share the aspects you find most meaningful. It takes sharp writing skills, and having a friend at a literary agency or publishing house helps too. Good timing is a final bonus. In looking into her self, Chua taps into the zeitgeist around China’s upward mobility in the world; timing like hers often translates into good business.

Chua brings her sense of humor to the prose, yet it seems some readers aren’t easily getting it.  That’s OK, having revealed intimate details about who she is, she’s laughing all the way to the bank.

Image by Larry D. Moore, used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License via

Come Out at Work: As Losing Your Eyesight

Haig Chahinian

If you’re reading this, you probably take your eyesight for granted. Imagine what it would be like to lose your vision, after relying on your eyes all your life. It feels nearly impossible to fathom, yet this is what happened several years ago to Ashish Goyal, a trader at JPMorgan in London.

A happy child at age 9, he realized he couldn’t see all the lines in his school notebooks, and he was having difficulty recognizing faces. Afflicted with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic condition that leads to blindness, he struggled to deal with this newfound physical challenge. “What was I to tell people? ‘Sometimes I can see you, sometimes not?'”  By the time he was 22, he could make out only light and shadows, which remains true today.

Because of his blindness, as a young adult he considered working for his father, a real estate developer. With encouragement from his mother, however, he pursued formal education in business. After earning his degree, many employers turned him away once they learned he was blind. At one point, frustrated, he told a recruiter “I’m blind. Do you still want to talk to me or not?” Exposing his truth near the beginning of the recruiting process may have been a turning point. “They asked whether I could do the job. I said I think I can, and I was hired.”

While he likely didn’t define himself by his blindness, if others were going to, they would be better off knowing of Goyal’s vision impairment as soon as possible. The freedom to open up about the complexities of his abilities in part led him to JPMorgan, where he helps manage billions of dollars exposed to market risk.

At the financial services firm he uses screen-reading software to read e-mail, reports, and presentations. The audio speed is so fast it would sound like gibberish to the uninitiated. When he needs to read graphs, a regular occurence, Goyal pores over the data and works to imagine the graph — an asset when it comes to analyzing risk. A colleague has said “Ashish looks at where things are now and just follows the news flow. He’s not blinded by the graphs.”

Coming out at work as one who is losing her eyesight takes a significant amount of self-awareness, and strength. The more you’re grounded in the reality of your diminishing vision, the better you can communicate what you’re experiencing, and what sort of accomodation you need to continue doing your work. Your transition from identifying as sighted to your new identity as one who’s blind may be  full of uncertainty, confusion, and fear, and the conversations you have with colleagues on the subject may be awkward, at first. Yet just think: if you can work through this challenge, what obstacle can’t you overcome? Right, we can’t think of any either.

There are other conditions that cause gradual and irreversible loss of eyesight, with many corresponding online resources. The Birdshot Uveitis Society is one such support network for folks with, well, birdshot uveitis.

Beyond his professional work, Goyal takes tango lessons and plays cricket, albeit with a bigger ball that makes sound. We’re reminded of the concept of hedonic adaptation, which postulates that people can return to a stable level of happiness after a setback in their lives. More than stably happy, Goyal seems to be thriving fully.

Have you lost any of your abilities at work? How have you managed?

Image via

What Does an Animal Trainer Think About in Bed?

Haig Chahinian

Jennifer Vidbel, the animal trainer for the Big Apple Circus, recently sat down with us to talk about her work life on “Career Talk Live.”

Jenny revealed what happens backstage, who’s on top at the circus, and what she thinks about in bed.

Because the master tape is marred by a loud tone–our fault, boo!–we’ve transcribed the interview, with very few minor edits.

Part I:
Haig Chahinian: Hello, welcome to Career Talk Live. I’m your host Haig Chahinian and I’m here today with an extremely special guest: Jennifer Vidbel of the Big Apple Circus. She is the animal trainer for the whole circus. Welcome back to the show, Jennifer. We appreciate that you’re making the time to come talk with us about your work and your life, because the two, we’re learning, are so intertwined. Your life is your work, and your work is your life, it seems to be.

Jennifer Vidbel: Absolutely.

HC: OK, you agree with that. Again, welcome back to the show. We were talking in the previous segment about letting go: of a strategy, of a “plan” I heard you call it, sort of a pre-conceived notion of where you would like to end, and what that takes.  Thinking about this after the show, it seems it takes a lot of patience.

JV: That’s key.

HC: Where do you get that from?

JV: It’s just here. And I think it comes with the love. You’re doing what you love to do. Patience is just there.  Because you’re doing what you love, the animals are happy, I’m happy, so it’s absolutely going to be an amazing result.  So patience is just there.

HC: We were talking about the audience in the last segment, and for example, you’re not thinking about what the audience may have been promised, or something like this?

JV: No, I think that they know, and that the animals and I are showing that we’re just having fun. And I’m only human, they’re only animals, and of course it might not be perfect. No one’s perfect.  The important message is that we’re having fun, and we’re here to have fun with you.  But it’s not always going to go as planned. “As planned,” there’s that word again. So don’t plan!

HC: Is this the case for each performance itself?

JV:  Sure. It’s live entertainment. And whether it’s the animal act or the aerialists or the acrobats, it’s live entertainment. The aerialists are risking their life, the acrobats are doing really crazy, amazing things. They’re also doing what they love, and this is their passion. It’s not a movie, it’s not scripted, and I think that’s what’s so exciting about the circus. You never know what’s going to happen.

HC: Jennifer, I should say: I get the benefit of sitting directly across from you, however our viewers are only seeing your profile. So would you sit at a diagonal? I should have been clear about this earlier, so our viewers have the benefit of seeing you as well. OK, very nice. Thank you.

I’m struck again, I’m struck by everything that you’re sharing, in this case – how the animals bring out the humanity in your work.

JV: Yeah, they’ve taught me simplicity, they really have. And they’ve taught me to have fun, because they’re just fun to be around. They want to have fun, they want to eat, they want to sleep, they want simplicity. That’s the greatest lesson I’ve learned from being around animals.

HC: You talked about fun last time. Something that we’re learning about work today is, in Jenny’s case, and I think in many examples, it’s so important to be able to have fun in the work you’re doing. How did you learn this? Because it’s not a common lesson.

JV:  It’s not something to learn, I think it’s something inside of you. You have a passion, and you go for it. It can be fun, it is fun for me loading horses in the middle of the night in the pouring rain to get to the next city — I’ll have a story to tell the next morning. Setting up our tents, because we have portable stables for all the animals. Watching out during a storm all night, making sure the animals are safe and well cared for. It’s all fun, because I’m doing what is my passion, what I love to do. So it’s a great story in the morning. I have lots of war stories.

HC: Sounds like it. As you’re describing what’s fun, you’re also relating something very serious about the work: protecting the animals.

JV: Protecting the animals. And this is what’s interesting—that’s what’s so great about this business.  You never know what’s coming down the road; you never know what’s going to happen tomorrow. But it’s definitely not this 9 to 5, where you walk into the office. That’s what I love to do, of course the animals are my family, and I’m very happy to stay up in the middle of the night to make sure they’re OK, as any parent would do for their child. It’s protecting them, it’s part of what we do.

HC: I remember in the program that I saw, you shared how you wake up thinking about the animals.

JV: Yes

HC: Like they’re the first thing on your mind?

JV: They’re the first thing on my mind.

HC: Every day? Read more →