Like many other people in America, I am a big fan of the Sunday New York Times. Granted, it’s hefty enough to be used as a weapon, and I would offer a hefty reward for anyone who could come up with newsprint that didn’t smudge onto fingers or other surfaces. But the Sunday Times is still a lovely kind of intellectual farmer’s market I can browse through while I munch on a donut, sip my morning coffee, and revel in the fact that I don’t actually have to answer the phone, turn on my computer, or turn in any work by 5:00 pm. Most Sundays, anyway.
Some weeks, of course, the pickings are a little slim. But a couple of Sundays ago, I came across not one, not two but three separate articles in the Business section alone that contained worthy information or advice for anyone contemplating a new business or venture … or just looking for a little life wisdom.
The first was an article titled “Taking the Leap to Self-Employment.”
It’s a straightforward piece about the illusions of self-employment (“if I were self-employed, life would be wonderful”) and the realities of being your own boss–which include having to do far more yourself, work long hours, and deal with all kinds of annoyances and uncertainties many employed people take for granted (steady paychecks, healthcare, and a social working environment). But it’s still worth checking out. So are some of the letters that came into the paper in response … which offer alternative perspectives on some of the points raised in the article.
On that very same page (another argument for the advantages of print newpapers over electronic media – in reading one article, your eyes are drawn to a different article that is merely co-located, but which you might not have sought out on its own …) there was a profile of Daniel LaMarre, President and chief executive for Cirque du Soleil.
The nugget in LaMarre’s profile is a story he tells of a business transaction that occurred when he was a muckety-muck at Burston-Marsteller PR in Canada. One of his clients, a struggling entrepreneur named Guy Laliberte who’d founded this odd circus company named Cirque du Soleil, was going through a hard time and called LaMarre to tell him, quite apologetically, that he couldn’t pay Marsteller’s bill. Instead of sticking a collection agency on Laliberte, LaMarre forgave the debt and wished the circus master well.
Twelve years later, LaMarre had taken the top job at a television network in Montreal, and Cirque du Soleil, of course, had become an international sensation. But when LaMarre called Laliberte to ask for the television rights to a Cirque series, Laliberte responded, apologetically, that he was already in negotiations with a different network. The next day, however, LaMarre got a copy of an email Laliberte had sent to the head of his television division. It said, simply, “This guy helped me out 12 years ago, and he wants our television rights. Do what you have to do.”
There’s a lesson in there worth noting, no matter what line of work you’re in.
And finally, there was an interview with Michael Mathieu, the CEO of YuMe, an online video advertising firm.
Mathieu has a slightly non-standard approach to interviewing over-achiever job applicants: he asks them what they think the meaning of life is. (Note to applicants: do not ask whether he means in your personal or professional life. It’s a dead giveaway, he says, that a person is “disconnected from being passionate about what they do.”)
But Mathieu’s own answer was interesting, as well. He defined the meaning of life as “two things: happiness and the quality of the relationships you’ve had in life.” And one of the things that he believes influences those two items is how “present and here” someone is in any given moment of their life. (For more on this idea, see a post I just wrote for Flying magazine’s website about “living consciously.)
It may be stating the obvious, but Mathieu argues that multi-tasking is antithetical to quality – in work, and in life. “You’re not going to get the nuances of a conversation if you’re doing too many things,” he says. “Don’t be distracted, and the little nuances of life will show up, and you will hear things.”
Mathieu may have been talking about business interactions, but that’s also why I leave the computer and the phone alone when I peruse the Sunday paper–and as many other times as possible in the week, as well. Because sometimes important nuances come in the guise of thoughts. Quiet, unexpected, and whispered thoughts. Thoughts I only have the capacity to hear, or contemplate, when I silence enough of the world’s noise and distractions to give them enough space and time to be heard.
Or read, as the case may be.
