Okay, my rant about dysfunction is officially done. In fact, that very rant gave me an idea on an alternative word to use instead of dysfunctional. That word, my friends, shall be “warped”.

In today’s world, we have a warped view of time. Although I believe that the advent of electricity and the industrial revolution played a huge role in changing our concept of time, modern humans certainly are doing their part to further bastardize it.

By reviewing the words we use about time, we can safely establish that time is viewed by people as a commodity. Time can be spent, marked, saved, wasted, bought, sold, traded, just like a unit of currency. Unlike units of currency however, every human on earth gets the exact same amount of time every single day.

Just as people often use money to judge one another, ever notice that people also use time to judge one another as well?

Somewhere, along the way, we came to an agreement that time was going to be the way things got measured. More time came to equate more value (even though there frequently is little correlation between the two). People tend to beam with pride when talking about how much time went into creating something. “Putting in the hours” became a badge of honor.

Many professionals pride themselves on charging by the hour instead of by the project for their services. What this does is tempt workers to spend more time working on the project because the focus is placed on units of time instead of doing a kickass job.

In terms of how different cultures regard time, this is one of many areas where American workers and European workers differ. Americans view time spent working as the value instead of the results produced. They spend more hours “present” in the office and are more social at work. Europeans, on the other hand, spend fewer hours at work, but get more done because they focus on getting the task at hand finished so they can leave and do other things.

“Leave and do other things”. Wow. What a concept. Somehow, we view this as a bad thing, hence my opinion that we have a warped view of time.

Recently, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg made headlines when she states that she steps away from the office at 5:30 so she can have dinner with her children. Keep in mind, she did not say she stops working for the day at 5:30, just stops working at that moment and leaves the building so she can go do something else for awhile. She also added that only recently she’s felt brave enough to talk about this publicly. This, I think, speaks volumes about the sad state of the workplace today.

It does not matter what value you add to your work, all that is measured are the number of hours “clocked in”. I say, lets put an end to glorifying “face time” and this bullshit belief that time is what really matters. I don’t think anyone questions Sandberg’s commitment to her role as COO of Facebook! What Sandberg has done however, is use her actions to state that she values the other parts of her life just as much. I just hope that Sandberg’s bold admission goes a long way in changing the conversation we have about time and work.

We have been in a shift from the workplace of the 20th century and industrial age to the “new economy” and “information age” of the 21st century. We often marvel at how fast economies and industries are changing and I agree, change is happening at an accelerated pace. What I marvel at however, is how slowly attitudes and beliefs are changing. This is why we live in a world that demands fast results, yet people still feel the need to measure those results in time, not actual value.

We need to get to the place where time is not used as currency, where we are not using the measure of time to judge one another. Tony Schwartz put it brilliantly in his book “The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working” when he said, “the primary value exchange between most employers and employees today is time for money. It’s a thin, one-dimensional transaction. Each side tries to get as much of the other’s resources as possible, but neither side gets what it really wants.”

You’ll frequently hear me talk about why I think that “work-life balance” is bullshit. Life is about investing energy into the people, places and things that matter to you. One way to do that is to do just that, invest energy and quit measuring the amount of time you spend on the things you do.

Jackie Dotson, business therapist, is the founder of Jackie Dotson, LCSW in Sacramento, CA, as well as the co-host of The Powder Keg of Awesome Podcast.

Talk to Me on Twitter: @sacbiztherapist or on Facebook.

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Whenever I get sick, it knocks me flat out, so instead of half-assing through my day pretending to be not-sick, my usual pattern is to surrender and sleep until it passes. The virus passed after about a week. But the desire to lay low did not.

Aware that periods of activity and inactivity are cyclical, at first I did not think much of it. And then, it began to dawn on me, that in spite of my best intentions, unless it was appointments that were previously scheduled, shit was just not getting done around here. Procrastination and resistance dug their heels in deep. Ruh-Roh.

I did notice that my energy spiked whenever it came time to do my weekly podcast. After six months of basically talking to ourselves, the show is starting to gain traction. We started booking more guests. Listenership jumped exponentially in March. It rocks. I love interviewing people. I enjoy doing the show more than I ever could have previously imagined. Come check it out, we’re fun.

But aside from doing the show, which is a very organic, in-the-moment kind of thing that requires minimal pre-preparation, nothing else was getting done. No reading, no writing, no running, zip.

And on Sunday it dawned on me, I am “compartmentalizing” my life again. By compartmentalizing, I mean dividing life up into a series of roles, with the respective outfits and behaviors that go along with each one, labeling each and every thing I do and placing it into neat little silos.

The two giant silos I tend to lug around are the “what I do for work” and “what I do for fun” silos. For years I really believed the two had to be mutually exclusive. This is what I learned growing up, in school and from watching the adults in my world: work is how you earn money and it’s supposed to be hard. Fun is what you do when your work is done and work is not something you look forward to or enjoy. I am far from alone in picking up this message. In fact Peter Buffett talks about it in his book “Life is What You Make It”. I just had no idea how much it impacted my choices until the past couple of years.

In the past, if something was hard and I didn’t look forward to it or particularly like doing it, I assumed it was the “right” and “responsible” decision because after all, that’s what work was supposed to look like. As Uncle Owen told Luke Skywalker, “You can have fun with your friends when your chores are finished”.

I hate to admit it but this was the compass I used to get through graduate school. I did well in my internships, but kept thinking, “this is NOT what I want to do for work every day for the rest of my life.” But, I always assumed dreading work was a necessary part of the landscape. Naturally, this mindset impacted every job I had after grad school.

It even impacted my building my own practice. I structured my private practice on how other people built theirs. I saw the kinds of clients I assumed one would see, even if I didn’t like working with those particular problems. (For example, why was I treating ADHD when I don’t believe ADHD is an actual disease? Side note: I no longer do this.) I made it hard because I thought it was supposed to be hard. I did that work and juggled side gigs because “this is what people do.”

Fast forward to now. I have a much clearer perspective on my role and purpose in this world. I still see myself as a counselor and therapist in this vision, but not as an assembly-line therapist doing rubber stamped groups while showing no evidence of opinions or personality. I now know that I am not one label. I am one person who does many things, I write, I do a podcast, I teach, I speak, I study change, I’m obsessed with business. It’s fun! I am not a “blank slate”. I no longer hide my so-called controversial beliefs. If people don’t agree with them, they will either respectfully disagree or avoid me completely.

So this takes me back to compartmentalizing. It’s a default behavior for me. I am so used to doing it that if I don’t stay aware of my behavior, I automatically fall back into doing it. Which is exactly what I did the past few weeks. I was operating in my “work silo” and “fun silo” but not letting the two mingle. Don’t get me wrong, I do have a lot of fun working with my clients, but I often have to stop, take stock and remind myself that it’s not only okay, it’s the whole point!

Obviously some degree of compartmentalizing in the world is necessary, usually around practical stuff. You probably don’t want to wear your business suit to your softball game, or show up to work in your cleats. But take a look at your personality. When do you feel like you are pretending? For example, are you refraining from using humor at work because it might not be okay with someone? Toeing the party line because that’s “just what’s done?” What story are you creating around your actions?

As for me, I am being way more mindful about rewriting my story and living my life as one continuous series of experiences and interactions, not just marking time divided among silos.

Jackie Dotson, business therapist, is the founder of Jackie Dotson, LCSW in Sacramento, CA, as well as the co-host of The Powder Keg of Awesome Podcast.

Engage with Jackie on Twitter: @sacbiztherapist or on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Jackie.Dotson.LCSW

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My friend noted that it is much easier to create a successful website when the relationship with the client is a collaborative one; when the client recognizes that they are just as much a part of the process as the person building the site.

It’s hard to make a successful product for a client who says, “I don’t care what my audience is into, I just want them to press the button and buy my stuff. Build that for me.” The client who says this is singularly focused on getting people to “buy my stuff,” yet is not willing to put their own skin in the game. This is akin to being in a relationship with someone who wants you to love them but does not care about what’s important to you.

I think this is why there is so much shallow crap available for sale these days. It’s easier than ever to sell stuff on the internet, so many people are just throwing worthless nonsense up on the market just to make a fast dollar, without regard for their customer or their own integrity.

We want a lot, expect a lot, yet do not want to give a lot of ourselves in the process.

This gives rise to buying cookie-cutter sales systems or joining multi-level marketing networks because they are “guaranteed to work”. This also pushes people to support presidential candidates who would have zero power to make the very changes they promise in their campaign speeches. Politicians of all sides do this, well, because it works. People want so badly to believe other people can fix them and save them. But it’s just not true.

Other people can absolutely help you, with their skills and experience. But no one can “save” you. There are no superheroes. You can only save yourself, with integrity, determination and good old-fashioned action.

The theme that rose out of yesterday’s podcast was that of “putting skin in the game”, which I later learned was a term coined by Warren Buffett. When you have skin in the game, you’re investing something of yourself. It means you believe in what you’re doing and know that you are an essential part of process.

How did we get to this place of expecting that simply throwing money at a problem should be enough? When did we stop assuming that putting our own skin in the game is an essential part of solving problems and making stuff go?

Take “outsourcing” for example. We cannot do everything, so we delegate stuff, hopefully stuff we truly aren’t good at. These days, there is a big push for delegating and automating, tons of articles and blog posts are written on this very subject. But what we end up doing is just following the “delegate or die” script and subsequently delegating and automating the wrong stuff.

Delegate your grocery shopping, don’t delegate your humanity. Automate your prescription refills, don’t automate your communication online (tweets, FB status, etc). Get a tech-savvy person to code your website, but don’t expect them to just make a shiny button as the answer to all of your sales problems. Take ownership. Infuse yourself into the process.

Making stuff go is ultimately your responsibility. Part of making stuff go is getting help where you need it, in the places you get stuck. But, as Clark wisely stated on the show, “The end result is where you take ownership.” Invest yourself in your game.

Jackie Dotson, business therapist, is the founder of Jackie Dotson, LCSW in Sacramento, CA, as well as the co-host of The Powder Keg of Awesome Podcast.

Engage with Jackie on Twitter: @sacbiztherapist or on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Jackie.Dotson.LCSW.

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This made sense, particularly in the early 20th century, because our life spans were so much shorter and our options were much more limited. Average life expectancy in 1900 was a mere 47.3 years, in 2010, it rose to 78.7. When you can only expect to live until 50 or 60, you’ve got a lot less time to squeeze everything in.

My great-grandmother (born in Ireland) and grandmother (born in NYC) who were born in 1883 and 1917. Things have changed a lot since their time.

So why do we still live now the way we did in the 20th century? Time has shown that healthy humans can remain vibrant and engaged well into their 80s and 90s, so why are we still hung up on the concept of “retirement” at 65 (especially knowing you really could live to be 100)?

Time has also shown that corporations are no longer interested in having “lifelong” employees, so why do we set the expectation that our children have to train for and pick one career and encourage them to stay with one company? Why do we still bother with resumes?

Why do we still encourage young adults to “settle down” when it’s easier to relocate and stay in touch from different parts of the world? Why is buying and owning house still considered the mature and responsible thing to do, when mathematically it is usually a huge money drain? Why are we still assuming that college is the best way to continue your education and advance in life, even though college costs have risen more than 50% in the past 20 years?

Because it’s “the next logical step”. We base our decisions on stuff that’s already been done. That’s why.

Recently on my podcast, I had the opportunity to interview Allen Fahden, author of the 1991 book, Innovation on Demand. Although these ideas have since gained a tremendous deal of traction since the book was first published, Fahden was one of the first authors to criticize business for running on a 19th century model.

In the book Fahden summed up how humans think. He wrote: “Nearly everything we’re taught since birth is about keeping things as they are rather than changing them.” Bingo. I think this is why we are so invested in taking those “logical next steps” even though they may no longer make sense.

Think about how logical next steps play out in the workplace. Have you ever done such a good job that you got promoted to “manager”? How did that work out?

I got to experience this in my own career, nearly a decade ago. I was working as a clinician at a group home and I was very good at my job. I was excellent at managing my workflow and staying on top of my paperwork, and I managed to do it in 40 hours a week (I refused to be someone who “put in the hours” just for the sake of looking busy). I was so good at my job that my boss promoted me to director, where I was in charge of supervising other clinicians and assorted staff. To put it mildly I sucked at it. I was definitely promoted to a level of incompetence, the “Peter Principle” in action.

I didn’t like telling other people what to do, because I had no trouble managing my workload I could not comprehend why others could not do the same. I hated being an administrator, but it was “the logical next step” career-wise. Fortunately, I came to my senses and quit and I’ve never been a manager or administrator since. At the time, I took a lot of heat from friends and family for being “reckless’ and “moving backwards” in my career. Yet, this did not seem to hurt my one bit. In fact it saved me. This was one of my first major lessons in skipping the next logical step.

Careers and lives are no longer running on linear tracks, yet we still manage to insist that they proceed in a linear fashion.

We see this every day and we are seeing it more and more. Kids move back home after college because they cannot sustain independent lives in the current job market. Periods of unemployment have become longer, causing some to reinvent their careers entirely to avoid staying stuck in one place. People leave the workplace completely to have children and also to take care of parents and grandparents, because we now realize it’s extremely difficult to do these things while working a traditional, old-school, full-time schedule.

Historically, workers have been criticized and penalized for this practice, which begs the question, what is wrong with putting something important on hold in order to devote time and attention to something that is also meaningful? Unless you are a professional athlete, constrained by the limits of biological time, you can always pick something up later. So why is that considered bad?

I think that learning to avoid the logical next step is key to thriving in the 21st century. When confronted with a decision, how many times have you asked yourself, “what’s the next logical step?” That’s usually the choice to avoid.

It’s dangerous to base your decision making on the things people before you have done. But the world has changed astronomically in the past 100 years, especially in the last 10 years. This morning, I thought about it and realized, in my lifetime, I knew people who were born in the 1800s and I wasn’t born until the 1970s. That’s one huge chunk of time. I don’t refuse to use telephones because I know that my great-grandparents got by just fine without them.

I’ve been lucky to know for a very long time that the decisions that worked out well for my grandparents and parents will not work at all for me. That’s not to say I’ve been contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian, I’ve taken many logical next steps, and a couple of them worked out, but those results were not typical. I know enough to know that career choices that worked in the 80s and 90s no longer work the same way today, so I choose differently.

The times I deliberately chose to not take the “next logical step” the payoff has been so much bigger, even if the journey has been uncharted and bizarre.

So where in your life have you defaulted to the logical next step? Are you more inclined to change or keep things the way they are?

Jackie Dotson, business therapist, is the founder of Jackie Dotson, LCSW in Sacramento, CA, as well as the co-host of The Powder Keg of Awesome Podcast.

Engage with Jackie on Twitter: @sacbiztherapist or on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Jackie.Dotson.LCSW.

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Did you ever notice that high school behavior (the negative kind) is something we consistently see in businesses and organizations? Some of the most common behaviors I see on a regular basis are:

- Approval seeking: people want people to like them. This is partly because humans are social creatures and partly because we are hard-wired to fear being shunned from the tribe. Approval seeking becomes problematic when you water down your message in order to appeal to the mythical tribe of “everybody”. Approval seeking is also easy for others to spot. In networking circles, there is invariably someone who changes their personality to fit the current situation, a chameleon if you will. This begs the question, if this person is so unsure of who they are, how will they be able to serve me or the customers in business?

- Gossip: is one of the number one indicators that your office/business is in trouble. When people are gossiping, it’s sure sign they are not happy in their own lives, because they are investing energy in spreading negative information about others. In business, it begs the question: if people talk this way about one another, what does that say about how they treat customers and conduct business?

- Crazymaking: Author Julia Cameron best describes “crazymakers” in her book The Artists’ Way at Work: “Crazymakers thrive on drama, and melodrama requires a sense of impending doom. Everything is an emergency, a deadline, a matter of life and death, or something they will get to eventually. Read ‘never’ … Nearly any situation can be cast as melodrama to support a crazymaker’s plot lines …”. Crazymakers are the ones who drag uninvolved people into their conflicts; demand special treatment (off-hours appointments, discounted fees) and create chaos when you are trying to get stuff done. Crazymakers have no respect for other people’s boundaries. When you have a crazymaker in your office, you’ll know it because the crazymaker is the one taking up time and energy from everyone. Do you have a crazymaker wrecking your business?

- Complaining: a little complaining goes a long way. In small doses, it can be productive when it prompts you to take action to fix something that is not working. However, complaining can easily become a bad habit in groups. Complainers are easy to spot in groups, as they are usually complaining about inconsequential matters or things they cannot change. For example, complainers love to complain about the free food at networking events. We all have eaten the rubbery chicken at networking events, but chicken isn’t why you attend the event, so don’t complain about it! If someone complains about every minor detail, how do they conduct themselves in business? (probably by complaining)

- Cutting Class: Everyone cuts class from time to time. Some people elevate it to an Olympic caliber sport. I spoke about this recently in my “Showing Up” video blog post. We all know people who consistently cancel coffee and lunch dates at the last minute. They are usually the same people who do not show up to meetings and events they previously agreed to attend. If you are the kind of person who does not have the habit of showing up, how can you be expected to show up in your business?

- Cliques: The small, “exclusive” groups of people who seem to do everything together, also known as “the cool kids”. Cliques are detrimental to business because they end up excluding potential new customers or partners. Being in a clique also puts you at increased risk for “groupthink”, which is a dynamic that happens in groups when they aren’t subject to outside influence. It is when consensus and harmony become the goals of the group, at the expense of growth.

“High school behavior” is an easy fallback because high school is an experience virtually all people have had, and the roles are easy to fall into in group situations. However it is extremely detrimental to the functioning and success of a business.

Do you see high school behavior in your organizations? If so, how is it tolerated or encouraged?

Jackie Dotson, business therapist, is the founder of Jackie Dotson, LCSW in Sacramento, CA, as well as the co-host of The Powder Keg of Awesome Podcast.

Engage with Jackie on Twitter: @sacbiztherapist or on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Jackie.Dotson.LCSW.

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