Why did I enter this profession? What was I thinking?

What image comes to mind when you think of career burnout? You’re probably picturing a middle-aged man or woman, who has long been engaged in a particular line of work. Exhausted by the demands and frustrations of their profession, they’d like to either switch careers, launch a new business or else retire.

Whatever flame of enthusiasm — hopes, dreams, ideals — they may have had in regard to their work, has long since burnt-out. This is not just job burnout, but the more serious malady of career burnout.

Strange to say, there’s something akin to burnout for people just beginning a career! We shall refer to it as I.C.B. (Instant Career Burnout).

The primary cause of I.C.B. is disillusionment. Of course, to be disillusioned, we must first be under the sway of an illusion. It begins when we are drawn to a particular field because it has a certain symbolic appeal. There lies the hidden magic, the mysterious siren song that beckons us to steer in the direction of that profession. (We’ll offer some examples of symbolic appeal, in a moment.)

But here is the rub: upon finally being qualified to enter that field — and starting to engage in the quotidian tasks endemic to it — its symbolic appeal completely vanishes! The honeymoon is over and we find ourselves wedded to a career in which we have little or no interest.

Were we able to illuminate our feelings and thus understand the psychological factors that drew us to our profession, we would come to know ourselves more deeply. Alas, after disillusionment, most people still do not know what hit them. They’ve discarded, with the bathwater of disillusioning experiences, the newborn wisdom that they might have gained.

There have been stories, plays and novels written about disillusionment — in all areas of life, from romance to business. But there’s been very little formal psychological analysis, especially in regard to our newly named malady, I.C.B. That is  surprising, since disillusionment is a major form of misery.

The Disillusioned Biologist

An example comes to mind. In college, I attended a course on symbolism and myth in everyday life. The professor described a student who wished to become a cellular biologist so that he could study the transport mechanisms of cells. I.E., he was interested in how a cell knows what to allow to enter its walls and what not to allow in. After years of study in high school, college, graduate school, and finally getting his own laboratory, the fellow was now able to study this biological problem. Alas, he then immediately lost interest in cellular biology.

My professor contended that what his student had really been interested in was working out a certain problem of selfhood. The student wanted to know how he could maintain a certain independence and self-sufficiency (which was pictured by the cell wall), while still being open to other people (represented by the cell being semi-porous.) Yes, it was all symbolic. Obviously, he was not going to find an answer to the problem of self and other by studying cellular transport mechanisms. He really needed to pursue a philosophical investigation. When he intuited that cellular biology was not really capable of answering his question, he immediately lost interest in it. As to whether or not he was able to now find a new meaning in his career, is another story.

The Appeal of the Law

Over the years, I have been acquainted with quite a few ex-lawyers who had suffered from I.C.B. A career as a lawyer had strongly appealed to them. It would certainly have had to, considering the obstacle course to that goal — from getting into law school, three years there while incurring a heft student loan debt, passing the Bar Exam, getting their first job as a lawyer, and then grinding away at their first job, producing billable hours.

What interests us here is not those who became satisfied with their choice of law as a profession, but those who experience I.C.B. When asked why they had gone into law in the first place, they would offer you a host of reasons, from the fact that successful lawyers earn good money to various idealistic notions of justice and defending those in need of defending.

But, based on the lawyers I’ve known, who have suffered from I.C.B., it would appear that something more was at stake in their original desire to become a lawyer. At a certain point in life, it is natural for everyone to have questions about one’s legitimacy a person. And so, after the salad years of high school and college, one asks oneself: “Is my life self-centered and egotistical or is it justified and lawful? Is my life a chaos of different interests and desires? Or does it have a form, structure and identity? I.E., is there a higher law governing what I do?”

There is a conflation occurring here of man-made laws and law in some ultimate sense — divine law, cosmic law, the Logos, etc. That law can be something ultimate and absolute and not merely about things like traffic tickets, property rights and having to pay taxes, is hard for many people to understand. Similarly, it is hard for many people to understand how orthodox Jews would feel inwardly obliged to kiss the Torah, which they take as the embodiment of God’s law. But even though law has a degraded sense in modern times, it is still a major category of human reality and cannot be dismissed, at least psychologically.

Obviously, working as a lawyer cannot legitimize one’s life. Only an inner shift to a life of meaning and purpose can give one’s life form, structure and legitimacy. I.C.B. hits when the new lawyer realizes that having a career involved with the law is not going to legitimize his or her existence. On the contrary, working at as a lawyer is a job like anything else. At that point, they will seek a different meaning for their work, which could be anything from getting rich to viewing their work as a calling. There are many possibilities here.

The Notion of a Calling

The relation that we have to the work we do can change quite a bit, over time. A woman might, for example, enter the teaching field hoping to educate and awaken young minds. But, do to the obstacles that she encounters, decide that I  all about putting in the years until retirement and meanwhile making the best of a bad situation. Such a shift in motivations is unfortunate, but rather common.

Career motivations, like life itself, is like an elevator. If we do not go up, we are sure to go down. To go up would be to shift the meaning of what we do to a higher level. Let us take the example of the disillusioned teacher. The usual Hollywood idea is that she would discover that she had been doing good all along. That is the theme of dramas like Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone episode “Changing of the Guard” and the film “Mr. Holland’s Opus.”

But, there is another possibility. In Kierkegaard’s book “Purity of Heart,” he says that you either work for results or because it is intrinsically meaningful to engage in that activity. Having let go of whatever motivations we may have had — be they symbolic or practical — something new may arise in us: the work becomes valued for its own sake. When work is intrinsically meaningful, we aren’t overly concerned whether we have been successful in our objectives.

Prince Arjuna is the commander of one of the armies. He is in despair and cannot lead his men in battle. Why? The opposing army is composed of many of his relatives, friends and teachers! He deems it morally wrong to fight them and so becomes immobilized by a kind of weltschmerz, or spiritual world-weariness. So he sits there despondent, unable to lead his army.

Arjuna has a job to do and needs is an executive coach to get him into gear. But not just any executive coach will do. After all, Arjuna doesn’t need to be told: “Arjuna, it’s your inner gremlin that’s causing you to be full of self-doubt. You need self-affirmation exercises.” Other vapid advice might be that Arjuna share the burden of decision-making with his management team or that he hone up on his negotiation skills, so as to forestall the ensuing battle.

What Prince Arjuna needs is real insight into life. Only that can end what is essentially a moral, philosophical, and spiritual dilemma. But what sort of executive coach could be of service, in that regard? The answer, of course, is Lord Krishna. He comes to the rescue and provides Arjuna with the spiritual wisdom that removes the inner obstacles in the way of spiritual and military victory. (Hamlet had his friend Horatio, whom he turned to for advice. But Horatio was a stoic philosopher. Hamlet really needed something beyond Stoicism — mystical wisdom of the type taught by Lord Krishna. There often comes a critical moment, in a person’s life, when he or she also needs such wisdom.)

Executives and Spiritual Crises

What relevance does this story have for the workplace? After all, are corporate executives, business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals really suffering from spiritual crises? They suffer from them a lot more than they realize, even if they don’t recognize it as such. The symptoms are often there — tiredness, frustration, emptiness, boredom and despair. Sometimes, there are physical maladies as well.

But instead of facing the inner darkness, they often imagine that it is just a vacation that they need or a love affair or a career change. And, if things get bad enough, there is always Prozac or liquor. In other words, they treat what they are undergoing in a superficial manner.

When senior executives, from large organizations, see that their entire staff lacks enthusiasm, do they think to themselves that they are suffering from a spiritual crisis? Do they take everyone on a spiritual retreat? Actually, some organizations do exactly that, for there is a trend towards “corporate spirituality.” But the great majority of CEOs simply hire a motivational speaker in an effort to fire up their staff. Alas, the enthusiasm generated by a motivational speaker rarely lasts more than a day or two, before the drudgery and boredom of the workplace returns, as well as the conflicts among employees, managers, and entire departments.

What, then, is the answer? Are executives coaches to become holy men and women? That is not a very practical solution. Then, again, just because something is “practical” does not mean that it is efficacious. I do not have a global answer to this problem. I only have a personal quest to explore the connection between the work one needs to do and the demands of the spirit. Everyone has this question, or perhaps this conflict, whether or not they realize it. As to how they seek to resolve it — whether in a shallow or in a profound manner — is another story.

Just as the despondent Arjuna yearned for an answer, so do each of us, as Monday morning arrives and we trudge off to work. The key is to penetrate, with all ones resolve, into the heart of this dilemma. Then one of the gods of the workplace might make an epiphany. As T.S. Elliot wrote: “We shall not cease from exploration.”

Answer: I help business professionals discover solutions to problems, by broadening their perspective beyond the business world, so that they can gain insights from the fields of philosophy, psychology, literature, and history.

Question: What is your learning in these other disciplines?

Answer: I have graduate degree in philosophy and psychology, have taught both subjects in colleges and universities and have written about them. I’ve also read a good deal of history and literature. It’s their application to business and to life, in general, that especially intrigues me.

Question: I see that you have a new website. How does this differ from your other site, www.deeperquestions.com?

Answer: The deeper questions site is for life coaching and philosophical counseling. The focus of this one is executive coaching, career counseling, management consulting, investment psychology — everything having to do with work and money.

Question: Are the two websites related?

Answer: Indeed they are. One’s business, career, and financial problems are inseparable from all of the other problems of life. For example, a relationship conflict or an eating disorder or a spiritual crisis can certainly affect your business affairs. So, everything is related. It’s really just a question of focus.The focus of this site is the intriguing connection between life’s deeper questions and the business world.

Question: So, if I understand correctly, your main specialty as an executive coach is the relation between one’s personal life and one’s business life. Did I get that right?

Answer: Yes, you did. Most executive coaches are hired by companies to help develop the business skills of their executives. I sometimes will do that, but I go a lot further.

Question: What more do you do?

Answer: My approach is thoroughly holistic. I try to help executives develop in all aspect of their lives.

Question: Does you holistic approach have an effect on the bottom line?

Answer: Yes it does, in a hundred and one different ways. But, I don’t claim to have any quantitative metric to prove my assertion. I am just basing it on what I have seen over the years. Also, I’m hoping, this year, to make greater use of video conferencing, though a service like Skype.

Question: I understand that you also do management consulting over the phone. Is that unusual.

Answer: I suppose it is unusual, but it’s being done.

Question: Is executive coaching effective over the phone?

Answer: Yes, depending on what is required. A coach can, for example, often help an executive  reflect on the factors involved with an important decision. A coach can also help  executives learn new strategies for dealing with their staff. And he can help executives better manage their emotions. Sometimes, though, it’s necessary to visit the company, if one is to be a change agent.

Question: Can you recommend a good business book ?

Answer: Yes, anything my Peter Drucker. My favorite of his is “Enterprise and Entrepreneurship.”

Mitosis

If you’ve ever worked on a large writing project — like a book or a dissertation — you’ve probably encountered a curious phenomenon, idea mitosis. More specifically,  what starts out as a single chapter turns into two chapters, three chapters, twenty chapters!  Yes, this is scary stuff.

Some years ago, I had intended to write a book about the deeper meaning of modern life. One of the chapters in the book was to be on modern relationships. According to my outline, the chapter would be a maximum of twenty-five pages. I remember actually being concerned that I’d have enough to say. Ha! Ha! How foolish was my concern! Because, before I knew it, that chapter on modern relationships grew larger and larger, forcing me to divide it into multiple chapters.

It eventually became the book, Awakening with the Enemy: The Origin and End of Male/Female Conflict. Now I realize that my original writing project had the seed for ten or more books.

My Website Splits into Two

Something similar has happened to my website, deeperquestions.com. Over time, it became clear that I really had here a dual focus:

1. On the one hand, it’s addressed to people seeking counseling and life coaching. It has articles on everything from anxiety to chronic gambling to eating disorders. I approach those problems from both a psychological and philosophical perspective.
2. On the other hand, it has articles on the problems relating to careers, the workplace, etc.

It’s true, of course, that these two domains are not separate. Indeed, there is great overlap, for one’s psychological and spiritual concerns profoundly impact one’s job and career. All the same, having so much contained in one website has proved confusing for many people. And so it is that mitosis happens. I now have two websites. This new one, platosattach.com focuses on work and career. Here I wear the hat of executive coach.

But that still leaves me with some difficulties. There are certain life problems that do clearly overlap. For example, in which website do I include my blog postings on life transitions? It really belongs both in the counseling and in the executive coaching website.

Why not include it in both, you say? Well, I could, but Google does not like duplicate content. Indeed, they penalize you if you have the same content on two or more websites. So, I haven’t yet decided where problems life transitions will stay. I can have a link from one website to the other or I can have two postings on life transitions, each with somewhat different content. Alas, these are the kind of problems that drive men mad.

Idea Mitosis Can Happen to You and Probably Has

Merlot? Pinot noir?

When a person becomes knowledgeable in a particular discipline, distinctions begin to appear. Before law school, there was just the law, but after graduating, you become aware of all sorts of law, such as civil, criminal and constitutional. Similarly, if you open a restaurant that sells liquor, you soon become aware of the many varieties of red wine.

To master any discipline requires two things: becoming familiar with:

1. Its fundamental questions
2. Its many distinctions.

If, for example, you listen to the NPR radio show “Car Talk,” you will see an example of two experts who know what sort of questions to ask of the person calling in. By means of their questions, they are able to make certain critical distinctions. Thus they ask the caller to distinguish between different problem car sounds so as to determine which it is for. For that sound is a clue to what is ailing the person’s car.

The moral to the story is that if you want to become an expert in your line of work, your knowledge must undergo a profound mitosis. You must learn all the basic distinctions and you must know what questions to ask to arrive at those distinctions.

Welcome Folks

Ah, there was a reason for this initial blog post. It is to introduce to this website and to its blog. The purpose of a philosopher, or a teacher in general, is to cause other people to undergo cognitive mitosis. So it is here and in my other blog, http://blog.deeperquestions.com/blog/ that I hope to induce in you cognitive mitosis. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.