(From the blog “Taking Care of Business”)

I wrote this letter about transformation and how it’s changed my life to a columnist in the NY Times a few months ago. I wanted to reprint an excerpt here.

I wanted to share with you my own story of how I transitioned from working at home to enjoying work in the corporate world. I was in consulting work briefly so I spent a lot of time working from home and, at first, I found it liberating, but then later I found that I missed the camaraderie and sense of community in the workplace. After only 11 months at this job, I applied for a desk job and entered the daily commuting fray once again. I immediately hated it! I hated the cubicle environment for the first few months, often contemplating leaving and asking for my old job again. But with patience and advice to wait it out from good friends, I resigned myself to my job and decided to see where it would all lead. My whole first year in my job, I resented being a “cog in the corporate wheel”, as you phrased in your column. I had always reveled in being the start-up guy (having worked at a number of start-ups), working in a rapidly-changing environment, and getting things done.

The pace at which the big corporations (with all their red-tape) move did not suit me, I told myself (I work at an investment bank). Consequently, I used that as an excuse to slow my own productivity down. If no one else around here cares, why should I? I just got by, delivering the bare minimum, complaining about other people and generally engaging in most of the behaviors disenchanted corporate citizens seem to engage in.

I had labeled myself as the start-up guy and didn’t accept myself as working at a large corporation. Really giving myself to my corporate job would mean that I would have to give up my idea (or label) that working for a startup was way cooler than working at a big corporation. I realized I could be right about my story and not like my job or give up my story and throw myself into my job. I chose the latter.

I wanted to share with you that a big part in my new outlook on work and even life has come about because of my work with Instantaneous Transformation, taught by Ariel & Shya Kane. Working with them, I had a shift: a sudden insight that I mattered and what I do counts. I saw my cog-ness but it was in a different light. I saw that others relied on my cog performing well to do their own job successfully. If I got slow, they got slow. I realized I feed work to other people and if I don’t feed them work, they become disenchanted and bored and complain about other people’s lack of involvement. Soon they would lose their
enthusiasm and become dim and might even look for other employment.

All this became apparent to me in a flash. I caught a glimpse of the universe and I saw my role in it and that the way I performed that role was totally my own choice: I could perform it at a snail’s pace or I could perform it brilliantly and to the best of my abilities. I chose the latter and I continually choose the latter. I feel a renewed sense of purpose at work and it has become an exciting adventure for me. I feel that I am making a genuine contribution to the team and to the firm. I’ve even gone above and beyond my role by starting my own
initiatives within the firm.

To learn more about the Kanes and their amazing work, go to:
Transformation Made Easy

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 8:50 pm and is filed under Business & Workplace. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.