Rule #1 - Bring all of you to work
Terry Heaton is one of the most thoughtful people in the new field of Social Media today. But what makes his ideas even more valuable is that he lives the social web/economy. He brings his whole self to work. Today is the anniversary of his wife's sudden death. In this piece he talks about what her loss means for him.
I feel inspired by him today to say a bit more about loss and the power of sharing our losses.
We all have or will have a loss or losses like this. But most of us would not live our losses in public and certainly not where we work. It is not 'Professional' to bring our life into the public domain. This is our real tragedy.
The essence of the transactional economy is that we hide our full self not only from others, but worse, we often end up hiding our true self from ourselves. The girl of boy who at six spoke about how they felt and knew what they liked has in later life become a man or woman that guards what they say even to themselves.
Oh to be sad, happy, bored up or down. To do silly things. To share all of this with our friends.
I went to see 300 last night. There was a special moment at the end, when one of the Spartans reaches out in his death agony and touches the hand of Leonidas, who is also dying. He tells the King that it is a great honour to share his death with him. The King replies that it has been a great honour to share his life with his friend.
How dry and meaningless are lives can be if we do not share them. One of the reasons I like Twitter so much.
This then is the great tragedy of the corporate world. That we substitute technique for relationship. That we play act at relationship. That we substitute technique for feeling.
The "techniques" for true communication then are not a better power point, taking presenting lessons etc. There is no technique needed but having something to say and being present when you speak. The techniques for getting more efficiency are pathetic when confronted by a group of people that love and trust each other. In real life, as with the 300, there is only the certainty of loss. So is not the real goal to have shared your life along the way more important than meeting some "goal".
Hey Terry - thank you for sharing
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