From Grumpy's Garage

I'm sometimes afraid to be seen online. "Why," you ask, "would Brian fear being seen?" Because I'm an imposter. I'm not really who I pretend to be. And I want to keep people from finding that out. I've recently begun to ask myself where this fear came from. When did it start? What were the circumstances? It began in late 2006 when I started working at Google. I had been a techno-geek for over a decade. As a consulting engineer in the '90s and '00s, I thought I knew a lot about this new-fangled internet thing. I enjoyed helping small businesses stake their claim to a piece of virtual real estate. I'd help them select and register a domain name, set up their DNS, email, and web servers, and build a functional website (though it would be considered crude by today's design standards). I built firewalls and kludged together programs (sometimes written from scratch) to make computers play nice together. I was hot stuff. In the area of how t...

Sunrise over Lake Union  I enjoy hearing my own thoughts. I know that sounds self-centered. Well, it is. It seems that many people can’t just be with themselves in silence. They must have news or music playing in the background. (Or what passes for news or music these days.) I start most days in contemplation: five minutes of Positive Intelligence (three minutes of the day’s focus, then two minutes of “PQ” reps, which grow the “self-command muscle”), then 20 minutes of silent meditation. It feels like ballast in my sailboat that helps me stay upright even in a blow. I used to practice guided meditation, but I soon found that I like just focusing on my breathing. Sometimes I’ll meditate about something on my mind, but I try not to get sucked into a spiral of angst, frustration, and anger. If I can imagine a solution and implement it myself, great, but there’s no reason to get worked up about something I can’t change. I love early morning walks. They let me get ready for a busy day. ...

I've been reading  Everybody Writes, by Ann Handley .  (Be sure to get the second edition. The first was good. The second is better.) The first takeaway is to write.  Just write. Every day. That sounds trivial, but it rings true for me. I don't sit down regularly and just write. I don't have the writing habit, yet. (That last word is key. "Yet." That helps me overcome my internal Judge saboteur.  Positive Intelligence  for the win!) So, I'm writing now. I mean  now . You are reading these words only because I'm writing them. I find that this exercise has another benefit. You are probably reading an unedited first draft. While Handley doesn't recommend that, it does serve to help me overcome my fear of being seen---of being judged. (There's my Judge saboteur again. Get back in your cage, Judge!) I've only got a few minutes this morning before family obligations take me away from my computer. But I'm going to write something anyway. Yes, you ...

 I woke up yesterday with my mind ablaze with ideas on how to brand myself, how to present myself to the world as a team development consultant and leadership coach. I value agency and autonomy above most other aspects of work. When I was fresh out of college, I got a job as an engineer at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo. It soon felt like I had entered the workforce as a drone in a massive machine, a mere cog. My security clearance was taking forever to process. I was given trivial work to do, tasks that seemed unimportant. It didn't take long for me to wish I could have more control of the work I did and how I did it. I wanted to exercise agency in my work. Well, an opportunity arose for me to go back to school and get an MBA. That's it! I'd become a decision maker, a manager, a boss of others! I'd be the one designing the work, the tasks that needed to be performed, and assigning those tasks to others. So I quit. I enrolled in the the MBA program at CSU Fresno....

  So I wanted to start this blog, but didn't have a clear sense of what I wanted to write about or who my intended audience was. Who does one turn to when they need answers? Google, of course. But I really wanted a writing coach, someone who would prompt me through the decision process. I know what! Do both! So I popped on over to bard.google.com. Here's a transcript of most of the conversation. (The profile image shown below,  , is from my alter ego Gmail account.)