Charles Gupton

Charles Gupton

Are You Burning Your Fuel Wisely?

“Do not fall in love with people like me. I will take you to museums, and parks, and monuments, and kiss you in every beautiful place, so that you can never go back to them without tasting me like blood in your mouth. I will destroy you in the most beautiful way possible. And when I leave, you will finally understand why storms are named after people.” ―Caitlyn Siehl, Literary Sexts: A Collection of Short & Sexy Love Poems

As I was reading this opening verse on “Art Parasites,” I was again reminded how much I want to allocate my “people time” to be with individuals that I care for so much that I feel pangs of hurt to be away from them. Friends that I ache to be apart from. Clients that I care about so much that I wonder how their business and personal lives are faring.

As part of my planning schedule, I’m trying to incorporate an “energy review” where I think about the kinds of people and events that either add to my reserves or draw them down. If people I’m spending my time and energy on are consuming my resources, I need to be assessing my return on investment from being with them.

Have you ever been around someone who had the ability to just light up a room – by leaving it? Or the flip-side — the people who make everything seem bright and possible when they’re around?

I wrote out my core business values several years ago after an experience of working with a client who was a drain on my immediate energy resources and my reserves. Up to that point, I hadn’t realized that my values were based on emotional energy. Energy generated by positive, collaborative relationships. Energy I needed to re-invest into doing great work.

I’ve had a habit for most of my life of using my energy the way most people use fossil fuels — with the thought that, even though the price may fluctuate for various reasons, there must be an unlimited quantity because it’s always there when I want it. 

But no energy source is either infinite or without infrastructure costs.

Over time, I’ve realized that particular people have a particularly high cost of infrastructure maintenance. And upon reflection, because I wasn’t cognizant of how I burned my own emotional fuel, I’ve been higher maintenance for people around me than I ever should have asked them to tolerate.

As an introvert, I understand that “people time” taxes my energy reserves. Therefore, it’s critical for me to invest my time into being with people that I long to be with, that challenge me to grow into my best possible self. These are people that encourage me to jettison those parts of myself that are impeding my potential. People who will destroy me in the most beautiful way possible.  

But to ask someone to be that source of encouragement for me, I have to develop the character traits that allow me to provide the same support to them.

Developing awareness may help you become cognizant of the times when you are a possible drain on others, but most importantly, it may be the first step towards making the changes needed to conserve energy for what matters most, your work. 

Charles

Returning to your “Home”

 

As a result of several unexpected events over the last few months, Linda and I have been entirely out of sync with our normal routine. All of the systems that guide our work and productivity have been affected. It seems as if every form of traction has instead sent us spinning; and virtually all plans for forward motion have come to a grinding halt.

In our struggle to get back to “normal,” we’ve started asking – with great fear – is this our new normal? Will this be the way it will always be from here forward?

Have you ever been there? Are you there right now?

It was in this mindset that I happened to listen to the most recent TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert entitled, “Success, Failure and the Drive to Keep Creating.” In it, Gilbert talks about discovering the need to return to her “home,” her name for that place where she is safe and most needs to be in order to create. For her, ‘home’ is her process of writing.

As Linda and I talked about our “home” – or place of creating – I realized for me, “home” is the implementation of  understanding, or rather, taking action on what I’m learning.

What that means is that for me, knowledge isn’t practical without applying it. My satisfaction comes from learning something and putting it to use. Whether it is in the form of producing a still photograph, short film, blog post, presentation, or even a resource shared with a friend over lunch, the place I realize my contribution is when I transfer my value from what I’ve gleaned and synthesized to someone who can use it to add meaning or impact to their life. It is the process of that exchange that determines my place of comfort.

I’d like to be able to say that my place of comfort is simply “being.” That wherever I am, I’m just comfortable with myself, whether at rest or in motion. But my reality is that I need to be synthesizing information and sharing it in some form. In that process I actually find my rest and my sense of purpose combined.

It’s in these small revelations stacked one upon another that I find great insights. It’s these insights that turn on my lights of understanding and empathy to help other people tell their story or reach their higher potential.

Because, as Seth Godin wrote in a recent post on generosity, when you turn on a light for yourself you often make that same light available for others.

Where do you find your “home,” that place for safe creating? How does creating in that space allow you to turn on the light of insight and value for others?

Charles

 

Working your Fun

Because most people shoot pictures either as a hobby or just for the fun of capturing keepsakes of their lives, many assume that shooting pictures started out as, or continues to be, a pastime for me as well.

Although I absolutely love my work and the process of creating images, there is a distinct but indescribable line between enjoying a process in which you are paid to meet an objective and doing something simply for the enjoyment of doing it.

I used to get quite annoyed when someone would remark that I must not really love photography if I didn’t carry a camera with me everywhere and spend my free time (whatever free time is…) snapping pictures. I couldn’t adequately explain it because I couldn’t quite grasp how I could love creating images so much but not consider it my hobby.

But I gained greater clarity recently as I re-read Stuart Brown’s book, Play. Brown describes seven different play languages or personalities of which, one or two predominate in every person’s life. For me, the primary ways I play are through physical movement and exploration.

Understanding your play personality can help you understand why some activities should not be brought into your work life and vice versa.

As a “Kinesthete,” I have loved playing tennis since I picked up the game in my early teens. I richly enjoy bike riding, dancing, improv comedy, bowling, and ping pong. And, if I have any serious thinking to do I have to walk to process the information. Although competition can be a component of the activities I enjoy (the “Competitor” is one of the personalities Brown describes), it’s the pursuit of mastery and movement that allows my mind to rest and play, not winning.

Activities that lure my “Explorer” have been travel, writing, reading, playing music, cooking, conversation dinners, gardening, and sketching. In hindsight, all these endeavors have been for the pleasure of seeking deeper insights and ideas, invigorating my mind in a similar way that movement energizes my body.

Understanding how I play informs where I draw resources from to do more impactful work.

As a result of working in a creative field all of my career, I frequently get asked questions about how to turn one’s passion into a source of making a living. Just because you may love to cook doesn’t mean you have the skills – in addition to the ability to cook on a commercial scale – needed to run a restaurant.

If your play personality is the “Artist,” producing photographs to please a client’s requirements may destroy the very reason you pursued your love of art in the first place. It doesn’t have to. But understanding your motives and desires will help you achieve satisfaction rather than frustration with your heart’s desire. Also, to have a client hire — and pay you — for your services is a different animal than accumulating ‘likes’ and comments from friends on social media.

I encourage others – as I attempt to do myself – to pursue their heart’s desires in the process of doing the work they love, But, I’ve watched far too many folks that I care deeply for distrust their own heart, not realizing why their heart found delight in their love to begin with.

In what kind of activities of play do you find your heart and energy renewed?

Charles

Weight of the World

Although the weight of anxiety hung from his shoulders like a logging chain, he still paced from one elevator opening to the next as if the angst alone would cause one of the doors to open. We were on the third floor of the hospital, the Surgical Intensive Care Unit.

As the door finally parted and we entered together, I asked, “You have family here?”

The weight of anxiety can hang off you like a logging chain. 

With a nod, “My wife.”

“What is it?”

“Colitis. Third surgery. Not looking real good. Might have to take a lot of her intestine this time.”

“Kids?”

“One boy. Fourteen. Been real hard on him.”

“Hmmm…”

“Not sure what I’m going to do. I love my wife more than myself, I tell ya. Don’t know what I’m gonna do if I lose her. I don’t think I can go on.

By this time we were in the parking lot, heading to our cars to take care of things at home.

“Anything I can do?”

No, man. I don’t know, pray? Hey, just letting me talk helps. I keep all this bottled up and I don’t know what to do. Talkin’ ‘bout it helps. Thanks, man.”

We waved as he pulled out ahead of me into the traffic. Everyone seems to be carrying their own chain. Pulling some pain in their own world of hurt. 

Charles

Are You Willing to Ask?

How much do you want it? 

Whatever ‘it’ is, how often have you wanted something so badly that you could taste it? But for whatever reason you were afraid to ask?

Even though I’ve known forever that if I want something, I’ve got to ask for it or else I’ll get either the standard fare or nothing, I still have difficulty asking.

Most of the time we don’t ask it’s because we fear rejection. That fear can manifest itself in living with the status quo or, as I often do, try to do something on my own that I really need help with because I don’t want to be told “I can’t help” or worse, be thought of as inadequate because I asked.

Either way, that fear is causing you and me to achieve less than we’re capable of and enjoying the process less than we should because of it.

I had the good fortune to hear Jia Jiang speak at a Storyline conference recently. It was Jiang’s quest to face rejection and move into the resistance that the fear generates that helped me decide to choose the word ‘ask’ as one of my guiding words for 2013. You can read about Jiang’s ‘100 Days of Rejection’ and watch his TED talk if you want to be challenged to face your own versions of rejection.

What I’ve come to realize in trying to grow beyond my current abilities to have an impact through my work is that I need other people.

I can’t do what I believe I need to do without learning more, unlocking the access to people and places that I don’t have keys to, and collaborating with folks who have skills that I lack but are critical to delivering the quality of service that I expect.

To take ownership of my vision and see it through I must face rejection. Because what I’ve discovered is worse – far worse – than rejection is missing a significant opportunity because of fear.

Jia Jiang states it well.

My rejection therapy taught me that “the worst they can say is no” is actually not true. In fact, the worst they can say is “you didn’t even ask”. It implies I said ‘no’ to myself before others could reject me. If I have a good reason, it is my duty to step out of my own comfort zone to ask, no matter how difficult and impossible the request is.

Although I’ve focused on the process of ‘asking’ throughout this year, I have yet to find that it comes easy to me. Every time I ask for something that I’m uncomfortable with, my stomach churns. Every. Time.

But I am learning to ask anyway. Discomfort is a modest investment to make to get the abundant returns that most ‘asking’ allows for.

Becoming more cognizant of my own fear has heightened my consciousness of others’ as well. It has made me acutely aware of the self-imposed limitations that many of my friends and business associates are living under. I’ve come to understand that I can nudge them to increase their boldness but I cannot force them to grow. Their boundaries are what they are.

Often, the fear we recognize in others is a reflection of our own angst. I’m trying to use the anxiety that I encounter as a mirror to reflect my own walls of comfort.

The discomfort of trying and the possible disappointment that threatens when we consider trying are great impediments to making the effort. But as Seth Godin pointed out in a recent post, “For many people, apparently, it’s better to not get what you want than it is to be disappointed. The resistance is powerful indeed.”

Indeed.

How are you facing resistance and asking for what you need to manifest your vision? 

Charles