Giving Back - Corporate Wellness

Dance: One of my non-corporate passions!

I find my corporate life challenging, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who has other passions that aren't currently being applied to my core job.  

To give myself the chance to explore and grow in these areas, I try to find outlets to do what I love by giving back to the workplace community in the hopes that this will help my colleagues improve their own lives and perhaps contribute to others within and without the corporate realm.  

To do this, I volunteer my time as a faculty member of Google's internal education team, teaching courses on leadership, project management, and time and energy management. I am also a contributing writer for the company's internal health and wellness program, Optimize Your Life. Recently, I was named "Wellness Champion"!  

Below is the piece that ran in the monthly newsletter. Although it mentions a specific company, what I discuss below is applicable to anybody, anywhere. I hope that by taking a moment to read this, you'll 1) be reminded of what's most important in your life, and 2) think about how you can give these elements the attention they deserve.


This month’s wellness champion is Susan Lin! 

Susan has penned many articles  related to stress management for Optimize Your Life What motivates you to write articles for OYL?
As Googlers, we tend to be passionate about our jobs and everything we do in our lives; the commitment we bring to each is a wonderful thing.  However, the demands of our jobs, family, and other responsibilities can place a lot of pressure on us and we're constantly faced with decisions and tradeoffs.  

I've thought a lot about how to enable ourselves to do all the things we want to do while staying sane and even feeling empowered, while negotiating everything that demands our time and energy.  I'm always excited about sharing any insights and tips that have worked for me and for others, and OYL is the perfect platform through which to reach and hopefully help fellow Googlers!   

How did you become interested in emotional health?
Life can throw so many curveballs and it all comes down to how you deal with those ups and downs.  I've always tried to turn to myself to see how I can be stronger during times of challenge or hardship, and in the process learned that 1) a great deal is actually within your control, and 2) it's okay to ask for help!  

In other words, our peace and happiness levels are in large part determined by our own perspectives; it can be difficult (or impossible) to change other people or our surroundings in any given moment, but we can work with ourselves.  And sometimes, we need the support of others to help us figure things out.  This combination of strength and vulnerability is key, and I've been exploring how this can work in various situations to help us lead more balanced and happy lives.  

What is your vision for health (specifically emotional health) at Google?
I see Googlers who are passionate about their jobs and who allocate enough time and energy towards the things that are important to them: self, health, and family.  Work is important, but not at the total expense of these other elements.  

This means time at Google, whether at work or sweating it out at a G-Fit class, and time away from Google with friends and family, or doing whatever makes you happy.  That's what helps make an engaged and productive Googler.  It's that constant desire to achieve the right balance in life so that we feel refreshed and ready to tackle those stretch OKRs (goals) when it's time to work.  

If anything in my articles can help people make even a tiny bit of progress towards this balance, that will be the greatest reward I can hope for.

The Courage to Be Creative - Your Way

It may not be the fate - or even the desire - of each of us to change the world, to be the next Steve Jobs or Pablo Picasso.  That said, this shouldn’t stop us from doing what we believe in.  Unfortunately, the messages we receive are often conflicting, and creativity is not always encouraged.  In some cases there may be consequences for doing something in a different way, or to finding another way to go about it entirely.  This isn’t always the case, but if the end result doesn’t meet expectations, it can be like a door has been slammed on your creative idea.  You wanted to be creative, but it failed.  You’d better stick to the basics, buddy.  

The pressure to stifle creativity can begin in school.  As Sir Ken Robinson states in his TED talk, “Intelligence is diverse. Intelligence is dynamic. Intelligence is distinct.”  The irony is, many schools emphasize math and science and those areas that will ostensibly help us become employed when we become adults.  There may be those with a gift in a certain area, but for the rest of us average children, we’d better stick to the grain or risk mediocrity - or worse, poverty - for the remainder of our lives.  


But what about those people who are brilliant in their own ways, but who don’t believe their talents have merit because they receive constant reinforcement that they are not?  Their gifts may diverge from math and science and other conventionally “applicable” disciplines.  These students only know that they are average, or less than average, in those courses that promising students are supposed to do well in.  


Take the example of my mother. Everything about her is musical: her abilities of retention, analysis, performance, and interpretation of classical music are extraordinary (my assessment is not, I assure you, solely based on the fact that she is my mother). She should be an artist in some capacity. What's tragic is that she sees herself as a failure. 

Throughout my mother's schooling she was repeatedly told that her talents were useless, and she still believes it to this day.  She is plagued by the fact that she never mastered advanced math.  When I tell her how valuable her true self is, she beams for a moment, only to shake her head and say, “Yes, but what use is it?”  This firm belief is why she precludes herself from any possibility of starting an artistic life, even in her retirement.



It’s almost as if the message is: If you’re not innovative in a shortlist of pre-approved fields, you might as well give up. After all, how many George Balanchines and Paul McCartneys are out there?  

As Sir Ken Robinson put it succinctly and rather devastatingly, “We are educating people out of their creativity.”


How can we find a balance?  How can we do our due diligence, yet still find the breathing space to find our true talents?  If we don’t happen to have a supportive community be it family or school or workplace, we must find the courage to strike out in our own ways.  


First, acknowledge your talents and abilities.  Make a list and keep it handy, if it’ll help remind you of who you are and that you are valuable for your unique qualities.  In my mother’s case she can’t even bring herself to do this first step, so I’m writing a list for her to see what results.  I’m hoping my admiration for her will help her see just how valuable her talents are.


Second, find opportunities, no matter how small, to put your ideas into play.  Attach a concrete reason to work on your idea.  As I read once, “If you like something, find a way to call it work.”  Give yourself a goal.  Before I started this blog I knew I loved to write, but had never done anything about it.  I realized I’d never given myself a reason.  My blog was the vehicle through which I set my goals.  Every week I had to brainstorm ideas to write about. Even if I didn’t come up with anything I ultimately used, at least I’d done something.  Psychologically this reinforced the legitimacy of my project, and equally important, it became a habit.


Third, find a way to get some kind of external validation for what you’re doing.  It’s really difficult working in a vacuum after the initial groundwork is laid.  At some point, find someone to share your work in progress with (don’t wait for that perfect moment; it doesn’t exist!).  It could be a family member, friend, or a shot in the dark submission to someone in that field whom you admire.  If your idea is work-related, try to find a mentor or someone you trust to bounce your framework off of.  That person may point out aspects you’d never considered, allowing you to strengthen your work before you bring it to a bigger (or more crucial) audience.


It’s a cycle. After presenting to a confidant, it’s usually necessary to go back to your inner world and reassess, restructure, redo.  Hopefully this process will build on your confidence, even as setbacks give you reason to improve and/or bolster your belief in your work.  The key is not to lose courage.  If your idea means enough to you, you’ll find ways to carry on and fight for it.  It takes guts to try something you might have been told is impractical, will lead to a dead end, will cause you to lose your current job, will render you a pauper ... the naysayer’s list is endless.  

But as Steve Jobs said, why live your life for someone else?  If you don’t believe in your own particular kind of creativity, the only person who will be left asking “What if ...?” in the end, is you.