You don't have to make sense yet

How to talk about your varied life as a Carouseller

Happy Monday, Carousellers :-)

For those of you who are new here, Carousel is a life-philosophy, which is all about honouring and focusing on the things that feel alive for us. With a Carousel approach we can allow things to come in and out of focus as we move through life, knowing that the important ideas won’t go away, they just go to the ‘back of the Carousel’, waiting for the right moment to reappear.

I came up with it 5 years ago (to the day in fact, as Facebook reminded me this morning!) because as a multi-passionate I was constantly beating myself up for not being consistent. It was particularly around DJing - I noticed that I’d have these bursts of activity where I’d make progress, and then ignore it for a while. Until I realised that maybe this approach actually worked for me? I had my different interests on shuffle and they’d take in turns to be focus. I wasn’t ignoring my DJing in the in-between times; I was a) allowing other interests to have their moment b) giving DJing space to breathe so I could come back to it fresh. I now see my different parts of the Carousel as friends or lovers that keep coming back into my life. Ahhhh this is who I’m spending more time with this month! Look who’s back in town!

DJing at the Musical Theatre Raves in March

But the challenge with Carousel is that it is hard to talk about who you are and what you do because people want a job title, and we ain’t no job title. When someone asks you what you do for work, you either want to give people at 20 minute presentation, or you say just one thing but then feel like you’ve only named 1 of your 7 children. It’s very tricky! Many Carousellers I work with worry that their seemingly unconnected interests will confuse people. So what do we do?

I wanted to share some advice on this based on 10 years of working for myself and some of the techniques and perspectives that have helped me work around this:

1. Talk about the things you’re CURRENTLY doing and forget the rest.

   My friend Marianne Cantwell (author of Freerange Humans) taught me this one. ‘When people ask me what I do for work, I just say ‘I’m currently writing my TED talk’ and tell them about that.’ I love this so much and have used it frequently. Whether it’s saying ‘I’m currently making a comedy music video about Dry Robes’ or ‘I’ve just moved to Brighton’ or ‘I’m really getting into my coaching’ - if you talk about something that is alive, that is what will lead to people wanting to work with you and find out about all the other stuff you do (and at the very least you’ve had an energising conversation rather than regurgitating the same old spiel).

   What is one thing you’re doing at the moment that feels exciting / energising to talk about (don’t worry if it’s not work related) that could be your hook in conversations?

2. Let the listener guide the conversation (and don’t assume what they want to hear)

   I went to an amazing workshop in 2012 with John Purkins who said to always say two things you do and then get the other person to choose which they want to hear more about. I’ve experimented with this. I usually say ‘I’m a coach and a musician.’ People will ask ‘oh what kind of music?’ or ‘where do you coach? and we go from there.

   John told us, ‘I met Sting once and he asked me what I did. I said ‘‘I’m a headhunter and I’m a writer.’’ And guess which one he wanted to learn more about.’ (It was headhunting). It was a good lesson for him because he initially thought he should mention his writing as Sting would want to know about something creative, but they ended up having a much more interesting conversation because as John put it, he probably talks about writing all the time.

   What is a double identity that you could play with at the moment?

3. It doesn’t have to make sense yet - just follow the nudges

   Steve Jobs famously talked about his career not making any sense going forward but when he looked backwards he could clearly join the dots. For example he had the curiosity to take a calligraphy class at university, which later helped him to design Apple fonts! With the Carousel mentality of following the aliveness, you can’t really go wrong. I truly believe that if you keep following the nudges of life, the random curiosities that spark interest, the people you meet that you just have to stay in contact with but you don’t know why yet, you will end up in some great places doing some great things. And at SOME point it may make sense why. But at the start of you Carousel career you can just share confidently the many interests you have, without having to present it neatly or coherently.

   When you look back at the last few years of your life, can you retrospectively join the dots of some of the seemingly random parts of your Carousel?

4. Talk about the different parts of you that are expressed through each part of the Carousel.

   A client of mine was talking about how when she works in schools she is the ‘Activist’ and yet she also needs to express her creative side through her art. I encouraged her to see this not as an inconsistency, but an opportunity to share the different parts of her. I feel similarly: I work in schools to nourish my public sector do-gooder that likes being close to the education system, and then I also have DJing and 90s singalong to nourish my performer / centre-stagey muso side.

   What are some of the parts of you that are expressed in the different parts of your Carousel? Are there any parts that aren’t being expressed right now?

5. Work out who and how are you being in all of the things you do

   Here are the things I have on my Carousel that I’ve had to share to the world recently:

• I run ukulele workshops in companies to teach leadership skills

• I coach teachers in schools on their well-being

• I run 90s singalongs and Days of Musical Joy

• I DJ at Musical Theatre raves

• I’ve set up a community Creative Residence-sea in Brighton

• I have a podcast talking about Knowing when to Quit

• I support people to design Beautiful Endings for thresholds in their life

Over 10 years I’ve begun to see that pretty much all my work is about being in the present moment with people, tuning into their energy and then using my creativity to choose a response, which will help shift their energy (or sustain it). That might be asking the right coaching question, choosing an activity in a workshop, selecting a song when I’m DJing. It’s in the now, and it requires spontaneous creativity and response. And then I accompany that person or group until the shift has happened.

Tune in to a need. Come up with an idea in the moment that fits. Take people with me.

It really is consistent across everything I do this feeling of presence, immediacy, creativity and support.

When you zoom out and see yourself across all the things you do? Is there something similar about the way you are being?

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I hope that’s been some good fodder for your Monday!

Let me know how you get on with talking about your work.

Big hugs,

Sarah x