I decided that it was a good idea to start interviewing people on their Growing Up experience – and I had no idea that what happened could happen.
Penelope Trunk writes the number one career blog in the USA which is why I thought she would be the right person to interview for January, since January is all about work. But let me tell you it was the most painful and healing experience I have ever had. I am very good in reading people within no time, but let me tell you, she is good like no one I have ever met before. She is extremely blunt, she has no time for soft spoken words, she does not have time to really care about your feelings, she just tells you how it is. That is it, deal with it. Honestly, this was the best thing that could have happened to me, I am very much like that as well, so having someone really running it home to you without holding back, can be really intimidating or even feel insulting at the time, but maybe that kick in the butt is just what I really needed.
You think you just interview someone and then this person tells you that you got it ALLLLL so absolutely wrong. And I mean wrong, like wrong wrong.
I feel like I know a lot, but then again I guess I did know nothing about myself. Honestly I guess I knew on some level, but I never really wanted to see it that way.
Ok so let’s start with the interview:
- What is your “Secret of Adulthood”?
Successful people fail! When you are young your parents keep you from failing. But when you grow up then you realise that this is what successful people do – fail!
- Was there been one specific moment that changed the way you feel about yourself?
I realised that when I was 24 years old, that this is it, growing up is a trap, you are trapped for the rest of your life to work really really hard. Those first 24 years of my life lead up to the moment when I realised that this is it. No more, “I fix this when I am an adult” – I realised that I am an adult already. For the rest of my life I am trapped and have to work really hard every day. I can’t say I change when I am an adult, because life is already here. This is it!
I was surprised by that answer, because I wanted to hear something like, giving birth to my first child made me realise that I am grown up now, or losing a parent. But I did not expect to hear something so… intangible. So I asked Penelope whether there was no big event or trauma that changed they way she felt about herself. But there was nothing, here is what she had to say, and slowly it started to sink in:
When there is a trauma, people don’t make big changes, people freeze, they are basically knocked out for one or two years. Changes ONLY happen when you are really really calm, for examples people lose a lot of weight one year after getting divorced. You need a really calm and clear mind to change your life and to change you need to work really really hard EVERY DAY. There is no easy way out, there is no fairy that sprinkles some magic dust on you while you sleep and the next day you wake up and everything is different. This is not how things work, if you want to change anything in life, you have to be calm and work really really hard. Rational people don’t just decide in a split second. (I thought that I had done that, I thought that me leaving my old life was a decision taken within hours, but I had to agree, there were months and months leading up to that event) Breaking up with a boyfriend is never something that just happens, one day you love him and the next you don’t anymore. Rational people don’t ever act like that.
If you really think that you wake up one day and life is different, you will actually never start to do anything. Change comes with torture and hard work. You are normally tortured for days before you break up with someone.
So anyone would tell you:
- What is it like to raise a child: the hardest thing in the world
- What is it like to be married: the hardest thing in the world
- What is it like to run your own company: the hardest thing in the world
–> If you had knows how hard it was going to be, you would have never done any of the above. That is what adult life is about, anything worth doing in an adult life is way too hard!!!!
I mean I was hoping for something more fun. I was hoping that life was also getting easier on some level. And I still feel that way. I still feel that insecurities about myself become less the older I get, which makes life more enjoyable, but I do agree that it is hard work to get to that stage. So here is my next question to her:
- What became easier as an Adult?
NO nothing, I just became easier to wake up every morning to do the hard work, because you are not expecting for anything to get easier. There is no easy easy way out. Adult life sucks!!!
- What is part of being Grown Up? (Spirituality, Sex, Family, Friends, Job, etc)
This question to me seemed to be a good question to ask, because I want to be a well rounded person. Here is what she had to say, and this really made me realise how stupid my question was but you only realise that when you have the answer 
Well you know more when you are 20 than where you are 15. You know more when you are 30 than when you are 20 and even more when you are 40, 50, 60, …. – that is just how life is. So the older you get the more you know and there will always be something that holds you back and you have to conquer it. Eventually you will have a problem with your sister at age 50, or you lose your job or a partner. And then you will have to conquer new territory.
She kept on going back to me. She felt that there was something about myself that I needed to resolve. She was not happy with my questions, they did not make a lot of sense to her. I almost felt like I was wasting her time, that she was annoyed at me asking question whose answers were so evident to her. So she kept going back to wanting to know why I wanted to have her opinion about things, and then she became very clear about what she thought about me. And that was really running it home and a bitter pill to swallow.
Growing Up is different for everyone. The question you really have to ask yourself is “What have I been bad at?” - this is what you really have to look into. Some people are still living with their parents, so they have to move out. Some are just reading books day in and out and are experts at something, but really – they need to find a job.
And for you: it is committing to something – because if your don’t you will end up not having NOTHING!!! Stick with it, wake up every morning and do the same thing again, don’t go on holiday, don’t move around, stay with your company, stop this BS Growing Up Project, because that just shows that you are not willing to grow up. Instead of doing this stupid Growing Up Project – GROW UP!!!!! Stop playing around. FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS. How old are you? 31 years. So do you want to have kids? Yes! So get yourself out there, find someone to marry and have kids. What you do is wasting your time.
This is when it hit me hard. I have always found myself in relationships with guys that were not very healthy and I eventually always left. I always find lots of faults with things, pick fights and also have guys which have their own issues. Of course that makes it easy to leave. And why did I pick those guys? Because I never wanted to commit – Damn that really ran it home. I am still very confused but I do see why relationships and so many other things in life have never worked out. Because I am too afraid to commit.
Not sure what to do now, or maybe I actually do
PS: BTW, she thought that it was so funnily ridiculous to do a Growing Up Project to Grow Up that she thought of doing her own blog post on it. I know that what she has to say is not going to be nice, but maybe healing.
Okay this is brilliant – you interviewed Penelope and got coaching! Desperate to hear about what you’re thinking going forward.
Hi Charlene. She really runs it home to you and you need to be willing to take it all in. There is no nice way around it
That’s the American way: Just do it. This concept has surely some points that work (if you never go out of the house you will never find friends, job or love). But life is not that simple. Find a guy, marry and have kids? If life would be that simple – yeah here I am (sarcasm on). If marriageable men would just linger around every corner waiting for us – single women in their midthirties, damaged by older relationships.
With hard work you will get everything – carreer, dreamjob, love, family? Again – life is not that simple. The American way (and way of all life-coaches, “Unternehmensberater” and other guys who make their money with that) is always playing with the American dream: If you would be just hardworking and put youself out there, you can pursue happiness. If you haven’t found happieness – you are just not trying hard enough (sarcasm is still on).
Mmh. I always get sceptic if someone tells me there would be a simple resolution like „work harder“. Some people around me work their ass off and will never be rich. Some women around me go out every weekend, trying really really hard to find love. And yes, marriage, kids, carreer are hard jobs – but every mother, sucessfull entrepreneur and happiely married guy would say: it’s the best thing to do. But how do you find that – a man to marry and have kids with, a job you love, good friends? The best things in life happend to me by fluke. The fluke that I had a good timing. Sometimes growing up means to learn to distinguish in which aspects in life you could put more effort to get the things you want, or in which aspects you have to be more patient, or which things you have to accept (I will never be a ballerina or a rock star and some shit just happens) or sometimes to find happiness in yourself – not in kids, carreer, partner or anything else. And hey girl – if it helps – just do it!
Hi Anne, yes I somehow agree with that as well. But the question i have to ask myself whether I am hiding behind all those excuses? Or whether that is really the case for me. I almost believe that I was hiding. I never had the problem of finding a man that wants to marry me. Every BF I ever had wanted to marry me
– so my problem is different. I do have to accept that to get anywhere in life i have to commit, bottom line. End of story. However I do also believe that sometimes you need to realise that enough is enough and really just move on. Difficult one to decide!
Anne, I think both you and Penelope are saying the same thing – you have to be very clear about what you want and you have to make the thing you want realistic, otherwise neither luck nor hard work will serve you. Take for example the women searching for love, what do they really want? Love is so broad and interpreted by people in different ways; so you want marriage but the guys you’re putting energy into want a few beers and breakfast in the morning. Crass example but we do it all the time. When you’re clear and focussed on what you really want it makes it easier to stop doing something that doesn’t serve your goal. Since I see that picture of you and Mr Hammer, I know you know how to use the power of goal setting Reggie
The reason I like Penelope is that she’s so</i< out there, that it provides an alternate perspective to make you think. When I was thinking of starting grad school, her post on why NOT to go to grad school, made me huff and puff and tell her (in my head, of course) that this is different. I went on with grad school–because, well, a law school-dropout with a degree in philosophy isn’t qualified to do much–but kept her thoughts in my head. I wasn’t doing it to really actually be qualified to do anything, but rather to gain a rounded business education and get my foot in the door. My tuition is so cheap it was worth it! Her go-get-em approach worked for her, and it worked for me, too. It won’t work for everyone. Not everyone wants to start a startup and marry a crazy farmer and talk about what it’s like to have sex with her on her blog. She’s quite an intense person, and her advice should be viewed as such. It all depends on what you really want. Once you know what you really want, all advice will be skewed towards it!
Cheryl
http://sqmodernmedia.com
Hi Cheryl thanks for the nice twitter conversation and your comment. I agree, you really need to be ready to hear what she has to say!!
Part of growing up is grabbing the brush and painting your own picture. I think this is what she is saying. When you are in control of what you want your life to look like, then you can direct and focus yourself. The amount of effort required to actually obtain that image can obviously vary person to person due to luck, skills, looks, personality, etc. So for everything that you want you need to also realize how hard you are willing to work for it. Two tools to find what you want: action and communication. Do it and talk about it. Remember though that timing (and therefore patients) is very important and is also a factor to consider.
I think she sees this blog as a blank canvas and therefore no direction.
So with time and with collections of thoughts this blog could paint the picture.
Well that is what is so nice about life. It is a blank canvas and you are the artist of your life. And the good thing is, you can always get some white paint and start again. Never to late to change anything!!
[...] my interview with Penelope Trunk I really started thinking about life. And I can honestly say, that I have actually no regrets. But [...]
[...] got her perspective on what growing up is all about, and let me tell you, it is very different from Penelope Trunk‘s [...]