OK, every now and then I will write what some may consider a gushy post. Warning: this is one of them. How is it possible for people who are doing the work they want to do and earning the money they hoped to make to have a sense of emptiness? Could it be the same hand heart disconnect that first aroused my curiosity in coaching? Might our lives be less about the doing and more about connection with the 'being'. (I warned you).
I became a coach because I was curious about the disconnect I noticed in clients between what they were doing with their hands and what they were experiencing in their hearts. The hands were busy accomplishing things, meeting goals, strategizing about next moves -- you know all the stuff we leaders do. The hearts of these leaders, though, seemed to be disengaged with the work of their hands. Passion and enthusiasm were absent. We hear a lot about misalignment today, and I suppose that is where my curiosity took me.
I had been working as a consultant for a few years around 2011. While my practice was moderately successful on the surface, I could not get rid of the nagging feeling that something was missing in my work. The same thing seemed to be happening with most of the clients I served. I sat across the desk from brilliant, successful leaders who were trying to understand the void and the success they were experiencing simultaneously. Something wasn’t connecting. Exploring this disconnect is what led me to study coaching.
I now wonder if the disconnect between our hands and hearts is driving much of our disconnect as a society. A survey from 2023, published in Fortune Magazine, indicates that loneliness has been increasing since the 1970s, and social media is part of the driver of that loneliness. (https://fortune.com/well/2023/08/11/loneliness-study-digital-social-media/). As a society we are “technically” more connected than we have ever been through the vehicle of social media. Yet factors like loneliness are at an all-time high. According to the article, loneliness was experienced generationally like this: “Gen Z (38%) and millennials (37%) feel the most lonely compared to Gen X (31%) and boomers (19%).” Compare those percentages with these: “Over half of Americans spend more than 50% of their time online (73% of Gen Z, 64% of millennials, 56% of Gen X, and 40% of boomers).” This isn't a blog about what's wrong with social media, though. This post is about finding the connection between your hand and heart.
Are you feeling a sense of disconnect between what you are doing for work and what is happening (or not happening) in your heart? When will you decide to stop and figure out why?
Michele Aikens is lead coach of Clear Sight Coaching and Consulting.
PS: I ran across this video and was further inspired to encourage us to stop and reconnect with what is happening in and around us.