Motivation

A colleague recently asked me "What do you say to yourself to get yourself to keep going when you're hurting during a workout?"

I didn't have an answer.  It seemed like kind of an odd question to me to be honest.  

He continued on, "It's important to have that thing to tell yourself to keep going when it gets hard."

I still didn't know what to say.  I sat there in silence for a moment and asked if I could have a few minutes to think about it.  (He was surveying the staff for answers which he was to put in a blog post of his own.)

I never got back to him.

I've been thinking about my answer for the last few days.  What does motivate me?  Is it to try to find the limits of my endurance, physically and mentally?  That would be the easy answer but its lacking substance.  I don't really care where my limits are. I don't time my efforts or train with a power meter, and therefore have no way to "know" what my limit is in any objective sense.  In other words, I don't know that I can hold X watts for Y time, or do X mile repeats on Y interval.  So I think that the "finding my limits" rationale isn't good enough, although its close.

Is it for health or for that runners high?  To non-athletes I'm sure the concept of endurance sports is bizarre.  Why subject oneself to the pains and frustrations of endurance sport, especially when so many of us get injured?  Clearly it can't be about health as most of us could lead healthy lives on less training volume.  Perhaps many of us would be healthier on less volume.  Besides, in my mind I'm young and invincible.  I don't train for my health.

Masochism?  No.  I don't do it for the pain.  I don't like the pain.  Getting past the pain and ending a workout and escaping the pain is rewarding and gratifying, but only in the sense that I survived and beat the pain.  Pain is a necessary byproduct, but it isn't something I enjoy, celebrate or embrace.

 

In the end I found out that my motivation is simple.  I like swimming.  I like biking.  I like running.  It carries over to the academic and professional world as well.  I love the competition, and I love the training and the practice.  What do I say to push myself to continue when I'm tired?  I don't know.  I'm usually having too much fun to think about it.  

The Job Search

In case you couldn't tell from my previous post, I am currently looking for a job.  I'm in the middle of putting out a few applications today, but I wanted to take a break to write a quick post about searching for jobs in general.

The job search process is absolutely terrible.  Most are poorly designed and overly complicated.  There are some better ones, but the better ones generally either charge a subscription fee or have relatively few openings posted. 

I've had some luck with Branchout as I think that it has the potential to be the best as it allows the end user to customize their search experience, and to save the most recent search strings, making the whole experience less tedious and aggravating.

That said, it still strikes as odd how in the 21st century we're still relying on a model of matching prospective employees with employers that hasn't changed much in the last hundred years.  The medium has changed but not the method.  Odd.  Maybe Branchout will be the company to bring HR into the 21st century by making the exchange of information more personal.  

Social Networking or: How I Stopped Worrying and Love the Blog

I Googled my name (James Robichaud) the other day out of curiosity.  It turns out that there’s a convicted sex offender that shares my name.  He dominates the first few pages of Google results.  I then Googled “Jim Robichaud”, which is the name I go by.  The page was dominated by an old country singer from Florida who goes by the name Jim “The Fisherman” Robichaud.  The reason I mention this is because people - employers, strangers with whom you come into contact, blind dates, whatever - will use the internet to try to find out who you are.  I heard over and over in school that you don’t want scandalous pictures of yourself online where important people may find them.  It was mostly older people that were telling me this.  Isn’t it just as important to establish a positive digital presence as it is to avoid a negative digital presence?  Isn’t this the obvious corollary?  Why is this side of the very same coin ignored in schools?

I do not know exactly why the creation of a digital presence isn’t taught alongside with how to write a cover letter and resume, but I believe that in these times, a digital presence can be more valuable than either the cover letter or the resume.  What would an employer rather have, a cover letter that could have been proof-read or even ghost written, a letter that is most likely by and large a form letter, or access to a person’s twitter account, Facebook and blog?  Which is more informative?  Which is more interesting?  Which is more fun for the interviewer?  Obviously, since I’m writing this, I believe that the digital presence can be as much or more of an asset than a cover letter and resume. 

Now, aside from interaction with employers, there is a social element here that I mentioned earlier.  Friends, blind dates and co-workers.  People will be Googling you.  There will inevitably be thousands of results for your name.  Now, as I mentioned earlier, the first result for me will be, “James Robichaud - Sex Offender”.  Even though the most cursory of examinations will reveal that this is a different person, do I really want that to be their first impression?  You can’t tell me that this won’t, at least in a subconscious way, make an individual somewhat suspicious of me.  Therefore it is in the best interests of individuals to control their digital presence, just as it is in the best interest of businesses to control their digital presence.  A person has just as much to lose if their “brand” is damaged as a business. 

To summarize, it is in the best interests of everybody to maintain a digital self since one will exist in the form of search results of people sharing your name.  Since you must maintain a digital presence, you may as well make it an asset to you with creative content that accurately depicts you.  As I came to figure this out for myself over the past few years, I came to stop worrying and love the blog. 

Beginning

I swam competitively for ten years and if there's one thing I learned it's that the first is always hardest.  The first blare of the alarm clock at six in the morning, the first step out the door and the first dive into the pool.  Writing this first blog post, which I don't intend to be particularly insightful or entertaining, has been particularly difficult.  However, I did eventually realize the silliness of fooling around with the design of the template without actually having any blog posts up. 

Tomorrow morning I want to dive into exactly what this blog is and what my vision for it is.  I also hope to dive into my vision for the future of social media. 

Since nobody will read this unless I actually succeed in generating a readership, I'll let you know that I'm glad I accomplished this "first".