ALTERNATIVE LESSONS!
CAN YOU ESCAPE CAREER QUICKSAND?
Krav Maga learning interpretation 10
CAN YOU ESCAPE CAREER QUICKSAND?
This is the tenth in the series of alternative learning from Krav Maga.
I woke up in a cold sweat. What a nightmare I had!
There I was, stuck in quicksand, sinking inch by inch. Nobody around me, and I continued to fall. My arms were flailing. I tried to get out. I tried to swim my way out. To no effect, it was as it was a huge vacuum sucking me right into and under the earth. And I kept sinking. The quicksand reached up to my neck. I panicked like crazy, but it looked like my feet were stuck in cement. I wasn’t able to move until I continued to sink and…..
That was the nightmare I woke up with. And this seems to be a recurring nightmare with me. My wife’s hand was on my shoulder. She had an anxious look on her face. All requests for me to seek external help fell on deaf ears. “Hey, I cannot talk about my weakness to someone else. That will be a sign of failure and a career suicide.”
I arrived at the office. I receive an email that I had been in a mandatory match up with a mentor. Of course, we were in the same company. He was in some other office and paired with me for a new mentoring exercise in the office. Well, I was supposed to have lunch with him that day. As if I didn’t have anything else too! I went and knocked JK’s door.
He invited me to come, and then we walked over to the canteen. JK wanted to know more about me, my interests, my past, and what I did. It was all about me, and I was happy to talk. There was nothing like an advisory council. So, I just went ahead and spoke. After lunch, we went back to his office. It was more a library and bookstore combined than an office. Books strewn everywhere, here and there, up and down. The only place that had some sanctity was his laptop and keyboard. That was JK for you, reading day in and day out.
One of the star performers of the company! In his 50s now and allocating a lot more time to help up and coming managers. He was trim, and he still played cricket extensively. Neatly tucked in shirt, formal pants. Well, he needn’t have dressed so formally, but that’s the way he was. We sat down. And he asked me the question that made me sit upright.
How do you sleep?
I looked to the floor, was playing with my fingers. After a long time, I looked up and told JK.
“I have these continuous nightmares. I feel like I’m in a quicksand. And all of us know that quicksand is death.”
JK took note of my statement. He looked back at me and said,
“Quicksand is not death- If you know how to get out of it.”
I was surprised; I started laughing.
JK said: Let me explain what happens when you get in. With quicksand, there is a stereotype that we have grown with. If you get into quicksand and don’t have any friends or trees or ropes around, you’re dead. That’s a stereotype of quicksand but falling into it is a pretty rare occurrence. What happens when we do fall is that the stereotype kicks in, and we panic. We start heaving here and there, trying to jump our way out, swim away or swing our arms. The only way we know how to swim is in the front, and we try to do that — all wrong moves.
We need to do what we need to do if you get stuck in quicksand: to eliminate the excess weight, whatever we are carrying. Throw away all the extra baggage. We need to backpedal a little bit. We don’t know what’s in front, how deep or how long this quicksand is. Therefore, we will need to backpedal, always trying to throw off the baggage and keep our head above water. Well, given the technical viscosity of quicksand, we will not sink if we keep our wits.
At max, we will go down up to our waist. We can float our way out if you relax, don’t panic. Not do any jerky movements, try to fall on our back. We know which way we came in, which is the closest and most straightforward way out. Then do an environment and resource scanning. Have a look as to what’s around, but at the same time freeing our legs, inch by inch, slowly. Moving one foot creating more space, so there is a lot more water coming into that space. Once that leg is free, we move it back and do the same movement with the other leg: tiny slow steps, no jerks, no jumps, no Superman stuff. If you have access to a stick or a trekking pole, use that ease out of quicksand.
He paused, looked straight at me, and asked me,
“Do you feel like you are in a career quicksand?”
The floodgates opened up for me. I poured it all out. For the last couple of years, I’ve been working in this division, trying to do something new! Yet, I am doing the same job again and again. Any new initiative gets cut. I will have to comply. I will have to be a part of the group. I was not able to get my way through. It looked as if, for the last couple of years, my creativity was in quicksand. My career was in quicksand. What more can I do? What do I work on? Work was beginning to look like shit. For the last couple of years, I have had these nightmares about what’s happening with my career. I joined the company that I loved, but it isn’t taking me anywhere. Right?
JK looked at me and said, “The same moves that you do to get out of a real quicksand is what you do with a career quicksand. When you feel you’re stuck and you cannot move; you don’t panic. You don’t try to fight; you remove the excess baggage in your mind. This weight is the most massive baggage that we end up carrying around self-limiting beliefs. No panic, no sudden jerky movements, empty your mental baggage, backpedal a little bit.
Backpedal a year, two years ago, how were you and what were you thinking about? And once you backpedal remember, you’ve got to keep your head above water, which means you will have to think practically. There’s no space for emotion. When emotion sets in, reason flees, and logic flees.”
You know what you want to do, but it’s all muddled up in this sand. You’ve got to float your way back out. This is what I would do if I were in your situation, using my resources and freeing my legs. So, I get a whole lot of different things that I would do. Yes, whether it’s real quicksand or career quicksand. There are ways to escape. You cannot run through quicksand; you’ve got to move sideways, you’ve got to move backward. You’ve got to be on the move, slow and steady. Let us assume you are in a boardroom battle. You could have an issue with a person, the management, the environment or the whole systems that’s impeding your progress!
Assume they are pushing you to play chess. What if you take a step back, move outside, and start playing cards instead. Or you get into football; it throws the opponent off track. It throws you off as well but brings you some breathing space for some time to think. When you move sideways, picking up something small that you can build a niche in. An area that you can create as your own. Build your brand, build your confidence. Then you move right back in for the main attack. Think about it.
JK cleared my mind that day. It took me another three to six months to make those diagonal moves. I applied for a transfer from the division I was in. I joined a new startup division, which promoted creativity. A division that needed creativity, my kind of expertise, and enthusiasm. I found my mojo back. The nightmares did stop and eventually led to dreams. The dreams that don’t let you sleep, as Abdul Kalam said.
Well, I did go back and thank JK six months later, and he said “Hey, you’ve got to continue these moves.”
That small division is now proving to be the racehorse for my company. And I’m right here in the thick of it.
Well, my lesson was not to keep fighting to get out of the quicksand, but to slow down and take a step back. Shift sideways, pick up something smaller, create my niche, and then move up using that momentum to get right back on track.
**
When somebody is attacking you full frontal, you’ve got to get out of the way.
Move diagonally.
Create your own space, then move right back in and attack.
That’s a phenomenal lesson taught by Krav Maga Sreeram.
To me, in life in business, it means so much. We try to think that the frontal attack is the only attack that we need to look at. Why not a guerrilla attack? Why not an outlier attack? Why not I sidestep the main force and then move in sideways with equal or greater power to neutralize the opponent. I move diagonally to create my own space: whether it is a new brand, a new initiative, a new service, or am repositioning or renewing something that I’m doing. Alternative learnings from Krav Maga,
Hey, when you don’t get the direct message of what I’m trying to tell. Stop, take a step back, move diagonal, analyze it, and then move right back in.
This is the tenth in the series of learning from Krav Maga.
Pravin Shekar is an outlier marketer, parallel entrepreneur and a raconteur.
mic @ PravinShekar.com .
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Pravin is the author of seven books: Devil Does Care, Marketing lessons from Mythology, Getting paid to speak, a Virtual Summit Playbook, Climb your way out of hell & a collection of travel pics/romantic poems, and stories from the heart!
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