CHAPTER 10
The Mindset of the Successful
Patchworker
It’s time to get your game face on! It’s time to get that motivational chant going in your head that will propel you forward. You are a team of one. You are playing all the positions and calling all the shots. You have to be mentally prepared for what may come and be able to stay focused on what matters throughout it all. Get your mind ready to take on the world, Patchwork-style.
Being successful is a mindset, a mental attitude. Your mindset as a Patchworker is key. Just like an athlete, you have to condition so that you can perform at the top of your game. Like Arthur Ashe, the famous tennis pro, once said, “You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy.” Are you ready to get in the mindset necessary to find joy in the career lifestyle that you have in mind? Then let’s get to work!
Know Your Patchworker Personality Type
Let’s take a look at the Patchworker personality. Simply put, the Patchworker is someone who is known for doing stellar work, being consistently motivated, and always being on task. You can always spot a potential recruit in a large organization. It’s the person in the office who is constantly overachieving and innovating. They are driven from within, period.
Do you know someone like this? I do. In my former 9-to-5 life, I managed an employee who was a classic case. Amy evaluated admissions materials to help the university determine if the applicant seemed qualified for acceptance into their program of choice. In the twenty hours she worked each week, she could evaluate ten times the number of files that her full-time counterparts could review. Adding to that, she provided a much more thorough evaluation than her co-workers and brought great enthusiasm to the job. In her spare time she managed the other evaluators’ files by organizing them, setting up a filing system for the entire office, and maintaining it. She never overstepped her bounds and had the admiration of all of the others in the office. As her manager I had no choice but to thank my lucky stars that she worked in my office and increase her pay and position as much as possible throughout her tenure. Amy had all the makings of an independent, self-motivated Patchworker: She produced stellar work and she self-managed.
Self-management is critical. Managing yourself can be the easiest or the most difficult challenge of your professional life, depending on your personality—not the personality that a clinical test identifies for you, but the one that you know deep down best describes you. Traditionally, people tend to categorize themselves as Type A or Type B. Although additional types such as Type C or hybrids like Type A/B exist, this discussion will stick to the basics. Looking at the two major personality poles, take a moment to identify your own personality type based on the following descriptions:1
- Type A personality traits: Impatient, time-conscious, concerned about their status, highly competitive, ambitious, business-like, aggressive, and constantly striving toward a new goal. Type A people are often high-achieving workaholics who multitask, drive themselves with deadlines, and are unhappy about delays. They are often described as “stress junkies.”
- Type B personality traits: Patient, relaxed, and easygoing; generally lacking a sense of urgency. Type B people are often described as apathetic and disengaged.
Each type has pros and cons and is riddled with values and judgments, which is why I probably shouldn’t tell you which type I am, but then again I have a feeling you can guess.
If You Are Type A
If you are a Type A personality, then developing a plan for yourself or for your business and staying on task is a piece of cake. The challenge for Type A people is expecting more from themselves than is possible. A Patchworker example of this might be constantly trying to rearrange a schedule in order to free up additional time to fit in a new client and take profits to the next level. There is no good reason for raising the bar to new heights necessarily, especially if your current level of income is satisfactory. For the Type A personality, money may not be motivating the inner drive; instead it’s just a need from within to push themselves to the limits. However, this kind of “pedal to the metal” mentality can lead to burnout in no time and doesn’t truly honor the Lifestyle Design in spirit.
The key is to “stick to the plan” (i.e., your set hours dedicated to earning) and be ever mindful not to set yourself up for pacing that would rival a NASCAR race. For the Type A personality, however, sticking to the plan is not easy; scoring the next assignment and closing the deal is addicting for the ambitious. Despite this incessant drive that you may feel if you’re a Type A, I urge you to establish a manageable tempo for your work life and honor it as much as possible. Failure to do so can lead to burnout and negatively affect your quality of life, which is the primary motivator for Lifestyle Design in the first place! In fact, this ability to keep the big picture in mind is one of the most salient factors that differentiates you from an experience reminiscent of your 9-to-5, rat-race-paced lifestyle. Yuck. Guard your time like gold!
If You Are Type B
If you are the relaxed and easygoing Type B personality, then the preceding paragraph may have sounded completely foreign and perhaps ridiculous. The challenges for Type B personality Patchworkers are not in slowing down the pace but instead on staying focused. You may have to devote more energy to coaching yourself in order to stay on task and energized by your daily routine. Patchworkers with Type B personalities can benefit from developing a meaningful “must-do” list at the end of each day, which they can use as a “go to” list at the start of the next day. Keeping the must-do items realistic and concrete is critical, or else it will simply become an ongoing laundry list instead of a motivational tool. Type B people also do well when they sketch out the big picture, such as setting goals for the year, and then chunk those goals down into monthly and weekly goals that they must accomplish in order to reach the ultimate goal(s) for the year. This structure allows Type B Patchworkers to maintain proper pacing over the course of the year in order to accomplish those goals that are most important to them.
Your Type Does Not Set the Limits
While most entrepreneurs tend toward the characteristics of a Type A personality, it is only one of many factors that must be considered when determining whether you have what it takes to be a successful Patchworker. If you self-identify as Type B and think that walking away from this idea of being a Patchworker is the only way, I urge you to instead take the useful bits of information that you can learn from the construct, reject all the rest, and keep going forward. That is how you really carve out success for yourself—by learning wherever possible and charging ahead no matter what. After all, work isn’t a competition when you are a Patchworker. You’re not competing with a co-worker for a raise or promotion. Instead, you are competing only with yourself and the goal you set out in front to chase after. The most effective competition is one where you challenge yourself—and you are on your way!
Use your personality strengths to your benefit and take an honest look at those that do not serve you well within an entrepreneurial framework. Your personality does not set the limits; on the contrary, it sets the stage for personal and professional success. Ultimately, success all comes down to working hard, staying on task, and following through. Thomas Jefferson knew this, for he once famously said, “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” Find some of that “luck” for yourself—it’s within reach!
Master Your Approach
Being a superstar gets a bad rap when you’re a kid. Early on in life, kids who enjoy learning or who excel in the elementary school classroom are often the target of teasing from their classmates. Terms such as brownnoser and teacher’s pet frequent the commentary made to the star performers who are eager to please their teachers. Then these superstars go on to high school and either conform under pressure or rise above it. Those who have the courage to stand strong capture the attention of teachers and, as a result, are more likely to earn higher marks, win scholarships, and have greater educational opportunities, generally speaking. Then later in life they enter the work force only to find that a similar system is also in play. Why wouldn’t it be? The workforce is just a bunch of grown-up kids, and so the same cycle repeats. Those who are superstars advance; they climb the professional ladder and leave everyone else clinging to the lower rungs. The “climbers” are those who know who they are and keep advancing because they hold strong to their goals. Outside pressures and circumstances have no bearing on their progress.
The successful Patchworker thinks and acts like one of these superstars, someone who has both the enthusiasm and the knowledge base that wow an employer. All of this and nimble, too, with the ability to work short-term, long-term, once a week, once a month...you name it!
A veteran Patchworker is the first person whom the boss thinks of when a new project surfaces that needs to be outsourced. The Patchworker is the person ready to bring dynamic solutions at a moment’s notice, and the boss knows it! This means repeat business for the Patchworker, with absolutely no cold calling! In fact, even if a highly qualified person did call the boss, that boss would likely still give their superstar Patchworker the right of first refusal because they are familiar, have a proven track record, and are easy to plug back in to the organizational culture (as opposed to orienting a brand-new, unknown worker).
Because being a superstar is a key to repeat business (a.k.a. momentum), the Patchworker is selling their skills to the boss and the organization at large throughout the year and especially while they are on the job. Repeat business and referrals are the rewards they reap, and those rewards come in the form of dollars.
Adopt a Healthy State of Paranoia
Now, the word paranoia is a bit of an exaggeration, of course. However, both during the interview stage and even after having been hired, being keenly observant of how others perceive your performance continues to be of great importance. The ability to sense any tension or other factors that may threaten your ability to continue working in the existing position requires keen observation. For example, if your relationship with your supervisor changes for any reason, inquire. If your co-workers are suddenly unfriendly, bring a sweet treat to the office and get them talking. Quiet tension is a threat to all Patchworkers because the positions that they occupy on the organizational chart are easily added to or removed; they are not the lifeblood of the operation, with rare exception, although they would like to think otherwise. Therefore, if there is tension, seek to resolve it immediately.
I most definitely live in a state of healthy paranoia, where my proverbial antennas are always up. If there is one thing that I have learned from my experience, it is this: Being a social butterfly has its benefits. If there is any “underground” news, people will share it more readily with a workplace friend than with anyone else in the building. Each day upon my arrival to any workplace, I immediately switch on my computer, check my e-mail inbox for any news, and make “the rounds,” saying hello to co-workers and asking how they are and if anything newsworthy has happened since last we spoke.
Please note, I am not asking for gossip but rather information that is relevant to the workplace environment. Sometimes there is a fine line distinguishing one from the other; therefore, my goal is to never be the purveyor of gossip but simply to collect information that may be relevant to my job. Along these lines, I must mention that the fastest way to be “shown the door” is to be perceived as a gossip monger. As the saying goes, “perception is everything,” so be sure to manage your interactions with others carefully. Each person has their own style in a workplace environment; mine is to be sugar-sweet and disinterested in gossip, which means that the gossipers will still tell you the important tidbits, but they have no expectation that you will respond to their remarks. It works!
Your co-workers are the social network that delivers messages to you, from you, and about you throughout the organization. Just as a computer network requires careful maintenance to ward off viruses that can harm it or cause it to behave unpredictably, so too does your social network require careful attention.
The American writer Logan Pearsall Smith once said, “Style is a magic wand and turns everything to gold that it touches.” Your workplace style, in person or online, is a powerful force that can draw people in an organization to you. Compelling people are memorable. Memorable people are at the top of the employer’s mind when it’s time to hire for an upcoming project. Great style makes good cents...ahem, sense!
These are the choices that lie before you. What is your choice? Are you ready to make it happen? Are you ready to finally S.T.O.P. (See The Outrageous Possibilities) and begin living on your own terms? If you are, then this last section of the book is a “boots on the ground” blueprint for leaping out into a brave, new world full of unlimited possibilities and making the life of your dreams a reality.
Endnotes
1 Wikipedia, s.v. “Type A and Type B Personality Theory,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_A_and_Type_B_personality_theory (accessed August 31, 2010).