I recently met, through a dating app, a man with an interesting philosophy about text messaging. In his view—if I may presume to attempt to state it correctly here—texting should be purely transactional. The purpose of texts is to set up a time and place to meet in person. To try to convey emotion or wit through a text is to set yourself up to be misinterpreted on the other end. It also puts you at risk of descending into kitschy sentimentality, as genuine emotions are best expressed in person.

I agree that kitschy sentimentality is something to be avoided (while acknowledging that beauty is in the eye of the beholder). And, as you know, I concur that language is a blunt instrument. Indeed, texting is one of the bluntest language tools ever invented, since it demands a severe economy of words, while still promising real human connection. It’s hard work to convey what you want to convey through a text. And there is, I agree, a risk that you will be misunderstood, which would necessitate even more time spent crafting even more refined text messages to correct the misperception.

Is it worth it? Which path is wiser—to use texting for transactional purposes only, or to also attempt to convey emotion and wit through this blunt tool?

Let’s ask our friend and guru Hafiz, why don’t we? Surely he can offer us some good advice on how to text a girl, woman, boy, man, or other divine spirit.

What—you don’t think a 14th-century poet can have anything relevant to say about text messaging? I say he just might. Here’s Daniel Ladinsky’s translation of the first two stanzas of the poem “Why Just Ask the Donkey,” from the book The Gift:

Why
Just ask the donkey in me
To speak to the donkey in you,
 
When I have so many other beautiful animals
And brilliant colored birds inside
That are all longing to say something wonderful
And exciting to your heart?

Yes! I am with you, Hafiz! I, too, have so many lovely animals and colorful birds inside of me, longing to speak out! Why, indeed, just speak the donkey-like transactional language of setting a time and place to meet?

In this poem, of course, Hafiz refers not to texting but to speaking in person. In other words, although people met in person in the 14th century more often than they texted (understatement alert!), they still, according to Hafiz, at least sometimes failed to express emotion and wit. Maybe people talked about how much merchandise they sold that day or week. Maybe they talked about their home improvement projects. Who knows what they talked about back then? But it’s clear from this poem that Hafiz thinks people often held back.

People do often hold back. I don’t think this has anything to do with technology. People hold back in person, they hold back while talking on the phone, and they hold back while texting. Sometimes people use digital technology as a means of holding back, as a screen to hide their true selves. But no matter what medium they use to convey information, they do hold back.

I, myself, wanted to hold back in writing about Hafiz. If you don’t mind me quoting myself, here’s why I felt this way: “It’s one thing to enjoy your personal reactions to what you encounter in life. It’s another to muck it all up by trying to communicate something uncommunicable.” In other words, I was afraid I would not succeed in communicating what I wanted to communicate.

This sounds suspiciously similar to my date’s reasons for not attempting to convey emotion or wit by text. He doesn’t want to be misinterpreted; and he doesn’t want to come across as sentimental (read: misinterpreted as fake). In other words, he’s afraid he will not succeed in communicating what he wants to communicate.

If I have not learned, from three years of therapy, that fear is the #1 enemy of self-actualization, I have learned nothing. When you communicate with another human being—whether in person or through technology—you inherently risk being misunderstood.

But no risk, no reward! And the more you work at communication, the better you get at it. Traveling by car, bus, train, and plane is risky; but we do it because we want to get places and have experiences. Similarly, using language, orally or in writing, to express emotion or wit is risky; but it’s one of the best ways to experience real human connection on those levels.

I’m not advocating replacing in-person meetings with texting. What I’m saying is, sometimes I am here, while you, dear date, are way over someplace else. Sometimes I have a miraculously amazing animal inside of me, who’s jumping up and down and snorting while thinking of you. And sometimes (okay, pretty much all the time), I have this amazing piece of technology within arm’s reach, whereby that incredible animal can totally leap up and slobber all over you! That is, if I don’t force it down through domination and fear tactics.

Yes, there’s a risk here. You might not want to be slobbered all over. Or maybe you’re not fond of that particular kind of slobber. And you might misinterpret the slobber as green slime. But there’s also a chance that you’ll love it and reciprocate with your own weird animal fun!

And that would be—IMHO—divine.

What are all your colorful birds longing to say today?

One of the most frustrating situations in life is that of knowing you are having an illogical emotion, but having it anyway. The tragedy of this situation is perhaps second only to that of watching yourself act in accordance with that illogical emotion.

In the wonderful collection of short stories Your Duck Is My Duck, by Deborah Eisenberg, many of the characters lack the self-awareness to analyze their own emotions in the first place. This is true of both characters with whom the reader sympathizes, and characters with whom the reader does not. Occasionally, however, a character has a moment of clarity.

Here’s one of these moments of clarity. In the short story “Cross Off and Move On,” the adult female protagonist calls her mother on the phone:

“I called my childhood phone number. To my shock, the voice that answered was my mother’s, and I realized that I had been waiting all that time to assemble a file of unimpeachable credentials before I contacted her. So pathetic. I might as well have been bringing a mauled mouse to my owner’s door.”

O terrible and lovely imagery! This passage rings so true to me. The reader of this passage can’t help but wish the character lacked self-awareness, usually such a good thing to have. But when you lack the ability to do anything about your emotions, watching yourself take stupid actions in their name is gut wrenching.

There’s something about Mother and Father that one can never escape from. No matter whether your childhood relationship with your parents was healthy, unhealthy, or a mixture of both, it’s almost impossible not to keep replaying it over and over, throughout adulthood.

Yes, even as adults, we want mommy and daddy to approve of us.

How tragic that the protagonist’s mother treated her achievements like those of a misguided dog! And how tragic that she was unable, even decades later, to break away from the pain of this!

Perhaps the solution to the protagonist’s problem lies in the story’s title, “Cross Off and Move On.” Perhaps people in such a situation should look for ways to cross off and move on, instead of reliving the loop of approval seeking and rejection.

Have you crossed off and moved on?

Frustrated, I scooped up my phone and told it to call the inquisitive one. The inquisitive one answered on the second ring.

“Hey, it’s Liza,” I said.

“I know,” said the inquisitive one.

“Oh,” I said. “I know.”

“What’s up?” said the inquisitive one. “I’m in the middle of something.”

“Remember when you called me that one day?”

“That day I needed a ride to the race down by the creek, where there’s hardly any parking?”

“No, not that day. I mean the day—”

“That day I realized my basil plants were taking over my entire garden and asked if you wanted some?”

“No, not that day! I mean—”

“That day I was concerned, because people kept mistaking me for you?”

“Yes!” I cried out. “That’s the day I mean!”

“Okay. What about that day? That was a weird day. But I can’t stay on the phone long. I’m trying to figure out how to get a new passport. Mine got kinda wet, and it’s not readable anymore. Not that I’m planning on taking any trips to any foreign countries anytime soon! I’ve had quite enough of that for a very, very long time.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about! People are continuing to confuse the two of us. People keep coming up to me and gently asking me if I’m okay after having lost my passport. But I did not lose my passport! I was afraid of losing my passport, and I tried very hard to keep it safe at all times, while traveling in Europe. And I succeeded in this. No, I did not lose it! In fact, I still have it, here in my possession, in perfect condition!”

“That was me,” said the inquisitive one, sadly.

“And the strange thing is, while everyone seems to think I lost my passport, no one seems to think I crossed the Atlantic in a sailboat!”

“That was me, too,” said the inquisitive one, even more sadly.

“So what should we do about this?” I demanded. “You keep getting into trouble, and why should I take the blame?”

“Hey, I don’t always get into trouble! Besides, you get into at least as much trouble as I do! And furthermore, Liza, when I do something awesome, you seem to get the credit—not me!”

“Well, you are making some good points. But I still think we should have a serious discussion about how to convince people that we are separate—”

“Maybe later, okay? I really want to get this passport thing sorted out, because later I have to—”

“Hold on a sec,” I said, staring out the window at a giant sinkhole forming in my backyard, which was in the process of swallowing several tomato plants, cages and all.

“I don’t have time to hold on a—”

“Oh my gosh!” I cried out. “There’s a giant sink—”

“A giant sink?” said the inquisitive one, clearly annoyed.

But I did not hear this, for the sinkhole had, in a single roar of a moment, devoured my chicken coop and all my chickens, and my entire back porch, and then my entire house, me included, and as I got sucked deeper and deeper into the muck and gunk, smashed up against my smashed walls and furniture, my final thought was, “Oh no, this sucks—I’ll never be able to blog about this fascinating geological event!”

The inquisitive one traveled to London. It was going to be an exciting adventure!

While in a crowded street market, the inquisitive one saw some postcards. “I could send these to my nephew and niece!” thought the inquisitive one, as a bunch of people jostled into the back, shoulders, and butt. When the inquisitive one went to pay for the postcards, there was a terrible realization: the credit cards, cash, phone, and passport were all missing!

Instinctively, and in a panic, the inquisitive one ran to that timelessly universal haven for inquisitive types, the public library. Frantically, the inquisitive one Googled what to do when lose passport England USA help! and scanned through some websites. Next, the inquisitive one logged into the email account and composed a message.

Here it must be noted that, due to shock and anxiety, the inquisitive one had been stricken with a psychological disorder! The inquisitive one could no longer distinguish fact from fiction, information from misinformation! Furthermore, the inquisitive one could no longer recall a single rule of spelling, grammar, or word usage! Consequently, the email read as follows:

Not knowing whom to put on the To: line, the inquisitive one sent it to every contact in the address book. Then the inquisitive one waited for a reply.

But no one replied! The inquisitive one kept checking the email for hours, but then, night fell. The library closed. The inquisitive one was forced to scrounge through trash bags for food and sleep in an alley.

The next day, the inquisitive one fell in with a band of drug dealers. But the inquisitive one, having no talent for sales, was not able to make any money. As the days passed, the inquisitive one started to despair of ever again eating something that didn’t come from a garbage bag. But then a fellow drug dealer invited the inquisitive one to, along with him, ditch the drug dealers and join a band of political agitators: which the inquisitive one gladly did.

This was a better situation because the political agitators took tea and crumpet breaks 15 or 20 times daily, which filled the belly nicely. These political agitators were pro-Brexit, or anti-Brexit, or anyway they had a very specific stance regarding Brexit. However, due to their use of incomprehensible words such as queue, quid, lift, and mummy dear, the inquisitive one was not able to determine what precisely that stance was.

Anyway, a few days after that, Fortune smiled even more happily on the inquisitive one: someone replied to the email! The inquisitive one collected $10,000 using the bank information sent by a (wonderfully kindhearted!) acquaintance, whom the inquisitive one vaguely remembered having met a couple of decades previously. Oddly, though, at the U.S. Embassy, the inquisitive one learned that, contrary to what the Internet very clearly stated, such a large sum of money was not required.

While the U.S. Embassy was working on issuing a new passport, the inquisitive one (with wonderfully kindhearted generosity!) gave the remainder of the cash, as well as the bank information, to the good drug-dealer-turned-political-agitator friend.

This friend, the inquisitive one had been astonished to learn, was Hamlet, Prince of Denmark! Well, or maybe he was Charles, Prince of Wales. In all honesty, the accents in this city were so thick that the inquisitive one could hardly understand a word anyone said. Or was he a Nigerian prince? In any case, he was a prince, but he had fallen on hard times and lost his throne. He promised to return all the money, and significantly more, to the (wonderfully kindhearted!) decades-old acquaintance of the inquisitive one, and to give the (wonderfully kindhearted!) inquisitive one a sizable pile of precious stones and jewels, once his throne was properly restored. And it surely would be restored within the next few days, due to the temporary loan of the money in the account!

The inquisitive one, strangely and sadly, lost contact with the prince at that point. But the very next day, the U.S. Embassy issued the inquisitive one a new passport! While the inquisitive one was not able to recover the lost credit cards, cash, or phone, the issuance of the new passport was a truly wondrous occurrence: and the inquisitive one’s anxiety faded away. Knowledge of spelling, grammar, and word usage returned. Also recovered was psychological sanity, including the ability to understand what was real; what was possible but unlikely; and what was rabid delusion.

MORAL: Health is better than wealth; and it’s easier, as they say in the wisest countries, to pass a needle through a camel’s eye, Amen.

I have gotten almost every job I’ve ever held in the standard way. First, I would submit a cover letter and resume. Next, I would wait to be invited to an interview. After the interview, I would send a thank-you note. Finally, I would wait for a phone call. At various key points in my life, I was fortunate enough to actually receive that phone call with a job offer. But this is not the only way to get a job! I was gobsmacked by the unconventional talents in job acquisition that Kurt Eichenwald displayed over his long career. Let’s examine how to get a job by using some nonstandard, Eichenwald-inspired techniques.

Background on Kurt Eichenwald

Kurt Eichenwald’s memoir A Mind Unraveled, published in 2018, chronicles his struggles with epilepsy. His story is much broader than just a discussion of a medical problem, though. He faces almost unsurmountable difficulties in navigating the health care industry, getting a college education, and launching the career he wants. These difficulties arise from not just the epilepsy and the medications for the epilepsy, but also the misunderstandings, negligence, and hostility of others. Through astounding persistence and ingenuity, Eichenwald is able to achieve his education and career goals.

For us readers, his memoir is a series of lessons on how to do things in boldly unconventional ways—either because life has thrown us a curveball and we have no options left, or because that’s just who we are.

Employment Strategy #1: Do a 2-Week Task in 5 Minutes

At an unpaid summer internship, Eichenwald is assigned a task that no one else wants to do. It’s a tedious task of locating a tiny scrap of information by placing a bunch of random phone calls. (This was before the days of the Internet.) Eichenwald invented what he thought might be an easier way to obtain the information. His strategy worked, and his supervisors were amazed. As a result, the supervisors assigned Eichenwald a complex, demanding project that gave him invaluable experience, not to mention fodder for his resume, which would help him get the paid job he wanted in the future.

Takeaway unconventional technique:

Don’t assume that you have to do an assignment in the way you were told to do it. And don’t ask permission to do something in an unconventional way; your supervisors will likely say no. As long as you’re not breaking any laws or important rules, just do it, and see if it works. If it doesn’t, you can always switch back to the conventional way.

Employment Strategy #2: Turn a Low-Level Volunteer Gig Into a High-Level One

Not yet having the credentials to get a paying job in the field he wanted, Eichenwald volunteered for a nonprofit. He applied for a particular volunteer position because it seemed vaguely related to what he wanted to get paid to do. The position, however, was at a low level; he would not obtain the experience he sought by staying in that role. But he realized that, once he got the position, he would have the chance to prove himself worthy of a high-level volunteer job. He did this by showing up uninvited to a meeting, presenting an interesting and workable proposal, and offering to do the work himself. His offer was accepted, and suddenly he was building skills and a powerful resume, by doing the job he wanted to get paid to do. Soon he would have the chops to apply for a paying job in that field.

Takeaway unconventional technique:

First, identify volunteer opportunities that are somewhat close to what you want to do. Next, get to know the paid staff, and let them know they can trust you. Then, instead of waiting to be invited to move up, make a bold proposal. Your proposal must be well thought out, and you must come across as highly competent to get the job done. Then get the job done.

Employment Strategy #3: Don’t Tell Them What They Don’t Need to Know

Eichenwald learned that it’s essential to tell the truth, but that the whole truth is not always conducive to achieving your career goals. For example, while working as a volunteer, while he still did not have a college degree, Eichenwald (as part of the high-level assignment he had talked himself into) needed to put pressure on people in government. He decided not to disclose the fact that he was an unpaid volunteer and a college student. While never telling a lie, he persuaded officials that he was a big enough deal that they should be frightened. As a result, he not only achieved his objective, but also received an offer from the mayor to join a new task force.

Later, when Eichenwald was applying for paid employment, he discovered that it was better not to disclose his epilepsy to hiring staff. If and when he got a job, he would let his supervisor know on the first day of work. This significantly increased the chances that he would be able to find a job. In some cases, telling his supervisor resulted in the employer trying to force him out. But even in those instances, he was able to work and receive pay for a short time, while resuming his job search. Plus, working somewhere, even for a short time, bulked up his resume.

Takeaway unconventional technique:

While never telling outright lies, strive to make people believe you are strong. Because you are. Maybe you have a health issue. Or maybe you don’t have a degree in the field in which you seek employment. Or maybe people jump to conclusions about who you are because of your age, a physical trait, or another characteristic. None of those things matter. If you know you can do the job, try to hide anything that might make someone turn you away.

On the other hand, if you know something will be an issue, disclose it . . . but wait to do so until it’s absolutely necessary.

Employment Strategy #4: Show Up and Start Working

Upon graduating from college, Eichenwald didn’t land an internship in his dream industry. So he took an internship for an organization in the same building as one of the organizations that had rejected him. At lunchtime one day, he wandered into the offices of the organization that had rejected him and asked someone if he needed help with a stack of papers. The person did not inquire whether Eichenwald actually worked there, but was glad for the assistance. And so Eichenwald began helping out before his internship began in the morning, during lunch break, and after his internship ended in the evening. When the boss finally noticed, weeks later, that Eichenwald was working without an internship, he got angry . . . but didn’t kick him out. Eichenwald had made himself too valuable. So he was allowed to stay on as an intern.

Takeaway unconventional technique:

When someone tells you no, push back. Find a way to make yourself valuable to the organization. Don’t ask permission, just do something helpful.

Employment Strategy #5: Reach Out and Be Available

When Eichenwald wanted to change jobs, he asked his colleagues for ideas on who might be hiring. He eventually acquired the name of a prominent person and gave him a call. The person told Eichenwald that he had no open jobs, but would be glad to meet him, the next time he happened to be in New York City. Eichenwald could have thanked him and hung up; instead, he told the person that he was scheduled to be in NYC the day after tomorrow! Two seconds prior to that, Eichenwald had not been scheduled to be in NYC on that day. But, at that point, of course, Eichenwald was scheduled to be in NYC on that day. Once they had arranged a meeting time and place and hung up, Eichenwald scrambled to come up with the money he needed to get himself to NYC by the day after tomorrow.

Takeaway unconventional technique:

Network like crazy—and with a goal in mind. Continually project competence and confidence to the people around you, and help them in any way you can. Then, when you seek a tip yourself, your network will be glad to help you. When you finally get in touch with someone with the power to hire you to your goal job, make things easy on that person—even if that makes things extremely difficult on you.

Employment Strategy #6: Enlist Others to Advocate for You

Eichenwald was in the running for a promotion: from coffee bringer, etc., to something much bigger. Things were looking promising, but then he heard a rumor that he was not going to get the promotion. Astonishingly, he had had the foresight to prepare a list of names and phone numbers, in case this happened. When it happened, he used it:

“I telephoned everyone at the Times who knew me or who owed me favors. . . . I asked each of them to call on my behalf to the boss of the editor about to hand down the bad news.”

The next day, an assistant managing editor called Eichenwald into his office:

“‘Congratulations,’ he said. . . . ‘You’re a reporter trainee for The New York Times.'”

Takeaway unconventional technique:

First, get yourself hired at the organization you want to work for, even if it’s the lowliest position there is. Next, meet everyone you can, and do them as many favors as possible. Finally, when it’s needed, call in those favors.

A Caveat on Getting a Job the Unconventional Way

The strategies listed in this article are risky! Each of them could have easily backfired. You need mad social skills, intellect, and confidence to pull them off. But there’s good news: social skills, intellect, and confidence are all teachable and learnable skills. If you possess these skills already, take them and run with them! If you don’t, I promise, you can learn them. It might take some time and dedication, but you can learn them. And, who knows? Acquiring these skills and putting them to use in unconventional ways might help you land your dream job one day.

Additional Resources on Being Bold and Unconventional

Read the memoir for the full, fascinating story: A Mind Unraveled by Kurt Eichenwald.

Check out my other blog posts on the memoir: my blog posts on A Mind Unraveled.

See also my blog posts on Dare to Lead, a book that provides research-based guidelines on how to be courageous in the business world: my blog posts on Dare to Lead by Brené Brown.

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