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Nibras 🌀's avatar

I’m so glad that you write, and that the internet exists so that I can be exposed to your thinking via your writing. I’ve adopted so many helpful ideas, frames and tools from you. Love this distinction, thanks for sharing 🙏🏽

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Michael A Alexander's avatar

You write "crunchy work seems to provide some satisfaction that I can’t get from purely squishy work - I’d been doing mostly consulting and coaching work for a few years at that point, and it was very much feeling like I was missing something major"

With crunchy work you achieve satisfaction from accomplishing some well-defined objective. The same satisfaction can be achieved from squishy work as well. Servers at mom and pop restaurants and bars do squishy work and yet can achieve real satisfaction in from their interactions with regulars who keep coming back because they like what you provide. Project managers do squishy work but achieve satisfaction when the projects are completed successfully. Caregivers can see the effects of their work on the response of their patients/clients to their care. Their lives are obviously better for them being there. What creates satisfaction is seeing positive results from your efforts. It can be hard to experience this in consulting/coaching. The issue is not crunchy vs squishy but identifiable benefits to people versus more amorphous effects.

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