Last year, when my friend Mike Taigman hung up his consulting shoes to become general manager for AMR in Alameda County, Calif., I couldn’t wait to hear his explanation. Stepping back from his successful globetrotting consulting practice to stay in one place and take over the reins of a busy chop-busting urban EMS operation on the brink of a fierce competitive bidding process was a big change.
Over a long, lazy Italian dinner, Mike explained that becoming the general manager of a private ambulance operation was simply the next challenge, the next calling, in a lifelong journey of callings. I’ve always admired Mike’s refusal to walk in shoes too small.
Walking in shoes too small is a phrase that Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung used to describe our propensity to ignore the calling to something bigger. Unlike our literal feet, which grow to a certain size and stop, our metaphorical feet—the drives, challenges, callings, yearnings of our careers and lives—never stop growing. Each stage of life, from infancy to old age, presents new opportunities and challenges. But often we fail to respond to the call for growth and wind up walking around in shoes too small, traveling boring roads, working jobs that do not challenge and striving for goals that do not excite. Invested in illusions of security, we are afraid to leave our old ways: the good salary, the good position, the dead but familiar relationship, the old dream long fulfilled.
It isn’t just people who walk in shoes too small—many organizations are fenced in by the plans of five years past because things are going “OK.” But underneath, the place yearns for the next level: It needs to grow, it needs something new. Yet with its feet crammed into shoes too small, nothing happens.
A predominant philosophy in EMS agencies is, If it’s not broken, nothing needs to change. Another is, We can’t take risks with such a vital public service. We’ll wait to see what everyone else does and then follow. Meanwhile, the motivational juice of the organization drains away, and the management team and staff become bored and create unnecessary dramas among themselves.
The symptoms that shoes are too small are often all too subtle. M. Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled, said, “The unconscious is always one step ahead of the conscious mind.” And, indeed, tight shoes often speak through our bodies and through emotional outbursts and unwanted events.
Here’s an example: Last September, the director of a hospital-based ALS service told me he was quitting to work for a flight service. He’d always wanted to fly but had not considered leaving his position until a serious case of non-infectious peritonitis landed him in the hospital and showed him how unhappy he was. Other symptoms show up as shriveling energy, flagging interest, persistent hunger, nagging dreams (both the sleeping and waking varieties) and the proverbial longing for greener grass.
While this new year and new decade are still young, this is an invitation to check on how your shoes are fitting. What feels constricting in your life? What would you most like to get rid of? Which emotion predominates in your life? In what have you lost interest? What is your body telling you? What calls to you from afar?
As I was writing this, I checked in with Mike to see how he’s doing in his new calling. His response was short and joyful, but he was far too engaged to chat about shoes too small.
John Becknell is the founding publisher of Best Practices. You can reach him at jmbecknell@gmail.com.
