The Room Wants to Talk to You

Interior designers say the funniest thing: “Let the room speak to you.”

Now, of course, they don’t mean that you should sit in a room and listen for voices. Well, not in that sense, anyway. They mean that you need to put aside your preconceptions and prejudices, and wait quietly until everything that the room is, has been, and might be, becomes known to you. Its proportions, its orientation, its history, its situation in the building and on the lands, its purpose, the way light comes through the windows, and its emotional impact on you. A thousand nuances.

And what does the room say about its proposed uses? Will it be filled with the laughter of young children, the ponderous silence of a library, the hushing majesty of stained glass, or the aromas and bustle of a busy kitchen? All these things tell you what this room should look like, and only when the room has finished instructing you in an organic way are you ready to start thinking about layout, colours, and accouterments.

In exactly the same way, the young professional needs to “listen to the room”. Your career is the room in which you will spend most of your life, a room in which your reputation, perhaps even fame, will take root and flourish. This is a room where clients will come to you because of your reputation and your skills, and they will trust you to work the magic they need.

This is a room where you will create masterpieces, where you will share joys and kinship with colleagues, and where you will make the world a better place. This is why you need to listen to its voices.

Some voices are more important than others, and the important ones are not the loudest ones. In fact, there are two loud voices which, if given too much attention, will make you miss your target.

Mentors, elders of the profession, and employers have much to tell you, and you need to listen. At the same time, don’t let them take over the agenda. You can’t live in their rooms, you must create your own.

Typically, the loudest voice of all is the voice of money, and for good reason. As you enter your profession, you are not only five or ten years behind your high school chums in buying a home and starting a family, but you are often under a mountain of student and startup debt. It’s no wonder the voice is loud and insistent, and if you allow it, this voice will nag you all day and all night and shout down all the others. If you let that happen, you will become the slave, not the master.

But if you listen carefully, with your heart, you will hear voices telling you that there are special things that you can do that no one else can do, there are needs which call for your unique giftings, and that if you learn how to become your “best you”, you will accomplish things you’d never dreamed possible. You can change the world. And you will be more than fairly compensated. These are the voices to which you must listen most attentively, because if you do, everything else will fall into place.

(Extract from my book, The Alignment Doctrine.)