Houdini's guide to escaping the chains and handcuffs of your current job

If you love your job, great. If not, join renowned escape artist Harry Houdini and me as we transfer a key to you with a kiss.

Wise-up: you are more powerful than you think

The key to power is empowerment, someone giving you power. Hopefully you have someone. Many do not. So what if nobody is giving? Give it to yourself.

In practice self-empowerment can be harder than it looks and you will need to find some inner resilience and purpose. You will also need to break out of unhelpful framing narratives and shaping behaviour created and maintained by your boss (e.g.https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/news/bad-bosses-can-make-you-sick-4693492/) , your environment, your work, your colleagues, your network and critically, yourself. Inner work is hard, painful, and when you emerge life may not get better straight away. It is difficult being different, it messes with people, you may have to make a fresh start, change gradually or pretend. It sets off a great disturbance in the Force. The Japanese have a saying for this: https://www.tofugu.com/japan/conformity-in-japan/

Are you worthy? If you work just a little bit harder then perhaps you will get the promotion. Perhaps you don't have what it takes after all...

Rubbish. These framing narratives make up for around 90% of work for many people. Wheels within wheels within wheels of fear, uncertainty, doubt, micro exaggerations, falsehoods, assumptions, misplaced assertion (good for you, bad for me), hubris all playing out in a toxic soup. And that's just my badminton club.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimesis for a taxonomy

If you can ditch them or change them or game them the world starts to look a lot different. Opportunities will emerge. Welcome to the duality:

This relates to what Gretchen Rubin has to say about a clean slate, a duality perspective can sometimes what is needed rather than more disruptive life changes, and will make any changes you do make more powerful: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/has-clean-slate-ever-led-major-habit-change-you-gretchen-rubin-1e/

Real change can sometimes be disturbing but this is an illusion. You are developing and using this newfound purpose to give alternative, healthy choices for how you view the world. A bit of satire on this from Joshua Merenfeld:

Scanning round my feed I found this amazing talk by Verna Myers who is further along this journey than myself and a powerful orator:

Ditching this stuff is hardest if you stay in your organisation or social circle since the interactions you have will tend to reinforce it all. And if you change and others stay the same they might fight to get you back in line without realising they are doing it - they have their own framing narratives after all. You either need to solve all of it or none of it:

Harry Houdini had a good trick: he puffed himself up before a straitjacket was put on giving himself more room to manoeuvre. Learn from this. Breath all the way out and the space between yourself and the straitjacket is where you can grow.

What makes you happy and why? And what is preventing it and why? And what can you do about it and why? As the ancients knew, why has always been the answer:

And the inimitable Bruce Lee sums this search for authenticity perfectly. Seek to answer the question:

Start from the root: how can I be me?

And as Bruce quotes are so uplifting read all these:

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/bruce_lee_394186

If you can leave, do so

Received wisdom is to bail out. And if it is an option (e.g. you can afford the risk, don't have Stockholm syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome) and things have gotten that bad then perhaps this is best. But what if the problems are with yourself? They will just resurface elsewhere. And what if the problem is with other people, society, the natural world? Same logic applies. Inner work is required to progress. Be honest and transparent with yourself about what is holding you back (empowerment tip: tell others if it is safe to do so). Remember: an inner move is still a move and often a further one.

R Buckminster Fuller had many useful quotes on this theme:

And here is a cool build on this theme with great graphic when you expand it:

If you can't move, skill up with these self-empowerment tricks

I have read a fair number of self-help books over the years. Some helped some did not. If they work for you then go for it but what life has taught me over the years is that we are all unique. What turns on the light switch for you may be different than for someone else. Experiment and see. Be good to yourself in ways that you can. Eat well, get in shape - look at Harry's ripped legs. Treat yourself to a massage.

Embrace the duality some more.

Imagine a new role for yourself that transcends the current structures and work towards it a bit each day. No need to divulge unless you want to. Name others as well, most organisations will have a director of pretending to change, it's human nature, it's inevitable. It's like Cats, three different names. Try not to judge the game players too harshly- we're all at it. Instead of being cynical why not help them reform?

A good trick is be the hero of your own story. Know the hero's journey. We're programmed to follow it after all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey

We also need a vision of what good looks like. Marcus Raitner has figured this stuff out and beaten me to the punch:

Some of what I write is influenced by Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power, a useful but incomplete work. You don't have to become Machiavelli to benefit but I recommend it to anyone wanting to reassess their understanding of the human world:

https://www.nateliason.com/notes/48-laws-power-robert-greene.

Note: there is power in weakness if you are adept - your weakness reinforces framing narratives in others ...

cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factitious_disorder_imposed_on_another

...they may need you this way and you can play with denying them if you wish. I will go further and posit that all asymmetric relationships and beliefs (hierarchies, value judgements etc.) are actually a manifestation of a type of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. At some level we're all at it. The secret of inner work is breaking cycles of addiction to getting what we need (esteem, sense of purpose) from others, and more generally from that which is outside ourself.

Also bear in mind that these heuristics are often learn survival skills. Much of it will be subconscious. Our instincts may be to play games but our conscious mind and ego will build narratives to rationalise what is happening at the subconscious level. A light switch for me was learning about ego defence: https://www.simplypsychology.org/defense-mechanisms.html

Here is a playbook of techniques that have helped me. Some of them are more advanced than others and all is work in progress - let me know if you can do better. If you need help from someone more empowered then find someone you trust. Many people want to help. Avoid direct peer group as rivalry may be at work, as Greene says, even between people we are close to:

Harry Houdini was a childhood hero of mine and came to mind when I thought of writing on this theme. Who were your childhood heroes and how might they inspire you to get out of your current predicament?