Perceiving and working through times of change
- Sutton Long
- Apr 27
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 27
"In his new book, What to Make of a Life, Jim asks readers to think about their own unique skills and natural gifts and to recognize the intrinsic value of major life transitions. He makes the distinction that what you are good at may be very different from what you are wired to do with your unique innate abilities and passions. He hopes to help you answer this question. What is your code for what to make of your own life?" —Oprah Winfrey
A friend shared this recent Oprah podcast with me, and I was so grateful. Oprah's guest, Jim Collins, is well-known as a business consultant but wasn't familiar to me. Which makes sense as his most recent book is a departure for him from the business world (not my world so much) to something more personal (definitely my world).
Two of Jim's concepts about life transitions stuck out to me: the cliff and the fog. Jim says that everyone encounters multiple cliffs in their lives. They're times of big change — an empty nest, job loss, death, divorce, accident, etc. — and are so large that you tumble off into thin air, not knowing what's next.
After the tumble, you land in what Jim calls the fog, which is a time and space when you legitimately don't know where you are. He says that you can't think, plan, or strategize your way out, the only way forward is by taking small steps — exactly like you would do in a fog when you couldn't see what's not only ahead of you, but in any direction. With each small step, you follow what he calls encodings.
Jim defines encodings as small innate tendencies within you that create a pull for you to follow. Like the concept of a small acorn that already has the full-grown oak tree encoded within it, so an encoding is an existing capacity that lives within you. Your job is to feel the pull and follow it.
Not only did I like the content of this conversation, I also appreciated how well Jim and Oprah seem to connect. It created a lovely feeling for a conversation that also gave me a new framework for thinking about changes that I've been through.
On a side note: Jim's concepts also made me think about James Hollis' Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, in which he posits that in the first half of life, which is not a literal timeline but a psychological one, we live from outer expectations while the second half is about finding your way from within, answering the call of your soul. James Hollis is a Jungian psychologist, so his writing and beliefs come from a different angle, but I could feel an alignment in the need at a certain point in life to learn to listen to and follow your own inner voice.
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