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Life is one big classroom. I learn something new everyday and something from everyone I meet. These are guidelines that I try to incorporate into my life everyday, as difficult as it may be sometimes.
Burning bridges is an ill-advised, final emotional act, one that will not serve any of us well. First, the satisfaction in telling off someone is brief. I can’t speak for everyone, but I have found a fair degree of self-loathing present after I have told off another. At the very least, I set a higher standard for myself–in spite of the occasional failure to meet that standard. I wish to treat others as I would like to be treated, the old Golden Rule. Whether someone deserves a sound verbal drubbing or not just doesn’t measure up to the standards I strive to meet.
Whether you are a fan of the 1984 or 2010 versions of “The Karate Kid,” you surely recognize the Zen-like instruction that transforms a lost, defenseless kid into a disciplined, convicted young man. Mr. Miyagi is stern and steady while requiring the Kid to wipe wax on and off an old car or take a jacket from his shoulders and hang it correctly on a hook.
This weekend I spent some time working on my strengths. I entered a time trial race and got 2nd place. It’s really fun at times to focus on what you are good at. But, in athletics as with life, sometimes most energy should be focused on weaknesses.
For example, I am a good, strong flat rider. But why would I go out and ride the flats all the time? All that is going to do is reinforce what I am already good at. There are two things that are my weaknesses in riding – leg speed and hills. Therefore, I should spend as much of my riding time as possible working on both those things.
Who doesn’t love the latest Girl-Power anthem, performed with great energy and passion by Kelly Clarkson who belts out: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?”
Every time I hear it, I want to press the accelerator a little harder, go a little faster, bounce in my seat, and sing out loud. If I’m at home, I simply must move, dance, and celebrate being strong, a survivor.
I currently work as a journalist and the Director of Marketing & Communications for a luxury travel and lifestyle magazine called Travel Time. I got involved with the magazine because of one reason: contacts.
The magazine is based in Santiago, Chile, so there is no way I would have heard of it or had the opportunity to work with such a revolutionary publication if it wasn’t for networking. A Chilean friend of mine, AZ, whom I had met in India while we were both working for the same company, was serving as the Editor-in-Chief at the time when she asked me to write an article about Uganda, after I had returned from my trip.
Photo credit: Sarah Clatterbuck
I just entered my first hack day a few weeks ago. And, to my surprise and delight, I was selected a winner. For those of you who don’t know, a hack day is where engineers take 24 hours and build their own ideas for products and then the ideas are judged. At Yahoo! We do this twice per year, and the judges are typically a panel of executives and architects.
In the last week, the wheels have been in motion as I begin a new design studio: Demand by Design Studios. My partner and I decided we just need to put our work together and toss it up onto a WordPress site, come up with a logo and a mark which we might change next week, and just get going.
Within a week, we created our web presence. We even have a few potential clients already, though we aren’t fooling ourselves that starting a business is as simple as uploading a logo and a few samples.
“Mother, can I…?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so, and I don’t want to hear any more about it.”
Déjà vu aside, what kind of child were you? Did you keep asking, did you go to someone else, did you throw a fit, or, did you drop it?
One of the first things I learned when I entered the workforce in HR is that denial is a form of weeding out who really wants something. In my first position, I was a benefits liaison for a major company, and part of my job was to be the person who kept asking “why” when health insurance companies would deny claims. The longer I did this, the more it became obvious to me that the automatic reaction from the health insurance company (at least the one that our company had), was to say “no.”
