“More than just a princess.”

Posted by random olio

Last night I spent the evening with a group of colleagues, all women. It was a badass bunch of women. Loads of talent, creativity, ingenuity, and well…sassy spunk. I am a sassy spunk kind of girl. I like to laugh. I like to ponder the world, deliberate on how individuals interact, and at the end of the day explore how women can rule the world. Why not, right? The mind of a woman is complex, intricate, and full of multi-tasking wonder. It is fun to have an evening of good food, conversation, and appreciation in the middle of the week.

I drove home thinking, “would I have had the same kind of evening with a mixed group of men and women?” My answer is yes, and no. See I did not know everyone well. I knew some better than others. And yet, I feel like women know how to bridge that gap, and find ways to connect, in ways that men don’t. Or so I think, since the last time I checked, I am not a man. Thank God.

Which is why this video resonated with me (much like “Riley and Pink Toys“). A good friend shared it on Facebook, and I had to share it, because while it is about future girl engineers, and toys for girls, it also makes me think of how the woman’s mind works. How everything in a woman’s mind is interconnected, a puzzle always being put together and solved.

A Beastie Boys twist of lyrics is what also does it for me. By the way, I love the girl’s t-shirt. “More than just a princess.” Damn straight! I am grateful for the openness, sisterhood, and connection that can happen so easily between women.

#womenrock

Staying True to Yourself

Posted by random olio

Fitting in or not. It is a fact of life. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t. What matters most is what we do when that happens. Do we try to change ourselves to fit in, or do we stay true to ourselves and not let who we are go even if it means not fitting in?

You would think that it only happens in school. Right? No, it is part of the world we live in, whether we are in school, at work, with friends, and sometimes even in our families. I definitely struggled at different points in school with fitting in. First, there is the question, do I even like the “cool” kids? Do I want to hang out with them, or are they annoying, mean, you fill in the blank. If there is a desire to hang with those so-called unattainable kids, then maybe you want to solve the magic 8 ball to find out how you can hang with them. You might find though that it is not always what it is cracked up to be.

It happens from toddlers to an old folks home, fitting in is just a fact of life. We all create tribes and cliques. We all have preferences and choices of who joins us. Yet, through it all, the most genuine way to fit in is to be yourself. I can remember countless times in my life when I never really felt I fit in. When I was younger and my mom was sick, my life was different, and it made it hard to relate to my peers. In high school when my mom died, I was back at boarding school within a week, and it made it hard to process and who I wanted in my life at that time.

Eventually something happens in your life and you learn that you just have to stick to who you are, regardless of whether others do not like you for who that is. It was in college when I finally said: “I don’t give a shit what others think. I am going to be me, and if others like that person, great, and if they don’t that is fine too.” We just have to stay true to ourselves, and let the rest happen. Otherwise if we divert from ourselves, it will take us that much longer to find our way home.

Johari Window

Posted by random olio

Many months ago a colleague told me about the Johari Window. It was an idea I had never heard of, but the concept keeps coming back into my thoughts. If you are not familiar with the Johari Window, think of it as a communication model shown with a grid with four boxes. The top left is our open area, it is the part of ourselves that both we and others see. The top right is our blind spot, it is what others see, but we are not aware of. The bottom left box, is the hidden area, it is only what we see. The bottom right box is the unknown, of which we have not learned, and others cannot see. I have seen these shown or described in different orders, but the gist is still the same.

The area that I am most interested in is our blind spots. This is the quadrant we can learn most about ourselves because we have the option of feedback from others. In teams where trust has been earned and communication is open, sharing feedback can be a constructive way to help others see their blind spots. An example: let’s say that a member of your team always cuts others off (I am sure I am an offender on that from time to time), and it is frustrating to everyone on the team. Cutting others off falls into their “blind spot” quadrant, if they have no idea they do it. If other members of the team share their frustration and constructive feedback, it could lead to helpful team dynamics going forward. It would mean they have opened this individual’s blind spot.

The idea of the Johari Window as a model of communication is that we constantly move between the different quadrants. If I share something new about myself, I have moved that information and insight about myself from my hidden area to my open area. If my team has taught me about a blind spot, it has been moved to my open area. Many of the things that might fall into a blind spot have to do with body language, mannerisms, style, and tone. This model helps to encourage feedback, so that individuals can know how their behavior impacts others. It is then their choice to work on it, or leave things untouched.

Ready to learn about your blind spots?

Tenacious Me

Posted by random olio

I have often been called tenacious. I never really liked it. I find it is a word that people do not really know the true meaning. Having a tenacious grip, a strong hold on something, not easily letting go or giving up. Yes, I would say that is me, but I always felt those definitions spun the word with a negative hint to it. That it meant you were more inflexible or strong-willed more than anything. So when I recently read Seth Godin’s 5 sentence blog post on tenacity and persistence, it was an eye-opening moment. He says:

“Tenacity is not the same as persistence. Persistence is doing something again and again until it works. It sounds like ‘pestering’ for a reason. Tenacity is using new data to make new decisions to find new pathways to find new ways to achieve a goal when the old ways didn’t work. Telemarketers are persistent, Nike is tenacious.”

It makes sense doesn’t it? Godin makes persistence almost sound like the definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results). It makes me wonder, are we all actually more tenacious than we think? Has the word had a bad rap, or is it just me that has associated negative connotation to “tenacious?”

So often (as I mentioned in my blog on change last week) we get stuck in the rut of old ways and forget that each new project deserves a fresh look. It might not make sense to follow the same process anymore. It is always appropriate to ask yourself, are we doing this because it is the way it has always been done, or because we have not stopped to update and change? If the old way is not working, change it. If the newer ways are stale, change them. My old way of viewing tenacious has been changed. Check.

Appreciating my better half

Posted by random olio

I have not written about him directly in a few months, probably not since our anniversary, but I am inspired to tout my husband. His birthday is coming up, and it makes me stop and think about all the years we have been together, all that we have become, and all that we have accomplished. It makes me giddy thinking about it, but isn’t that the way it should be?

In many ways we are very similar, and yet we are so, so different. He is the calm to my fire, the balance to my scale, the voice of reason, the one you listen to when he speaks because he is not talking all the time.
Midnight snacks in no particular order: cereal or ice cream, or cereal and ice cream.
I lucked out that we have similar aesthetic tastes from wood floors, furniture, to the most important: artwork.
We both waver between being introverts and extroverts. Regardless, I love that we can have a badass time whether snuggling on our couch multi-tasking with our laptops and the DVR, or out for dinner with friends. It does not really matter what we are doing when we are together.
I found a boy who loves it most when I leave the house so he can clean (note: he really just likes to clean uninterrupted, he is not that passionate about vacuuming). We both agree that a clean and organized house leads to a balanced mind. When we feel at home in our home, we are truly able to relax. It is nice that those tendencies are common in both of us, and not something we struggle or have to agonize over.
I know that when we sleep in on the weekends, I will always have to get up first, he will always want to stay in bed, and the only way we will ever start our day is for me to sneak out of bed first.
He likes bourbon, chocolate, and cheese, oh and did I say bourbon?
He knows when I am at that tipping point between tired and exhausted, hungry and famished, and how to keep me from going to the other side.
Lastly, the boy has mad taste in women. I mean he picked me right?

Happy Birfday, Christopher.