Security, Resilience, and the Road to your Future

Posted by random olio

A few months ago I read: “The Start-Up of You” by Reid Hoffman (Co-founder and Chairman of LinkedIn). The context of the book is that your life is always in start-up mode, and to put the same amount of focus in your life, job, and future as you would in a start-up company. He talks often about how start-ups have to constantly refocus and realign their efforts to make sure they are going in the right direction. He explains that individuals, just the same as start-ups, have to refocus and realign our efforts to make sure the choices we are making in life are going in the right direction. One idea that resonated with me was about resilience:

“…compare a staff editor at a prestigious magazine to a freelance writer. The staff editor at a magazine enjoys a dependable income stream, regular work, and built-in network. The freelance writer has to hustle every day for gigs, and some months are better than others. The staff editor is always well fed; the freelance writer is hungry on some days. Then the day comes when print finally dies, the magazine industry collapses, and the staff editor gets laid off. Having built up no resilience, he will starve. He’s less equipped to bounce to the next thing, whereas the freelance writer has been bouncing around her whole life–she’ll be fine. So which type of career is riskier in the long run, in the age of the unthinkable?” page. 189

Are you the staff editor or the freelance writer? Have you developed the strength you may need if you are the staff editor? It made me think about the different jobs I have had, the choices I have made in my life, and whether or not I would be resilient or not. So often I think we stay in jobs for too long because of the security they bring us, but sometimes that might be a false sense of security. If we could have a window into our future, and know that if we take that risk, and put ourselves out there that everything will work out and be okay. If we had that option, the world might have more risk takers. Yet, we can do that without seeing into the future. We can have a Plan B, we can prepare ourselves to be agile, and in turn develop the resilience of the freelancer. We would bounce back with any changes that get thrown our way, think quickly, and move on to our backup plan.

Which direction will you go? Are you stuck in the security of life? Or, do you treat your life and future like a start-up, constantly changing directions as needed?

Random Olio Snippets: 2

Posted by random olio

Amber Alert – There was an Amber Alert in Portland this week. The good news is the child was found within a few hours. While doing some research to learn what happened, I learned a few things. There is a new national initiative for alerting folks about Amber Alerts. I also admit that I did not know that “Amber Alert” was named after a girl named Amber that was abducted. I had always thought it was just an acronym, which it also is: America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response. There are times when I am in awe of technology. This is one of those times. Read on:

“Unlike Wireless AMBER Alerts, the WEA AMBER Alerts use the latest technology to send messages to wireless customers with WEA-capable devices in the area where a child has been abducted, even if the wireless customer isn’t from the area. For example, if a Chicago resident was visiting Boston and a WEA AMBER Alert was issued in Boston, the subscriber would receive the alert. At the same time, if an alert was issued in Chicago, the subscriber would not receive it while in Boston.”

Lawmakers salaries go into escrow if they miss the April 15 deadline – This article from CNN Money explains what is happening with the debt ceiling. The gist of it is that the House will be voting on a bill regarding whether or not to raise the debt ceiling. If they vote to raise it, that means the government can continue to borrow money against the $16 trillion dollars that the country already has in debt. The fun part? If lawmakers do not agree to a budget resolution by April 15: “Their salaries would be held in escrow and paid out at some point later.” Fun. I wonder how much they will make in interest! In any case, it is a novel idea to get different sides to work together and come to a resolution or their pay will be frozen. Sort of like having your allowance held until you can stop bickering with your sister. Sound familiar?

Eating Ourselves to Death – I want to see this episode of Our America on OWN. The episode is called: “Generation XXL” and airs January 29, at 10/9 pm Central time. I am passionate about health for youth. Growing up I did not have access to excellent, flavorful health foods. I hated vegetables. You could not pay me to eat them. I was active as a kid, but not as much as I could have been if I had encouragement from my family, especially my parents. Obesity, especially with children, needs our attention. If you have a chance to watch this episode, let me know what you think. I will be setting the DVR.

NFC Tags – I am fascinated by these NFC tags. I had never heard of them before I read this Fast Company article. Have you heard of them? If not click the link to read the article. I cannot even begin to try to explain. Just to give you a bit of interest:

“An NFC tag placed at your desk can tell your phone to open Evernote, tether your phone’s 4G to your laptop, mute your ringer, and remind you in 30 minutes to get off Twitter. But the issue both companies have discovered with tags is that they’re, ultimately, too capable.”

That is it for my Random Snippets from this week. Happy Friday!

Laugh lines, cars, and smiles…

Posted by random olio

One of my favorite things about Chris’ face are the laugh lines around his eyes. They are precious to me. I have watched them change over the past 10 years, and hopefully I have been one to help add to them. Those precious lines that show happiness and honesty. You can usually always tell when someone is giving you a real smile or laugh, just by the lines around their eyes.

There is nothing that makes my heart sing and a smile grow on my face than someone else laughing. The sound of a baby or child giggling uncontrollably is the sound of bliss in my ears. What could be better? On the other end of the age spectrum, is the man at the end of the below video. So precious.

I am not a fan of advertisements, but I have to give credit where credit is due. This VW ad campaign is clever, because it brings out your emotions. Instead of VW telling you all about their cars, and what is new, they instead speak right to your heart. They encourage you to stop, take a break, breathe, and laugh. You forget they are selling a product and allow you to just remember VW. The theme of this video is: “It’s not the miles, it’s how you live them.”

Enjoy and start watching for those laugh lines, they tell you a lot about an individual. Do not forget to smile and laugh today!

Clean sheets and feather pillows…

Posted by random olio

What does home mean to you? I was recently inspired by a blog post on Home by DesignSponge. It made me start to think about the different homes, dorm rooms, apartments, and condos I have lived in throughout my life. What made them home to me? My response: lots of things.

Growing up I do not remember specific things that made me feel at home. I guess I never had futuristic thinking or knowledge to know that after the age of twelve, I would never have a room to come home to that was my own. Once I learned that, I began to make each current “home” as comfortable to me as possible. In college that meant that my bed was the best place in my dorm room. I saved up from babysitting so I could purchase a feather bed, a feather comforter, amazing sheets, and, you might have guessed it, feather pillows. It was my home.

Gradually over the years, my bed was still very important, and I maintained the high quality sheets and of course, feathers, but as the size of my home evolved from a dorm room to an apartment, to a condo, to a house, so did my expanded of sense of home. Now, my sense of home is still very rooted in my actual house. My bed, the art, how it is organized, how clean it is, etc. all ground me and make me feel comfortable and at home.

Just like the saying goes: “Home is where the heart is.” That is true, and so in true form, Chris is my home. When we are together in someone else’s home, in a hotel, whenever or wherever we are together, I feel at home. One of my favorite things to do is to continue to make our house our home…together.

One last thing. I want to create a print and frame it that says: “You are responsible for the energy you bring into this home.” This is something that I have thought about over and over again in the past year. What energy am I bringing into other people’s homes and vice versa. What if we always thought of that before we enter any home, workplace, or commercial establishment?

We are only responsible for ourselves.

We are data whores…

Posted by random olio

I am not yet a data whore, but will I be soon? I just found this article from Fast Company that made my day. Since the article is about floppy disks and data storage, you might think: “Seriously, Tami?” but have patience with me. Chris and I found a few diskettes from college and a few zip drives from the first few years of our working careers. He would rather throw them away, but I have been looking for a while to find a way to retrieve the data on these disks.

We have looked all over town to see if there is a place, like a Kinkos, where you can go in and use their disk and zip drives that will read both Mac and PC disks. Nil, Nothing, Zippo, Nada. We thought about buying a drive on eBay or Craigslist and then trying to resell after we got the data off the disks, but thought that most likely our Macs will not even connect to the drives themselves. What do folks do when they clean out a closet or garage and find disks they can no longer retrieve the data on? Do they just keep in a box for their children, like old relics? Is it like keeping your Barbies or GI Joes for your kids?

I am partly sentimental. A few years ago, our laptop died and we found out only Chris’ profile had been backed up. I lost quite a few emails from my business and all the emails from the days when Chris and I were dating. That is why there is a small (okay more than small) part of me that is curious if I saved any other writing or emails on those diskettes that would reveal a part of my past I had forgotten. It might be just boring papers about books I hated to read, or projects from my first job that I might cringe when I see my right out of college work. Yet, still I am curious.

I think I might be nostalgic enough to send my stack away to floppydisk.com (see above article) to see what they can do for me. They probably have a wall of laughs where they print out all the random lost files of dead diskettes and zip disks (or soon to be once the last breath is taken from them). They state that they charge you whether they are able to pull content off each disk. It is definitely worth it as I can only imagine how slow the computer is that they must use to open these disks.

I can still see that bar going back and forth across the screen as the computer read your disk, while making odd noises, that sometimes met the threat of doom. Yes, those of you that are old enough to remember, randomly and usually when you needed it most, the computer would decide whether it wanted to read your disk that day and open your files. Or, when you finally finished the file with seconds to go and hit save on your hundred page file, it would take the computer minutes to hours to save and close your file. You could not eject or remove that disk and run like hell because you were late. The threat: if you pulled the disk out too soon, you may never see that file again.

Do not even get me started about what data might need to be saved from a Facebook profile, Twitter feed, or a blog. I am sure downloading and accessing that information is a feat in and of itself. I have pretended that my content lives in its own cell in a data center with no visitation rights.