Fast Company

When you feel heard, you trust…

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I have been thinking a lot in the last week about awareness. Being aware. Watching. Being present. After a few day training session at work, I realized how much more I could be aware of my surroundings, my actions, and how I approach situations. Last Friday I specifically practiced awareness, and while yes I was only in day one, I had a very good day. It could have also been because the sun was out, which means that those I was around were in a great mood. Sunshine in Portland in February does that to folks.

Regardless, I focused on listening in each conversation. I stopped, slowed down, and was aware and I enjoyed the day so much more. Sometimes that means I am more focused in my listening, other times it means I quiet my mind and do not say all the things that are happening within it. I am an extremely direct and transparent person, but I am learning that does not mean that I have to say everything that comes to mind. Part of being aware is listening to see if the person you are interacting with needs to talk and share from their own minds.

As I learned last week, awareness takes practice. Just as an Olympic athlete must train every day, so must each of us as we continue to be better and better, or as we continue to learn how to be our best. All we can do is try again each day. Try to be more aware, more present, and listen more. I love a line from this Fast Company article titled: “How One Simple Change Can Make You A Better Listener.”

“When people feel as though they have been heard, they trust you more.”

As well as:

“Ultimately, the ability to extract what people mean from a conversation is one of the most important tools of any leader. It takes a lot of work. And it requires curbing your natural tendency to jump right to a solution to people’s problems.”

I have a lot of work to do. I need to resist my constant urge to find a solution to problems, and start by listening first. Here is hoping I can keep up with my awareness this week. Listen more. Be more aware. Are you with me?

“The Level” from Fluidstance – I want one!

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Every once in a while I crave something I cannot have. My sister sent me a link to this Fast Company article for: The Level. I want one. Be sure to read the Fast Company article for a full background on The Level. But, here is the gist: it is like a skateboard that you stand on at your standing desk, or wherever you might be. It is a balance board that means that you use your core all day long. At this time the Indiegogo effort to raise money for The Level shows that they are sold out. So unless a bunch of us want to go in together to get a group volume we have to wait until they sell normally. Bummer. I think this could actually make me focus differently when I stand at my desk (the few times I am actually at my desk during the day).

I have a standing desk, which I love. I can decide if I want to stand or sit in my tall chair. Often I stand and I enjoy it. I have had a dilemma for quite some time that I am sitting at a computer (whether at my desk or later at night on much couch) and I want to do what I can to reverse the effects of my ever turning in shoulders. I try to stretch more and more when I feel the pain and weight in my shoulders. I should probably schedule more massages and take better care of my back, shoulders, and neck. But, as many of us are, I am negligent, and find that scheduling a massage is time-consuming. It should not be, but somehow it is. For example, I have a gift certificate I got about 9 months ago and expires in March. Which means I have not had a massage in that amount of time, yet somehow I never get around to scheduling the time to release all the tension in my body.

Every time I get a massage I say I need to do it more often, and yet I still do not. Maybe I should schedule it for Valentine’s Day and go pamper myself. Why not? Right? Do you take the time to pamper yourself? If so, what do you do? Hopefully, it does not just involve chocolate, but something that allows you to truly relax and release the stress in your body. Whether it is on a day-to-day basis at work, after work, or on the weekends. We all have to find a way to release the tightness, heaviness, and stress.

I look forward to “The Level” being for sale again. I think I might actually purchase it.

Pooping at work

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Yes, I am talking about pooping at work. Yes, you might feel uncomfortable, but you are most likely slightly curious. Come on, you are. You are curious. From time to time, I have shared poop stories, but this one came directly from Fast Company. How could I not share? The article is titled: “How the Most Successful People Poop at Work.”

I will tell you it is often a conversation in my office. Maybe not pooping directly, but the office bathroom is often a topic. For one there is a fascination for what the men’s bathroom looks like, does it have urinals? Is there any privacy? The women’s bathroom has recently had a range of smells. Sometimes it smells like men’s cologne and other times it ranges to the rankest of smells. We continue to call the direct line to someone who might be able to help rectify the smell, but we think the culprit is the drain in the floor bringing back some foul odor.

Does it tell you something about office culture that we can talk about pooping? Or farting? If you look back on my blog posts, I have frequently mentioned farting on an airplane, speeding because I have to poop, the squatty potty, poo-pourri, and much more. So as you can see it is a topic I feel quite comfortable discussing, but do we all feel comfortable with the topic? No. Yet this article talks a lot about the food we intake and how that interacts with our bowels, and the etiquette we find in work bathrooms. You know what I am talking about: those that hover waiting for you to leave so they can finish their business. Those that talk to try to mask the noises coming out of their bum, or as the article mentions throwing toilet paper into the bowl to try to mask the sounds. Whatever the method, we all try to mask the bodily sounds and noises that come from whatever food is wrecking havoc on our bodies.

So…why is it so taboo to talk about it? Why do we all shy away from it? I think my team has become mostly transparent about it, we laugh about it, and discuss what we can do about the rampant changes in the bathroom odor, but are we unique? Are we normal, or do most workplace environments quickly hike the stairs or rapidly push the buttons on the elevator in order to escape to a bathroom on another floor?

What do you do? Be sure to read the article I shared — it will add a chuckle or two into your day.

When you gotta go…

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Call me crazy, but I have always wanted to pee standing up. Of course a woman can pee standing up, but it really depends on where she is standing. Is she in the middle of the forest? If so, it does not matter. If she is in her friend’s bathroom, then it matters. The spray itself would tell her friend that like most men, she cannot keep it in the targeted basin.

Over the past few weeks I have found two new contraptions for women that help them to pee standing up. One is the paper funnel, featured on Fast Company, the other is called: “GoGirl.” Both allow women to pee standing up. I can tell you that there have been many bathrooms that I would rather not even walk in, but having the ability to pee standing up would have made things a bit different. Although I have mastered the art of squat peeing…so maybe I do not need to worry about peeing while standing up. But, what if you do not have a place where you can squat and pee? What if you only had a men’s room urinal? Then I would definitely need to learn to pee standing up.

One example mentioned in the first article above was in an airplane bathroom. Now I will tell you, I am 5 feet 5 inches and while I will not share my weight, I will say it is average to my height. However, I have been in a variety of airplane bathrooms that I could barely fit in. You know the ones that do not even have true sinks + running water, just a tiny ledge for hand sanitizer. Yuck. It makes it hard to let your jeans drop, hopefully hovering carefully on your shoes and not touching the floor at all. Heaven forbid knowing what has touched that floor. Especially with how hard it is to squat and pee in such a tiny space. That would be a good location for peeing standing up.

I especially appreciate the GoGirl that features “MommyGirl” for those that do not want their daughters to touch a thing in those nasty public bathrooms. You know what I mean! Adults can usually (many of us) have the strength to squat and pee, but not so easy to do for kids. They are $12.99 for one. Maybe I will have to purchase one for my niece (once she is potty trained). Would you use the paper funnel or the GoGirl?

Illegal Airbnb Listing?

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I recently heard about someone who was renting out their apartment via Airbnb, then I read this Fast Company article called: “This Website Snitches on Renters Who List Their Apartments on Airbnb.” It mentions the website that tracks it is called: Huntbnb. I am sure they are a viable company and many landlords connect with them to be sure their properties are not listed. At the time I thought it was odd that tenants would do such a thing. As a landlord myself, I would never want to find out that my tenants were renting out my condo for others to use. The article cites that in New York City, one-third of apartments are being rented in an illegal manner.

When you go through the vetting process to find renters, you want to find individuals that you can trust, that will take care of the property, and that will alert you when there are issues. If tenants are then turning around and renting the place that they have signed a lease for, in order to make money and have other individuals utilize the property then not only is it illegal, but it is a breach of trust. When a lease is signed it is intended that those on the lease will be the ones that are staying at the property.

I can imagine that legal property and lease documents will continue to be honed and revised because of individuals that are going against principle and legal means in order to make more money. There are so many involved legal issues and liabilities with having individuals stay in a property when no paperwork was transacted with the owner and those staying on the property. There could be issues with theft, damage, fire, etc. To me it has nothing to do with the tenants making money and everything to do with contracts/leases that are signed and the choice of who is staying on the property. There is a reason there is a vetting process for rentals. If a property is listed on Airbnb it should be there because it is truly owned and used as an Airbnb (or other type of rental) that is listed by the owners themselves.

If you are a landlord and are renting your property how do you feel about having your tenants rent out your property on Airbnb? If you are a tenant, would you “sublease” your place on Airbnb?