jalléCafe

Emotions, Learning & Monday Mornings

You might have noticed by now that I sometimes give myself a little "pep talk" at the beginning of the week.  Today it is raining.  I started the morning with a little grumpy inside-voice conversation.  Definitely don't want that voice to translate outside.

Sometimes I make my own learning and living uncomfortable, even stressful, by having too high expectations about how fast a new idea can move forward.  How fast a person (me or anyone else) can learn something new.  When the timing expectations are not met, I become disappointed.

Thing is that learning often happens unexpectedly.  Like life.  And of course then it brings unexpected emotional and even physical reactions.  I love and hate this part.

I need a little sense of humor with myself this morning. I'm digging deep for it here... Over the weekend I read a column in the Financial Times about about the cult and business of happiness taking place in the USA right now.  Our culturally defining trait of "hope" being turned into book and seminar sales.  And yet in the final conclusion, the FT US Managing Director Christia Freeland bought "optimism" if moderated  with a little reality.  It's the old "hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and pray for a miracle" perspective.

I will pray this week for the miracle of learning patience, hope it is possible, and prepare to keep my grumpy inside voice to myself!

Real life

Two hours ago, I sat in a doctor's waiting room editing a document for a client.

At some moment, I put down my pen and asked myself, "Is this the way I would want to spend the last few minutes if I knew that the next hour would change my life forever?"

One hour ago, as I left the office relieved that the lump in my breast is not an emergency, I debated: do I go finish that document or do I go celebrate in some way my continued health?

I decided to celebrate by finishing the document and feeling happy that I face only the stress of a client deadline. 

In 10 minutes from now, I will go jog -- suddenly this afternoon not too tired to feel my body move.

This post is dedicated to a friend - who is also a wife, mother, and business woman -- as she is currently being treated for breast cancer. I understand only the beginning of her strength.

Taking each small step

Monday morning again!  I face it with a strong list of things to do. And 2 coffees.

In my business, we are marketing a new product.  Currently full-scale in client contact outreach to introduce it.  Three of us "selling" updated each other last Thursday -- conference call via my mobile phone while I sat on a train that left 10 minutes later for Milan (technology is amazing these days).  We wish we could make faster progress -- people on holiday this week (ski break for schools here), in meetings, too busy, etc. etc.

I constantly remind myself that I am enjoying the days as much as ever in my life and that the goal is, in fact, just that: to live all days and not just for work. 

In 2003, when I started the whole change that led me to today, I wrestled with much deeper stress over my father's death and my own disappointments. Uncertainty about how my future would work out...did I take a stupid leap out of a 16-year career or was I really on the right track? I wrote then, "I kept taking that next step.  Meeting the next new person.  Reading the next assignment."

I look where I am today, four years later.  My own business.  Lots of new experience.  Living in a place I genuinely love.  Keeps it all in better perspective. Short-term anxiety and self-doubt be banished...the beauty of change and learning and living for me has proven to be the way I feel when, somehow, finding the strength and the faith to take the next little step in the direction of something I value. It comes easier some days than others, of course. And can get lost in the busy-ness that turns so-called-beauty to stress. 

I am going to try to take my own 2003 advice this week.  :-)  Next!

Dealing with difficult people

"There's always someone who doesn't want to live by rules," Mom says.  "You have to give him or her choices."  Let him move around if he can't sit still.  Look for activities that interest her...write it her way, read about it, talk with someone.  Sometimes it is hard to find a choice:  Do it now or stay in and do it when everyone else is outside playing for recess.

Choice is important because, at home, it may be different.  A parent may be domineering.  The child needs to feel that he or she has some freedom, some control. Not backed into a corner.

Mom moved quickly from the idea of dealing with difficult behavior to bringing out the desire to be cooperative.  It is important to catch all children being good sometimes, Mom said.  Not just the good students.  You can find a child being good by being a friend, being kind to someone, behaving, doing something helpful.

Mom said she used to give a ticket to a child who she caught "doing something good."  Later, the child could exchange the ticket for a piece of candy or other small prize from a jar.  "It really worked?" I asked.  It did, she said, "A kid will do anything for a Jolly Rancher."

So how is your business going?

Friday night -- after a client workshop in Paris (sounds exotic, doesn't it?) -- I had dinner with a friend (and former colleague) who immediately asked:  So how is your business going? I responded that I was happy with it so far or something equally bland.  Then I tried to explain in a jumble of sentences how it really felt to be so early in it.  The steps I consider to be progress.   The fears that drift in on some days.

During this conversation, we darted through cold rain in the Saint Germain neighborhood, splashing across streets showing "red men" (me usually a step or two behind because in Switzerland we rarely cross until green, even if there's not one car in sight).  We ended in a brasserie, huge this one.  Drank a champagne.  Ate a mountain of seafood.   The intensively French, candid and enjoyable evening lasted until early morning.

As my airplane taxi'd yesterday towards take-off home to Zurich, I decided I need to think a little about how to express the feeling of my business right now.  My intuition says we're moving... we have clients, new products, things to talk about that we believe are important.  And there is a "we."  Others who now contribute to progress.  We are building something that I believe will help real people bring the best of themselves to leading.  The rest is just details and persistence required to make it happen in the long run. It's really the process and the way it (and the people & lifestyle around it) adds to my life now that I feel so lucky to be part of...a sustainable end result will take years. 

I asked a close friend of mine in the States once how it felt to be a new mother.  She said "wonderful."  But it was the look in her eyes and the sincere contentment in her voice that said the most.  It must be a little, just a little, like that...

"Hump Day" or Umpf! Day?

It's 11:06 p.m. (23:06 to those of us in Zurich).  That already explains my Wednesday.  But let's start at the top:

7:15 in office working on project to send client by 8:00.  E-mail until 8:30.  15 e-mails had arrived since I checked at 7 p.m. the previous night.  First meeting guest arrived 8:45.  Second at 9:30.  Between more e-mail, finished a client list update for meeting.  Couple of phone calls with client and vendor.  10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. meeting to review client list and get materials ready for graphic designer.  2:00 - 3:00 p.m. lunch with one of these colleagues.  3:00 to what was supposed to be 4:00 -- more client discussions.  A vendor returned my phone call for an "edgy" conversation about service.  One client called unexpectedly to "quickly" talk something over, delaying my call to another client by 30 minutes.  Travel plans organized for tomorrow.  Well, not booked, just options considered because I was able to confirm where I am supposed to be, but still waiting on friend in France to confirm dinner is open while I am there.  Just walking outside for a quick drink with a colleague and another client who always generously take interest in my new products (by now 7 p.m. -- confirmed by nightly clanging of apparently very large church bells in steeple behind our office), 3 phone calls to my mobile -- I answered one -- from France.  The others had to go to voice mail while I was talking.  8:30 p.m. back in office booking tickets and listening to voice mails.  9:00 p.m. bath water running at home.  Packing for trip.  9:30 p.m. remembered to take the bath.  10:00 nutritious dinner (don't ask !!)  Now on blog.  Still pondering train/plane decision for tomorrow.

What's hard to describe are the moments of stress between computer keyboard, printer, phones ringing, "got a minute?"  The days are gone in an instant.  I battle a little frustration of so much to get done.

Yet this is creating a business that started in my imagination...and the stress is familiar to many jobs.  It just has more meaning for me now to get through it.  11:36.  Good night.

Spirituality and "rules"

During the holidays, "boyfriend" and Mom spent nearly an evening debating how literally one can interpret the bible stories we explain to children at Christmas.  (Mom teaches Sunday School in Ohio; boyfriend's best church story is about climbing to the top of a Swiss church tower as a prank -- an adventure my brothers sadly missed by not having been raised Swiss.)

I mostly enjoyed and appreciated the directness of the questions and answers, although they were both so opinionated that I felt I almost had to separate them into their corners after some hours.  We all had early times in our lives when we learned the "rules."  Now as adults of various ages, we still interpret their meaning differently and individually.

During the Fall, several people had raised spirituality with me in a range of contexts.  And I recognized that I could say more about what I didn't believe (e.g. in the interpretation of rules by organizations, which are always about Power in some form.  That "religion" does not always respect the individual right to choose what he or she believes) than what I did believe.  And yet, this is an important dimension of a whole life -- what one feels or believes about the larger world does drive certain actions and attitudes.  And so as I've had a little time to ponder I recently wrote these things in my journal:

What is a belief in something "Spiritual?"

It's an ability to let go to life and accept it as it is

To listen a little better to the inside voice

To trust a little more

To control (or try to be in control) a little less

To relax better and adjust better

To love more

To show more kindness, generosity

To hope for the best in all situations and to believe that it is sometimes possible

For me, the point of the story-telling is a way to communicate that no one can be perfect. Stay open to new perspectives in life and learn from them.  Or at least try.

A sea of black suits

Yesterday, I went to hear a CEO speak at the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce luncheon.  Every morning that I see this ahead on my calendar, I groan a little to myself that I have to wear a traditional dark suit that day.  Even a skirt.  Now I dress often more casually, more comfortably. Some days, I wear jeans to the office.

Each time I walk into one of these event, I am swept away by the sea of black. Almost all men.  I feel I've jumped back in time.  After 15 years in Corporate America I often wondered why we bothered with all the formality that gets in the way of real conversation.  White linen table cloths, china, a lot of forks and spoons all around your plate. And sometimes I wished I was in a simple bar drinking a beer with friends.

Happily, this event usually serves a good purpose.  Carsten Schloter, Swisscom CEO, proved intensive and focused as I imagined him from my reading.  In fact, we often hear someone interesting and see them talk up-close and personal.  I would rarely have this opportunity in another larger city than Zurich.  Such events in London or New York would be huge and difficult to even commute to...I walk 5 mins!

I have nearly always enjoyed an interesting conversation at my table.  This time with a Reuters reporter (not wearing a suit) and an ex-Pat American consultant.

Maybe I've learned to be myself, even when dressed like a man...or as a friend calls it "a penguin."  Anyway, it's not so often now; no sacrifice of my personal life required.