jalléCafe

Nurturing moments of brilliance

A client motivated my latest reading through a "reciprocal recommendation." I recommended Tribes by Seth Godin to inspire ideas about how individuals can build momentum and community.  My client recommended Seth's latest book, Linchpin, about (in my words) careers, creativity and making something happen.

I finished Linchpin during a flight from Argentina.  You can find lots of excerpts and an excellent list of related resources on Seth's quite active blog. 

What resonated with me: that brilliant creativity happens in a flash.  It may come together through being present and disciplined in your field over time, but it happens in barely a moment.

My best ideas often come through "moving meetings" when I travel.  I take in the stimulation around me, add to it what I already have learned, ponder over it while seemingly doing something else like walking or just observing my surroundings. Then, pouf!  Something comes together that changes my next step.

I wasn't sitting at the computer pounding out a strategy.  I was out in the world, noticing my feelings and thoughts while they happened. Capturing them in my journal.

This is why Seth thinks the office is becoming less relevant and hourly work less valuable.  And it has taken courage for me to unleash myself from my desk and the 9 - 5 grind.  Yet I could see it even in my journal during the 14-hour Argentina flights, my best business ideas happen when I move!

Life's message of the month

My theme for June (or at least the first week of it) seems to be art & creativity. 

I know this because of how art kept throwing itself in front of me in unexpected ways last week.  On Monday, a man on the train from Basel (where ArtBasel is underway) gave me a colorful artist's exhibit book from Foundation Beyeler because he didn't want to carry it on to Paris. 

Tuesday, my graphic designer shared her lovely, authentic ideas for a visual blog that I hope she will pursue.  Wednesday, non-blogger Sandra sent an invitation to her own painting exhibit in August. 

As I walked home Thursday much later than usual, I found this lovely "light art" demonstration wrapping a building on a busy corner near my tram stop.  By Friday morning, I had the message! CREATE, BE COLORFUL, EXPRESS YOURSELF 

And so, this weekend I wrote and wrote and wrote.  My own paintbrush is pen and paper, often expressed later in a workshop or on this blog. What's yours?

Recognizing signs of growth, personal and professional

I want to take a jog or at least a walk. But it's raining on this gray Sunday afternon. And it's between World Cup soccer matches.  What can I do creatively to wait it out?  Blog! 

On Friday, reaching a weekend pause in the second of three fun, intensively scheduled weeks, a new arrival in the studio surprisingly made me feel more like a real business owner: a professional printer/copier/scanner/fax machine.  I had been getting by on my store-bought printers so far.  But as I increasingly must print volumes of workshop materials fast, I needed an upgrade.  Funny, the unexpected symbols of growth.

The day itself unfolded in what I've adapted to as the typically hectic pace of entrepreneurship. As the printer arrived, so did a new employee (well, freelance on her way to being one I hope) to pick-up materials for next week. I simultaneously waited on my landlord for coffee and twice postponed both my lunch and a meeting with colleagues at Gibbs & Soell downstairs because the technician needed longer to train me on the new equipment. Received three phone calls about the Professional Women's Group event next week and somewhere in there finished the summaries from last week's workshop in Argentina, final details for one next week, and agendas for new ones in North America in July.

A new-found maturity has been growing since I moved into this office space. For the business and in me. I recognize I'm living something I dreamed and that it's up to me to enjoy the chaos, the opporutunities, the challenges and still show the woman who I want to be through it.

It all makes me step back calmly sometimes right in the middle of stress and simply smile, then move on with spirit. Now that's a woman I didn't always see in the past when I felt stress. She's surely a welcome arrival.

As is the current pause in the rain on this fast escaping Sunday afternoon. I'm off for a jog with a smile.

Mystery solved at 35,000 feet

One good thing about my four-full-length-feature-film flight yesterday is that I unexpectedy and enjoyably solved a mystery from February 2009 when I walked out of my office directly Into a movie.

I never found out what movie they were filming.

Until yesterday, three films in, I watched a charming one titled Julia's Disappearance. This popular movie released last year with a script by well-known Swiss writer, Martin Suter tells the tale of a woman who decides to skip her 50th birthday party.

At the end she stepped out from the door just beside my office exactly into the same scene. Ah! Now I know!  I could totally relate to Julia.

The other charming and miraculous thing about my day with a four-movie flight: I sipped coffee while sitting sleepily on my sofa in Zurich at 6 a.m. and enjoyed dinner while sipping a nice glass of red wine  (again rather sleepily) in a country half-way around the world.  Modern life is indeed a miracle of opportunity!

 

Meltdown Moment

You know I'm busy when I blog less than once a week.  I love writing and blogging. Since returning from Hungary, I'm deeply, happily busy.  I walk out of many conversations thinking how fortunate I am to create a business. Take time still with friends. It's worth all fatigue. The energy replaces most stress.

Then, of course, there are the meltdown moments. Somehow always unexpected.  Like just after 6 p.m. tonight.  I suddenly looked at my project list and said: this is not possible!  "I did nothing today!" (Not true, BTW, just not those projects first.)  "I have meetings, deadlines, impossible!" And I felt for about 60 seconds like falling in a heap on the floor out of despair. All logical, positive thought hit a standstill.

But then I said, "What are you going to do? Your clients talk about this stuff.  How do you get out of it??"  That straightened me up a little. Can't be a good role model from a heap on the floor.

Time to be soothing.  "OK it cannot be that bad. You are probably hungry." True.  Then I set a time limit - one hour, "What can you best in one hour?" Managed the first project in 25 minutes.  The second in 30.  Walked out as I promised myself.

All seems better now. Meltdown reaction stopped. Tomorrow is a new day that I can face.

I cook my best pasta sauces after meltdowns.  This one smells of peppers, onions, oregano.  The reward for recovery!

My father would have loved being Hungarian, except...

 I just spent five days fully immersed in Hungarian culture as seen through the eyes of friends who had gathered with family to celebrate the 80th birthdays of their mother and father in the same year.  Fabulous!

I will have much more to say about their warmth and generosity and a trip that will forever change my travel perspective.  We stood in large gardens, drank homemade raspberry juice, grilled over an open wood fire, listened to men sing together as they had for decades, and ate too much (totally high fat, carbo-loaded) food that 80-year-old Grandma kept cooking and forcing on us.

In the men, I saw a similarity to my father (who died much younger): a mix of warmth, humor and the scars of a life hard fought with unexpected twists and disappointments along the way.  Yet they were standing together still fighting the fight.  Watched tolerantly by wives (and children) with whom I'm sure they had also argued and laughed in turns for decades.  This unexpected feeling of connection in a totally different culture with a fully different history surprised and moved me.  Dad would have appreciated that.

But then again, Dad probably wouldn't have as much appreciated the homemade schnapps as the rest of us, which was totally as hot as it looks here (not that they warned us before the first shot!).

Always a storm before the calm

I really meant to write the headline that way.  Today, I'm trying to work as men drill and pound and create a general dust storm in the main part of my new studio.  On Monday, a cute little custom-designed tea-kitchen is supposed to arrive.  We must be prepared. 

It was so clean yesterday. And organized.  And quiet! Now the coffee machine table sits askew in front of me. Books and glasses are piled again in the corners. I feel the drill vibrations creeping up from foot to neck.

You know, this is sometimes how I feel just before I make a clear new decision.  Emotions spin.  My head feels cloudy.  Then suddenly one morning: pouf!  Something triggers a clearing.  I know what to do. It becomes easy to put the next steps in order and move forward with enthusiasm or at least determination.  In fact I have learned to have faith that a storm signals a clearing on the way.

I hope this "pouf!" also happens in my studio by our seminar next week.  Though sadly it will likely require me storming around first with a good old dust rag.

Life's bookends

 I started this week celebrating a birthday. Mine.  Not like me to announce it in public or at all, but with so many social media websites updating people automatically, what's the point of hiding?

Then at the end of the week, I joined a "celebration" of the life of the man who owned the apartment I have rented for the last six years.  He originally built it for his own father.   The father died two years ago. Roman Fritsche died two weeks ago suddenly. A heart attack.  He was 60.

In the photo above some of his employees gather outside a cafe near the church before the service.  One of these women told me she had worked twenty seven years for Fritsche Reisen. Mr. Fritsche founded his travel agency 31 years ago.  A small, successful company with a few dozen employees.  The priest characterized Mr. Fritsche as a man with energy, humor, a love of life and travel, and a gourmet cook.  He'd made 100s of trips in his life.  I can attest to that as even my first inquiry call was returned from Spain. Later email replies from Asia, Egypt, the States.

My sunny apartment feels a little more forlorn for the loss, but I am stronger for the reminder that I'm writing my own story, also an entrepreneurial one.  I hope in 30 years, someone might say with some happiness they started working with me in my business two decades ago. I would be way past normal retirement age for that to happen.

Then again, when you do something you enjoy and bring others into it, I call that living a happy, fulfilling life.  Give me three decades, please...

What have you noticed 170 times?

As of today (at 9:30 EST, weighing in at 7 lbs. 3 oz according to Mom's annual message), I have lived more than 17,000 days.  Imagine that?  Sure an alarm clock has startled me awake well more than 10,000 times so far. Ugh! Even this morning, even when I did not go to work.

The last few days, because I was not working, I had time to notice a fountain close to my apartment.  In fact many normal days now I have time to notice fountains when I walk home. Yet I think that's only maybe 100 or 200 times so far in 17,000 days. Barely a percentage.

A friend told me that there are more than 1,200 fountains in Zurich.  And then he commented that each one must have it's own sound because it has its own shape and water pressure and location.  I thought that was a cool idea.  Doesn't it seem like I should be able to reach a higher percentage of noticing - maybe 10% or 1700 times?  I could notice if each one has a different sound.

What have you noticed 170 times or 1% of the days of your life?

Well, here's one fountain as a symbol for noticing more! (PS, blogged for the first time from flickr.  Who says you can't teach 17,000 day old dogs new tricks??!)

The art of resolving miscommunication - feeling heard & understood

While traveling some weeks ago for a workshop, trying to pinpoint what it is that I do for a living exactly, I jotted this in my journal. Found it this morning and thought it was worth a post.

I'm not an expert on resolving miscommunication, but I do know how to help people feel heard.  And over the years as I've been fascinated with the topic, I've come to believe that feeling heard can in fact avoid a whole lot of misunderstanding in the first place. 

What can you do so that people feel "heard?"

1. Ask their opinion and find something in it that benefits your own growth or your business situation. Learn the intense pleasure of seeing someone "light up" because his or her idea was genuinely valued and used. This feeling can far exceed that of having it your own way. Plus, committing to yourself to find something good and workable in the other person's view means you actually have to listen.
2. In a group, sometimes ask each person to express his or her own opinion and say "good, I'm glad to hear that" after each one. Be glad. When people feel safe to express their own views, the chance for real communication increases.
3. Ask for an example of what a person means. So many times, we think we understand, but it's based on our own assumptions, not theirs. When a person explains the context using a real example, we have a much higher chance to understand the full story.

And finally my favorite gentleness in communication idea, which I realize as I write about it, took a while to learn. Sometimes I still need practice:

Listen into the message to find how people want to succeed and understand what makes them insecure about doing it. Often, we actually voice more our insecurities than our confidence.  I had a boss once (my worst) who purposely looked for insecurities to exploit them.  Some people do that. But I think it's important to help be more gentle with people who mostly want to be valued.  To step more lightly around the soft spots.  Then trust can increase, defenses can dissolve and real communication can begin.

Real life, again

So now it's 19:00 (7 p.m.) on a Wednesday.   Deadlines met.  Ready for a prosecco.

But first, a blog post!

I've recently traded some services with a good friend and colleague Sandra O (who has appeared on this blog previously - still an adamant nonblogger).  She attends my seminars and in exchange is demonstrating a counseling method I'm interested to understand called Logosynthesis. We are using me as the demonstration model.

I've learned a lot. I've benefited a lot. Yesterday, she told me it was time for me to find a phrase that helps evoke the image of my goals.

Today, I came across an observation I made in my journal last August while sitting by the lake in the sunshine watching people. "There is such beauty in a person standing happily right where he or she is in life." 

Maybe that one will work.

Real life decision-making

It is 17:00 on Friday (check that, actually 5:20 p.m.). 

I have answered all critical messages and now see exactly 100 emails still hanging out in the old inbox.

My "to do" list has a lot of check marks, but looks longer at this moment because I kept adding stuff.

I know that I sweep down to my biologicial low point between 4 and 6 p.m.

I wonder when I'm finally going to get enough creative space to actually make the web site changes that only I can see in my head?

So have I done enough or not?

Don't know. Probably did as much as I could, if not all I hoped.  I expect a lot in my impatience and motivation, despite slowly growing maturity.

Think I'll ask myself again later. 

Right now the sun is still shining.  Time for a pause and a TGIF beer.

Motivation and moods that spring up on you

Last Wednesday, I stepped out of my apartment door and made a dead halt not two feet further: I smelled cut grass, heard a buzzing lawnmower. Ah, what a lovely first moment of Spring.

Next morning; same dead halt. Turned around to find different shoes for snow. It was April 1st, no joke! 

Two days later (Easter Saturday, they call it here), I spent hours in my favorite garden center. I have to drive 45 minutes to get there. (A friend said yesterday that he thinks it is amazing I go to a garden center for the 10 plants I can fit on my balcony and garden box.)  Yet when I took a little coffee break overlooking the plants, with a mountain view through the window, I realized suddenly I was 100% relaxed and happy. I felt I was in the middle of my garden dream.  I can see it all in my mind and hope I will plant it one day. It starts there. I needed nothing more and nowhere else right then.

Then there was this morning.  Cold. Errands to run. Car noise to check. Carpenter to meet in office. Emails to return. Phone calls. And, a little ear ache that annoyed me now long enough to stop by and check that too. Nice doctor first asked if my reported dizzy feeling when lying down came from blood rushes of a thin person not eating enough protein.  I smiled while thinking, I know the difference between hunger pains and my ear hurting.  Sure enough, he took a look and was surprised by a little infection. Stuck a strip with antibiotics in and told me I should leave it there "just four days. "  I smiled while thinking, you're not the one with the creamy thing stuck in your ear! Four day?!

Tonight on my walk home, I halted again, this time near my favorite sitting rock, and forgot my ear ache, my dream garden, that it snowed in April - all those moods that sneaked up on me good and bad. Motivation is something much deeper and more powerful. Like watching the first really good sunset of Spring.

Maybe we would have less miscommunication, fewer misunderstandings if...

Yesterday, I briefly joined a going away thank you celebration for a client with whom I have worked for two years now and who took a new role in a different location.  He said he wrote his "goodbye" notes because he was afraid he would get too emotional. And he did get emotional a little. A pause. A choked voice. 

I hope he wouldn't mind me saying that in that moment I stood in awe of how much more meaningful and real it made him. How his show of emotion made his words fresh and effective. Authentic and believable.  This is one reason I'm sure I will miss working with him so often. It was a wholly human experience.

If it were really OK not to be tough, smart and fast all the time. To instead say what we really feel and think even if it made us look vulnerable.  Would the meaning come across crystal clear as it did yesterday? Would we understand each other better and more gently?

I'm going to try it and I'm guessing I will learn something about myself when showing more emotion in all parts of my life. It might not be that easy for this long-time business girl.

The value of contagious enthusiasm

After enjoying the first day of Autumn in Buenos Aires (a city that is definitely growing on me as you can imagine from this view), I took a late flight with my clients to Sao Paolo - scheduled to start our second workshop at 8:30 a.m. the next morning.

Landed after midnight and still managed to be stuck in a Sao Paolo traffic jam. Checked-in just before 2 a.m. to a room in a very nice hotel with the noisiest minibar in the history of mankind.  Switched rooms.  Slept well and deeply four hours.  Five minutes into my hair drying at 7 a.m. the hotel-provided dryer konked out.  Nearly 30 minutes later, all was repaired and I dashed to the restaurant for a quick breakfast.

There, a smiling, enthusiastic Maitre d' followed me personally around the buffet to explain the lovely traditional Brazilian options.  He obviously didn't realize that I genuinely do not care to speak before my first cup of coffee (especially on a bad hair day with sleep that could only be described as a nap) which he was delaying. Yet somehow in the extravagance of his effort, I started to smile.  Had a great cup of coffee alongside his suggestions.  And really enjoyed the rest of my day.

And we wonder why communication is complicated

I flew 14 hours straight yesterday for a client workshop this week in Latin America. 

In 14 hours on one airplane, I will read anything and everything in print.  At one point as I stood rather dazedly in front of the toilette waiting my turn, wanting to brush my teeth after our second meal, my third movie and my fourth attempt to read more than 100 pages in my book, I noticed something:  the sign printed on the toilette door said in German, "it is not allowed to smoke in the toilette."  In English it said, "it is not allowed to smoke in the lavatory."

And I asked myself, what is a lavatory?  Had I ever in my American life (Boeing printed this wall) used a lavatory?

I don't think so.  It sounds like a word my father would have made up right along with our family favorite: swedge.  (One of the least used references ever to appear in the dictionary.)

And right below the no smoking in the lavatory sign, I noticed something else affixed to the wall was labeled:  Aschenbecker (an ashtray)

Jet lag or irony?

:-)

A studio moment when I recognized what has really changed

Ok, so that iPhone post yesterday sure didn't work perfectly the first time. (Just like when I try to say something meaningful or emotional via email.  Better to be personal, visual, slower!)

Today I've enjoyed my first strands of sunlight through open studio windows in this new space I acquired in the midst of cold, grey February. Even then, this glimpse of sky over the rooftops through old iron scrollwork was part of what touched my emotions and gave me the courage to sign the contract.  Today, it nearly made me teary-eyed to open the window for the first time to an early Spring breeze. I suddenly recognized how many steps I've taken to have this view - not that I could have imagined it in detail or anticipated exactly how it would feel.

Fortunately, I'm back-to-back loaded with interesting projects.  So no Friday afternoon off to the lake for me.  But there was something deeply satisfying about taking a short lunch with a friend across the street at the Juice Market and realizing I live here, I work here, I know, like and do business with the people I see here.

Took away every deadline stress and worry about if I can make it all work and put me once again in awe of what life can bring when you listen to what pulls you.

Post & go

I send this post to you via my iPhone from a train between client meetings & Zurich. Seems like a productive thing to do with 50 minutes. Fun to try ut,
I am sending this post via my iPhone between client meetings and Zurich. Seems like productive use of 50 minutes.

of course there're will be the usual typos. I will say things s little short & quick because thumb typing quickly feels like arthritis. And maybe what I could use more is sitting still and letting the words float to me for later. Yet it is fun to try it! Adding to the cyberspace chatter...

But it was fun to try it!

When to stop working too hard

My new relationship with snow had its ups and downs this weekends.  The downs included three nice little falls from which once a ski instructor (not mine) helped me get back on my ski's. And this was cross-country! Going too fast or on some curve I didn't quite have enough skill for yet.  Although, when I started Saturday morning, I am sure a retired man and his lovely retreiver were walking faster than me.

So I renegotiated my perspective again - as I have done so many times in life - to recognize I am truly starting at the bottom.  For me, skiing will be 95% perseverence and 5% talent. But I want to do it because I love being outside in the sun and the snow.  Even when my entire body hurts afterwards. And I like the idea that one day, after 100s of small steps over several seasons in my case, I might be even one-third as elegant as the ski-skaters beside me. I have learned that would be huge for me.

After some hours, I realized also something I sometimes notice during the week: that the work of skiing (even though I loved it) was getting in the way of the beauty around me. So I took off my ski's for a while and just walked.  And listened.  And here was my favorite sound, of flow. 

PS, Many thanks to my friends who made this weekend possible!

So much for Spring

Friday night, friends and I barbequed on my balcony.  (OK, it was a bit too cold to stand around admiring the star-filled sky above, but I love the casual times with people together at the table.)  We awoke Saturday to this blowing whiteness.   Perfect day for a fireplace, as it turned out.  And old movies.  On the brighter side of life, I nearly sunburned outside on Sunday.  Great combo of a weekend that I could never have predicted.  I thought I had run out of time to build my relationship with snow this season. I'll take it as a reminder of how life unfolds as it is supposed to, not as we expect it.

Business class - part 3

So did you figure it out - the thing I need to change about my business travel?

I started this trip wondering what I was going to do about the constant parade of black.  Clothes, luggage.  Flying with 60 people in business class, only one obviously a business woman.  Me.  (Maybe not so obvious, the flight attendant asked the man seated beside me if I wanted more wine at some point.  No imagination that I was not his wife.)

During the years I flew like this every month or more, I lost myself.  Dragged from hotel to meeting room to airline lounge.  Learned that I didn't care about fitting in the road warrior club. Carried those images with me as I returned to travel on this business trip.

But a lot has changed since then, when I was new to Europe and on my own entirely.

I travel when the work is interesting and I like the client.  I return home and step off of the airplane into my life: with friends, my own little business, things I like doing, a home I've lived in for five years now. And these friends ask me about my trip (even keep in touch with me when I'm away).

I fully enjoyed learning the Brazilian culture a little, meeting new people, seeing Sao Paolo.

What needs to change is my attitude and what I focus on...as a friend said, not being too hard on myself if the work is tiring, but I still manage to see something new.

Watch this blog soon to see if I can show a new Business Class Jill on the next outing. I'm sure going to try!

Spring interruption

I hereby interrupt this business travel blog saga for a little sparkle of Spring.

Over the weekend (having returned from summer across the ocean), I got outside on Sunday in clouds and slush. Still felt good because I had decided to stand-in for my open spirit and genuine desire to live with passion.  It's a choice.

Then as if life was telling my soul all was going in the right direction, I ran into first little signs of new growth.  Here I share them with you.

I think life gives us signs we read best with our hearts.

     

Business class - part 2

So here's another exciting little excerpt of a typical business trip for me.  Figured out yet what I think I might need to change about how I approach this travel?

Business class

This week, I enjoyed a good business trip.  I enjoyed it partly because I genuinely like the client work - a workshop together.  For the other part, I enjoyed the chance to travel to a new place and observe my old business routine with fresh eyes.  Eyes that suggest I could possibly bring more of myself to business travel in the future.

It's been truly business class: my seat on the airplane, my hotel room, the nice restaurants.  Has its positives for sure.  Easy and comfortable.

Yet...

Well, you take a look for yourself at my little Business Class Jill videos over the next few blogs and see if you can surmise what I mean to change eventually.

 

Is there such a thing as a simple life?

I've now tried a range of lifestyles, from my roots in a small agricultural town to spending far too much cash on Swiss watches and hundreds of hours on airplanes.  Now investing in my own little business in the first little city I consciously wanted to call "home."

I've had a few years to get past the "moving here" stage and have been asking myself if I live a simple life.  Somehow I want that.  "Do less; live more."  Or as written in my goals this year: do one good thing at a time.  One in the moment.

So this weekend, after looking at my long list of places traveled, but sometimes not fully explored in the rush of business, I made a list of places I would still like to see.  And places I would go to again.  Experiences still to gain.

Then I made a quick list of what "Living Simply" might mean based on some things I learned it doesn't mean.  It probably needs some editing, but as I sit here doing one thing I like to do - writing - here it goes for starters:

Buy what you really need.

Use what you buy.

Cook slowly.  Eat consciously.

The best: eat with people you love or at least find interesting.  :-)

Give your body the best chance at health possible.

Be open. (Add to this be friendly. Be kind, even in your least gentle moments.)

Listen to music.

Read what someone else thought was important enough to write - real writers and real friends

Do what's in front of you to do

Be glad you have the chance

Be in-person.  Talk. Touch.  Limit technology to efficiency.

And maybe in my case.  Feel more. Do more. Stress over it less in advance. Just live.  It doesn't matter where.

Knowing what you want, now

As I strolled by my favorite urban garden (now fully a winter scene) a few days ago, I felt a moment of clear desire to be somewhere warm and sunny. Now.

Fortunately I'll have that opportunity soon.  Through my job. Yet, I wasn't sure I wanted it really.

Then while eating french fries over lunch, I made a quick list of where I'd traveled during the last five years (you know, the years when "I haven't been traveling nearly as much as I used too"), which included four major regions, eight countries and more than 24 cities. 

I had often stayed an extra day or visited friends to see what was around. Mostly easy with preplanned hotels, drivers, restaurant ideas, etc. I've been lucky to do it.

The trips I remember most were with friends and colleagues I knew well.  Experiencing things together in the local places with people who lived there. Having trouble deciding what to eat, the way to somewhere, how to simply find a beer. Getting tired, disagreeing if something was the best route, food, or place to stay. Laughing about it all eventually when the "momentary crisis of choice" had passed. Standing in awe at the drama or beauty of something you ran into that you'd not seen in real life before.

What I want in life seems to have evolved and become more messy.  I love that!

Unpainted toes in ski boots

Now here is a photo I never thought I'd blog: Jill in ski boots after really having fun in the snow. 

I "retired" (i.e. quit skiing) more than a decade ago.  But the mountains have been romancing me back for a few years now.   I've learned that I like to walk more than an hour for a fondue.  And will hike much longer in snowy wonderlands when the sun shines in a bright blue sky.  Two years ago, Zermatt's wide runs inspired me back onto the slopes for a day. Entirely because I thought it was so beautiful and free and open.

This weekend I got inspired to join friends at the ski hill. Saturday we hiked for hours.  My friend & snow angel above remarked as we skidded downhill on garbage bags (because we regrettably thought it too inconvenient to haul the sled earlier), "Jill, I believe you are starting a new relationship with snow!"

Today, I purposely went alone for a nordic trek because I just needed to feel the skis again.  I used to like cross-country. Didn't have to face my huge fear of heights on chairlifts or steep slopes.  Seemed like getting back on any skis was a good first step. I loved it. It was me with me and my skis for simply the pleasure of it for the first time, maybe ever.  I even had some moments of needing to go faster. Downhill.

Amazing.  In my seminars we talk about facing fears in small steps.  I would never have imagined I could renew my desire to face this one.  Makes me feel a bit more alive this evening (if a bit over-exercised).  More than one good person in my life during the last few years has said, "Stop thinking, just drive!"  Finally, the voice in my head said the same.

The view from my still unconnected desk

After sleeping so well and deeply this weekend that I recovered my voice and banished the sniffle, technology nearly proved my undoing today.

The Handsome Electrician - who came to my office because we STILL have not installed my Internet as a result of not being able to find the wall DSL connection - told me there was "bad news." Somehow this building which was built before the invention of the telegraph does not have a telephone line running from the basement to my fourth floor studio. "How is this possible?" we all scratched our heads in wonder in our various dialects.

The long cable has been ordered for Thursday installation (said Handsome Electrician after discussion with Friendly Real Estate Agent).

I was definitely ready for a Prosecco, but instead returned a sample chair to a large store and raced home to connect my computer with the outside world.

Tonight's menu: pasta, broccoli and a reminder that one year from now there's some chance this will be a distant memory.  New day tomorrow!

PS, I'm also still using my window ledge as a Coke refridgerator while a kitchen designer I met this morning takes a couple of weeks to propose a plan.  Maybe later I'll look back and think these were the "glory days..."

Things I may never learn

To the "things I will never do" folder in my Email files, I'm going to add "Things I may never learn."

Like right now, I'm in the middle of moving and setting-up my new studio. PLUS I'm giving a 4th Anniversary party for my business with more than 40 people tonight.  Not in the studio for sure because there's no place to sit and piles of junk everywhere. Well, part of it's getting better thanks to a desk table generously installed from a friend.  But I still have to connect to the Internet from home through today.

Yesterday, I woke with a stuffy nose and sneezes.  No sore throat. No aches or fever.  Just my body saying, "Jill, I'm giving you fair warning!"  I know that if I just sleep a good, relaxed night, it will go away.

And if I don't do that, well I had my chance ...

The original story

I recently updated the "About Me" page on this blog to reflect how it has evolved in three years.  Yet I want to always remember the original metaphor I wrote for it in 2006.  It proved to be an important starting point.  More influential than I could have imagined.

My story.

When I find an appealing little café along a street, I always want to spend more time inside it than I can in real life.

I dream that these warm, buzzing little corners smell of strong coffee, sweet hot pastries and hopefully a tinge of chocolate.

In my imagination -- and sometimes in reality -- people talk energetically at their tables as they sip their tea or coffee.  They discuss candidly their daily challenges.  I sense a vigor in their eyes & voices -- perhaps an underlying spirit of optimism, even in the face of darker emotions also present. 

These people speak from the perspectives of real women and men. Real people who try to build a meaningful life as they live, work and lead. 

The path forward proves not often crystal clear.  That's why we talk together.

After a few minutes inside such a place, I begin to feel a peacefulness that comes with sensing that I am not alone in my stresses.  I find I can explore more ways to bring both a smile and persistence to my own attempted solutions.

I believe it is exactly this encouragement that I and others sometimes need to try our new ideas with courage and intellect.

And then we find meaning.  Continuous renewal does not have to reach a screeching halt at a special age or on a specific previously-chosen path.  In my mind's cafe, we feel motivated to create, to learn, to love – to live – through all aspects of our lives.

OK, maybe I simply drink too much coffee and that stimulates my imagination, but…

Can I bring you a cappuccino, double espresso or a latte? Here in my little virtual corner we can spend a few moments in a place where real people who lead and live can be heard and understood.  Perhaps even a little inspired. 

We will tell our stories with our own voices to support each other in learning and trying, laughing a bit to stay healthy along the way.

Because of course it is important to always serve a little piece of chocolate on the side.

Keys to my heart?

Well, no shiny metal objects open my whole heart. That's for people to do.   But these keys do open the doors to a place that I hope will be a next step in bringing even more heart to my work:

My new office.  Just one floor up from where I am now. Literally.

I will create it as a studio - an atelier we would say here - to support the kind of activities that bring emotion to conversations among people who are somehow surprised that their experiences count for something really important. Like I was once some years ago.

In other words, through these doors I will try my next experiment in creating my own meaningful career & extending it to others.

It will take months to fully get the ideas I have in my head to show visibly in the rooms.  (The worktables alone need eight weeks for delivery here...)

Yet yesterday, I went home with the keys in my hand.  That was already exciting enough to make my heart leap a little!

Simple pleasures of winter

I know I tend to make my own life complicated.  I seem to always want to try the next new thing.

This year, I'm trying to slow down and focus on doing one good thing at a time. I want to figure out what "living simply" means to me.

Last Sunday, not your classically beautiful sunny mountain day, I took a simple walk with a friend. Cold, damp, a little windy at the top of the hill.

And still beautiful.  Enjoying a good conversation, a little movement. A slow winter day.

Two men and a crane

As I shuffled back to work from a late lunch on a cold, snow-spitting afternoon yesterday, I discovered the process of Christmas star removal just outside the office door.  Not really motivating on a grey winter day, but the guys seemed happy enough that I noticed their efforts as I grabbed for my camera.

Maybe I should even feel depressed about the removal of holiday fun, but my spirited lunch companion and I had just said before we parted that it is January - so we really should just deal with the expected.  Would be hypocritical to now whine like a child.

So instead I'll share the new German word I learned to describe it:   "Matsch."  Here used in context: Later that evening, I slogged in the grey "slushy mush" at the outskirts of Zurich, straight uphill home thinking, "Ugh! Matsch, Matsch, Matsch."

Finding directions

How many people have asked you so far this year if you made any New Year’s Resolutions?  I try to avoid this question because when I have to truthfully admit I write new goals every December, I just don’t want to hear the groans and huffs of “Oh of course you would!”

Truth is, I gave up a long time ago on setting personal goals in the business sense of the word.  Mine aren’t smart.  They often aren’t quantitative.  In business, we set goals in alignment with a strategy given to us. Then it’s easy.

In life, I think it’s much harder to set the direction.

My “goals” are really “directions.” For example this year, “Long table attitude” means remember to invite people to share with “spirit & heart” together personally and professionally.  “jallé Studio concept” means remember to build my new office that I will take in February as a creative learning space AND remember act and work creatively in it.  “Private life lived. Period.” means don’t forget to live your personal life even with so much energy going into a young business.

Anyway when I look at the bigger picture, I think times in my life evolves through themes.  A few year’s back it was “restructure.” Then came “make the transition,” followed by “settle in.”   This year feels like “build."

Once I "get" the theme, the details seem to sort themselves out after a while.

And I will need to remember to write 10 instead of 09.

Things that rise

  As I started the New Year, I saw and felt some things rising:

1. 1. The sun on mountains and hills. OK, mostly I saw sunsets during the holidays - including this lovely last one of 2009.
2. 2. Cinnamon rolls - baked using my family's traditional recipe on New Year's Eve for New Year's morning with my friends. Needed two tries: the first time I accidentally bought packets of baking powder instead of yeast. That dough didn't rise!
3. Fireworks and champagne glasses lifted with friends for the New Year and in celebration of all good things we managed to enjoy even in the unstable 2009 economy.
4. My beloved Ohio State Buckeyes, who rose to the occasion to win the Rose Bowl. I surely did not see the sun rise that next morning: stayed up until 2:30 a.m. to celebrate the win. Hope I didn't awaken my neighbors!

What didn't want to rise:

Me - this morning when my alarm went off, even when I'm genuinely enthusiastic about the year ahead.  But now a few hours later, my spirit for the next weeks and months is already on the way up.  It's so hard to go back to work, eh?  Even when you find it inspiring most days.

Tomorrow, I'll finally see the sunrise, too. Promise.

More connected, even when disconnecting

What I love about these days between Christmas and the New Year is that I have a little time.  No big decisions to make.  And for once, no "to do" list. 

So I ambered down to the lake to take-in this morning's sun on my way for a jog at my health club (too cold for me outside, despite blue skies).  Found these ornaments adorning a tree near my favorite sitting rock.

Later back at my apartment as clouds rolled in and snow began to fall, I surfed for fun and eventually read an article about how to better use my blog. Tried three of the Top 10 tips. 

With any luck, this post will now go right to my Facebook account (and you friends won't wonder where I am all through this holiday).  Maybe by this time next year, I'll hook-up my individual GPS and won't have to type anything at all...will just communicate my ideas via brain waves and Twitter. :-)

23.12.09 12:57 and the red light: a holiday story

Yesterday, at exactly the hour noted above, my business email inbox was empty.  EMPTY!  That's a milestone I haven't achieved since somewhere in the 1990's.  Of course by this morning it has gathered six new ones. 

Meanwhile I'm not quite free yet of holiday stress.  Here's how I know:

At 20:13 on 23.12.09 (last night) as I was driving home after meeting a friend to say Merry Christmas, a red light came on my dashboard and beeped at me long and loud.  I stopped by my favorite friendly gas station where they are always willing to help. 

We couldn't figure out together (reading both the English and the German car manual), how to make the light go out.  Pushed a few buttons as noted.  Nada.  Might be a "defekt," he said (in German).  Better go to your dealer. 

Now I need to drive my car on Saturday, which is still a national holiday here, out of Zurich where some nice British friends of mine are roasting a goose.  Never had goose; want to be there.  So I reluctantly set my alarm early this morning to be at the dealer early in the hope he could do something before the entire country closes down at 4 p.m. for Christmas.

On 24.12.09 08:13, I arrived at the top of the garage driveway, which is a steep downhill and reached down to pull on my handbrake (emergency brake).  It was already on.  Released it to reset it. Red light went out...

I forgot that I had used the brake yesterday on the steep downhill at my office while finding the person who was a bit overstepping my parking spot. I was in such a hurry to clear my office email, that I forgot to release it. Forgot entirely that it existed and drove all over Zurich trying to find a solution to that red light.

That's it. No more email.  No more task lists. 

I smiled as the terrible auto repair bill I had imagined simply evaporated.  Shook my head at my typical rush, stress mistake.  And bought my Christmas tree!

Nature's stripes

It's snowing "to beat the band" here! I managed to get a jog in at my health club in time to drive my car up the hill home before the roads had me parking and walking (again). Doesn't that sound a little ironic - a "jog & drive?"

Love this time of the year also for the catch-up with friends. We take time for coffees and talking, like today's little hike up to the Zurichberg Hotel with a good friend for a hot chocolate and the great view in winter afternoon sunlight.  

And it's the fourth Sunday in Advent. What's really cool is that these stripes were from the sunrise through my window blinds. It's so cold right now, I close all blinds every night (rare for me; I like to see the world outside of my window). What a beautiful sight it was when I lit my candle and noticed the backdrop.

I know. Sometimes I'm silly! (Now I'm going to listen to the 7 p.m. church bells rise up across Zurich, drink my prosecco, cook dinner, light a fire, and think my day was fortunate and perfect.)

Painted toes in hiking boots (2)

Same hiking boots as in August.  Different mountains and for sure the opposite season! 

Over the weekend here, I reread a book that I had already read twice. 

First time: for an undergraduate university course about the psychology of human development. What I remember from that perusal of The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm (well-respected German psychologist who became an American citizen, then later retired to Switzerland) was that I memorized whatever I needed to know to pass the class test. So basically I learned nothing. 

Second reading: a few years ago when I found the book again in a storage box, stuck with me better for its view of how broadly the concept of love applies to living. At least this time I thought it worthy to stay out on my shelf...

Third and probably not the last exploration: motivated by participants in the 5th Six for Yourself seminar this Autumn. Their examples of real-life lasting changes ranged from developing talents, careers, and relationships to staying healthy or open-minded.  All of them included love as a reason they had "stayed in."  In fact, maybe "the reason."

I thought there might be something in this book specifically to add to that conversation; so, I took it with me to the mountain air.  There was something in it.  A lot.  I made notes and underlined ferociously. (When I read a fourth time the entire book may be highlighted!)

Fromm says, "Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love."  He goes on to say that it requires care, responsibility, respect and knowledge - the same qualities needed to nurture an artistic talent or a plant or a child.

Normally when I hike, the mountains tell me the truth.  This time they told me about courage.  As it turns out, Fromm told me about that, too: the courage to love full-in as an active way of living.  It took the mountains and a few decades to make me finally listen!

When the "living" ain't easy

These last few weeks, I've felt really fortunate to have reached a few milestones to round out the year:

• As of last Thursday, the entire Six for Yourself Program Autumn 2009 B Series was completed with a quite an enjoyable group of participants.
• As of Monday, I had my plans and budget for next year (nearly) sorted out.  More to follow on that.

And especially yesterday, after three years of talking about it, our Executive Committee for the Professional Women's Group of Zurich launched a new web site.  We announced it during our holiday party while eating fondue and raclette around an ice skating rink. (No that is not me or anyone else I know skating, BTW! Stock photo...)

It all felt great... until this morning when the links didn't work and a dozen alert members emailed quickly to say so.

After several phone calls with a range of vendors speaking in a language I understand even less than German - IT - we got it straight. A myriad of return emails later, our members can log in with ease.

Now especially our PWG Communications Manager can celebrate a job really well done with a lot of persistent, enthusiastic work behind it!

Me?  I'm going to drink a gluhwein.  (And for the record, Mr. Ness, it will only be my third of the season!!)

Do you ever do this?

I have a file in my Outlook email program that I renamed some months ago from "To Do" to "Will you ever do this???"  I thought maybe if I goaded myself with a little humor I might actually act on one of the three things in it faster.

Nope.  Didn't work.  I thought about relabeling it "Will Never Do."  Because we all know that the minute we say "never" it always happens.

Meanwhile, having completed the sixth of six seminars last night, I was feeling a little free to look at a new horizon this morning and began naturally brainstorming about "what's next."  None of the new things on my list are in the "Will Never Do" folder.  For sure, most of them I will do.  Sooner.

So why the heck have I kept that Never Do folder, I ask myself?  What's funny is that I can tell you exactly what's in it because "should do" morphed into self-imposed guilt long before the folder renaming.  Obviously I can live without doing these things. Maybe one day I'll do them because it will make sense at that time.

Tonight, I'm hitting delete and running for a Gluhwein.  Fast.  Before I start trying to do something else. 

What makes Thanksgiving happy

A couple of Thanksgivings ago, I wrote about a disappointing evening during which I was the only American sitting at a Thanksgiving Day table eating turkey in Zurich. Last Sunday, I was again the only American at a turkey-eating table.  Yet the experience was absolutely the opposite and beautiful.

The table was mine.

Well, it was my physical table, but present were two generations of my family in recipes and memories.  Mom had, in fact, dictated the menu to me in five pages via several phone chats, which culminated in a "conference call" fit in between my seminars and her busy, retiree schedule.

Also present at the table were genuinely good friends, one of whom had thought of the idea to begin with and showed such enthusiasm that he even spent three hours shopping with me, carrying the turkey from the butcher and ultimately carving it at the table.  The eight of us originated from seven countries (oh sorry, that's nine people if you count the baby celebrating his first holiday season).  We toasted, and teased each other, and asked each other questions, and variously enjoyed (or so I hope) a new experience together.

One day I hope I will again share the Thanksgiving turkey at my childhood home table. 

Until then, I will feel highly grateful for this one...even with the hours of preparation, stress over how it would all be ready and still hot at the same time, and "disaster" that remained in my kitchen when most everyone strolled out.  (Well, one guy did stay to help and eat leftovers.  Thank you!) Now I know why Mom and Grandma always went to such trouble. It's the love and spirit of sharing that goes into it that makes the difference.

Stubborn will, challenged

Incredibly early, originally uploaded by jalléCafe.

Last Thursday - 19 November - Zurich's holiday lights started glowing for the season, which explains why I first saw these strings hanging in October!

Seemed incredibly early to me, as I'm still in the middle of client projects and seminars and 2010 budget planning. Who has time for this? I mean, really, I'll make my annual scramble for my advent wreath this week - before they are all sold out - and hope for a little time this weekend to bring four boxes of Christmas decorations from my basement. (The same basement where my Autumn-Winter sweaters are STILL stored for last season...) But hanging-out at the Christmas market is still a few weeks away.

I love the holiday fun and festivities and cookies and kitsch. Yet I always thought it was to start AT LEAST after Thanksgiving (this coming Thursday).

So I've NEVER allowed myself a gluhwein before 1st December. Never.

But now how will I walk out of the office into the lovely street for seven more days, see the lights, smell the cinnamon and just walk home?

Three years and still blogging

Three years ago yesterday, I published my first blog post.

It didn't say much - just that I was out there trying something new.

My posting stats show that tried to say something 210 times since then.  That's at least one post a week for 156 weeks.  Since I started, more than 12,700 pages have been viewed by readers or simply people lost on the web.  It's too bad I cannot see what percentage of these are represented by my biggest fans - Mom, Aunt Trudy and Uncle John.  And of course, there's Mr. Ness, who encouraged me to get started and keep it up.

All-in-all, what does three years of blog-posting say really?

It says I followed through, I guess.  And I like the process of writing on a blog more than I expected.  I've tried different approaches to capturing my ideas.  Often, I write an idea by hand in my personal journal before it reaches the internet. It's helped me reflect and pull out the small details that make my life meaningful, to recognize and savor them more.

What has most surprised me are the wonderful notes I receive from people who I would never expect to care about my blog. Positive, warm and more thoughtful than would have been inspired via email alone.  For that I am highly grateful.

And for that, I will keep writing.  Thank you.

How big is your turkey?

Last week - as I ran around preparing for a seminar, a workshop and accounting details - I squeezed in time to order a turkey for the official "Thanksgiving" celebration I will host next Sunday.  First time in my own home.

You have to really think about how many people you can invite for such an occasion here in Switzerland.  I had a fairly detailed negotiation with the local butcher about what size turkey would fit in my oven.  He seemed quite impressed with the huge size I ordered (about 4.5 - 5 kg).  Then I talked to Mom over the weekend, who said I'd have to get a pretty small one to fit: maybe 10 - 12 lbs.  Pretty much what I ordered. Cultural differences, illustrated. 

Compared to here, roasted US turkeys swim in bathtubs! (Or that's how my old roasting pan seems to me now.)

Meanwhile, I managed to catch the hanging of the holiday lights on our street, too. Shared as one of my favorite annual moments:

10 minutes and being not perfect

It's a miracle.  I have ten minutes before our seminar starts this evening.  The topic: Formulating Your Vision.  Preparing gave me a chance to look back over my own career change with an open mind. I really have done what we will do together.

Yet nothing is a sure thing as I try to move this business forward.  Years and still "on the way."  It's still scary some days.

Mostly I thought today, how not perfect I am.  In fact, sometimes I wonder if I have the right perspective.  Great to be optimistic and energetic to do something new.  Something you hope you will respect yourself for.

Yet yesterday (actually this morning with a clear, rested voice), I had a moment realizing that when you get too busy - even pursuing a good dream - you can miss the point of how to interact with others.  One of my friends called and I nearly didn't answer because I was focused on something else.  OK I did answer.  Another friend joined me for dinner, yet I nearly didn't slow down long enough to really listen and learn his view.  And he's a good person.

So for sure I was reminded that I may have a "worthy professional goal," but I can still be so darned far away from getting it right.  I hope this 10 minutes of writing will help me remember starting tonight, life is about real people who deserve my care and respect.

My favorite rock

I took this photo just one week ago - on Sunday morning, 2 November - while perched on my favorite rock after jogging down to the lake.  Said to myself, "This might be one of the last beautiful Fall mornings of the season.  Fantastic!" 

Not far from reality.

Since then the fog has descended and most leaves have dropped. I now have to be a bit careful not to slip on them when I walk down to the tram station (let alone jog).

And it rains or drizzles or drips for hours on end.  Hard to know when to put up or down the umbrella. A month of bad hair days!

But that helped me stay inside to get my 3rd Quarter bookkeeping together, check-out some new training facilities, write (and deliver) two seminars, plus light a few candles and a fire in my chimney. 

Despite such positive thinking, this evening as darkness overtook the tram while I rode back to the office from a meeting, I thought, "Ready for those holiday lights now!" 

Becoming adventurous

Nearly all of my life I've carried around the idea that I'm not adventurous.  I mean, how can anyone afraid of heights (Mom said I was afraid to climb on the sofa when I was a toddler) ever come close to that concept?  But mostly I thought this because I never backpacked across the world, Europe or even Ohio when I was in my 20's.

By the time I got around the world (which I did mostly), I was staying in nice hotels and had drivers meeting me at the airport. Never had to take care of myself. Risk minimized.

I've been thinking lately that it's high time I go on an adventure.

So I looked up "adventurous" to help brainstorm the options. Definition: Inclined to adventure; willing to incur risks; prone to embark in hazardous enterprise; rashly daring; outcomes uncertain — applied to persons.

And then I thought, I have moved a few places where I didn't know anyone.  Taken jobs that no one (not even me) would have thought about me doing.  Quit and started a business when I depend on myself for an income.  And this is not even taking into consideration daring personal adventures like going on dates: never a certain outcome!

So let's be specific, I'm not often physically adventurous.  But my personality leans in an adventurous direction. Adventure involves risk and uncertainty, who says it always has to be about jumping off of something literally?  Jumping into something with passion and desire to explore must also count?

I guess adventurousness, like beauty, is in the mind of the adventurer. And I still do admire the people I know who have backpacked or literally climbed mountains.

It hope it is not too late to become my own special kind of adventurer, a pirate of living...attack maties!

Time sweeping by

This morning on my walk into work, I noticed something I wanted to photograph. This cute little Zurich street sweeper got in my way.  So I took his picture instead.

What I wanted to show you was this: look closely. 

Took this one last night in the dark.

Those are strings of Christmas lights already hung and waiting to be illuminated - more than a month from now!!

Zurich is nothing if not prepared and organized (and clean).

And you know what,"just like yesterday" I'll soon stand there to take a photo showing how beautiful they look.

As fast as that little street sweeper moved, December will arrive.

Will the real me please stand up?

Last week, several conversations reminded me how people with similar backgrounds can - based on their own views and experiences - see the same person entirely differently.  Case under discussion: President Obama.  I relate to him as an educated, family-oriented leader.  A few people close to me see him only as a Democratic politician (not a plus in their eyes).

My point, as I sit here hungry for lunch at 1:30 p.m. on a Monday, is not to argue for or against Obama.   I'm just wondering how anyone ever really knows us at all.  At least Obama gets press coverage.

I, on the other hand, have only a few paltry demographics easily visible.  My native country, for example.  My gender.  My 20 years in business professionally. 

Is that who I am?  I don't think so, but I'm not sure it's that easy to see or learn what else lies beneath right now.  It's taking me years to step towards a new way of living my life.  Still working on it.

Perhaps who I am won't show until much later when I actually have results.  Meanwhile, I'm still taking each next step that no one really understands. Leading yourself can be a solitary road.

I remember the first moment I felt genuinely, internally motivated to try something that inspired me.  I was 13 years old in a year-end school assembly.  I suddenly saw a goal that I thought I might reach and later did.  I've been enthusiastically trying new things ever since, often making a next change before the last one was fully visible.  No wonder people get confused. 

I suppose the main person who has to understand the woman who walks in my shoes is me.  But it is nice to have company sometimes. (I do when it counts.)

I pondered all this as I sat writing seminar materials this morning - aiming to make tangible the still mostly invisible concepts in my mind and heart.  I concluded that I might as well give being visible as myself a try. 

Yet sometimes demographics we don't choose lead the visible way anyway.  For example, no matter what I do, I may always be most known by the people around me for one demographic that seems to never recede in its intrigue, yet has the least to do with me at all:

Jill, the Identical Triplets' Sister.  Thanks, Boys!  But then I guess with a blazing statistic like that, it's been even more of a challenge for you...