I’ve created a new category to capture the statements and questions that Aileen has posed to me over the past 4 years that have been very impactful for me. My first ‘Aileenism’ is;
“You are 100% responsible for what you have and do not have in this moment.”
Add your own if you’d like!
Over the past few weeks, I have been having some wonderfully collaborative conversations with Steve Harper, creator and author of ‘The Ripple Effect’. In talking with Steve about his concept of ‘Ripples’ (what you create when you really focus on relationships first) I started thinking about the relationship ripples that have brought me to this place in my career.
I realized that it all started Karen Fonteyne – my University room-mate (and former Olympian) from 17 years ago!
Karen trusted in me enough to introduce me to Deanna. Deanna recommended me to Jim, who hired me at Xerox. Deanna then recommended me to Morgan who introduced me to Mike who hired me at Sprint. Then I met Kim, who introduced me to Todd who connected me to Gary and off I went to Intrigna. This makes me think of that shampoo commercial ‘and so on, and so on’ – anyway, a number of contacts later and here I am.
So, today I am sitting in deep gratitude to Karen, Deanna (twice over!), Jim, Morgan, Mike, Kim, Todd, Gary, Tim, Jeff (my husband who kind of owed me), Alastair, Dan, Val and Aileen – the 14 people who brought me to be the co-founder of Inspired Future. Thank you for believing in, trusting and advocating for me. I only hope that I have been able to serve others as you have served me.
When was the last time you traced your ‘Ripples’? How did you get your job, meet your spouse or someone else significant in your life? Do it and see where it leads. It’s a great reminder to be grateful AND to never underestimate the power of one single connection!
Thank you Karen wherever you are, and thank you Steve for reminding me how important meeting Karen was in my life. What if I never met her??
I feel like I need to do more justice to my last post. There is a story behind this story that I find really inspiring and would love for you to honour. The author, Neil Pasricha, chose to do something for himself, presumably to help him through a pretty rough time, and it turned out to serve others and generate a profit.
What if Neil had told himself that his idea was “silly” or asked himself the question “who would want to read this?” or “what will people think?” – The Book of Awesome would not now exist. I find this a tremendous example of what can happen when you follow your heart and do something to authentically and positively serve yourself. I don’t really know if he intended to serve others (I’m betting that he did) but I imagine the response has been bigger than he could have ever expected. This is an important lesson of what can happen when you step into the unknown.
I’m also really excited about the success of Neil’s concept for another important reason. It proves something I’ve believed for a long time, people really do want to be reminded of what’s awesome in this world. We are inundated with so much fear-based “news” I actually choose not to pay attention to it. I have always wondered what if there was a news channel (or better yet, multiple news channels) that reported only the good news in the world? What if there was an equal amount of hope-based, positive “news” in the world – would people pay attention? I don’t know the answer to this yet, but I think Neil has done a fantastic job of adding some much needed light in this world and I for one have happily added the RSS feed to my iGoogle page. Thanks Neil, I am truly grateful!
Need a laugh. Check out The Book of Awesome, it totally lives up to it’s name!
I have just spent 24 hours completely alone. I asked my husband to take my kids and give me one day and night in my own home to do as I please. It didn’t cost me anything (except the $4.99 I spent on pay-per-view) and it has been amazing.
I was really curious to see what would happen to me with all obligation removed. The first 10 hours were really, super self-indulgent. I watched 4 movies – yep, I’m serious – 4 chick flicks in a row! I ate popcorn, I drank wine and I ate supper at 8:00 in front of the TV! I went to sleep at 1:00 am and slept without interruption until 10 this morning.
Today has been a bit more active. When I got out of bed I put on a bunch of 80′s tunes, washed dishes, vacuumed, scrubbed floors and re-organized my office – all because I truly wanted to! I thought about going to get groceries and realized that was for sure obligation so didn’t! I did an ab work-out, had a shower, did a 30 minute meditation and then went for a 45 minute walk-run because I totally had the urge to do it.
Now, I’m feeling a bit reflective (hence the post). I think I saw every aspect of my true character show-up in the 24 hours and I’m ok with all of it. The coach in me is now playing with a few questions;
Why don’t I ask for this more often?
How could I inject more freedom into my daily life? What obligations could I remove?
What will I do next time?
What would you do if you took a 24 hour time-out for yourself? When will you do it?
One of the things I have become the most aware of since 2005 is the notion of choices. I have progressed from not feeling like I had any to being aware of the plethora of options that exist for everything. While that is wonderful, it can also be a lot more challenging to navigate.
I would say that since I’ve ‘awakened’ to the choices that are around me, I am realizing the importance of clarity so that I make the ‘right’ choice for myself at any given minute. I am also learning to give myself permission to take myself off the hook for the ‘wrong’ choices – it is ok to say no. This part of the journey has been pretty tough for me. I have become aware of how much of a pleaser that I can be – that it is important for me to be liked so that I will make choices that serve that but don’t really ultimately serve me. I am seeing that I feel guilt when I make choices that are in my best interest but may not be what someone else would want from me. Obligation has been a big driver for me up to now, but I know that has been a choice and I also know that I can change that.
My biggest hurdle to overcome to get to true freedom is really stepping into the choices that serve me the best, without apology and trusting that all will be well. I’m still and always working on it.
I had an interesting experience this week that surfaced some old paradigms that I needed to examine and bust through.
It was all about branding. In the process of creating some materials, Catherine and Laura presented me with some prototypes that were a bit of an ‘extension’ of our brand. It was good, because being a visual type person, I need to see tangible outputs to get really clear on what I want. At first, at a gut level, I loved it and said run with it. After a couple of days of sitting with it (and probably overanalyzing it), I blasted off a rather cryptic and autocratic email saying basically ‘Stop the presses, let’s go back to the ‘safer’ (read standard or traditional) approach.’ I had a certain definition of a brand from my years of marketing training and that took over.
Rather than reacting to my directive, Catherine & Laura sat with it. Then we had a conversation that changed everything. They pushed me to go out of my box. If you’re thinking this is pretty ironic, I agree. Here I am espousing how we should do things differently, pay attention to our intuition and dare to be different and I am limiting my thinking to what is the norm. In our conversation, Catherine held fast to her ‘gut level’ feel that the approach they came up with actually does fit our brand – my God, she was seeing our company better than I was – and she boldly challenged my thinking. The result was, they were right and our brand has been strengthened. Bigger than that for me, is that I had a great opportunity to realize some of the limited thinking that I was still holding onto and bust through those beliefs. This would not have happened if Catherine and Laura had not been willing to be bold and if I had not been open to hearing their boldness.
Wow, if I could choose a movie that really represents what Inspired Future is all about it is “How to Train Your Dragon”. It is a fantastic movie. An emergent leader (Hiccup) trusts and steps into who he really is, gets a glimpse of a new approach and the possibility of a different reality, faces judgement and rejection from the people who have always done things a certain way, boldly chooses his path and does it – he creates a new and different reality that noone else could even imagine. There’s so much more to this movie, but in a nutshell – bring on the ‘Hiccup’ that sits inside all of us dying to come out, that is what our work is for and that is what will make an Inspired Future. If you haven’t seen it, do it, this weekend!
Moving from doing to leading can be quite a transition. Anyone who has done it, knows. The challenge is that when you are in a doing role, your actions lead directly to results so you know when you are successful – and you often get many accolades. When you are in a leading role, the connection to results is not as linear and that can be a very uncomfortable position. I have coached people new to managerial roles and have noticed that it is quite common for them to struggle in embracing what it means to lead, to find where the value lies and to truly move into it. It is often easier to default to actions that will directly impact results, because you know that it is valued (and let’s face it, a little glory feels good). It seems to me that it is difficult to trust that others will see value in actions that help others to achieve results. I know that was a big part of my journey when I moved into my first sales management role.
So, here I am, almost 15 years after my first promotion to management and I still experienced something like this 2 days ago. Two people who I am paying and trusting to create some contact materials have done, and are doing, an exceptional job. The funny part is that as they are producing something tangible, I am left asking myself “ok, what is it that I am doing, where is my value”. I imparted a vision and got out of the way. As a business owner, I don’t get paid until we have a profit – there is no direct measure for my success. It’s still a bit uncomfortable, even as I know better. I must find value in other, less tangible things that I know make a difference. I have to remind myself that there is value in the thank you’s that I am getting from these two people, from my business partner and from my client’s who are appreciating receiving the materials that were created. It is up to leaders themselves to see their own value – maybe that’s all that truly matters anyway.
I had an interesting exchange the other day. A person in my life, made a passing comment that they did not understand the number of people who seem to be searching for ‘happiness’. This remark came out of a discussion we were having about the explosive growth in the self-help genre. As I thought about this comment in the context of my own journey, I became clearer in how I would describe my own underlying motivations.
My development has really not about being unhappy and searching for happiness, for me it has always been about getting to my happiest. In most circumstances where I have made life-changing decisions, they have been about moving towards happier not necessarily away from unhappiness. I do see a distinction in this and I think it’s worth some elaboration.
I think that there is an impression that to move towards being better, we need to be dissatisfied in some way, that there has to be something wrong to ‘fix’. I simply do not agree with this. I have had many instances where I have been satisfied, but have also had a distinct ‘feeling’ that I could have and feel more. I could have settled and would have lived at a certain level of happiness, as what I would call a bit ‘duller’ version of myself. What I mean by that is that I would still be me, but probably not in my entirety – I would have to compromise some element of me. When I make this statement it is not out of judgement – there really is nothing wrong with staying in that place if it is comfortable – for me though, it has never really been a place of comfort. So my development is driven by a sincere desire to move toward happier and ultimately happiest, for me. Happier vs. happiness – there is a difference.
Jodi