If you surround yourself with amazing people you will get nothing but amazing results

The beginning

I’m sick.  What else is new these days?  First year I haven’t gotten the flu shot in years and I am definitely paying for it.  Stomach bug two weeks ago and now fever, chills, cough.  Not just any cough, the kind that makes you want to gag puke over the sink.  The kind that makes one of my boys come running into the room to see if I’m okay.  And they don’t often come to check on me.  Ever.

i wouldn’t mind being sick but it just means that nothing will get done and everything will fall behind.  My husband is great but he’s not me.  He does all of the basics.  Gets all the chores done.  Great, honest.  But one boy desperately needs a haircut before he begins to resemble a shaggy haired Springsteen.  He’s been sick and out of school for a week hence how I got sick.  But I can’t send him back to school looking like that.  Hubby is off with the another boy at a far away soccer game.  My fever is 101.  Littlest boy is strung out on Minecraft after two days of my sickness, and begging me to play Monopoly every five minutes.  And the oldest boy is in his bedroom basement, toiling away on homework while multi-tasking on SporsCenter, texting his gal pal, and listening to Kanye.  Happy Sunday.

Today I was supposed to rush around and buy birthday presents for hubby, his birthday is tomorrow.  Was going to make a rib roast, buy a birthday cake and celebrate him tonight at dinner.  And get boy #3 a haircut.  Easy peasy.  Instead, I’ll need to crawl into work tomorrow, make a good showing, bail early to rush and buy presents, grab a cake and take-out Chinese while assembling (threatening) the family to attend.  And act like that’s what I had planned all along.  Hate Mondays.

By now you should have a good sense of our hectic lives.  Four boys – 16, 14, 11 and 8.  Two working parents who hate corporate America but are in love with their boys.  A trillion bills.  A million things to do every day.  And only 1,440 minutes in a day.  But we wouldn’t trade a single thing.  Well, maybe the corporate America part and the massive pile of ironing that awaits me.

Letting Go

It’s almost a year now. It’s definitely getting easier but still hard to let it go.

Up until a year ago, I think like many female employees and leaders, I had a terrible habit of over-analyzing myself — every interaction, every presentation, every piece of feedback I received — wondering the impact each would have on my career and what others thought of me. I would chastise myself — why didn’t I ask that, why didn’t I say this, and brood on it for days, especially if with a higher level audience – even though people always gave me relatively positive feedback on these interactions and presentations.

One morning while driving to work I listened to a webcast of someone touting efficiency and effectiveness at work and how to get your arms around everything and one thing truly resonated with me. Each day, ask yourself what you’re going to focus on that day and what are you going to let go of. The focus part was easy enough, I did that every day already. But the letting go part hit me hard. What would I let go of? Was it possible? How could I do that and still get everything done?

Fortunately for me, that very same day I had what I considered a less than favorable interaction and I went into critique mode and brooded on it all night much to my husband’s annoyance. And the next morning I woke up and began the trek to the office, thinking about the letting go and all at once it hit me, I would just let go. I would stop critiquing myself, and stop worrying about things once they had passed. No more brooding, no more chastising. I would say what came to mind without analyzing it beforehand, I would speak up and speak my mind, I would just let go of all that worry and consideration and trying to be perfect.

Where have all the good friends gone?

Last night I went to dinner with friends, girlfriends and their husbands, which is always interesting because the husbands are just thrown together, with nothing in common, nothing that has drawn them together. It’s fun to watch them try to work their way through the evening, find things to talk about, knowing their wives need this to work. But I digress….

Last night as I was undressing at the end of the evening, I was struck by how hard it is to find friends at mid-life. You find people that you have something in common with near or within your neighborhood but at the same time they aren’t really ‘chosen’ by you. They will never be the same as your college or even high school friends, they will never have that bond with you. Not to mention how hard it is to find couple-friends, couples that BOTH you and your partner enjoy being with. We can count the number on one hand.

My husband and I started saying to ourselves, who could we go away on a vacation with? That seemed to be a good barometer with people we really click with. So far that number is 2. Two couples we would travel with and not want to kill them.

Listen, we are normal people. We work hard, love God, love our children, try to do the right thing, are kind and out-going. Why this is so hard I will never know but we find ourselves going back home to see high school and college friends more often. It’s so comfortable and we are so happy in the presence of those people. They have known us for so long, from when we were nothing, to where we are now. They celebrate our successes and share our sorrows. We love them so. And I guess that’s that. I guess that’s what happens as you age…those long friendships become more like family, and more than family. Everything else seems superficial, enjoyable but surface level acquaintances at best. Thank goodness for those deep and long standing friendships, we’ll cherish and grow them forever.

Life Lessons are Hard, but Meaningful

Life lessons sure are hard.  I’ve been dealing with one for almost two months now.

As a parent, it’s so hard to stand on the outside looking in, but we have to.  I can’t helicopter in on this one.  He’s got to experience this one on his own and learn how to to get through it because it will happen again in his lifetime, guaranteed.

He is my oldest.  And for the first time in his life he’s come upon someone who doesn’t view his talent in the same way as others have in the past.  And he’s lost because of it.

We’ve had some good talks about it.  I’ve told him this will happen again in his time.  Some people will see his talent and want to develop it more.  Others just won’t see it, and won’t spend a minute looking further.  It’s a good life lesson, and 15 is probably the right age to learn it.  But it’s hard.

I’ve shared my experience with him.  Told him this will make him stronger.  Everyone, at one time or another, will have a teacher, coach, mentor, boss, who just doesn’t see the best in them, and doesn’t dig deeper.

I’ve had  brilliant teachers, coaches, managers, leaders, and I’ve had awful ones.  And the awful ones have made me want to scream, or worse, quit. But I didn’t.  And it made me better, once I got through it.  It’s hard because at once you’re a star and then you’re not, without much explanation.  So you have to learn to look within, to love yourself, to know you’re talented and worthy, and to keep on trying, every day, to get better.  And soon enough, someone will see something in you again.  It’s a cycle.  And a great lesson.

It’s a really powerful lesson because sometimes you aren’t as good as you were.  Sometimes others grow faster than you, better than you, for a little while, until you come into your own again.  And then you might bypass others.  It’s a rewarding and painful cycle but I think, necessary for your growth.

I’ve been the coach, I’ve been the leader, but honestly, I didn’t give much thought at the time to how I might leave my team feeling, by not developing them, by not investing in them.  I think a lot about that now.  I know it’s not easy being the coach or the leader but I think many coaches don’t consider the full impact they may have, good or bad.

If I’m honest I tell my son that he hasn’t been working as hard at his craft lately and others have.  Perhaps that’s a good lesson for him.  I think he understands, mostly.  But the result still hurts.  And as I’m discussing this with him over the weeks, I don’t see him try harder, I see him fade into the background more and more and lose confidence.  Growing up is so hard to do.  And I can’t fix it.  So I just wait here until the times that he wants to talk about it.

But over that time I reflect myself on my career and that same pattern.  I’m very successful in my career but I’ve certainly had ups and downs with various leaders in the past.  Some I connect with amazingly well, they see my talent, and together we thrive.  Others can’t see it.  But I’m older now and I know this too shall pass.  So I wait.

Like my son is waiting.  It’s almost over…a new opportunity will come along, a new leader, a new coach, and everything will reset again, like Spring…all will be well again.  It’s a tough lesson to suffer through, but long term, so meaningful as it shapes the man he will become and the future he has.  It might be his first experience like this but it won’t be his last and although I’m not fixing it I hope I’m guiding him through how to handle this on his own one day.

 

 

 

Tired of Complicated

I definitely need the ‘Easy’ button, I’m way tired of complicated.

I’ve spent years building this career and creating this oh so wonderful family of mine but I’m definitely at a crossroads.  I used to pride myself on the juggling, I used to love that I could do it all.  I loved telling war stories from my virtual work life — taking conference calls from closets and bathrooms, with children outside of the door needing me, and my clever command of the mute button where I could use a question or comment from a colleague to mute the phone, handle the child’s need and unmute and carry on, all in less than 60 seconds.  I loved being able to block my work calendar to run to school and attend an event in my child’s classroom and be back at work in an hour without anyone noticing I was gone.  Maybe it was easier then because the children were younger?  Or maybe I had more energy?  I’m not sure.

Perhaps I’m watching the years fly by and I’m feeling the pressure of these beautiful children slipping away as they are growing up?  Or maybe I just have more perspective now, to know it just isn’t worth me losing my time with them to build this other ‘thing’, this ‘high-powered career’ that I’ve worked and waited so long for.  I’ve certaily come to the conclusion that I don’t want more, that I don’t want the next level, the next promotion, the next promise to give up even more of my personal life.  I just don’t need that gratification anymore.  I don’t need people to tell me I’m great anymore, to give me all 1s in my next performance cycle, to give me more work and more ‘visibility’.  I feel accomplished, I feel experienced, I feel worthy of all of those accolades.  I just don’t want them anymore.

I’m watching my friends, staying home and completely focused on their families and that is oh so appealing to me.  I’m so envious of that, and them.  I want to nest, I want to nurture my family, I want to slow time so I can spend all the minutes I can with them.  We’ve lost the plot, we’ve lost the focus, and I think I see the toll it’s taking on all of us.

So I’m thinking about easy, and free.  I’m envisioning my next steps.  We’ve built a life on these salaries and these careers so I can’t just walk away but I’m ready to do things on my own terms and I’ve got to figure out what that is.  So I’m just going to noodle on this for a while, think things through and decide what motherhoodtake2 looks like for me…I’ll be back soon.