Pain Mentee

I’m learning pain is a valuable teacher. It’s a physical response, alerting me to danger or informing me that something is out of balance. I’ve spent a lot of time with it lately so we’re becoming quite close.

I’ve always known that I’m a practical learner. Applied statistics was my favorite math subject. I never liked proving theories. Just the facts Jack. Give me the formula to solve the problem.

This is why pain works as a lesson for me. It’s direct and straight forward. If something hurts in response to me taking an action, then I should stop that action. It’s logical and linear.

Of course everything is more complicated in practice.

First, I must accept pain as my teacher.

I followed the standard instructions of “managing” my pain to make it go away. Treating pain as a problem has only layered more pain on top of pain.

Lesson learned, pain is not a problem. I respect pain now. I’m even comforted by it.

What will happen when I treat pain like a mentor?

Today I’m deciding to live with the pain and see what it has to teach me. Teachers have had great influence on my life in the past. I learn more when I settle in, read the syllabus, attend class, and do the work.

I’m taking it pass/fail. There’s really no in between.

Regreet Data

This image spoke to me immediately when I laid my eyes on it. It uses many images from my past that speak to me. All are objects I loved at different times in my life; butterflies (before my peacock phase), color palate, fierce shoes, edgy style. I’m drawn to this vocabulary naturally.

Then I tried to attach meaning to the vocabulary and a story to the image. Nothing stuck.  The artist fails to evoke emotion. The objects don’t hold together in a meaningful way, it lacks interpretation. The piece speaks volumes and says nothing.

It reminds me of my research analyst days, sifting through data, tasked with turning data into information to tell a story that would improve business performance. “Correlation does not mean causation,” was the constant mantra.

It’s important to gather meaningful information to sustain growth and continue to improve performance. Am I talking business or life? Can’t help it, both.

Regret is a useless emotion. I do believe we can regreet our past and review the actions to interpret data and gain information to use going forward.

This second image does a better job of  illustrating my point. It has the same vocabulary as the first, yet the imagery elicits emotion. It feels as though I’m looking back to review my past under protection of the present. Comfortably regreeting the data to gain understanding for my future walk through life.

I love art that elicits emotion and tells a story that I can interpret using my information. Data is only input, we must interpret its meaning to inform our growth. If we don’t get it the first time; regreet.

Focus

Distraction is a comforting companion. I used it often to procrastinate on the important or clutter my activities. I find focus an illusive friend. Actually, focus does not play so hard to get, focus paired with prioritization are a rare coupling.

In all my years of consulting prioritization and focus is one of the most important problems to tackle first in business. This applies in life too.

If you sit down and think about all the things you want to work on in your life, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But if you get pragmatic and make a list, you can pick one thing to focus on; the most important thing.

My guess, if you give laser focus to that one thing in your life and fix it, just that one thing, many other things will change on their own.

Laser focus. No distractions.

Another important point about focus, in business and life, is sticking with what you know. We’re all more confident when we know what we’re talking about and we are more comfortable in our own skin when we are confident about what we can deliver. Stay close to your base and build your skill set.

I’m laser focused on staying centered and enjoying diving deeper into my skills. Distraction will be lonely for a while.

Stinky Thankin’

Today I’m thankful for all the things in life one is thankful for. Well adjusted, beautiful kids; devoted, smart, hilarious, husband; supportive, loving family and friends. I’m blessed in the life department beyond my wildest dreams.

I’m also thankful for the reminders of what it takes to support these blessings in my life. The look on my son’s face when I fail to follow through on a promise. Silence from my husband when he’s not happy with me. Disappoint from a friend when I stop speaking to them because I’ve taking something too personally. These blessing require a delicate balance.

My mother-in-law calls this “stinking thinking.” Focusing on flaws can actually manifest destruction.

There is a whole school of thought on putting positive vibrations out into the world and attracting this energy to you. Think positively and you will receive positivity.

I believe this, but at what point does this thinking lose sincerity and truth? At what point am I not being honest with myself about what I need to work on?

I believe I need positive vibrations and honest perspective about change. So the way I reconcile these two ideas is with “stinky thankin’.” I am thankful for the good stuff in my life that makes me work on the stinky stuff in me.

How do you like that vibe?

Power Full

“It’s not what happens to you but what you do in response.” If you know me, you’ve heard me say this more than once. I believe this to my core. So when I woke with the chant this morning, “surrender, surrender, surrender,” it unsettled me. I’m thinking to myself. What do mean, “surrender,” I have to “do” something. I always “do” something. I don’t let go when faced with challenge in my life, I get up and conquer it, I don’t “surrender.” What the hell are you talking about.

I’ve always been powerful, or at least put on my armor of power to conquer the world for myself and for others. I am a protector and nurturer. Constantly working to hold on to the armor and not allow anyone to penetrate my power, even to the point of being full of shit, so that no one knows how scared, tired, or hurt I really am at any given time. Keeping up this appearance has always been expected, but I’m almost positive this is an expectations I’ve placed on myself and nothing external.

On the other hand, this full of power thing is pretty exhausting, especially because at times I am so full of shit and I know it, others know it too. They call me on it.

Just the other day, my friend told me how stubborn I am while I argued a point. My response, “I’m as stubborn as I am smart.” Leave it to me to turn it into a positive. What I meant is, I am a quick study. I am stubborn, I’ll argue with you, but while I’m arguing with you, I am mulling over your point, then right in the middle of my defense, I will stop and agree that I’m wrong.

So this “surrender” idea is rattling around in my head as I write.

You only know what you know; you know. So when you don’t know, you gotta “surrender.”

That’s what the chant is about. Surrender to what I don’t know. Let others in and help. Listen and stop being so full of shit.

This surrender thing is not so bad…I’ll struggle with my stubbornness and be positive on my long road ahead.

Rushed Juxtaposition

Someone recently asked me what the title of my life would be to date, if it were a movie. All I could think of was “Rushed Juxtaposition.” The shades of gray shining brighter than any of the stark blacks or whites. Everything is “and” with me, nothing is either or. Marrying the summer before my senior year at the Stern School at NYU, leaving my finance final early due to Braxton Hicks contractions, ending up with an econ minor to manage co-parenting my baby boy with my law student husband, and walking across the stage at graduation with my 5 month old and my summa cum laude diploma; this was my last year of college.

I pumped breast milk between interview rounds at the big 5 consulting houses while my counter parts crammed for their case questions. I delayed my start date to stay home with my son until he was one. I went on maternity leave with my second son and put in for a transfer to move closer to my mother-in-law while up for promotion and won.

When laid off during the 911 crisis two years later, I started a business, to finally stay home and make more time for my kids and husband at age 25.

I was racing through life then, as I had been since birth. Running towards the kind of stability I had yearned for in my adolescence. In my determination to carry out this goal, I was constantly aware of the stark contrast of what people perceived my life might be upon first glance. I could in some contexts pass as living two lives. So I become comfortable in the grays. Wearing masks, watering myself down, to make others feel comfortable and allowing myself to escape.

Now that my children are preteens, my time is more my own and I my focus on one person. One brand, as I like to refer to myself. No more juxtapositions and no more rushing.

In today’s world you can and should only be yourself, the exposure probability is much greater and being a liar is worse than pretty much anything. People trust honesty. Honesty trumps flaws. And trust is a valuable commodity.

The foundation has been laid and the walls are up on my stability; I’m enjoying the view.

Know Value

We place much weight on the word “value.” In business, calculating this variable is a complicated and elusive process even for professionals at the top of their industry; we uncovered this in the recent US banking crisis. Yet discovering our personal value proves most challenging and this responsibility is on each of us.

As a marketing major at NYU, I got flack from my finance counterparts who believed my major was a less challenging endeavor. I decided to see what all the hub bub was about and took a summer internship at Morgan Stanley. I made a naive observation. People base “value” purely on what they “believe.” I mean sure, there were numbers, facts and reports tossed about; but people based value on what they “believed” was going to happen and the perceptions of the companies.

I walked away from the experience thinking, when I believe in something, it will be more inspiring than some numbers, facts and reports; yawn!

Christain Faur

We derive our personal value from this same belief system. From a young age, we place a value on ourselves based on our grades, rewards and monetary compensation. However, at some point, we become keenly aware that these metrics are merely the warm comforter of self-esteem and perception.

It’s the belief in one’s ability to share and contribute that will build strong self value. The more value an individual projects the more others believe they are valuable. The value has nothing to do with grades or wealth. This has been proven over and over.

I admire people who are confident in their value and aren’t afraid to go do exactly what they want and believe.

I’m fortunate. I’ve had a great life. Many have seen me as more valuable than I’ve seen myself. I’ve used them as a mirror to see my value. This reflection, however, has provided no foundation for a belief in my ability to share my real self, therefore, little real value was derived from my view.

It is only now in my life that I am working to focus on seeing value through my own eyes; stop measuring myself with the old metrics and share with the world what is uniquely mine to share.

It’s only through this action that I will find meaning and belief in myself. I’m not relying on my stock ratings anymore.

Broken String

Lucy Campbell, Libertad

Someone recently gave me the Eckhart Tolle book with the Oprah book club sticker on the front. I’m not finished yet, but I read in the beginning that a bird, a dove specifically, is the symbol of enlightenment and the evolution of human consciousness. So when I came across this piece of art my knees buckled. The image of the closed eyed dove and the bleeding heart brings together the concepts in the Tolle book and what I believe about string theory.

I’m a Virgo, so I don’t have much patience for theories. I like to think about things in a practical sense, so this is how the string theory translates for me. It’s a fluid connection between one point in time and space and another point. To take it one step further, it’s the connection of you at one point reaching around and connecting with you at a different point in time and space. I’m sure there are scientists out there itching to correct me, but I’m okay with this understanding; it’s comforting.

I like to think there is some alternate version of me that I am connected to that makes me a more enlightened person. The girl’s expression in the painting says to me that she was cut off from that other part of herself in that other space in time. How did this happen? How will she come back from here? She’s so utterly alone, cold, and lost without it.

It’s important to connect with others, but imperative to stay connected with ourselves. No matter how tenuous the string, don’t let go.

Pickles for Everyone

I watched a YouTube video explaining social media using the example of selling ice cream. The market had flavors with mass appeal and pickle flavor. Many people don’t like pickle flavor, but because of social media, pickle flavor ice cream makers could still reach their audience and make a profit.

One thing I managed to retain from classes I took as an econ minor in college are the basic laws of supply and demand. But in my professional experience as a marketer, I never saw these play out in the real world. Only the businesses with the largest marketing budgets and cunning ad campaigns won the market share leaving no room for the little guys to compete, regardless of demand.

The term, “there’s somebody for everybody” always applied to couples in my mind; you know what I’m talking about. That guy that just seemed undateable finally finds that girl who “gets” him. Well, with social media, there is this possibility in business too.

It levels the playing field for all businesses to find their audience with the product or service they’re offering without altering who they are to fit the masses or a budget to pierce the noise.

It’s possible for every person to receive their version of pickle ice cream.

If a business can decide the goal is “to create what is closest to the hearts of the people running it” not “to make a billion dollars” then the product or service is most authentic when delivered to the people who want it.

For consumers, this means you get products you actually want from people you actually like. For businesses, this means there is no reason to “sell out,” because you agree from the beginning to sell to an audience that’s into you, not the you that has to produce to sell billions, but the real you.

Now I want some of whatever flavor ice cream that is!

The reality is, most businesses are not going to make a billion dollars. Right? So if we just focus on the goal of making what we love for the people who love it, then prosperity will ring from there.

It’s no longer some hippie concept, now that we have social media.

Visceral References

The uplifting visceral connection I have with the color palate in peacock feathers has been the inspiration for my wardrobe choices for several years. It culminated in my design and creation of a costume to host my recent Halloween party revealing the Peacock as my alter ego.

At first I connected with the colors individually; green, blue, then indigo. I then began to wear layers of color in odd combination. I didn’t realize they existed in one object until I happened upon a piece of jewelry while style myself for a recent Twitter conference I attended.

Visceral connections to objects and people are the driving force in my life and in business. It’s often stated that women (and some guys) are too emotional. I have come to believe that it’s not emotion that I’m acting on, but a literal physical response to a person or situation.

People can make me feel sick to my stomach or euphoric and motivated; in person or just conjuring up a thought. This isn’t emotion, this is visceral. It affords me good instinct and foresight. For example, the thought of a person can make me feel nauseous, but lessons learned and positive experiences are easily remembered.

Applying visceral references to people and events in my life help to take emotion out of it. It allows me to logically see the greatness in experiences and keep positive memories, leaving feelings like sadness or anger for the non-verbal and physical part of my brain to process.

These visceral references in business an in life allow me to strut forward like a peacock, guiding me toward the useful insight and making me keenly aware of the rest. Regarding my choice in color palate; I’m pretty sure I’m over my peacock phase now; can’t wait to feel what moves me next.