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Be Authentic

Who we are, how we lead, how we work, how we parent and decisions we make are all based on a frame work of morals and ethics that were ingrained with us from our youth.  Sure over the years, our moral and ethical framework evolves, but the shifts are not crisp, nor are they tectonic in nature.  Or are they?

I believe in servant leadership and have practiced it in my current role and at my previous company.  My leadership style isn’t and wasn’t based upon a company or management philosophy in place, but rather based on how my moral and ethical framework interprets the role of a corporate leader.  In other words, it is authentic to who I am and how I operate.  My leadership style has never been a tool of expediency.

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There are times in our lives, where it will be tempting to give into expediency and pivot from our ethical framework and our leadership style.   Giving into the expediency may result in short term gains, but as a leader the voracity of your character will be questioned by your subordinates and those above you.    Before you pivot to expedience, ask yourself if the short term gains will outweigh the longer term ramifications.  How will your organization perform if they no longer have faith in you or your intentions?  Is it worth the risk?  I would argue all day every day that it is never worth the risk.

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Establishing a Writing Habit

After a decade long break from writing, I picked it up again when I started this blog in late April.  Rusty and out of practice, it felt both good and terrifying all at once.  Inspired to write by the circumstances of my life, I felt compelled to create this blog.  Writing provides me with a creative outlet and a platform to help others.  Many people start writing, painting or another creative outlet because they’re inspired by their life’s circumstances, but they don’t continue pursuing their art as their inspiration wanes.

The thing with inspiration is that it is not constant.  It is fickle and ever changing.  If we rely only on inspiration to drive our craft, than we are likely lose interest as our inspiration wanes.  Rather than relying on inspiration, rely on habit.  Make your craft a part of your daily routine.  This will make it a way of life and not reliant upon the fickle nature of inspiration.

The draw in participating the daily prompt for me was exactly that.  It has been to establish writing as an important part of my daily routine.  This will help me polish my writing skills and ensure my blog doesn’t become just a flash in the pan.

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Life’s Storms

Life is fickle.  Life is funny.   It seems to go one of two ways.  Either nothing is happening or everything is happening and our world is collapsing around us all at once.  Both the boredom and chaos associated with either scenario can be all encompassing and destructive.  In the calm, it is easy to become complacent.  In the storm, it is easy to give up, but don’t.   You are much stronger than you ever imagined.   As Victor Hugo so eloquently said, “even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”  And remember, as you weather the storm, you are not alone.

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Imaginary Troubles

If you’re like me, ever since children entered the picture, sleep has been an issue.  While you may have been a deep sleeper before, you now wake up at the drop of a pin.  God forbid your dogs bark or your partner snores because then you won’t even be able to fall asleep.  The problem with this of course is that as you try to sleep and can’t, the mind starts racing.  Sadly late at night, the mind never goes to a good place.  It goes into your psyche and taps into your anxieties and fears.

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Once those ruminations start, they are hard to stop and you find yourself struggling to slow your racing mind.  These imaginary obstacles have your heart racing and your brain on overdrive.  When you do finally fall asleep, the anxiety may abate temporarily only to resurface the following day.   It is an odd facet of human nature that we are inclined to ruminate about a past that we cannot change and a future that we cannot predict.  These ruminations can become overwhelming if you allow them.

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If you find yourself obsessing over potential issues or obstacles in the future, stop.  Just as you cannot change your past, you cannot live by focusing on future problems.   To be clear, you can exist, but you cannot live.  Your life will pass you by if your time is focused on your past or on your future.   Focus on your present, the people you love and that which you can control.

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Life will hand you difficult hands, but you are much better equipped to deal with the difficulty than your worries suggest.  The struggles you worry about often seem insurmountable, but when faced with actual struggles you will overcome them.  Have faith in your strength and in the strength of your relationships, which will help carry you through the difficult times.

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Sunbeams      

Have you ever come across a person so sullen that you don’t think it is physically impossible for them to smile or laugh?  Every interaction you have with that person is tenuous at best and horribly unpleasant at worst.  Every interaction you observe between that person and another is equally poor.  No matter how well you or anyone else treats them, they are always unhappy. In their unhappiness, they try to drag you into their dystopian world, but don’t take the bait.  Don’ let their unhappiness define your happiness or lack thereof.

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In life you have a choice, you can radiate bitterness and unhappiness as characterized above or you can be the antithesis to the negative Nelly.  I’m not suggesting by any means that you become a Pollyanna, but rather that you don’t allow the negative Nellys in your life to define the way you see the world.  Dealing with people that are consistently negative is difficult and taxing by radiating positive vibes you can counter the negative.  So don’t be a Pollyana; be the anti-negative Nelly.  Be the person that takes time to compliment someone on their outfit or their hair or hold the door for someone at the coffee shop.  Be the person that chooses to radiate kindness, generosity and goodness.  Small gestures of kindness go a long way in counteracting the meanness and negativity of those who choose to be miserable.

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Long before I was reading Les Miserables, I was reading Roald Dahl and Judy Blume. What kid growing up in the 1980s didn’t read Super Fudge or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?  Roald Dahl wrote that “If you have beautiful thoughts they will shine out of your face like a sunbeam and you will always look lovely.”  Nothing makes someone uglier than a mean spirit or a negative or hateful constitution. The choice is yours. What will you radiate?

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Survive

This year has been an extremely difficult year full of pain and loss, which I had discussed in a previous post.  In these periods of difficulty, it is sometimes difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it is there.  Suffering is part of the human experience.  Learning to thrive and find meaning in the suffering is to survive.   While I’ve lost a lost this year, I have also learned a lot.

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Living in S. Florida, it is easy to get caught up in material things and a hedonistic lifestyle.    In doing so, however, material goods can take the place of experiences and people.  While some people’s budget can support both, mine can’t, but that’s really not the point.  The point is that learning to appreciate experiences with the people you love will help carry you through difficult times.  The shared memories you create will never leave you and are priceless.

Life is seldom stable with changes both positive and negative coming rapid fire. In addition to coping with the suffering, you have to be adept at adapting to change.  If you cannot adapt to the changes in your life, you cannot survive and thrive.  This isn’t something that happens real time or overnight.  It can be gradual or after weeks of nothing it happens all at once.  The goal is to learn to how to roll with the punches and be nimble.   Just like Darwin’s finches, you must adapt if you are to survive.

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Surrounding yourself with people who are your champions is an absolute must. Each and every one of us needs that person that can pull us up when we’re down.  A person that can remind us how fantastically awesome we are when we’re not feeling that spectacular.   Of course, it is just as important to return the favor and be that champion for your friends and family.

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Our race

As tryout week winds down and my hockey mom nerves unravel, I can feel the tension leaving my shoulders and my stomach.  Friday night we had our last tryouts for the fall season.  Regardless of the outcome of tryouts, the ultimate decision is equally stressful.  I skipped the Monkey to get home earlier with the Mayor, so I could attempt to get to bed early in preparation for the Firefighter Eric Patrie 5k on Saturday morning.

I’m not a morning person, so when I have a race or early hockey game, I usually set several different alarms to ensure I’m out of the house in time to get to the event.  I prefer to get to the race about an hour early, so I can warm up, eat a little something, hit the bathroom and get acclimated for the race.   Saturday morning was not that morning.

I had set my Fitbit alarm, which usually works all of the time.  It doesn’t, however, work when you forget to put it back on after you shower.  I also set the alarm on my phone, but apparently it was for pm and not am.  Instead I awoke to my hubby saying aren’t you supposed to be somewhere by now?  It was 6:05 am and the answer of course was yes!

I ran out of bed, woke up Jake and gave him a ten minute warning.   We rushed to get ready and head towards Delray, so we wouldn’t miss the start.  I grabbed almonds in a rush and popped few on the way along with a GU gel.  We made it in time to park and head to the starting line before the scheduled start, but it felt rushed and our muscles (much like the weather by Florida standards) were cold.

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I had hoped to log a PR, but I was tired, cold and under the weather.  Honestly, I didn’t feel like running at all and was really craving the comfort of my bed and down comforter.  Nevertheless, Jake and I along with our KU running crew, including Evie the sweetest dog,  made our way to the starting line.  It was a gun to chip race, so Jake and I stayed near the front of the start corral to avoid the inevitable starting line traffic jam.

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As I ran the first mile, which felt like five, I fought through the desire to quit, the desire to walk, the desire to go back to bed and tried to maintain a decent pace.  It was a tough mile and slower than I wanted, but not horrible over all.  I grabbed some water continuing on to mile two.  Maybe it was me, maybe it was the weather or maybe it was the route, but mile two seemed to last forever.  I tried to maintain my pace as best I could and saw only a little degradation in pace between mile one and two.

Mile three beat me up.  The unusually cool and dry air dried out my throat and tightened up my lungs.  I had to stop to use my inhaler and was feeling the pain.  At this point, I had a choice to continue to walk and get comfortable or to run the remainder and try to hit my goal.  I chose to run. It hurt, it wasn’t pretty and in the end I missed a PR by tenths of seconds, but I did it.  I fought through the fatigue and pain to do my best.

Initially I was disappointed by my time (28.33) , but I think I was being too harsh on myself.  Two and half years ago, I ran my first 5k at a time of 34 minutes.  I started training in earnest last fall and whittled my time down to a PR of 28:32.  It’s not earth shattering fast, but it represents a lot of hard work and a lot of forward progress.  I didn’t feel 100% physically Saturday morning, but I didn’t let it stop me from giving 100% in the race and that was Saturday morning’s victory.

Meanwhile, Jake finished 6 minutes ahead of me, but was also disappointed by his time.  It was slower than his PR of 21 minutes, but he still  placed in the top 3 of his age group.  This was a very fast and competitive race, so I was happy to see how well he fared against the competition.  Even with the trophy, he was still disappointed with his result.

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Even though my time wasn’t where I wanted to be, I love the feeling of finishing a race.  I love the excitement of the start and the excitement of the finish.  I love seeing a first time 5k runner come through the finish line.  There is no better feeling finishing something you didn’t think you were capable of finishing and theirs is nothing better than seeing that sense of pride on a runner’s face as they finish their first 5k.  Joe – your KU crew was proud to see you cross the finish line and do great your first time out.  Can’t wait to see what you do in your second 5k!

Neither of Jake nor I, hit a time we were thrilled with Saturday, but we had a great time with good friends supporting a great cause.  For Jake and I, its back to training and working towards better results and greater distances.

If you’d like to know more about this event, here’s the website.

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Getting out of my own way

Exhaustion, pure utter exhaustion from the emotional weight of the last couple of months and a hectic hockey mom schedule, has become the scapegoat for missing my post Zumba run these past 3 weeks.  During Zumba sessions, I dial back my mileage to mitigate the abuse to my body, but these runs are still important for my training.  My goal is to eventually break 27 minutes in a 5k and to complete a 10K in under 60 minutes.  Without these runs, my pace falls off and my endurance wanes.

This weekend Jake and I are running our first 5K of 2017, the Eric Patrie 5K in Delray.  Both of us are looking for a new PR in this race, which will be tough given the increase in temperatures since our last 5K in December.  In order to even be close to my PR (28:32), I knew I’d have to log some miles tonight.  So despite being tired and hungry, I ran.

My treadmill has become an important part of my bedroom furniture serving as a fully functional clothes and handbag hanger.  In the Florida spring and summers when the weather is stormy, it serves a different purpose.  It actually functions as a piece of exercise equipment.  While I prefer to run outdoors, I’m glad to have the option of running indoors when the weather doesn’t cooperate.

In spite of sheer exhaustion, I got in a nice 20 minute run. The run felt good and as usual I felt even better afterwards.  It would have been easy to skip the run given I already taught Zumba tonight, but in order to achieve my goals I had to run.  The point is sometimes the only obstacle between us and our goals is us.  Paolo Coelho said it best, “people are capable, at any time of their lives of doing what they dream of.”  Sometimes we just have to get out of our own way.

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A year of loss…

There are times in our lives that we are brought to our knees by the pain of loss and the weight of responsibility.   Apparently 2017 has decided to be that time in my life and the lives of those I love.   2017 has been a year of profound loss and its only May 3rd.  It began with the loss of a beloved employee, the loss of a friend’s child, the loss of a dear friend, and the loss of a dear friend’s sister.  Today life handed us another loss.

When I started at Kaplan eight years ago, having recently been laid off from Progressive, my confidence was shaken.  Progressive had been my first and only job after college.   The idea of starting all over after seven years was daunting.

My first day at KU, I was met by a charismatic trainer with a Brooklyn accent and more energy than anyone I had ever met.   He was Pete.  He was passionate about what he did and took pride in training admissions advisors to service our military students.  Pete believed in me from day one and for that I will always be grateful.  I feel blessed to have had him as my trainer, advocate and an early champion of mine at KU.   Sometimes all it takes to restore confidence is having someone believe in you again.  I was utterly devastated when I learned that we lost him early this morning.   He left us way too early and our hearts are broken.  Our thoughts and prayers are with his family especially his beautiful daughter, who was his pride and joy.

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Whether unexpected or not, these losses have been tremendously hard to stomach.  Losing someone before they hit middle age is cruel, but nothing in life is guaranteed especially our time here on earth.  Life is too short to be taken for granted.  Life is too short to settle for mediocrity and a life that does not make our soul sing.  To be clear, I’m not saying everything should be rainbows and ponies.   I am saying that while we are on this earth: we should embrace life’s experiences not possessions, embrace work that leaves us fulfilled not empty and embrace and enrich the relationships that shape our lives.

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I won the weekend!

I don’t mean to brag, but I totally won the weekend.    Truly, I freaking killed the weekend.  What does winning the weekend even mean?  Let me explain….  At work we talk a lot about what winning looks like.  In order to win, we need to hit certain metrics or certain objectives.  For me to win the weekend, as a hockey mom, it is not dissimilar.  I need to hit certain objectives.   These objectives include incredibly sexy tasks like laundry, cooking meals, vacuuming, grocery shopping, cleaning the house (still in a post hockey season disarray) and logging my miles.  I can count the number of times I have hit all of these objectives on a weekend during hockey season on one hand.   To be fair, it probably happened just once before.  My fellow hockey moms and dads, I know you feel my pain and can appreciate how amazing it is that I could win my weekend during the spring hockey season.

 

Again, this post isn’t about bragging, but relishing in the small joyous victories life sometimes brings.  Friday night was a complete miracle.  I came home to a deceased hamster.  Chuka, Zach’s (aka the Mayor) newly acquired hamster went to the great beyond after a mere 5 days at the homestead.  He was devastated at the loss, so naturally we put the dead hamster in a bag and took it back to Pet Smart for an exchange.  While the Mayor and dad exchanged the hamster, I ran my four miles and it was awful, but I did it.  Before we took the boys to hockey, the Mayor’s new hamster (Oompah Lupa) was in its cage and playing about.   Both boys made it to their hockey practice without being a minute late.  Victory!  By the time the Mayor and dad got home from peewee practice, I had already grilled the chicken (without blowing up the grill), cooked the pasta and made a Caesar salad.  Remarkably, the chicken did not taste like lighter fluid and there were no fires.  Dinner and the Mayor’s sleepover were a complete success.

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Saturday could have been better had my Wild beaten St. Louis, but they choked and broke my family’s collective heart by being eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  To be fair, the officiating didn’t help their cause at all.  Nonetheless, I was extremely productive completing the grocery shopping, vacuuming the floor, and completing almost all of the laundry! I even logged my four miles with my Athena.  Best of all, the Mayor’s team won both of their peewee spring games.  Post run as a consequence of some foot pain, we headed to Dick’s Sporting Goods so I could replace my worn sneakers.   New sneakers and a couple workout tanks I didn’t need later, we headed over to PetSmart to buy Goalielocks some new fish.  If he has his druthers, he’ll have a fish breeding facility in his room in no time.

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Sunday was the perfect day to stay home and do nothing as it rained almost all day.  These days rarely happen in South Florida and I took full advantage to finish the laundry and get most of the house organized.   Even had the opportunity to take the boys to Petco to get our saltwater aquarium water’s tested.   Fortunately for my wallet the tank isn’t done cycling.   For now our tank, will keep cycling with the hermit crabs and Bubbles the conch.  Post Petco the sun finally came out, so Jake and I went for a quick 3.5 mile run.  The run was miserable as the pre-run diet of brownies and coffee was less than optimal, but we did it.  We stuck to our goal and made it happen.   Note to self (and cautionary tale to the audience) stop eating brownies and going for a run immediately thereafter.  It makes you want to vomit and slows you down.  Sometimes it all about life’s lessons and small victories.

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To be perfectly honest, I finished all the loads of laundry and maybe by this Friday we’ll get all of the clothes put away.  Small victories will turn into big victories that’s what I keep telling myself.   Either that or we’ll hire a housekeeper during hockey season.   In the meantime, I’ll relish small victories and winning my weekend.