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Go Local

When I go to my favorite restaurant, I am a creature of habit.  I always order the same dish the same way.  I always look at the other menu items, but ultimately I decide to stick with what I know.  My coffee is no different, which is why Selena or Adam always have it ready for me when I walk into Dunkin in the morning.  I wish I could be more adventurous when it comes to dining out, but I hate spending money on food and then being disappointed.

There’s one exception to this rule and that is when I travel.   If I’m travelling abroad, aside from my coffee habit, my creature of habit and safe food choices go out the window.   To truly experience another culture, you have to delve into their cuisine and local dishes even if it is a bit scary.  One rule we have in our house is when travelling abroad, you only get one McDonald’s trip so you can experience the different menus across the globe. All other meals should be eaten in local restaurants.

Most places are known for a specialty dish or two.  In the Brittany region of France, they’re known for the delectable Kouign-amannn cake.  This wonderful pastry is a round, crusty cake that comprises of layers of butter and sugar between layers of pastry. I know – it sounds awful right?  I have craved this dessert since leaving Saint Malo in 2011.

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Saint Malo is an incredible seaside city, where my husband’s grandfather happened to have landed in 1944 as part of the allied forces.  Despite coming into the city under heavy Nazi fire, he was enthralled with its beauty and brought back two paintings of Saint Malo with him to the states when the war had ended.    Saint Malo is also the city that Jacques Cartier departed from when he discovered Quebec.  I never knew how much I would grow to love Jacques Cartier.

In 2016, we had the opportunity to travel to Quebec City for Peewee Quebec, which was one of the most incredible trips I’ve ever taken.  Thank god for Jacques Cartier discovering Canada because les petit pains au chocolats and other pastries in Quebec City tasted like they had been baked in France.  The food in Quebec City. The cuisine of Quebec City is heavily influenced by Breton cuisine and what a tasty treat.

One night two of the moms, a hockey sister and I walked off the beaten path looking for a local bistro.  We found the cutest little place that would seat us at their bar, so we wouldn’t have to wait too long.  My friend Inga and I let the waitress order us her favorite dishes.  I ended up with veal sweet bread dish and Inga ended up with a seafood dish.   The food was incredible, though the sweet bread was a bit rich for my tummy.  Quite frankly if I had known what it was, I probably wouldn’t have ordered it, but then I would have missed out on the experience.

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The most important part of dinner, however, was dessert.  After 5 years of waiting and searching high and low in North America, I found a restaurant that served Kouign-amann.  It was absolutely amazing.  As I ate it, it instantly took me back to Saint Malo and the gite in Normandy.   The taste of the cake, combined with the memories of France and the new memories being created that night in Quebec City made for an incredible culinary experience.  If we hadn’t gone off the beaten path, we would have missed out.

I look forward to exploring Norway and its foods with my boys this summer.  The food, much like the land and the cities we will visit, is a connection to our Norwegian heritage.  While my boys are pretty picky eaters at home, I’m hoping this trip abroad will broaden their taste buds.

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Monday Motivation

Coffee is in hand.  Now who’s ready to slay Monday and the week?  I know I am!

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My New Toy

After leaving the nice camera on the shelf for the last year or so I brushed it off, charged its battery and got the lenses ready for graduation.  I bought the T2i for our trip to France back in 2011.   If you’re travelling to Europe or planning any major trip, it is worthwhile to invest in a good camera.    Many museums, cathedrals, castles, palaces and other landmarks prohibit flash photography, so you’ll need a camera that takes good pics in low light.

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Since 2011 my Canon EOS Rebel T2i has served us well, but after 6 years, countless trips to Minnesota, countless hockey tournaments and countless school events culminating with Jake’s graduation it is time to move on.  Truthfully, some of the photos from graduation were a bit cringe worthy.  The T6i comes with an improved lens compared to the T2i.  In addition, the camera is a bit heavy by current standards and lacks the connectivity to smartphones and computers built into the T6i and T7i.

The Canon EOS Rebel T6i can be controlled from my iphone.  No more running and tripping to try and beat the timer when taking a group picture off a tripod.  You can also review and manage images easily on your iphone, which is a huge plus.

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In preparation for my trip overseas, I’ve been playing around with the camera to try and learn the different settings and familiarize myself with it.  Fortunately, my puppies, my guinea pigs  and my kids have been happy to oblige.  My initial review of the Canon Rebel EOS T6i is that it is a huge upgrade compared to the T2i.  It is light, easy to use and easy to navigate the menus.  After my trip I will write a more comprehensive review.   Here are some of the practice pictures.

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Keeping Up Appearances

When Snap went public in March, investors had high hopes that they’d see Facebook like returns on their IPO dollars.  That might be a stretch, but the thought was that Snap would be a good addition to a portfolio.  Since the IPO, shares have fallen by 28% due investor concerns surrounding slowing user growth and lack of profitability.  Class actions lawsuits seeking to protect investors have followed.

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In the wake of Uber’s troubles, comparisons between Uber’s former CEO Travis Kalanick and Snap’s CEO Evan Spiegel have been common place.  Now that Snap is a publicly held company, Spiegel is more likely to lose his job as a result of poor user growth and low profitability.  Both are known to be egotistical, brash, and narcissistic and both have gotten in trouble for their comments.

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Monday night Snap threw a party in Cannes at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.  Ironically, there were no cameras allowed in the event and guests were not allowed to take photos.  Additionally, journalists were not allowed into the party either.  Sounds like Snap likes being in the camera business, but doesn’t want the cameras in its business.  Perhaps they are trying to maintain an illusion of austerity in the face of the numerous class action suits or a contrived sense of exclusivity.  Meanwhile stateside, Kalanchick resigned Tuesday as CEO of Uber.

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When it comes to maintaining illusions, it isn’t just powerful CEOs, but regular people via their social media accounts.  Society has created a web of perceived perfection via filters, influencers and viral videos.  The illusion becomes dangerous when people can no longer cope with real life against the juxtaposition of the illusion.  If your kids were to look at your pics, would they see you or would they see a contrived version of you?

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Commit or Quit

I wrote last night about how a single blog post has completely upended Uber’s rocket like trajectory to the top of the business world.   Uber and Lyft provided a much needed alternative to current modes of transportation available in our cities.  Uber was a head of the game, but a lack of discipline and an abysmal, abusive corporate culture has derailed their ascent to the top.

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When you look at the core values of Uber, at least from what can be pieced together through various media and former employees’ reports, are built around winning and only winning.  Some of these are toe stepping, make magic, super pumped, and always be hustling.  While these are levels of motivation you’d want to see in your employees on the daily, they’re not the only traits or values that you’re looking for them to uphold.  Most companies’ core values reflect their goal of making a profit, but they also reflect their goal of making a profit in concert with integrity, great work environment, and responsibility.  The core values serve as a guide for all of their employees to make sure the business is run both within the letter of the law and with the utmost integrity.

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The establishment of core values for a corporation is important as it signals to employees, customers, and shareholders who you are and wants important to you as a business.  When establishing the core values, it is essential that all levels of the organization commit to living within that value set or else you’re operating within a house of cards much like Uber.

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Much like any habit, if you say you’re going to commit to running 25-30 miles a week to achieve a PR at our next race, but you only run 10-15 miles a week your PR will likely not materialize.  Likewise, if you as a business commit to core values, but do not adhere to all of them, your business practices will not align with your core values.  Moreover, as a leader you’ll have little to no credibility with your folks.  The lesson is don’t be half pregnant.  Don’t preach one things and live another; commit to your goals, your values and stick to them.

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House of Cards

Uber had been a darling of the business world for the past couple of years.  When my youngest son and I along with his best friend and his mom found ourselves stranded with a couple of strangers at a seedy motel in Union City, GA at 2:00 am.   The hotel shuttle dropped us off assuring us we could use our vouchers there.  Upon dropping us of at the hotel, the driver collected his kickback and promptly departed.  No sooner had the driver left, when the hotel clerk informed us that they did not accept Southwest’s travel vouchers.  As the others in the party argued with the hotel clerk, we sat off in the corner with the kids watching as several pimps and their hoes walked in and out of the hotel.   There was no way in hell that we were going to stay out of the hotel, but getting a taxi outside of the city was difficult.  A businesswomen from Milwaukee, called us two Ubers and booked us hotel rooms as a hotel closer to the airport.  Thank god for her and for Uber.

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The past couple of months for Uber, much like that night for us, have been nothing but an unmitigated disaster culminating yesterday with the departure of Uber’s CEO.  I was reading an article in the paper the other day about the state of Uber and how one blog post has brought the once might company to its knees.  In her blog post, Susan Fowler described her very strange year as an employee of Uber.  This blog post recounted a number of issues at the company including explicit sexual harassment, career sabotage and gender discrimination to name a few.  This blog post by a former engineer ended up going viral setting off a number of earth shaking events at the company.

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The lesson for bloggers is that your words matter and your voices can be heard, so use the platform wisely and judiciously.   For corporate leaders, consider how your run your teams and your organizations.  If your employees were to write a blog post on your leadership, what would they say?  Would they recount stories similar to Susan Fowler’s?  Leadership is rarely glamorous and often thankless, but when people are treated with respect and made to feel value their opinions of their leaders and organizations will reflect it.  Build an organization on respect, valued employees and principled leadership and you won’t find yourself leading an organization built on a house of cards.

 

For further reading on the Uber debacle:

https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/how-a-single-courageous-voice-led-ubers-ceo-to-resign.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/technology/uber-workplace-culture.html

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/22/uber-cto-thuan-pham-susan-fowler-travis-kalanick

 

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To Be Or Not To Be

When the question is whether or not to be a helicopter parent, the answer is always not to be.  Helicopter parents aren’t something I remember from my youth.  I cannot recall a time where numerous parent volunteers populated the halls and the classroom my elementary school, but it is the case at my children’s school.

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While there’s nothing wrong with volunteering in our kids classroom, it isn’t healthy when you’re child goes off to kindergarten and you go too.  I remember when Goalielocks was in kindergarten he had a classmate whose mom was literally in class as a volunteer every single day.  While it was awesome that she was able to help the teacher every day, it wasn’t healthy for her child to have her in class every day.

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While my brothers and I were in middle school and high school, my parents were always there to support us, but they allowed us to make decisions and make mistakes.   My parents were never involved in any of our relationships and certainly never orchestrated any of them.  Present day, we parents like to meddle in our kids relationships, in our kids’ grades and all aspects of their lives.

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The problem is if we handle every issue, every bump in the road our kids face, they will never learn to overcome obstacles on their own.  This leaves them ill prepared for the obstacles they’ll face in their adult lives.  As hard as it is to watch the stumble, we have to let them stumble and make mistakes.  It is through these mistakes that they’ll learn critical thinking skills, that failure is okay and that we all make mistakes.  Life lessons they’ll take forward into their adult life that are invaluable.   The alternative of course is that we smother them as a helicopter parent and they turnout like Buster from Arrested Development.

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Sage Advice

With my oldest about to turn 18, gulp, there have been a lot of talks in our house about the future and paving a path forward in life.  The beautiful thing about high school graduation is that it is a clean, fresh start.  A chance to take all that has been learned and forge forward into new learnings and to creating a life for ourselves.  Even though most of us are slightly past high school graduation, maybe more than slightly, the advice is still pertinent.   Here are three pieces of sage advice that can benefit us all.

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First, whatever path you choose in life, whatever profession you choose do it well.   Take pride in our craft and pour your heart and soul into it.  To give it any less would be to short change yourself of both your full potential and opportunities.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson eloquently wrote, “a man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.”

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Secondly, don’t be afraid to choose the path less traveled.  It is easy to follow the herd and a path that has been freshly cleared, but it is not always rewarding.  This will make being passionate about what you do difficult.  Blaze your own trail.

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Lastly, the biggest challenge and the biggest accomplishment is to be authentically you.  There is a constant pull, amplified by social media, for you to fit a certain mold.  The pressure to dress and look like celebrities and influences is unending.  The pressure to be the perfect spouse or parent is suffocating.  Never mind  the fact the definition of perfect parent depends on which day of the week it is, what season it may be and the time of day.   If you try to keep up with the ever evolving standards, you’ll drive yourself crazy.  If on the other hand you remain true to yourself, you can keep your sanity and should feel a great sense of accomplishment.