Category: Personal Favorites

My personal favorites

Fake it until you make it

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it, Personal Favorites

We took a quick road trip over the weekend. The boys demanded a movie within seconds of the engine starting. We have a pile of DVDs ready for just such an emergency however we’ve played them so many times now that the hubby and I can repeat the dialogue by heart. Therefore we weren’t exactly thrilled to fire up the player. We told them they were going to have to wait until we reached the interstate.

We have two sets of headphones that go along with the entertainment system so that backseat passengers can listen to their movie while the front seat listens to the radio. Unfortunately my two-year old is too young to appreciate the benefit. He has no interest in keeping a large electronic accessory strapped to his head.

My eldest was patient for approximately ten minutes which I am sure felt like hours to him. He begged us once again to turn on a movie. We told him that we would put the movie on after his brother fell asleep. He immediately turned to his brother and said, “go to sleep so that we can watch a movie.”

If my youngest was any older, I am sure that would have been exactly the wrong thing to say to achieve his goal, instead my youngest smiled and pretended to fake sleep, including snoring. Snoring loudly. Then not so loudly.

I turned around. My youngest was sound asleep in his chair. He pretended he was asleep until it became his reality. I handed over the headphones to my eldest and fired up the DVD player. Three out of four of us achieved our goal.

The morale of the story is sometimes you have to fake it to make it. Or in my sons’ example, have your underlings fake it until you make it.

Mark Twain once said that “to succeed in life you need two things: confidence and ignorance.” The ignorance part is easy. We all start out as amateurs. Had I known everything I know now would I have taken the same path? Maybe. I can’t say, but I wouldn’t be the person I am today had I not veered off course or made a mistake or two hundred.

The confidence part is trickier. How can you build up your confidence when you’ve never done something before? Some people take issue with the phrase fake it to make it as the word fake implies that what you are doing is deceitful and or a lie. I understand where they are coming from, but I fear that they may be getting caught up on the literal definition. You should never commit fraud or portray yourself as anything other than authentic, but adults can and should still play make-believe. Like a toddler mimicking the actions of an adult, or older sibling, you have to act in the manner in which you believe a successful person should act. It’s not brainwashing. It’s practice. In this manner you gain experience, which reinforces belief. Belief then fuels confidence. If you can convince yourself that you deserve to succeed, then one day you may just discover that you are no longer pretending.

Is your safety net actually a drag chute?

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it, Personal Favorites
21st annual California Hot Rod Reunion
21st annual California Hot Rod Reunion (Photo credit: ATOMIC Hot Links)

Over the last few weeks I have watched a few of the blogs I follow sign off for good. The authors were moving on to other day job challenges and no longer could put in the time to write. Considering one of my goals is to find a way to write more, their choice was somewhat puzzling to me, but I respect that they made the decision that worked best for their personal situation.

The Lonely Vacuum Of Space
The Lonely Vacuum Of Space (Photo credit: JD Hancock)

As I am often inspired by other bloggers and entrepreneurs, I found myself in a bit of an inspirational vacuum this week with their departure. I was going to have to take desperate measures. I decided to go for a jog hoping that might help get the creative juices flowing.

Not being a fan of the cold, I did not manage to stay in peak physical condition over the past winter. I found myself walking well before I reached my destination. I scolded myself. I told myself I was going to have to sprint to make up the time. I saw a stop sign in the distance and promised myself not to let up until I reached it.

Then my legs started to hurt and I thought to myself, well that’s close enough, it’s a nice day and there aren’t exactly bears chasing me. I’m still burning calories. I walked the rest of the way home.

But what if I there had been bears. Could I have made it to the stop sign, or would I have been lunch? Would I have found a way to suffer through the pain, or would I have rolled over and succumbed to the inevitable?

Sometimes I have to wonder if my safety net is actually working against me.

The Dark Knight Rises (1 of 2)
The Dark Knight Rises (1 of 2) (Photo credit: Brett Jordan)

There is a scene in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises where Bruce Wayne is stuck in a pit. He can escape anytime he wants, provided he can somehow scale the nearly unbroken vertical wall. He is even given a safety rope to keep him from plummeting to his death.  His captors are not entirely monsters after all. After several failures, Bruce Wayne decides to forgo the rope. This time he reaches the distant ledges and pulls himself out. Hurrah!

By tying the rope around his waist, he was subconsciously telling his brain that failure was an option. As a result his adrenalin didn’t spike to the necessary levels and his muscles didn’t propel him far enough.

I didn’t want to push my legs too hard as I wouldn’t have been able to walk home. My ability to walk home was my safety net and I wanted to protect it. However by doing so, I allowed myself to fail my original goal. Just like the chute that is deployed out of racing vehicles, my safety net held me back.

In this case the failure just hurt my pride. Abandoning my safety net in pursuit of a small personal goal wasn’t worth the risk. However for goals that really matter, failure should not be an option. Sometimes in order to get what you really want in life, you have to be willing to risk everything.

 

 

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You have to dance like nobody’s watching

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it, Personal Favorites
Dance like nobody's watching
Dance like nobody’s watching (Photo credit: fmgbain)

Have you had the pleasure of watching the Lego Movie, or heard the What Does The Fox Say song yet? No? Well if you ever found yourself near my house on a Friday night you would hear song, Everything is Awesome and the aforementioned song blasting on our speakers over and over again as my boys engaged in what has become our “beginning of the weekend dance party!”

Dance Floor
Dance Floor (Photo credit: enric archivell)

My eldest son’s dancing consists of jumping, running in a circle, spinning on the floor, and imitating a robot. My youngest is still mastering walking and mostly performs a series of squats and sways while pointing his fingers in the air. I am not even going to attempt to describe the series of movements my husband and I consider our own dancing style, but needless to say we likely won’t be contestants on dancing with the stars anytime soon.

We may be somewhat rhythmically impaired, but it doesn’t stop us from letting loose every weekend. I am going to miss these moments when my boys age into the tween years and are too embarrassed to be seen walking with either my husband or I, let alone be seen dancing with us. The party is going to be over way too soon.

 

Susanna Clark and Robert Leigh penned the following lyrics for their song, “Come from the Heart”

You’ve got to sing like you don’t need the money,
You’ve got to love like you’ll never get hurt,
You’ve got to dance like there’s nobody watching,
You’ve got to come from the heart if you want it to work.

These words are proven true over and over again.

Nicolas Cage was recently interviewed about his Oscar-winning performance for Leaving Las Vegas. He said, and I paraphrase, that he was so sure that the film would never been seen that he didn’t worry about what the critics or academy would say, he just committed himself to the role. By not worrying about being watched, he was freed to do something remarkable.

I struggled severely with my first several attempts at writing, not for lack of imagination, but because I was too concerned about forcing my words be best-seller caliber, or at least be quote-worthy. Then I saw a rebroadcasted interview with the late Elmore Leonard, author of dozens of novels.  He repeated his longstanding advice, “If it sounds like writing. Rewrite it.” I realized I just had to start typing, and stop worrying about who was reading. As long as I gave it my all, it would work out in the end like it was supposed to.

If you are reading this, then the process worked, and if you aren’t, well… I’ll still be dancing on Friday.

 

Rhythm, a sequence in time repeated, featured ...
Rhythm, a sequence in time repeated, featured in dance: an early moving picture demonstrates the waltz. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

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Leadership and Management – is it so easy a caveman could do it?

by Allie P., posted in Personal Favorites

My kids recently discovered the movie, the Croods, which is about a family of cavemen who have to leave the safety of their cave due to a series of earthquakes and other eruptions. Mid way through the father, quite bewildered by his family’s behavior, tells his daughter, I kept you safe. To which his daughter replied, we weren’t living, we just weren’t dying, there is a difference.

The Croods8
The Croods8 (Photo credit: TheCroodsGame)

It is very easy to confuse leadership with management. In the case above, the father was a great family manager. He was able to assess each of their strengths and weaknesses and as a result they were able to hunt for food as a team. They all shared in each other’s success and when the food supply ran short, the father did the noble thing by skimping on his ration so that his children could grow stronger. He also went out of his way to protect them from dangerous threats such as sabre toothed tigers and other weird creatures I am glad aren’t around today.

But he was a terrible leader. Why? Because he was so focused on ensuring that all were aware of the near certain danger, his family wasn’t able to rally around an image of a better future. Without the ability to visualize the future, the family accepted the threats at face value and never tried to find ways around them. They were well-managed, but they were stuck in a dark cave, ignorant of the larger world, and would have remained there as the land collapsed around them had it not been for an injection of fresh ideas in the form of a stranger.

Illustration from The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Illustration from The Pied Piper of Hamelin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

That same stranger never showed whether or not he had managerial chops. He cared about the teenage girl, and eventually bonded with the father, but never went out of his way to really get to know the others. He gave them some nice tools and shared innovative survival strategies, but really in the end only made them more like himself rather than try to capitalize on their individual potential. He had no assurance that there would actually be a better tomorrow, and could just as easily placed the group in an even riskier situation like a Pied Piper. He proved you can be a great leader, but also be lousy manager.

Great leaders are champions of change and not afraid to take risks, they pull their teams along with them. They are the hunters. Great managers are efficiency experts and nurturing by nature, they minimize risk and push their teams into situations where success is achievable. They are the gatherers. Whether you are a great leader or a great manager you are going to get a workout.

A word of caution though. There is a reason that there is usually a trusty sidekick in every hero story. It is nearly impossible to be both the leader and the manager at the same time. The mentality is just too different.

So breathe. You don’t have to be both. It’s actually a lot less stressful for everyone if you simply pick one role and be the best possible version of that singular role you can be. Look in the mirror long and hard and figure out which route is best for you. Then go out and find your compliment. Recruit or train up. You can also still find your leadership or management balance in the form of a trusted business advisor. Self employed or other team of one? It’s still worth recognizing your strength and building up on those skills, with any luck they will come in handy before you know it.

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Nothing is impossible for those who reject the word can’t

by Allie P., posted in Personal Favorites
Master Cheng Yen There is nothing we cannot ac...
Master Cheng Yen There is nothing we cannot achieve if we are willing to think, cultivate and take mindful action (Photo credit: symphony of love)

After weeks of snow and/or rain, a recent weekend’s blue skies and warm weather sent my family outside to jump start a bit of spring cleaning and yard maintenance. While the husband was busy reorganizing the garage, our eldest son decided that our house needed other improvements – specifically a large watch tower in the backyard.

He took a sheet of paper and drew out his plans including the placement of various construction equipment he felt would be needed to complete the build. As an aside, you know you are a mother of boys when you know the difference between a front loader and an excavator even though you’ve never set foot on a construction site.

He had been so proud of his creation that we did not want to crush his dreams right away, but as the sun began to set, our son became more and more anxious that his father hadn’t yet driven him over to “the construction store” to pick up the roller, cement mixer, and crane. My husband and I were at a loss as to how to handle the situation as we try hard not to resort to using “because I said so” unless absolutely necessary.

As a result, we tried to explain to him the many reasons why his plans weren’t going to become a reality any time soon. The construction store (whatever that was) was closed. Dad didn’t have proper licensing to drive the equipment. The large vehicles wouldn’t fit through the gate into the backyard. We would need to first apply to the city for proper building permits.

For each and ever reason we threw out, our son had a counter argument. We could go to the store the following day, dad could hire workers, and the watch tower could be built in the front yard.

The point of this story is this: it is nearly impossible to argue with someone about why something is not going to happen, or why something is never going to be available when that person has no concept of the word “can’t.”

In my office, there is a mystery person who randomly places motivational quotes up on the bulletin board. The most recent quote reads, “people who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.” – George Bernard Shaw

We are all born with a sense that there is nothing in this world that is impossible. We watch magicians perform their illusions with awe and wonder. It is only we “mature” that we stop watching the show for entertainment and instead spend the time at the show trying to figure out how to disprove the trick. Just imagine the feats we as a society might accomplish if we stopped accepting the “because I told you so.”

Instead, when faced with naysayers, what if we always remembered to look for alternatives, whether it be for business goals or personal interests. What if we changed the question from “why can’t I do this” to “what do I need to do this?”

It always seems impossible until it's done.
It always seems impossible until it’s done. (Photo credit: symphony of love)
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