I often refer to my kids as little ventures (i.e. start-ups). They are so unique and the most important ventures in my life. This week has been a tough week because my daughter was home sick for 3 days. She was better the last day but considering she had a really high temperature the day before, I figured it best to keep her home one more day. Her dad and I juggled watching her so we could both make our important meetings. I even called the teenage girl who lives across the street who we’ve used for babysitting before to come watch her for a few hours today. Fortunately, it’s summer so she was able to come over on short notice and my daughter likes her.
My son has been going to summer camp while she has been sick and my daughter likes the camp so much that she wanted to go despite being sick. I was a little concerned about sending them to the YMCA summer camp because they wouldn’t know anyone there and they usually know someone. Turns out the first week they went, they did end up knowing someone…a boy from my son’s soccer team and his younger sister. Plus, they both were in the same section even though they are different ages so they knew each other although they hung out with different kids. I told them to look out for each other, and I think they both rolled their eyes at me and my son said in a partially whining tone something like ‘she’s not even going to be playing with the same friends I am!’ I told him it doesn’t matter and that he should keep an eye out for her and I told her the same. My guess is that she keeps more tabs on him that he does of her.
I’m now glad they are going because they are exposed to a different crowd of kids than the private school they go to. I was a public school kid myself (except for two years at a private Episcopalian school) and although my knowledge of geography is not great because the US public schools weren’t really into teaching much about other countries, I certainly got to know many kinds of people which I think helped me during my stint at one of the largest universities in the country, UT Austin, and in business working with different kinds of people from different walks of life. I made up a little for my lack of knowledge of geography by being born into an international family who traveled a lot.
I think being around and working with a diverse set of kids, helps them prepare for the real world (college, businesses, etc.) where there are so many different kinds of people. The diversity in the workforce is so much greater than even 20 years ago. School or summer camp aren’t the only place kids can experience diversity…when my kids are older I hope to travel with them to many fun and different places around the world.
At any rate, both my kids have enjoyed the camp and have said they have made so many friends that are younger and older than they are, which to me is great. To them every kid is their friend whether they remember their name or not. It’s kind of nice to live like that…too bad as adults we don’t consider all the new people we meet our friends.
I have sometimes wondered how a fad is created. In the tech/web world, there is all this talk about ‘viral’ this and ‘viral’ that about creating a gimmick that will cause adoption of your products/services to suddenly go through the roof. Us consumers are fickle and trying to predict what we will like in a mass scale is much more art & luck than science from my viewpoint.
My kids came home after a birthday party with these little plastic toys that mostly look like junk and a waste of petroleum based products to me. I asked them what they wanted to do with them and if I should recycle them or throw them away, but they both were like ‘no way, we need those!‘ Of course need and want in a child’s mind is the same thing. My son then proceeded to take them and line them up on top of the TV. For some reason I thought his enthusiasm and interest in doing something with them was cute so now they adorn the top of the TV and will probably be there for quite some time because that’s where they ‘need‘ to be. I have to admit that I smile when I see them mostly because in my mind I see his excitement of finding a place for them that made sense to him, and I remember him smiling while he was putting them up there. (See photos of these little toys to the left and right in this post.)
They are also into these things called Silly Bandz, which are basically colored rubber bands in all sorts of different shapes and sizes (e.g., dinosaurs, sea animals, princesses, pets, etc.). I don’t know where they first got them but my son just showed up with them one day and said he got them from a friend. I think their dad bought them a bunch more. My son is pretty good at getting more of them but my daughter ends up giving hers away to other kids and then gets upset and wants more from her brother.
They both have seemingly opposite ways of dealing with these things. I remember my son would come home with a bunch of Pokemon cards, and I’d ask him where he got them. He would say “they gave them to me.” I would ask him who gave them to him and he would say some friends at school. I would then ask him what he gave them and he said “nothing.” I said how can that be that they just gave you these and you didn’t give them anything and he said “I dunno, they just wanted to give them to me.” I was perplexed at that but I really couldn’t ask him anything else because I know that he gets along well with other kids. I find myself wondering if this is a talent of his I should encourage or not! Now my daughter is the one who wants to give her things to people and I’ve seen her give things to her brother when he asks, but I’ve also seen him give her stuff when she asks. If someone likes her Silly Bandz and asks her for them she’ll gladly give them away, but I don’t think she really wants too but feels she has to because later (as I mentioned) she will go try to get some from her brother because she thinks it’s unfair that he now has more than she does. I try to explain to her (she’s only 5) that it’s not her brother’s fault that she has less but she doesn’t get that and then eventually her brother will let her have a few of the ones he doesn’t want. The end result is that I’ve decided they can’t take the Silly Bandz to summer camp. We’ll see how long that lasts.
So I wonder how these fads are created and I wonder when these particular ones will subside. Us humans ebb and flow in our desire for things whether they be big, life changing things or silly things like rubber bands in the shape of a dolphin. 🙂
I saw the movie Salt yesterday with a friend and it was intense. A good action/thriller with Angelina Jolie as the main character. She plays a CIA agent who is set up by Russian agents to infiltrate American intelligence, but she doesn’t know this about herself until she’s much older. Of course the bad guys always underestimate the power of true love to destroy even the most evil plots and plans. The stunts and effects were really good. However, as skinny as Angelina is, some of those stunts and fights with men twice her size are even harder to believe…but hey, it’s just a movie. My friend and I left the theater pumped with adrenaline, and we both concluded that the way the movie ended there was probably going to be a Salt II.
We decided to grab some dinner and headed over to Baby Acapulco’s which is just across the street from the theater. We were pleasantly surprised with the band who was playing that night – The Brew. They play Latin Jazz music and they were really good. She had heard of them before and I wasn’t sure if I had. We both enjoyed a margarita and the show! They even had a free group salsa lesson that I participated in despite the fact I was wearing flip flops. I’d love to take salsa or almost any kind of dance lessons some day so it was a fun experience. A bunch of us lined up in front of the stage and my practice partner ended up being another woman who was there supporting the band so she already knew how to dance salsa. She was older than me and really sweet. She just got back from Hawaii and was wearing a pretty flower in her hair. We took turns being the man in the practice sessions as did others because it was mostly women who came up to participate in the free lesson.
The Brew has a sound similar to the Gipsy Kings so beautiful and romantic. Musicians are entrepreneurs and I’m always impressed when I see a band who is able to seemingly make a living sharing their talent. To me, hearing them after watching Salt was a nice way to calm the nerves after watching an intense movie! I look forward to hearing them again sometime soon.
The lions stand defiantly,
Overlooking the aging sea.
The ocean waves around my skin;
The quiet roar won’t let me be.
The plastic cages keep me bound,
Tightly, softly in a dew-like tether.
They move my mind to places I cannot go;
Which lead me to regions nether.
So I must wait until the time,
The rising sun will shine upon my heart.
And take me to a warmer clime;
Where love is appreciated like discriminating art.
But the beast that lives in all of us,
Is harshly judged by one and all.
And will never truly live without much fuss;
Until we can safely emerge from underneath the shawl.
I decided to share another poem on my blog. This one didn’t come as easy as the Streets of Barcelona. Well, I’d say 90% of the words came, but it took longer, and I had to do more editing before it felt right. I wrote most of this while sitting next to this statue of the lion in the photo. These statues were just across the street from a little port where they launched tourist boats to sea. I played with the visual presentation a little bit. If you look closely you’ll see that one line in each stanza is slightly longer than the longest line in the previous stanza. You’ll also see that the first and third lines in the first two stanzas don’t rhyme but they do in the second two stanzas. In a poem I wrote on the airplane flight from Madrid to Dallas, the last words of the 1st and 3rd lines of each stanza relate to each other but don’t rhyme. I didn’t realize that until after I had written that one which surprised me a bit.
This poem is about the majesty of lions and the beastliness of them as well, just like humans. Humans are so powerful and noble, yet we often forget that we are also made of animal/beastly stuff that surfaces from time to time. The lions and lionesses, fortunately, have no such rules to deny their beastly sides because they are free to be what they are unless they are captured and put in a zoo.
The reference to ‘shawl’ has to do with religions that require their women to be covered up so that men cannot see any of their flesh that might tempt the beast in them. In Western religions women don’t have the same rules to hide most of their body, but I’ve come to discover I/we hide other parts of ourselves: our true minds and thoughts. As women, moms, wives, proverbial keepers of the family, we hide behind those shawls for many reasons mainly because we were told in lore they would keep us safe. The trouble is they don’t keep us safe from our true selves and what’s hiding behind those shawls might be much more provocative to others (men or women) than mere flesh, which could explain why in some parts of the world a woman’s opinion/voice is just not heard.
I’ve seen other women cling to customs/behaviors and judge others based on them. Not because they believe them to be right or true but because that’s how they were taught, and they are too afraid of change and sometimes even freedom. I’ll be writing about a book I’m reading on the topic of choice. With choice comes more freedom but also a lot of anxiety and stress. The more options we have, the more knowledge we have about the ‘paths not taken.’
One of my favorite female singers is Sarah McLachlan. My lifestyle doesn’t really allow me to keep up with all the latest things going on in the world of music, but I picked up a copy of a recent M-Music & Musicians magazine at my voice teacher’s studio, Octave Higher, this Saturday because she was on the cover. The title of the article is called Resurfacing. She just released a new album after 7 years called Laws Of Illusion (Amazon link). At the bottom of this post is a video of one of her new songs called “Loving You Is Easy,” which is probably the most upbeat song that I’ve heard from her. She says “It was based on a new relationship, and on hope and excitement and the fact that it is possible to feel this way again. I didn’t think I could. It was about the thrill of possibility and, quite frankly, lust.” She said she is 42 and that she’s going to have “fun” tattooed on her arm because she’s determined to have more of it! She also said (and I agree) that “Writing about happiness and giddy love is tricky. It’s not as easy to write about as sadness and heavier things….happiness is quite fleeting. It’s very light and it’s not something that you can pinpoint.”
She got divorced a couple of years ago and says her music reflects much of her emotional life. I think most singers/writers works reflect their emotional lives. I know my writing does. She has two daughters named India and Taja, whose father is Indian. It’s nice to see that she has been able to use her emotional experiences to write songs. She admits it’s harder now with two small kids because “being able to have long periods of time to focus on nothing but myself and writing is long over. I live in a pretty ADD world right now.”
She is also reviving the female musician focused Lilith Fair tour that she helped start many years ago. Successful musicians to me are the ultimate entrepreneurs. They are betting against the odds of making it big that are probably 100 times greater than a technology company making it big. There are so many more people trying to be successful singers (e.g., just look at American Idol) than there are business entrepreneurs. I was reading the article and wondering how it would be to go to a studio every day of the week to work with someone as talented as her musical partner, Pierre Marchand, who helps her complete her songs. I have to say I was day dreaming a bit while I was reading the article. She has the benefit of great successes behind her before she had kids and she can play the piano as well as the guitar. I can’t play either…but there’s hope! They also featured Ozzy Osbourne in the magazine and he says he can’t play any instruments either. 🙂
I sing one of her older songs called Ice Cream (you tube link) to my kids sometimes. I drop them on the couch during the part where she sings “It’s a long way down” and they laugh hysterically. It makes me laugh while I’m singing it to them. “Your love is better than ice cream…your love is better than chocolate.”
I wonder if it’s possible to find someone out there who could be my music partner who is looking for a lyricist/singer like me and if we could both take a month or so off and create music. A nice little dream…
It’s time for another movie post. I rented The Book of Eli, Hot Tub Time Machine, Cold Souls, and saw Knight and Day in the theater. A friend of mine made fun of me the other day because I still actually have a Blockbuster card and rent movies the ‘old fashioned’ way. I know I can probably get them On Demand via Time Warner or some other high tech way, but it’s easier for me to get them from Blockbuster. Plus I can pick up some sushi take out from a store nearby. As long as I get them back in 5 days time, it works out well. Anyway, here are some quick overviews:
The Book of Eli
Set in post apocalyptic earth, the main character, Eli, is played by Denzel Washington. He is responsible for taking a book – The Book – across the devastated American continent to the west coast where it can be reproduced. It was an interesting plot and of course Eli is virtually indestructible. He relies on faith and keen insight to guide him to his destination. Near the end of his journey a young woman helps him fulfill his destination. I happened to meet the guy, Armando Kirwin, who led the special effects team for this movie at a monthly event called Nerd Nite. He was presenting that night, and I chatted with him for a bit before he gave his entertaining talk. Turns out that Armando might be able to help one of our companies at the Austin Technology Incubator (one of our interns came to the event too) so it was a good random coincidence that we met. I thought the Book of Eli was a good movie. Even though the plot was somewhat predictable, it had a surprise ending and of course the special effects were cool.
Hot Tube Time Machine
Your life will be just fine if you never see this movie. A bunch of older dudes and a teenager travel back to the 80’s when some weird Russian beverage short circuits a hot tub at a hotel the older guys used to stay when they partied. The 80’s hair styles, clothes, and music was interesting but otherwise this was a very cheesy movie with way too many weird things happening, putting down of women, and unnecessary cursing.
Cold Souls
This movie was a little bit depressing as it’s based on a premise that you can harvest and store your soul. The main character, who is an actor, is tired of his soul. It’s weighing him down so he gets it extracted and feels better but empty. He rents another soul of a Russian poet who happens to be female and his performance as an actor improves. His soul gets stolen and taken to Russia and is placed inside a woman who wants to be a better actor. They try to insert some comedic moments (e.g., the way the souls look in the jars after extraction varies from chick peas to prunes, etc.) but it all seemed very serious. I have often wondered about our souls and how it is that our souls come to be in our bodies or really what unique interaction of neurons in our brains/minds display our unique souls. Anyway, that’s too existential a topic to go into here…
Knight and Day
This was an entertaining movie with neat special effects. I heard that Tom Cruise did all of his own stunts in this movie. The main characters were Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. The film’s plot was fairly predictable with Tom being the good/bad guy and Cameron being the sometimes scared out of her mind, dim witted gal. In the end, she’s the pro and saves him but in the beginning I sometimes wanted to wonder out loud why she just didn’t get her stuff together and act like a reasonable person. Anyway, it was fun to watch. Whenever I see a Tom Cruise movie, I wonder how they shoot the film to make him look as tall as the actresses he usually plays across.
I was reminded of a few other movies I had seen a while back when I saw the previews in in the beginning of the rentals. My memory of them has mostly faded but a couple of really good ones were:
A Single Man – An intense movie about a man trying to cope with the loss of his longtime partner. It seemed to be set in the 50’s or 60’s when being gay was not as accepted as it is now. He tries to find the courage to live and comes close to killing himself several times until a student of his connects with him and gives him hope. It has a tragic twist ending. The movie has several flashbacks to the main actor’s time with his partner and does a good job of illustrating the pain/feelings he is struggling with.
Cheri (with Michelle Pfeiffer) – a French courtesan and a young man, who is the son of another courtesan, have an affair and subsequently realize they are in love. The character played by Michelle has the advantage of age and experience on her side to help her mask her true pain and feelings when the young man gets married because that was what men his age were supposed to do. He being less experienced in the tumultuous, often painful experience of forbidden, unrealistic love cannot cope and is miserable until he finally kills himself. A powerful movie.
The Runaways – This movie is based on Joan Jett, famous female rock star, and her first band. This was also an intense, bizarre movie with more than enough footage about her sexual preferences and drug use. It’s a deep look inside the life of a rock star and how extra hard it was to make it as a female rock star in that day and age. It’s impressive that she and her other band members lived, but then again it’s impressive that most members of rock bands live given their stereotypical hard running lifestyles. I have to say this movie made me cringe a few times but at the same time I was proud of her and her female band members for having the guts to go all the way to fame-dom!
Tonight I had the honor of being invited to an exclusive look at photos taken by successful bio technology executive, Bruce Leander, at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I invited my friend Michelle Ewalt (fabulous business/executive coach) to join me, and we both had a really nice time and met some interesting people. Bruce retired from a full time career in the business/bio tech world a few years ago.
We had Bruce out to the Austin Technology Incubator a while back to talk to our companies about building a great corporate culture. He has a strong reputation for focusing on company culture thereby making it a critical part of the success of the companies he was involved in. I wonder if flowers have their own little growing cultures…well we do know that if they are nourished properly and given the right amount of attention, they thrive better than those who aren’t given the same amount of resources and attention.
My good friend Sandy Blanchard, whose photos I have used on several occasions to accentuate my blog posts, also takes fabulous pictures of nature and has some fantastic pictures of flowers. Maybe one day, she’ll also be able to exhibit her photography in public.
At any rate, it’s always nice to see someone share their passion with the world. I’m working on sharing one of my passions – singing – with the world soon…even if it’s only online and not in person. I have almost finished recording one song, from the 70s I think, with my voice teacher. It’s not a completely professional recording but just as in the tech world, sometimes the best end products start out with a beautiful hack. 🙂
To the left is a photo taken by Bruce from the Wildflower Center website.
It’s a valuable book for any manager/leader/entrepreneur to read because it discusses in simple terms how many of us have challenges processing our emotions and using them as tools to get a better understanding of what is happening inside of us and outside of us. So many of us have been trained not to fully feel our emotions or stop them because we have been judged, place judgment on them, or simply feel we can’t deal with them right now. We are a bundle of feelings and they surface, just like thoughts, to give us data points to help us navigate this crazy world. I was speaking to one of our entrepreneurs at the Austin Technology Incubator recently and he said something like “I don’t have time to feel right now.” I could relate to that statement because when I was running my companies, I put many things on the back burner and one of those things was my feelings. The same thing happens when you are parenting little kids who take so much of your mental and physical energy…you feel like you have to keep up a front of having it all together so the kids don’t see what you are processing. But you know what? Even if they don’t see it, they feel it. Of course your ‘gut feeling’ is always right there but sometimes we ignore it and defer to the ‘powers that be’ when if we had only listened to it earlier we might have taken action earlier and ended up in a better place earlier.
Dr. Frederick used very powerful examples based on his client’s stories that many people can relate to. It’s hard to summarize this book, so I’m just going to highlight some key quotes/takeaways:
He says that “in general the spectrum of our emotions is actually made up of eight primary feelings and their related shades and combinations,” which are Anger, Sadness, Happiness, Love, Fear, Guilt-Shame, Surprise, and Disgust. (p. 54-55). He lumps Guilt-Shame together as one category but makes a distinction that I found very enlightening. Guilt is feeling bad about something you did and shame is feeling as if you are a bad person.
The fear of feelings is apparently common. “In fact, most of us are afraid of our feelings. We’re afraid to feel the full extent of our emotions and afraid of being emotionally alive and present with others. We’re afraid of being vulnerable, of drawing attention to ourselves, of looking like a fool. We’re afraid of being overwhelmed, of losing control, of getting out of hand. We’re afraid of being seen for who we really are.” So “We distract ourselves, push our feelings aside, stuff them back in, and hope they’ll go away. But they don’t. They keep trying to get our attention, to be heard, to be responded to — that’s their nature. They reemerge as the sense that something is off, odd, or not right; as worry, irritability, restlessness, anxiety, or depression.” (p. xiv-xv).
In the last few years there have been many studies on emotions leading to a better understanding of how the brain works. “We now know that emotions can play a more powerful role than thoughts in bringing about well-being and lasting change. Our feelings can arise much faster and be more intense than our thoughts. At times, no matter what we do to suppress them or how hard we try to control them, they’ll have the edge. In addition, recent discoveries in the field of neuroplasticity…reveal that emotional experience actually has the power to rewire our brain!” (p. xvii). “In recent years, technological advances have enabled scientists to understand more precisely just how the brain functions. Joseph LeDoux, in his fascinating book The Emotional Brain, clearly illustrates how the neural connections that run from the emotional parts of the brain to the thinking parts of the brain are actually much stronger and more numerous than the connections that run in the other direction. This helps explain why at times emotions are able to overwhelm our thoughts and dominate our thinking and why it can be difficult to control strong emotions through rational thought alone.” (p. 18).
There are so many ways we avoid our feelings that I can’t type them all here but I recognized myself in many of the descriptions including things like “Overthinking issues, getting ‘stuck’ in your head. Having to be in control or being overly self-sufficient (otherwise, your strong facade might crack and allow your emotions to come through).” (p. 78)
The amygdala is a cluster of neural circuitry deep inside our brain and is a storehouse for significant emotional memories. It also gauges the emotional significance of events and it’s the place where fear originates so it has the ability to overwhelm rational thought and overlook reality. It has the ability to hijack the brain. (p. 90).
He discusses letting yourself actually feel the emotion through it’s entirety. When you don’t, it never gets really dealt with and you keep reliving it instead of letting the emotion come through like a wave to its natural conclusion. It’s a process and doesn’t happen overnight. Attaching a label to a feeling (e.g., anger, sadness, etc.) dampens the fear response and decreases emotional distress. (p. 94). He also gives tools to help you name and process the feeling.
As a business person and a parent, understanding and paying attention to your feelings about situations can help you make better decisions in all aspects of your life. I know so many entrepreneur’s who look back and wish they had listened to their ‘gut feelings’ during critical times but they were too afraid to do so. I’ve been there and done that! The maternal (parental) instinct (based on feelings) is strong and I’m not sure if there have been any studies done but I’m guessing that instinct has saved many a baby’s life.
We shouldn’t be afraid of our feelings because they “1. Impart information. 2. Provide insight. 3. Give us guidance.” (p. 135)
Here’s to your emotional health and well-being! I’ll end this post with a quote the author has on p. 131 that starts Chapter 7 of his book: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk to bloom.” – Anais Nin.
I saw the movie The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo this past weekend with a friend and it was way more intense than I thought it would be. It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen a dramatic, serial killer type movie. It got me so angry at the evil, sadistic criminals and what they did to those poor innocent girls. The movie was really well done and the plot was strong. It had such an interesting mix of characters in different phases of their lives (e.g., an 80 year old, a middle aged divorced guy, a 24 year old girl) with vastly different experiences. They intertwined with each other nicely. Although we are taught that it’s wrong to take justice into our own hands, you can’t help but be proud of the 24 year old girl/woman (Lisbeth) who didn’t sit back and let herself be the victim unlike the woman they were looking for who they thought was murdered but actually ran away 40 years ago from the people hurting her. Lisbeth didn’t run away from the people who hurt her, she paid them back in spades with a dose of their own medicine and made sure they wouldn’t hurt anyone else. It got her in trouble when she was little, but it made her hard and street smart as she got older. This movie is apparently the first in a set of three based on books written by Swedish author and journalist, Stieg Larsson, and the series was published after his death in 2004. I look forward to seeing the next one.
I’m reading a book right now that I plan on writing about soon. It’s a bit of a touchy/feel-y book but very powerful if you can absorb the concepts. Maybe I’ll add in brief movie reviews to my future blog posts. I’ve been renting movies and seen some in the theater over the last several months. I finally saw Avatar, but on DVD. I could tell I missed a lot of the stunning visual experience not watching it on the big screen. The plot was predictable in a Romeo & Juliet (i.e., different families, tribes, cultures, species, whatever) sort of way except for both Human & Blue Alien lovers live, don’t accidentally die, and the humans were defeated. I rented Valentine’s Day, kind of cute because of Ashton Kutcher but otherwise not a very strong plot and The Men Who Stare at Goats starring George Clooney (handsome!) which was good but apparently not as funny or good as the book. It was interesting to see Clooney play a character that is psychic.
I took the kids to see Toy Story 3 a couple of weekends ago and of that’s a great one. I started crying way more than I probably should have when the Lots ‘O Huggin’ Bear didn’t pay back the favor of Woody (the main toy character) saving his life and let all the toys go towards their death when he could have saved them. My daughter kept saying (because she was sitting on my lap) “Are you crying mommy?” I just said “yes, because I was sad that Lotso the bear was so mean.” I couldn’t tell her that mommy is still working through a lot of unresolved issues and the reason for the overly abundant tears was far more complicated? 🙂 I cried when I saw the Disney movie Up. My son even said he felt sad when he watched it. I didn’t used to cry that much but those damn Disney movie writers/animators sure know how to push those buttons in me. I think I need to rent more of them…
Yesterday after I checked out facebook and updated my profile picture to one of my daughter wearing a flamenco dress that I bought her during my recent trip to Barcelona where I got to explore a little bit of my poetic side, I began thinking about people’s images. I like facebook because I can see what is going on with friends & family who are all over the world. I check it once every couple of weeks…sometimes once per week depending on the notifications I get. I set all my privacy settings so that only the people in my network can see my pictures, comments, etc. I used to use twitter almost daily but in the last year, my usage has decreased drastically. Most of my tweets are just my automatic tweets when I publish a blog post. Even the frequency of my blog posting has decreased mostly because of lack of time, I haven’t been inspired to write, and I’m writing more offline. LinkedIn is another site that I’ve checked out periodically.
The reason I started using twitter was first because I had wanted everyone to know I had gone to a Duran Duran concert, and then more importantly to see what it could do for my business Babble Soft, that is now run by Nicole Johnson, who was my business partner and who thankfully was able to take over the company and run with it. Twitter is a valuable tool to meet people and get the word out about your business. Most of what I tweeted was pretty upbeat or business related.
As I was looking at some facebook pages (mine included), it’s clear that what we show online and often what we show people even in “real” life isn’t really what’s going on with us. We often show a rosy picture with glamorous photos of us or our kids/family smiling, and we tweet about events or fun things. There are a few crazies out there who let it all hang out, but soon they are ostracized even online. Sometimes even those closest to us in real life don’t really know what’s going on with us because we’ve been told it’s not good to share too much of the hard, ‘real’ stuff. So we stuff it inside or say to ourselves ‘who cares’ or ‘I’ll get over it.’ I agree in one sense that we should keep some stuff to ourselves if we can (but sometimes as crazy as it sounds we just can’t), but I’ve also discovered that not sharing at all, which is what I used to do, meant that people didn’t really know me and after I started sharing things like others shared with me, I realized how strange things sometimes sounded. When I started talking and writing, I and others started to hear and see me differently. Even the greatest writers of all time couldn’t tell us explicitly through their writing what they were processing because of social pressures, which is part of what makes their writing so provocative!
Social networks enabled millions of people to share things about themselves…their daily lives that in some ways validated the mundane lives we often live. I used to share things about where I was going or notes on events, etc. Thankfully not things like people joked about (i.e., going to the bathroom)! But people shared, continue to share, and make connections to individuals they might not have otherwise in a mostly safe environment. twitter is a fire hose, or as I like to describe it a river, of information sharing.
Social networks have given people a medium to be heard and you cannot argue with the fact that it has fundamentally changed the way many people interact with each other and think of each other. Tools like twitter, facebook, and LinkedIn have brought customers, job seekers, stay-at-home parents, entrepreneurs, and companies closer together and it has shown a very large side of humanity that craves attention & connection that they apparently weren’t/aren’t getting in their real, offline lives.
I think we will see and are seeing an auto-correction on the use of these tools, but I believe these kinds of human connection tools are here to stay. When you tap into an aspect of someone or a group of people that needs/wants to be heard, they can often overdo it, spin out of control and then just like in the financial and political markets there will eventually be an auto correction that when it happens seems huge and out of control in a different way. Although markets are supposed to behave rationally, just like people who drive them, they often don’t.
I still remember this guy I knew at a Southern Baptist church I went to during junior high and high school. He was older (i.e. in college), wiser, and I think he was one of our Sunday school teachers. I looked up to him and adored him. There was so much going on in my life that I wanted to share with him pieces of it and get his advice, yet I couldn’t because I felt if I did he would think differently of me. Like most teenagers, I already felt I was different enough. I remember sitting with him somewhere alone trying to tell him something that seemed so ominous at the time and now is just a fact of my life, and I think because he could sense my angst he said ‘some things are better off left unsaid.’ I suddenly felt relieved because it took off the pressure, and gave me a sense that he understood, but it still left me feeling the same, different person.
So, yes some things are better off left unsaid except for when they aren’t. If by saying them online, offline, to people you trust, to people you don’t know if you can trust, you find a kindred soul, someone who can help you figure it out, or someone who changes you or your path for the better, or even realize that you really aren’t that different because there are other people out there kind of like you, then it’s better to say it and take the risk. Unless of course you are saying & texting things like Tiger Woods. 🙂 You certainly learn who you can and can’t trust when you are at your most vulnerable.
But when you consciously or unconsciously take that risk, it will have an affect on your online image and/or your real life image. The type of affect (positive or negative) will depend on what’s going on around you and how you deal with the aftermath. It’s important to manage your online and real life image/reputation but if you over manage it, no one really knows the real person like Bernie Madoff, who everyone thought was a great guy…until they didn’t.
I took the kids to Barnes & Noble a couple of weeks ago to look at books and play with the train set in the kids section. When I can’t think of anything else to do, I go there because I can get a Starbuck’s hot chocolate or passion tea lemonade and hang out with them while they look at books. My son happened upon a book series on display called The 39 Clues (there’s even an official website!) and for some reason he decided he wanted the books. I think there are 9 in the series and he was excited because the 9th book took place in the Bahamas which was a place they were about to go to with their dad. Although he’s not quite the recommended age (9 to 12 years) for the books, I was thrilled he wanted to read them. He’s a good reader, but he really hasn’t been that interested in sitting down for any length of time and reading a book. He loves any and all things sports related and usually prefers to play Wii NFL Madden football than read a book. He asked me almost every day since the day he saw them if the books were here…well they arrived today.
This book series seems to be about kids searching out clues around the world to unlock and discover the secret to their family’s powers. It’s apparently a New York Times bestselling series and it comes with special clue cards.
As for children’s chatter, I love listening to my kids having conversations with each other. The things they talk about are so funny and interesting. While driving around running errands with them after work today, they decided to ask me how babies are made and I explained to them as simply as I could how a baby gets inside a mommy’s tummy. They grasped the concept but not really the details as I didn’t get into the mechanics of how it happens. [My daughter usually says she does not want to have babies. I ask her why and she says because her tummy would get big. But then a few minutes later, she’s playing with her baby dolls! My son hopes to only have boy babies because other than his sister, he much prefers hanging with his buddies.] Anyway, they laughed and then started talking to each other about turning into sand. My daughter said she wanted to turn into sand after she died. My son said that according to the Chinese, you become an animal after you die. He asked me if that was true and I just told him that some people believe certain things and no one really knows what happens after someone dies. My daughter kept asking her brother if he wanted to turn into sand and after a while he agreed that he would also want to turn into sand. She then smiled a victorious smile because she got her brother to agree to something she wanted to do. I feel so blessed that they usually get along really well with each other right now. They really seem to look out for each other and make sure the other is OK. I hope it lasts and I can’t wait to overhear their next sandy conversation. 🙂
“People won’t change because they’re too lazy. Well, I’m here to stick up for the lazy people. In fact, I want to argue that what looks like laziness is actually exhaustion. The proof comes from a psychology study that is absolutely fascinating.”
“This brings us back to the point I promised I’d make: That what looks like laziness is often exhaustion. Change wears people out—even well-intentioned people will simply run out of fuel.”
I found the short article interesting from a business and personal perspective. Organizations and people can handle only so much change/stress that’s why it’s even more amazing to me when entrepreneurial endeavors make it because the speed and quantity of change that a start-up and the people involved experience is enormous. Burn out happens often and frequently. I’m a fairly high (and usually efficient) multi-tasker, but when I’m trying to process a lot of change and exerting a lot of self-control, it can feel exhausting which slows me down. I also see how it affects people/entrepreneurs in the work environment.
Entrepreneurial Fog – A gapingvoid cartoon. As an entrepreneur who has had a very interesting set of experiences in her life, many of Hugh’s cartoons resonate with me. I did a couple of posts a while back on some of his cartoons called Love and Entrepreneurs Part 1 and Part 2.
“Army Generals talk about “The Fog of War.” No matter how good your preparation is, it all means little once the actual fighting starts.”
It seems to me that many things in life are foggy and one characteristic trait of entrepreneurs and great leaders is that they are comfortable with the fog…well maybe not comfortable with it but have the wherewithal not to let it completely overwhelm them like in some scary, horror flick.
Passing it On – A post by my favorite VC blogger, Fred Wilson about one of their firms junior investment professionals, Andrew, that is moving on after his two year stint, teaching their new professional Christina about “proceeds by class of stock.” The teacher in me liked this post. Although I’ve only officially taught a short time in my career (i.e., a handful of undergraduate classes in entrepreneurship), I’ve always liked to teach people things. It must be in the blood because my grandfather and my mother were both professors at different times during their careers. It’s always an amazing/rewarding moment when you see a student/employee/person ‘get’ something for the first time or you see them applying skills they may or may not have realized they learned from the class. I sometimes hear from my former students via facebook and it’s really hard to explain the feeling you get when they mention how things they learned are still helping them today. I really did want to comment on that post, but I think I’ll have to refer back to the ‘laziness/exhaustion’ article I mention above…when I finally had a few minutes, I felt the time to comment had passed.
Fortunes
A while back I did a series of posts based on fortunes from fortune cookies I had received and one post almost resulted in me being mentioned in a New York Times article. As I was searching for the links to my previous posts on the topic, I discovered one I did on November 2, 2008 called Business Is Like War; Easy To Begin But Hard To Stop where the fortune actually said “Love is like war; easy to begin but hard to stop.” I compared Love and Business in an actual table format! How…how…business like of me. The end result was most businesses and marriages fail (as people tend to define failure – something ceasing to exist) in some form or fashion. This is when I sometimes look back on what I’ve written and realize I forget that I actually wrote it. Those words seem to describe the disillusionment I was entering into or maybe it was the illusion I was waking up from at the time and that was over a year and a half ago. Weird. Anyway, here are some fortunes I or others have recently had the fortune of receiving. Like some others, I think that the fortune cookie industry has run out of fortunes and has decided to move into giving mere random statements:
You are a fun-loving person and will find much happiness.
Life is like playing the violin in the public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
Love is the greatest gift of all.
You will be showered with good luck.
Be careful or your true idiocy will shine through. (I’m half joking on this one because someone I was sitting next to got something similar to this, but I can’t remember the exact words but the gist was the same.)
Chocolate covered raisins cure all ailments! (Yes, I made that one up because I’m about go eat some)
I’ll blame it on the entrepreneurial fog and change exhaustion as to why I’m not interested in doing full posts where I create compare/contrast tables on any of the aforementioned fortunes. 🙂
I just got back from Barcelona, Spain, and I don’t recall another time in my life where I’ve had the time to sit, think, write and let the words come without having some daily routine distraction. I was in Barcelona visiting my cousin, Ashan Pillai (a true Outlier) on my way back from a business trip to Portugal. After getting all the gifts for my kids (couldn’t forget the Spanish team soccer/futbal outfit), I sat in a plaza near the famous Ramblas shopping area in Barcelona with a notebook, listened to the people, listened to the street noises & pigeons, and waited for the words to appear. I had a lofty goal of writing 7 song lyrics. I should have gone with the goal of 3 that Brett Wintermeyer, our courier at work and also band member of The Sophisticates suggested, but I have an ‘eyes bigger than stomach’ tendency. I wrote 3 lyrics and started 2 others. I wrote 5 poems and started 2 others. Many more started and swirled around my head but never made it to paper or computer. I still have no idea if my lyrics are any good as I haven’t yet put them to actual music.
The thing with poetry that I’ve discovered over the past year or so is that sometimes its meaning is different between the writer and the reader. Who or what the poem is about becomes about the readers personal experience or interpretation of the words. As a writer I know that I often write things that have double meanings which are both true but the degree to which one is truer can only be fully known by the writer and possibly specific readers close to the writer.
The meaning can also slightly change depending on how it’s read out loud…the rhythm of the reading can affect someone in ways unknown. If you are a poet, this is probably not news to you. I suppose that’s the point…if it can touch someone even if it’s different than intended then it would have served its purpose. I wonder how many poems/lyrics go unread by others because there are so many writers out there who write for themselves as they struggle with their humanity. I suppose the really famous writers have their poems discovered after their death and people are left to interpret them best they can, but for us mostly unknown writers they probably disappear into oblivion.
I have never shared my poetry on this blog…well not the serious ones anyway but after being inspired by Shaku letting me post her Icarus In Flight poem on my blog, I thought I’d share just one. On a side note, in addition to me knowing Shaku through a non-profit organization, she also worked for an Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) company called Webify that was bought by IBM. It’s a small world considering I work for ATI now.
I wrote the following poem in my cousin’s neighborhood (the day before I went to the Ramblas) after hearing a song in a video my aunt was playing for me that evoked many juxtaposing emotions that compelled me to escape outside. Fortunately, the weather is gorgeous in Barcelona this time of year. This poem is a mixture of recent stories…a little bit of mine, a little bit of his, a little bit of people who changed our lives. He is in the middle (or shall I say the beginning) of an experience no new father should ever have to go through. So without further ado…
Streets of Barcelona
On the streets of Barcelona
I wander with ancient tears in my eyes
Thinking of you and nights all alone
At Last the song with many sighs
A translucent marriage to a soul
Recently departed to a sully sea foam world
Because one could not wait to grow old
Afraid to take comfort in touches never know’d
The blustery city noises and a pigeon’s soft coo
Might wash out the pain of consequence ridden choices
And obliterate irrelevant, life altering feelings taken by you
While holes you exposed must be filled with clear voices
True sadness eludes me because fear
Overrules the quixotic, addictive emotion of love
But steely sharpness of knowledge shall bring forth to bear
Wavering courage to continue onward from Above
The first year of the new Magellan International School (MIS), founded by the father of my kids (Erin Defosse), is almost over. And it was a really great year! I always believed in the vision of the school when Erin first told me he wanted to start it. It has been a phenomenal entrepreneurial success and it was wonderful to see the kids at their end of school year performance speaking in Spanish. I remember when I first met Erin how impressed I was that he was fluent in Spanish and often told him he should use the language more often since it was such an asset. I can understand about 60% of what people say in Spanish now. During my recent trip to Portugal (See post 1 and post 2) and Spain (will do a post soon) I was able to get by with my limited Spanish in Spain. Portuguese has some similar words to Spanish so I could pick up some of what people were talking about. I wish I knew other language other than English, but I don’t. My parents know two other languages but they don’t really have the opportunity to use those languages much since they aren’t commonly spoken.
I couldn’t argue with giving our kids the gift of another language and only hope they will take every opportunity to use it when they grow older. My son has already helped me on occasion communicate with someone who only speaks Spanish. It makes me so happy that he can help me translate!
Erin and the head of school, Marisa Leon, have done an amazing job getting the school off the ground. I remember meeting/interviewing Marisa in a Thai restaurant in downtown Austin, Texas and knowing immediately that she was the right person to head the school. She has a great mixture of the ability to communicate with parents and children which is so important in a school. I trust her and my kid’s other teachers completely with our kids.
MIS started the school year with about 45 students and ended with about 65. Next school year is anticipated to start with 100+ students! Plus, next year the students will start learning Mandarin! The amount of work it takes to get something like a successful, private school going is tremendous. Although I wasn’t involved in the day to day of getting the school off the ground, I did play a supporting role even if people didn’t see or know what I did, and I don’t believe it’s my place to say how and what I did as well as the sacrifices/compromises we made as a family to make it happen. All entrepreneurial endeavors require strategic resource allocations (time, money, etc.), but I can say confidently that I did gave birth to the two kids who inspired him to build the school…and I think that is a visible contribution that counts for something. 🙂
Although Erin and I are no longer married, I have always believed in his ability to make the school successful. Our kids are very happy there and the teachers are all world class and caring. They have worked with us during our family transition and have kept the kids as their number one priority which means the world to me. When my kids are happy, I’m happy or shall I say happier than I would be otherwise!
I went to Portugal with 4 other colleagues (3 of us presented) to help give a workshop on incubation management and on-shoring opportunities for Portuguese technology companies to the US. The UTEN program is also run through IC2 which the Austin Technology Incubator (where I work) is also under.
[Boat photo: Taken in Porto. These were the types of boats that people used to transfer port wine to different parts of the Europe and the world. The bridge in the background I believe was built using the same material used to build the Eiffel tower.]
In my previous post on culture, food, and technology, I discussed a little bit about the culture which is very different than the US culture, and I believe culture plays an important role in entrepreneurship. I don’t have a lot of time to write this up since I’m in Barcelona, Spain and will be heading outside soon to enjoy the weather, listen to people & pigeons, read, and write before I head back tomorrow so I’ll keep it brief:
The people we interacted with (incubator managers, professors, technology transfer officers) were all eager to learn how to help make their country more supportive of entrepreneurship. Their government has allocated money to support programs like ours not just with UT Austin but also universities like MIT, Harvard, Cambridge, and Carnegie Mellon to help them in this mission. We were there giving a workshop on incubation management that included exercises on negotiations, case studies, due diligence best practices when selecting companies, how to mentor companies, etc.
The cultural norms of late lunches, late dinners, arriving fashionably late, siestas and sometimes waiting for things to happen versus making things happen doesn’t always mesh with the capitalistc entrepreneurship traits we are so used to in the US. The people in the roles above have a challenge ahead of them to help not just the entrepreneurs but the entities playing supportive roles to move faster and connect the dots in different ways than they are used to. Many of them are so energized about their potential roles in making this happen and have made significant progress! It’s hard for them, the government, and even us to appreciate how far they have come in the last few years and how much hard work is ahead of them.
[Man cooking photo: This was taken in Porto outside of the restaurant I mentioned in the food, culture, technology post I mentioned above. This entrepreneur was cooking sardines and bell peppers on the streets.]
The companies that are in their incubators today are not just technology related as most of us in the US understand them. They include innovation in textiles, marine biology, foods, etc. It will be fascinating to see how and if they can get the few entrepreneurs in their country who have made money on traditional businesses to take the risk on technology investments.
There are very few business angel investors and as I mentioned most of them are not used to investing. Their wealth is also typically not as great as the investors in the US. The venture capital market is virtually non-existent and I think most of the venture capitalists have home bases in other places in Europe or the US and will occasionally invest in a Portuguese company.
Overall I was impressed with the people, the program, and the vision. I was so glad I had the opportunity to go and contribute to the success of the program. There are so many moving parts including a government under economic stress, as are other countries in Europe, but the fact that they have intelligently identified an opportunity to invest in knowledge enhancement in the world of entrepreneurship (dear to my heart) is in my opinion a very wise, long term strategic decision!
(Amazon link). At the bottom of this post is a video of one of her new songs called “Loving You Is Easy,” which is probably the most upbeat song that I’ve heard from her. She says “It was based on a new relationship, and on hope and excitement and the fact that it is possible to feel this way again. I didn’t think I could. It was about the thrill of possibility and, quite frankly, lust.” She said she is 42 and that she’s going to have “fun” tattooed on her arm because she’s determined to have more of it! She also said (and I agree) that “Writing about happiness and giddy love is tricky. It’s not as easy to write about as sadness and heavier things….happiness is quite fleeting. It’s very light and it’s not something that you can pinpoint.”
(Amazon link) by Ronald J. Frederick, Ph.D.
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(Amazon Links). It will be interesting to see if he likes them and gets hooked.
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