I’ve always found Valentine’s Day to be an unusual day. Such significance placed on a day when really the 364 (or 365 in this leap year) other days of the year are what really constitute love and endurance. My thoughts on this day are generally too philosophical to share easily so here are some random thoughts:
Chocolate covered strawberries (well chocolate covered almost anything) are yummy.
Money comes and goes. Apparently so does love.
“Sometimes one smile means more than a dozen roses” – on the wrapper of one of the Dove chocolate squares (given to me by my best friend for my birthday) my kids and I melted in a small pot before dipping strawberries & mandarin oranges in it.
Love shows up in the strangest and sometimes most unexpected of places and people.
My kids are my best valentine’s “dates” ever, and they are showing me how to dance the “shuffle dance.”
My son showed me that you can search Wikipedia in different languages.
My daughter’s smile and laugh melt my heart.
Google’s Valentine’s Day home page video (you tube link; embedded below) is so simple and true. People fall in love when someone quits giving you stuff you don’t want or need and “connects” with who you are and what you enjoy.
Benjy Portnoy, founder of Austin-based media company, Mouthpiece Media, is producing a 2-hour, all-inclusive class for small business owners on how to build and maintain their own website.
The seminar has the business owner in mind who knows they need a great website, but don’t want to bother with confusing coding or anything difficult to update. Instead the class will focus on how to build and maintain a site in WordPress, a simple-yet-powerful and scalable system that anyone can use to create a beautiful website in no time.
The course will cover every aspect of building a basic website, including:
Picking and registering a web address
Choosing the right “hosting company” to put the files
How to install WordPress in 5 minutes or less
A custom tour of the WordPress dashboard
How to create posts, pages, and even upload photos and videos
How to change the entire look of your site in a single click
Basics on how to get your site ranked in Google
Lots more
Date: Tuesday, February 21, 2012, 1:30 pm-3:30 pm Place: Wyndham Garden Austin & Woodward Conference Center Price: $37 Only 20 spots available More info: www.mouthpiece-media.com/wpclass
Some people serve as bridges during good times and bad and others are just trolls. If you are a parent, especially of girls, you have most likely heard of Dora the Explorer and the grumpy old troll who doesn’t let anyone cross his bridge unless they do certain things, behave a certain way, or answer certain questions. He is an unhappy soul.
Some people reach out to you only when they need something, but otherwise aren’t very helpful when you reach out to them. They don’t seem to really care what’s going on with you, or even bother to notice if you are in a pickle even if you ask for help. Some people burn bridges intentionally and others aren’t aware they are doing so.
We can all be bridges and help people get to where they are trying to go. It doesn’t have to be a diamond studded bridge…even a kind word, a pat on the back, a few words of encouragement, or an introduction to someone else who can help them can go a long way to bridge someone to their destination.
I remember a saying I heard when I was in college that went something like: always be kind and generous to people who come to you for help in their time of need, because you never know when you will be in a similar situation someday. Good, caring people help us get through the challenges and even the glories of life. I’ve also heard it said in a more foreboding way “Be careful who you step on when you are climbing up the corporate ladder, for they may be in a position to help you when/if the rungs break, due to things in or out of your control, and you come falling down .”
Be kind. Be a bridge for someone during their time of need and don’t put terms and conditions on your help…just do it. Things have a way of coming around. I’ve been blessed with many wonderful “people” bridges, and I hope I am perceived as being as helpful to others as they have been to me.
Most of us know that timing has a lot to do with things turning out as desired or not. If you try to bring a product to market before it’s time (e.g., anything similar to the iPad that came out before the iPad), you often fail. If you take too long, you can miss the proverbial boat. This is true for a) your career, b) relationships/love, c) start-ups, or d) teaching your kids to ride a bike.
My daughter just started riding a bike this weekend. Her brother learned when he was 5 1/2 and she’s almost 7 (2nd child with parents who are crazy busy). I knew she had good balance given she rode her scooter around the house and on the street & sidewalks with ease. So this weekend her dad put her on the bike we got her last Christmas and on the first try she was riding easily. She was ready and the timing was right! I think it was partly because we didn’t make a big deal of it or try to make it happen before she was ready.
If you had given me chocolate mixed with salt 5 to 10 years ago, I would have probably spit it out or not even tried it, but Dark chocolate with a touch of sea salt is remarkably yummy. Timing. I’m still not fond of chocolate mixed with peanuts, but maybe in 5 more years…
I haven’t blogged too much about my career recently because the company I went to work for after I left the Austin Technology Incubator back in August 2011 prohibited employees from mentioning on their blogs that we worked there. Needless to say, I did not know that before I joined and I’m no longer there. So the timing seemed right to hang up my consulting shingle for a while. My current, not very creative name, is ASG Consulting (LinkedIn). I just completed a project for a company in the clean energy/smart grid space and may do some more work for them in the future.
So here I go again attempting to create something that didn’t exist before, but now instead of a hardware or software product, I’m selling my time & expertise. I feel fortunate to live in a time, town, and space where I’m well connected and opportunities are like hidden Easter eggs waiting to be found. Who knows…one of these consulting jobs might end up in a full time job if the fit (skill match, culture, location, etc.) is right.
If I can help your company or someone elses you know with operations, strategy, and/or business development (particularly partner/client management), please ping me and let’s talk. Next up, I have to get some business cards…
The older I get more experience I gain working for different organizations, the more I realize that good leadership is rare and good management is even rarer. I think we all see this played out on TV with the incompetence demonstrated by our business and political leaders. I don’t really know why this happens and it’s sometimes a miracle that companies get built and keep going. It’s somewhat of an enigma to me….might be a bunch of great workers covering up for the incompetence of their leaders & managers.
The reason I think good management is rarer than good leadership is that one can be a good leader by finding and getting out of the way of great talent. They can also be a visionary leader with admittedly no management skills, but they are smart enough to find the good managers, support them, and let them do what they do best. Great managers listen and then react to input in order to make the jobs/lives of their team easier, more interesting, and fun without being overbearing/micro managing. To manage people on a daily basis and make things happen with so many personalities around the table is one of the most challenging things to do well while earning the respect & admiration of your team.
When you happen upon a great leader who is also a great manager, grab on to them…you’ve found a unicorn.
Martin Luther King, Jr. had a big dream. He had more courage and vision in his pinky than most of us have in our whole bodies. Here is an except from his speech “I Have A Dream.” (Go listen to the recording of his speech at this link).
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
Thank you for dreaming Mr. King. You helped changed the world with your courage and the risks you took to make life better for all of our children. Today I will remind the kids what dreaming big can mean.
Working Motherhood/Parenthood/Fatherhood requires you to try touching your elbow to your ear (yes, I tried it to make sure it was near impossible to do so) on more occasions than you’d like to admit
I hope in all this living around parents with an accidental (prone to earthquakes) entrepreneurial foundation, my kids are learning that they have to whine a little, adapt a lot, smile, try a bunch of different things, have faith that things will turn out as they should as long as they work hard and are kind to others…including animals and a select few insects like butterflies.
The Austin Songwriters Symposium that I wrote about in my previous post was amazing! It wrapped up this morning after a Sunday morning gospel jam session with the attendees and a lunchtime jam session with the pros. I don’t attend church often, but I love gospel music and hymns…they really pull at the heart strings of us sinners non perfect people. I learned a lot about a whole different industry. It’s even harder to make it in that industry than being a high tech entrepreneur. Songwriters are entrepreneurs. The main difference is that most songwriters make it on their own merit or maybe co-write with one or two other people. To build a successful high tech company requires hundreds of people moving in the same direction and buying into the same vision. The payoff can be bigger (95% of songwriters don’t make much money) in building a company but the complexity is higher. Most songwriters seemed to originally have wanted to make it big themselves as a singer singing their own songs but find themselves barely getting by playing their own songs in clubs or the more savvy ones end up writing for the great, well-known singers.
People like Joe Ely, Sonny Throckmorton, Gary Burr, Georgia Middleman (she sang a song called Dare To Dance Alone (YouTube) this morning that she co-wrote with Gary Burr that really touched me), Will Sexton, and Matthew Santos were in attendance and were either performing and/or hosting workshops. It was an eye opener. All of them wrote their own songs or wrote songs for many of the household name country singers of our time like Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Faith Hill, Reba McEntire, Martina McBride, Waylon Jennings, etc. I certainly don’t have any delusions visions that my songs will be published and adopted by great singers but it was nice to know I was not alone in wanting to create new songs. There were people of all ages and different stages of discovering songwriting. I met with a publisher and he had some great advice on a couple of the songs I had co-written…most of it I knew already, but there was a gem or two.
I didn’t realize before I attended how heavy the emphasis would be on country music, but I picked up a saying or two. One of them was the country music was nothing more than “three chords and the truth.” And that certainly seemed accurate to me by the end of the symposium…and the painful truth of us being human certainly comes out a lot in the lyrics of country music.
Attending the conference was a nice break from my daily routine and it was great to hear world class music played by people who obviously loved what they did. I was so impressed how they could get up on stage together, never played a song together, and then play off each other to produce professional sounding concerts. They way they were able to improvise and produce a joyful noise made me seriously think about finally learning to play the guitar!
I haven’t blogged too much about music or songwriting recently, but I signed up to attend the Austin Songwriters Group 8th Annual Songwriting Symposium this weekend and tonight was the first night…well it’s now past midnight as I’m writing this post. My voice teacher, Gene Raymond at Octave Higher, forwarded me a notice about it only a week ago and I figured ‘what the heck, I should go.’ So far so good. They had songwriters from Texas and Nashville singing their original music tonight. It was like having a semi-private concert given by very talented song writers in a smoke-free room where everyone was really interested in listening to the singers. In other words, people were focused on them and not talking to each other, trying to pick up dates, or drinking to excess. They were all so good and all of them said that no one goes into songwriting for the money. A guy named Jim Photoglo made a funny joke about marriage, sex, money, and songwriting but it’s probably not appropriate to write here. I’m looking forward to a guy named Sonny Throckmorton and a gal named Kimmie Rhodes talk about co-writing songs tomorrow (or shall I say later this morning).
Congressman Lloyd Doggett showed up since he’s a big supporter of the Austin music scene and gave a little speech. There were many references to some great country singers like Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, etc. because most of the music the singer/songwriters played this evening was country music. Whenever I hear country music, I remember a guy I worked with at Mr. Gatti’s pizza in high school who told me when I told him that I hated country music that it was because my heart hadn’t been really broken yet…and he was right. I get teary eyed when I hear good country music now.
I signed up to pitch my songs to one of three publishers who will be there on Sunday morning. We get 15 minutes with a publisher. I hope I’m brave enough to hum a few bars when it’s my turn because our songs are still in varying degrees of completion. I wish my songwriting partner could be there, but he’s too busy playing live gigs! We are hoping our schedules will allow us to finally record some of our stuff this year. I mean…come on…we have a facebook page for our two person band, so we have to accomplish something, right? Please go like our page: METAPHOR MANIA. I think we need 25 people to like it to remove the numbers from the URL so…do the right thing and wish me luck in pitching…I could use some positive affirmation right about now.
Here’s to a great new year! One has to be optimistic because the alternative is well not so politically correct to write about. Some people are predicting economic recovery and others doom, but no one has a crystal ball. There’s nothing new under the sun when it comes to human interactions, volcanoes, and icebergs, but it always seems so new to each of us. I suppose social networks and technologies like facebook didn’t exist in the dinosaur age, so that’s new. At any rate, I wish you peace, love and joy.
Below is the loving kindness meditation that I wish for you:
May you be happy.
May you be well in body.
May you be well in spirit.
May you be well in mind.
May you be at peace.
May you love yourself just as you are, in this moment.
May you be filled with loving kindness.
How many times have you wondered why someone does not see what you see or get what you get? How many times have people questioned you when you didn’t do something the way they might do it? Just as you’ve wondered why certain people are clueless, people have probably wondered the same about you.
I’ve had the opportunity recently to take some career assessment tests. They are like those tests you took in high school with a career counselor that told you that you should become a nurse, a teacher or you had no worthwhile skills at all. Well fortunately or unfortunately, I happen to have some skills/talents but some of them seem to be opposing. In other words, I have an unusual mix of abilities that can cause internal angst (surprise!). Most of them label me as someone who can do multiple things (Jill-Of-All-Trades) or in other words…shudder…an entrepreneur. This means I can be a geneticist, a trial lawyer, a pharmaceutical sales rep, a recruiter, a coach/counselor, sports writer (I have no clue about professional sports) or even a barista at Starbuck’s as long as they let me rearrange the entire operations at the coffee shop.
I did the Kolbe Career Index A with business coach & friend Michelle Ewalt. She gave me things to think about and questions to ask about potential career opportunities. I did the Affini-T assessment with a new Austin company called Affintus, and that one tested my math problem solving skills that I’d half forgotten since taking Algebra many moons ago! Earlier this year, I did the Strength’s Finder assessment. All presented similar results but presented them in very different, unique ways.
I think the most important takeaway for me was that we are all so very different in how we view and approach the world, our responsibilities, and careers. I have more understanding of someone when they don’t “get” how the things they do or say (or don’t do or say) can profoundly affect others, they don’t speak their mind, they can’t connect with people to form networks, or they get stuck and stay stuck instead of looking for alternative paths (common sense to me). I hope to develop more patience with myself & others when I or they aren’t able to research something completely, execute to completion, or build a magnetic based bullet train (quantum physics to me – ouch that hurts my brain). If we as parents and managers appreciated the differences and strength’s in people and let them do what they do best, we would create and build better, more sustainable businesses.
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! The purple Christmas tree was in the lobby of Emler swim school. It looks even more purple in real life. May those of you who celebrate Christmas receive the gifts (tangible and intangible) that you want and the blessings of the season.
Author:Aruni | Filed under:holiday | Tags:christmas, purple | Comments Off on Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
You’ve probably heard life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. It’s true from my perspective. People react to proverbial bad news in different ways. I’ve been given bad news that in hindsight (or even on the spot) was actually great news! It usually doesn’t feel that way to most of us at the time it’s delivered though. I don’t know why some of us dust ourselves off, get back up, and re-invent ourselves while others sink deeper into the sofa. Believe me there have been many times that I’ve wanted to sink deep into the sofa and eat tons of chocolate, but something inside me (oh, and those two kids of mine who need to eat and go to school) makes sure I get up, eat just a wee bit of chocolate, and keep going. Fighting the demons inside your head can be the hardest thing to do, especially when your life has turned out differently than you envisioned or others envisioned for you.
A good friend of mine introduced me to Words With Friends (pretty much like Scrabble) and I’m hooked. My kids are hooked. I’m playing several games with several friends right now. Each game is different. I’ve lost most of them so far because it’s been so long since I’ve played Scrabble and the words that are OK in Scrabble/WWF are not always used in the real world. Plus, my kids (i.e., cute and cuddly meddlers) will all of a sudden play small words that don’t have a lot of points. Each part of your life is different. The basic rules, from my perspective, are the same but everyone is dealt a different hand, cards, letters and playing them the best we can is what counts. Also, I’ve found that shuffling the letters (i.e., your perspective) lets you see things you might not otherwise see.
So play the letters you are dealt. Sometimes you’ll make tons of points and sometimes you’ll make a few. Sometimes you’ll win and sometimes you’ll lose, but there’s always another game to be played. I’m curious as to how often people use the word “Qi” in their daily conversations? 😀
The following is a guest post by Brittany Lyons. She aspires to be a psychology professor and is currently a blogger for an online PhD program. She wants to help people learn to navigate the academic lifestyle. She currently lives in Spokane, Washington, where she spends her time reading science fiction and walking her dog.
The iPad: A Parenting Tool?
The new age of mobile devices has influenced the way parents interact with their children. Even the youngest of children are often allowed to play with their parent’s cell phones, and now the iPad has been thrown into the mix. However, just as with any toy or device, allowing children to use an iPad has both its advantages and disadvantages.
An iPad can benefit children and help parents in several ways. It entertains children endlessly, and there are a number of games and apps are available that children of all ages to play. Besides serving as means for staving off boredom, the iPad can also be used as an educational tool. As educators and those with PhDs have discovered, mathematics lessons, alphabet practice and other activities make the iPad a useful addition for a learning environment. As a result, many schools even begun incorporating the iPad into classrooms to stimulate and reach children that may not respond to traditional teaching methods.
iPads can also be used to assist special needs child. The article “Adapting to the iPad, Called ‘Education’s ‘Equalizer’,” on USAToday.com, details how apps are available to help students with ADHD become more organized. For example, children can use iPad videos to learn how to perform daily tasks, such as hand-washing or getting dressed. Additionally, parents of autistic children have discovered that the iPad attracts their children’s attention like no other mobile or computer device. Autistic children are drawn to the stability and predictability of the iPad, and it allows them to feel safer than they do when interacting with a human. [Comment from Aruni: A friend of mine is behind an organization called Special Needs Apps for Kids so please check it out. SNApps4Kids is a volunteer community of parents, therapists, doctors, and teachers who share information on how we are using the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices with children who have special needs.]
Finally, while computer games and video games have often been used by therapists to improve hand-eye coordination, the iPad provides a high-tech alternative. There are a variety of games that can be played on the device that allow children to practice tracking objects visually before touching them on the screen. Better yet, not only do these games enable children to strengthen their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination, but they also let kids learn academic material while having fun.
Despite all of the ways parents can use an iPad to help their children learn, there are risks associated with the device. Children may become dependent on the iPad and shun their peers and toys. This attachment can lead to temper tantrums when the parent tries to take the iPad away from the child. Similarly, the iPad does not encourage communication with other people, which is an important social skill for children to learn. The device also distracts children from playing imaginative games or from going outside to play. A final risk of letting children play with an iPad is the cost involved. Even if is a child is very careful when handing an iPad, there is a chance that they may break this expensive device.
Ultimately an iPad cannot replace a parent, so parents need to ensure that they interact with their children throughout the day. Parents should make a point to talk to their kids about how school is going and discuss homework assignments. Encourage family togetherness by playing board games or sports as a group. By avoiding using the iPad as a bribe or as the sole source of entertainment, parents will soon find a nice balance that can help their child learn and grow without interfering with other developing skills.
I think one of the main ways to survive parenthood (and life) is to have a healthy appreciation of being silly. Of course there is also the importance of being earnest. For some reason last night my kids were being extra silly. I had the opportunity to watch the 15+ kids in my son’s after school care program yesterday so the teachers could have their holiday party. I don’t know how teachers deal with all the different personalities. Just the few short hours I was there, I could pick out the bully, the insecure one, the mean one, etc. Over dinner, I expressed to my kids the importance of being understanding & kind as well as how much I appreciated them…of course they thought that was weird. Somehow that digressed into a discussion of very tall people and some other potty talk not appropriate for the blog but funny nonetheless, and understandable if you have kids.
My son wondered if a tall person never stopped growing (after a rousing discussion on the tallest person in the Guinness Book of World Records) what would happen if his bones kept growing after he died. He wondered out loud would happen if after this tall person disintegrated (don’t know how he knew this word) his bones kept on growing until the world was all dust. I told him that was impossible but quite an interesting story.
My daughter told a story about penguins. She said “Once upon a time, there was a penguin. And then the penguin turned into an ice cube. And then another penguin turned into an ice cube. While the penguins were ice cubes, they never stopped p**ping and the other penguin was never happy again because the penguin was so angry that he exploded.”
My son then told a story about a person who had very long hair who never stopped going to the bathroom (#1) and his hair fell in the toilet and was eaten by a crocodile so he became bald. But I told him that was highly inappropriate for the blog. Of course, they were laughing hysterically. I kept thinking how lucky I am to have such story telling kids. If they choose to write or blog, I’m sure they will be much better at it than I am.
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