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There are days I wish I had my katana at the office rather than decorating my wall at home. Yes, I know how to use it. (Thank you Greg & Iwakabe Sensei.)
On days like today, I wish I were Lucy Liu in this wonderful scene in Kill Bill.
Unfortunately, modern management techniques require "winning" the enemy over to one's side.
Some days I wish for simpler times.
Last January I made a failed attempt to leap back into fitness with the Turbulence Training plan leading up to the Turbulence Training 500 workout. I did make it through some of the workouts but often found, like my recent experience with Evil Jen, that not being able to walk up and down stairs comfortably for several days, let alone raise my arms, is NOT conducive to sticking with a fitness program. I don't mind some delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) that lasts a few days but muscle spasms where the muscle contracts and won't relax for days on end is not my thing.
I've been more successful adding the cardio back. Three days a week, I run, then I reward myself in the jacuzzi at the gym. That's a start (good heart health anyway) but to change my body, I need to add resistance training.
Yesterday, Craig Ballantyne wrote a post called Start at the Beginner Turbulence Training Workouts! Today I heeded that advice. Workout A done. Interval A done. I feel good. My muscles worked and I will have some stiffness tomorrow but will likely still be motivated to get my run in. I may not need to do 4 weeks at the Beginner level before moving to Intermediate but I suspect that because these workouts are more achievable for me - i.e. I don't need to modify the exercises to try to approximate the move - that I will be much more likely to stick with it.
Spring is here and so is my motivation. There is something about sunny weather and the prospect of wearing sleeveless shirts and short skirts that inspires me. There is a new Turbulence Training Competition starting May 1. This one I may do. I'm ready.
Three years ago, I was a competitor in the Bard Center Business Plan Competition. The first place winner for my year now teaches two courses in Social Entrepreneurship at the Bard Center. I am now the host of this amazing event. I am amazed at just how quickly things can change, how rapidly dreams can come true.
We are quickly approaching the May 1 deadline to submit a Business Plan. It’s also time to reserve your seats for this fun and exciting event.
Event Facts
The Award: This event will present awards to six aspiring entrepreneurs and their teams. The Bard Center Business Plan Competition seeks to promote the development of high caliber business plans, recognize the most outstanding plans with cash and in-kind awards from area businesses, and encourage the creation of new businesses. The specific objectives of the Business Plan Competition include:
Cash Awards
Special Cash & In-kind Awards
When: Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Where: Grand Hyatt-Downtown Denver (1750 Welton Street)
Cost:
For more information or to reserve your seat contact the Bard Center at (303) 620-4050 or Bard.Center@cudenver.edu
The Bard Center for Entrepreneurship is a privately funded Center of Excellence that supports new business growth in Colorado. Celebrating our 10th year, more than 1900 students have participated in Bard Center programs, and annually over 20 companies are formed and supported by the Bard Center. The Center resides on the third floor of the historic Masonic Building in downtown Denver.
The Richard H. and Pamela S. Bard Center for Entrepreneurship was established in 1996 as a vehicle to foster economic opportunities in the Denver metropolitan area. Richard and Pamela Bard's generous endowment turned their dream into the reality of creating a program that would prepare future entrepreneurs for successful ventures, as well as to promote entrepreneurial spirit in the corporate environment.
As part of the Business School at the University of Colorado Denver, the Bard Center fosters and promotes new business opportunities by advancing the teaching, study and practice of entrepreneurship and new venture creation. The Center provides students with education, experience, incubation, funding, networking, and results!
I find myself thinking often about the relationships between accountability, mentors, coaches and productivity. My thoughts are half-formed, still percolating. I am hoping that writing them down will give them some structure.
I have frequently admitted my admiration for Ben Casnocha in the past. He has had two recent posts related to my thoughts on accountability, mentors and productivity: Six Habits of Highly Effective Mentees and Should you take notes in a one-on-one meeting? In my briefcase I have about 10 pounds (I wish I were exaggerating) of meeting notes and materials to transcribe into my Google Notebook. Obviously I agree 100% with his idea of taking notes at every meeting. Ben is a bit more savvy than I realizing that "Also, if you are taking notes but your partner is not, a subtle power dynamic can emerge (ie, the person taking notes is less than the person not taking notes)." I may be twice Ben's age but my response to this is "whatever." It's not about the power for me but the knowledge. I'll take that any day over some posturing.
It is only recently that I realized the value of the mentors in my life. I am and have been blessed with wonderful mentors. Currently, I have an amazing advisory council; several of the members have stepped into mentorship roles in various ways. As you might expect, just about everyone has strong opinions on how I should do my job (especially since I am a women and they are mostly men but that's a post for another day). As you might also expect, these strong opinions vary considerably and are often mutually exclusive. This of course makes it quite interesting as the mentee. Early into my new job there were many people that I met with frequently from whom to seek advice, but in the last few months there is only one.
Why that one you might wonder? So much of the mentor-mentee relationship depends on chemistry and timing: a combination of where you are & what you need and whether it's a good personal fit. There are so many reasons. Some are related to power both personal and professional. If I have a single innate skill it is the ability to pick those people with the most power in room out like beacons in the night. They simply shine brightly and I am attracted to the light like a moth to flame. Like they'd say in Firefly, shiny. But it is certainly not only that or even mostly that. The one I chose, or perhaps he chose me, held me accountable. Did I follow through on his advice? Did I hit that next milestone? There is a power is knowing that someone is watching, and expecting you to follow through. For me at least, there is power in knowing that someone will check in to ensure that I have made progress since the last meeting. I am pressure prompted. I need deadlines. So the fact that there is a person helping me to set the next goal, the next target, with a deadline (i.e. by our next meeting...) makes me incredibly focused and productive. These items are first on my list. They are done on time. I will be held accountable if progress is not made. I feel so much more productive and effective with this combination of mentorship and accountability.
My only concern is how to ensure that this mentor does not become my "Linus Blanket." What's the transition? In academia, there are clear breaks from one's mentors: the awarding of the PhD, the transition from post-doc to faculty, etc. These are very clear milestones on well worn paths. In life, there is so much more gray. I have had a number of relationships turned upside down in the past. A boss of mine for more than a decade ended up reporting to me for a few years. Another boss of mine now serves as a peer (or according to some, subordinate to me) on a scientific project. These can be uncomfortable transitions for those concerned of power and title. While one can find much advice on the mentor-mentee relationship, there is less to be found on that transition period from mentee to peer. How does one raise up the mentee to peer? When does one set the mentee free?
These questions are a major reason I was phobic about recruiting graduate students. I did have one briefly but handed her off to person more suited to the role. In my new job, I am surprised still when students come to me for advice (/waves if any are reading). I met with two today. It is such a fun part of my job that I did not anticipate. Partly there is a shared camaraderie since I have taken many of their classes and have been down this path recently. Partly it is because they often love the program and praise our teachers and offerings. I love this. One today stopped in because she was curious and wanted to meet me. She was fun. We spoke for an hour of our wonderful teachers and discussed ways to make the program even better. The other was a scientist taking a few classes with us, who is about to do our business plan competition. I think he really just wanted some reassurance that it was OK to look off the well worn career path. Really it's OK. Fun even.
About a decade ago I met an incredible women. She baffled me. Her career path was unique. She'd been an attorney. Did most of business school. Worked in a variety of legal and CFO roles. By the time I met her, she was into temp work. She'd come in as a temp - VP, CEO, CFO, etc to help during transitions. She rarely stayed in a job longer than 18 months. She never thought past the current job yet she was rarely out of work. At the time I met her and even until a few years ago, I did not understand her tolerance for and enjoyment of the uncertainty. I saw her a few weeks ago at a fund raising event. I said to her "I'm off my path; I no longer have a 5 year plan; I have no idea what the future holds; I feel so liberated." She smiled and said "Isn't it great?"
Blogs are an odd thing. They allow one a glimpse of people that you often would never have the opportunity to meet. If you subscribe to their blogs or become a regular reader, you may begin to feel like you know them. Perhaps you communicate by email and are friendly if a specific post resonates. And, yet, there may remain this feeling on the one hand of "do I really know them?" and on the other "am I invading their privacy them by keeping up with their day to day journey?" Where are the boundaries for these electronic relationships?
I had coffee with a colleague the other morning who felt somewhat embarrassed that he'd read a few of my posts. He truly felt like he was invading my privacy. He wasn't. And yet, I understand the feeling. I also occasionally feel that I am reading someone else's private diary without permission, even though the person is writing publicly.
So it is that I stumbled across Mel, first via her fitness blog, and later as she was working through her MBA - in Leeds (a very long way from Colorado). She made the switch to keeping her on-line writing more professional some time ago. For the past 11 months, she and her boyfriend Mark have been slowly wending their way around the world. Mark has been much better about sharing their journey than Mel has.
This past week, Mark & Mel were in Colorado. I knew they were headed this way and invited them to stay with us. My husband was a bit concerned about meeting these "virtual" friends. It did not help that I showed him the pictures of them eating grasshoppers. Who were these people that I'd invited to our home?
What wonderful people. It was terrific to meet Mark & Mel in person. I will feel much less like a stalker as I follow their journey home and beyond.
Because of the microbrew sampler offered in our local brewery, we were able to get Mark a little closer to his goal of 150 beers tasted from around the globe.
Great meeting you both! I'm glad you took the time to come visit with us.
I joined a gym about a block from my work about 6 weeks ago. One thing they do for all new members is assign you to have two personal training sessions. The fist session is a fitness assessment - you get weighed & calipered to assess body fat, heart rate & blood pressure are tested, your VO2 max is calculated on an exercycle. Tests for overall fitness included a series of push-ups, sit-ups, squats and measures of flexibility. So the first session was OK if a bit depressing. I know what I should be able to do and but my upper body strength is currently non-existent.
For my second session, just Wednesday night, I met with Evil Jen. Actually she's not truly evil; I hurt today as I knew I would and & we had joked that I would be thinking of her as evil . I am. Granted I asked her to push me hard and warned her that I was sadly unfit outside of my cardiovascular health. I have been going to the gym 2 or 3 times a week running sprint intervals for about 3 miles a pop. I am back to running 3 miles in just under 30 minutes. This part is fine.
Jen focused on strength training. We started with bar bell squats, moved to lunges on a bosu ball. Most every exercise recruited multiple muscle groups by design. She likes sets of 15 to 20, done twice - I've generally done sets with fewer than 12 reps in the past. The core exercises, done at the end, were fun and made use of stability and medicine balls. The middle, working chest, shoulders and back, was simply brutal. She likes range of motion exercises so there was some cable work as well as some chest press exercise where the weight was lifted not only straight up but over to each side at about 30 degree angles away from center. Doing each location (left, right, center) was 1 rep - lets do 2 sets of 20 after killing me with pushups. She had to spot me on the 25 lb plate I was using for this. I am very weak in my upper body but at home I can still use my 25 lb dumbbells to press (twice the weight but only straight up, and not after push-ups). The shoulder exercises (lateral & front raises) involved standing on one leg with the other held high.
By the time she was done with me I was grateful to go sit in the jacuzzi for a bit. Even after a long soak I could barely raise my arms enough to drive home safely. The next day I was struggling with the stairs. Oh my quads. I was also very aware of my core.
This was my first real experience with a personal trainer. I'm tempted but it's quite expensive ($75 per 1 hour session! - only about $60 each if you commit to 24 sessions) at my health club. I see the advantage, much of which is simply paying someone to meet you there to make sure you get it done, who will laugh with/at you while you struggle to finish the set. I need to try out some of the group fitness stuff. I never thought I was a joiner but a class might be just what I need at this point.
I have had no access to my work MS Exchange Server for almost 3 hours. No email, no calendar. I am now at home. I feel lost.
There is currently no ETA for the repair. The only information I can find is, "The servers were re-booted but this did not resolve the issue. The Email Group is still looking into this and will reply with more details when they know more. IT Services " This is not reassuring.
My life these days depends on being able to communicate 24/7 mostly via electronic means. Even my work voice-mail gets dumped into my email inbox which I can no longer access. When everything is working flawlessly, it even all gets forwarded to my BlackBerry. I may not do anything instantaneously with the information but I depend on having access to it anytime, anywhere.
A former lab technician of mine who is now a graduate student in a Department of Biological Sciences sent this to me today. It may not be meaningful to anyone who has not spent time as an academic scientist but it made me laugh. Sadly there is much truth in this. If the text is hard to read, then click the image and it should open in a new larger format (warning, profanity).
People ask if I regret my career shift which is moving me away from the lab, away from research. Um, no. Never.
Do I still believe that basic biomedical research is the best way to understand and one day cure disease? Absolutely. Does it need to be me doing the work? Not anymore.
I should confess. I am pressure prompted. Give me a tight deadline I'm your gal. Otherwise, I am prone to procrastination. Somewhere in the many blogs I read I came across Do it Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management
Alas, this is not a book for procrastinators. Instead, this book is all about prioritization. How do you decide what to do today and what can safely be postponed until tomorrow? How can you optimize your time to do it all? How are you wasting time so that not everything gets finished each day?
Almost all of the secrets in this book are summarized on page 0, before the book even starts. But, for me there are several gems. Let's talk about lists. I love to-do lists. I live for crossing items off my list. Did you know that "closed" lists are about a gazillion times more effective than "open" lists? I've always kept open lists. I add items constantly to the things I need to get done but the list grows and grows. A closed list is finite. The only thing it can do is get shorter and ultimately completed. How novel, how inspiring, a list that gets finished. The author strongly supports multiple closed lists.
The premise of this book is almost ridiculous and yet it interests me. Toss all of the undone items into yesterday's closed list. Do all of the current items from today & peck away at yesterday. In theory, with good time management, you do indeed have enough time and then some to get through your daily tasks leaving time to peck away at the old stuff. It is essential to finish your lists each day. At some point, all of the old is gone, you are current on the new and life is grand. In my current reality, some of the day to day stuff has slipped past due so that I can focus on future oriented tasks and initiatives. I've been haphazardly pecking away at the old by cataloging everything in Google Notebook as time allows. But I don't have anything as organized as the proposed system.
There is also some fascinating stuff on goal setting in this book. It's all targeted at daily success and contradicts much of what I've read and done previously. The author recommends not setting big audacious goals. Instead set goals where you are sure to succeed every day. Do not plan to run 3 miles each morning. Instead plan to go outside each morning with your running clothes on. It is much more likely that the later goal will achieve success and motivate you to actually go out and run- even if not 3 miles. And truly any miles are better than zero miles. The way this is organized is all linked the reptilian vs. rational brain. I'm not sure that I agree fully with this theory but did see a lot of myself and my procrastination in his examples.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine pointed me to a website called Taaz which essentially allows one to easily and quickly change the hair, makeup, and even eye color on a picture. Many of the makeovers are of movie stars and are incredibly done.
It works best if you upload a picture with your hair pulled back. I did not feel like taking a picture for just this purpose so I started with my work photo which is the left most image. For the second image, I just messed with make up. For the third one, not quite the effect I was hoping for - just call me drag queen. For the last picture, since I left my hair down, I had to erase it on MS Paint. I like the length, not sure I want to go blond again. Each makeover took perhaps 5 or 6 minutes at most.
I will confess I tried the goth thing - white skin, black hair, heavy dark make-up. I always admired folks who could pull off that look. Definitely not me.
Also tried out some more glamorous hair & makeup. Also not me. Fun though. Give it a try.
Lisa Robyn: The Corporate Dominatrix: Six Roles to Play to Get Your Way at Work
Bob Johansen: Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present
Curtis R. Carlson: Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want
Phil Town: Rule #1: The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week!
Nina Disesa: Seducing the Boys Club: Uncensored Tactics from a Woman at the Top
Susan Roane: How to Work a Room, Revised Edition: Your Essential Guide to Savvy Socializing
Robert I. Sutton: The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't
Kevin Freiberg: Guts! : Companies that Blow the Doors off Business-as-usual
Jim Collins: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
Susan Scott: Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work & in Life, One Conversation at a Time
