Acclimatization

NASCAR racing, the theme of our recent management conference, is something I can relate to.  I work in pretty much one gear:  High.  I tend to have a lead foot, not just on the gas pedal of my car, but on the accelerator of my life.  I walk fast; I schedule tightly; I respond quickly; I turn on a dime.  Slow is not a word that is in my vocabulary. It doesn’t help either that time appears to speed up with aging, like the wildly spinning hands on the dial of a cartoon clock, taking everything I’ve got to keep myself out of the sinkhole  of frustration that opens up when I feel stuck, or worse yet, move backwards. 

As I settle into my new role at the office working on massive, multi-year initiatives, I’m learning to define success differently.   I’m also finding unexpected synergies with my experiences at the office and my experiences raising adolescents.  Four years into life with teenagers, this project feels like one unforeseen condition after another, the contingency nearly exhausted, so far beyond the schedule I anticipated expediting, quite possibly unable to recover from unexpected delays.  I still struggle to see light at the end of this tunnel.  

The projects at work impact thousands of people, have big price tags and need to succeed in order to mitigate tremendous financial risk.  As I work on developing my goals for the year, defining performance targets I’ll be expected to meet, I find success is less about delivering a final product, and more about showing progress.  After years of working with clients expecting the near impossible, projects completed in ridiculously short time frames, changing gears is jarring.  It’s a good thing, though, that there is this time to exhale; these days deep breathing to calm myself is circadian. 

Climbing Mt. Everest is an exercise in endurance I can’t imagine myself ever embarking on.  It’s 29,000 feet to the very top, a journey that takes even the most skilled climbers two months to make.  Spending that kind of time in extreme weather conditions has no appeal to me.  However, I found myself fascinated listening  to the keynote speaker at the conference explain what she learned on not one, but two, journeys to the highest summit on earth.  She captured her whole experience in an exquisite parable that made it easy for her listeners to apply her lessons to both the mountains we climb at the office and the ones we climb at home. 

She spoke to photographs of her trips, bringing the treacherous environment to life while explaining that nearly everything a climber experiences from the weather conditions to the health of herself and her team mates is completely out of her control.  Success is about how a climber handles what nature throws at her, with no choice but to make the best possible decision in the moment.

What surprised me the most is the amount of time climbers spend descending the mountain, and I’m not talking about the way down from the summit.  Once they reach base camp at 17,000 feet, the teams will climb several thousand feet higher only to come down to base camp.  They do this multiple times, each trip up slightly further than the previous, but all ending in a return to the base camp once again.  The process is more than tedious, but an absolute necessity for survival:  Our bodies need this to adjust to the altitude. But as she describes, after climbing 17,000 feet just to get to base camp itself, the idea of going up only to come down again is brutally defeating. 

What I love about this though, and what is causing me to think differently about the sliding back part, is that she describes the backward movement as essential.  You can’t move forward without it. When you’re climbing Mt. Everest, if you charge ahead to the top without giving your body the time it needs to adjust, your body will fail you completely; it’s a certainty. 

So what if I think about the transformation to adulthood as a kind of climb with occasional returns to base camp to become accustomed to this new phase of life?  What if I stop thinking about this difficult hike between boyhood and manhood as something my kids can’t seem to get right, but instead something that’s required for safe passage?  Could this perspective help me be more understanding and love my boys and myself a little more through the process?

The higher you ascend on Everest, the thinner the air.  Our speaker described in detail the excruciating difficulty of movement in the 20,000 feet range, you literally put one foot forward, stopping to take 5 to 10 breaths before you’re able to take another step. 

So this struggle for air brings odd comfort, a sign that I am achingly close to my summits, both climbing the corporate ladder and ushering my kids up through their teens.  Part of it is sheer panic, hyperventilating into a paper bag before presentations that just keep coming or as I’m once again warily placing trust in my child.  Part of it is the shot of pure adrenaline unleashed by the arresting views at this altitude, as I move impossibly close to being peers with the most senior leaders in my organization, and my boys become visibly closer to becoming peers with me. 

And fairly often I fear I’m not going to make it.  As our speaker described what it felt like to be so close to her goal, and so mired in exhaustion she didn’t think could get there, she talked about the power of breaking the climb down into manageable pieces.  Hasn't the trick always been to resist getting caught up in the prize at the top, and pour your energy into the next object you can shine your light on?  The rest should take care of itself.

Indite

Is choosing to pen a handwritten note over typing an e-mail to a loved one the equivalent of baking brownies from scratch rather than serving store-bought?  If I was taking one of those standardized tests where the task is to select like-comparisons I’d probably have to go there.  There is something unbelievably personal about handwriting.  It’s like a finger print or the sound of a voice, a unique identifier; no two people on earth have the exact same handwriting, although I have seen some amazing facsimiles of my own scrawl.  It’s been studied and mimicked quite convincingly by a desperate middle-schooler choosing forgery to gain the required verification that a parent put eyes on the detention slip for an act with consequences that included serving time.

 

I’m the first one to admit I’d be lost without the convenience of a lap top.  I can’t imagine how novels were written before spell check, on-line thesaurus, auto-save (just found out about this feature in Google docs – wow!) and the delete key.  An epic like War and Peace, written around the same time the first commercially successful typewriter was invented in 1867, had to have taken eons to put on paper.  Tolstoy’s wife, as his scrivener, is said to have written seven complete manuscripts of his book before publication. Yikes!  Who’s got that kind of time?

And that’s what it comes down to, time.  It’s the difference between combining butter, sugar, eggs, chocolate, flour and salt to create your own brownies and stopping at the grocery store for the finished product.  More often than not the store-bought version is just fine.   But when you mean to send extra love, there is no substitute for starting from scratch.

Read more from a writer passionate about this lost art here:  The Missing Ink

Habiliments

As I’m preparing to attend the much-anticipated black tie dinner, a palatable dress finally selected, my boys ask me why adults bother with the costumes just to go out and eat together.  Where is the fun in that, they wonder?  Seems like work. Little do they know the theme is a masquerade ball, and all guests are encouraged to don decorative masks to accessorize their formalwear. I didn’t mention this nuance as I’m sure the conversation would have moved to suggestions around blood-gushing, slasher type guises of the Halloween variety.  Having not made the time to shop on-line last week, I am thrilled to discover that masks are brought to us at the event and I am able to purchase, at a very reasonable price I might add, a much more appropriate sparkling black and gold version with a silk ribbon to tie underneath my hair.  It’s fun to conceal ourselves in full regalia; I am surprised by how much I love the freedom of the facade for a few hours, and that somehow it seems I’m not quite myself behind the mask.

Last week I was a guest at an event where a woman CEO spoke about her career.  She’s wildly successful, clearly evident by the job she holds and the growth her company has achieved under her leadership.  Her story is extremely positive, but oddly, I found that as she talked I started to feel bad about myself.  As she recounted her career path, the stops she made along the way to today’s role, it all seemed too easy for her, almost surreal.  While I’m certain in reality it wasn’t, and that she has worked extremely hard and made significant sacrifices to get to where she is, I just couldn’t relate.

She appeared too perfect.  Her stories about how she sat down with her kids virtually to help with homework while in a hotel room in another city, meant to communicate that it’s possible to parent on the road, left me admonishing myself for my lackluster performance in this area, and I don’t even travel every week.  Her triumph of retaining her nanny despite a move to the suburbs was meant to illustrate creative problem solving, but reminded me of those years when what little money I made barely covered daycare, let alone a live-in nanny. 

There were no stories about how her four-year-old attached himself to her leg some mornings at daycare drop off, leaving her walking into the office near tears, full of guilt over choosing work over staying at home with her kids. She didn’t address compensation challenges;  leaving us to wonder if she’d ever been in that place where she considered quitting, not believing she’d ever climb high enough in the organization to be able to afford the help she needed at home to stay in the workforce.

The final blow to me personally came when she talked about how important it is to choose the right partner, someone supportive who works with you to grow your career and manage the family you’ve both created.  What if you didn’t get lucky like that?  What if your partnership isn’t a partnership at all?  What if the relationship was so destructive you needed to make the choice to go it alone?  How do we give those women hope that they can succeed?

She said she’s never doubted herself.  To me it seems implausible; thankfully Psychology Today feels the same way and talks about how to overcome this pervasive feeling in this post about imposter syndrome.  The truth is we can’t get in someone else’s head. We all choose to tell our stories from our own viewpoint.  While I thought I’d be tweeting all sorts of great words of wisdom, I realize instead that by leaving out the hard parts of the journey we void any chance to inspire those living through the hard parts today.  And so I walk away with renewed conviction to my quest to be real; a greater understanding of the power authenticity brings, and that because of the challenges I’m living through I can be truly inspiring if I’m brave enough to take off my mask.

Why do we adults bother with the costumes when it’s proven again and again that the genuine and the raw is what resonates?  When we divulge our adversity, our self-doubt, our flaws, these admissions lead us to common ground.  Others can begin to see how they might reach their dreams when we allow them a glimpse into success garnered in imperfect ways.

I like to dress up, no doubt.  But it sure feels good at the end of the evening to take off the mask, the shoes, the opera gloves that caused me to abstain from bread and the pistaschio dessert cannoli I couldn’t get my hands on, and empty my gorgeous little bag with the cameo latch picked up at the vintage shop in San Diego years ago.  I love it, but it’s too small to hold all of the “stuff” that makes me real. 

Sidereal

She stops by my desk commenting, “Everything we’re doing is hard."  Although she has a smile on her face as she speaks, I feel her frustration.  She’s the brilliant young analyst I’m fortunate to work with in my new role, full of poise, confidence and intrepidity that I didn’t deem possible when I was her age.  And she’s right; everything we’re doing is hard. 

It’s been a day of hard things.  Speakers we think are a given for meetings are canceling.  Systems we’re counting on as the lynchpin for several key initiatives aren’t holding water as we test them with stakeholders. Consensus around massive undertakings is slow to show its hands.  I’m about to give a presentation where the only certainty is that I have no idea how my audience will react. I have a new and inconvenient place to park my car; the valet that’s indulged me for the last fifteen years raised prices out of my range.  A tempestuous teenage boy grabs the upper hand again.  Even an hour of Pilates wears me down; the penalty for skipping last week’s class.  Bombs are exploding at the finish line in Boston.   

With the words of my rising star associate tucked in the back of my mind, I take on my last meeting of the day.  While I don’t quote her, as I present the challenges I’m facing with each item on my agenda my manager makes it clear to me why everything is so hard.  My new responsibilities, for the most part, are about bringing strategic vision to life. In his eloquence, and almost all in one breath, he explains both my role and the confidence he has in me to succeed:   It’s my job to figure out the program. Once put into operation, my design goes to someone else to run.  And he has it on good authority that I always figure out the program.  This is the hard stuff.

But it’s also the good stuff.  It’s the stuff I’ve been working toward.

Windlass turns one today.  At the risk of sounding like a parent gushing with pride in a bad holiday newsletter, I’ll say I can hardly believe it!    I took a look at my inaugural post, curious as to whether or not I am staying true to my original mission.  In a mere 252 words I challenge women to raise their anchors and sail. My stated goal is to provide “inspiration and ideas for action to get you where you want to go.”

I don’t talk about how hard it is in that post.  But in the 132 that come after I’m sure I mention once or twice that none of this is easy.  Sailing in uncharted waters just isn’t. It takes courage to embark on a journey filled with an uncertainty that never completely goes away.  But what I’ve learned in the past year is that time in the troughs is balanced with time riding high on the crest.  We surface from the undertow stronger than we ever were before.  

Some days are going to feel like everything is hard.  When you trust you’ll triumph the quagmire is a place you can bear to be in. Your accomplishments have the power to take your breath away.  Don’t be afraid to let them.

Yoke

Today I modeled over 20 dresses. In the privacy of department store fitting rooms, that is.  Turned out to be a good thing that I wasn’t on a runway, nearly all of my selections were horribly unflattering.  Most of these fitted gems made it over my head (I think that’s good news) only to become stuck somewhere else.  Side zippers slid safely over my waist, but it became apparent quickly that even sucking in air wasn’t going to allow their teeth to come anywhere close to meeting along my rib line.  I think I actually pinched myself a few times.  It didn’t make sense, there must be some foreign sizing program when it comes to the super hero costumes we call formalwear; nothing in the size of my Clark Kent business attire came close to fitting.   It was exhausting, wiggling in and out of silk, sequins, lace, tulle, beads, satin, and brocade.  Staring at myself in the mirror underneath what felt like a blazing, blemish-inducing spotlight, I couldn’t even muster a smile.  Too fitted, too small, too girlish, too short, too revealing, too uncomfortable:  Not one of them was just right.

By some miracle I came home with three, hopeful that in the more forgiving ambiance of my bedroom they’ll look better, so I can tell myself before I leave the house that I look good.  I try to shop a few weeks before the event so that the disheartening selection process is a distant memory and I have a prayer at rallying some excitement for the big night.  I can picture in my mind what I’d like to be wearing, but whether it exists anywhere, and in my price range is another matter entirely. 

But the real question is why couldn’t I select a dress when I was out today?  After reading "The Takeaway" on Fast Company this evening, I’m guessing it’s because I hadn’t decided what I wanted from the dress.  This very short post talks about the idea that the best design thinking occurs when we pay attention to the jobs that need doing. 

So what is the job that I’m hiring my dress to do?  Simply put, at a black tie event, the dress needs to make me feel glamorous, extraordinary.  That’s a tall order, and it means different things to different women.  For me, I want to look my age, in a style that’s classic; Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” without that super long cigarette holder.  A little clarity on my vision for the evening makes it obvious why I was unhappy with everything I tried on.  I grabbed anything that qualified as formalwear, thinking I’d somehow cobble a look together if I found a dress that appealed to me.  I think I had it backwards.  Maybe I don’t need a glitzy gown at all.   Maybe all I need is a simple black cocktail dress, opera gloves, a string of pearls, textured stockings and black heels.  Hmmm. 

What an interesting exercise, and all too familiar.  Many of us do this all the time at work.  We have a strategic vision and performance goals that we communicate to our teams.  We socialize job descriptions, roles and responsibilities that are clearly spelled out. We have quality conversations to make sure we stay focused in the right direction and course-correct when needed.  What if we applied this idea to life in general?    Would we be happier people if we kept our relationship expectations front and center, and dialogued with loved ones to steer ourselves toward the outcomes that we desire?  What if we spent time with our spouses talking about our vision for the marriage?  If you were hiring for a husband, what are the “jobs” you’d want him to do?

Ironically, before I even read this takeaway from Fast Company, driving home from my lackluster shopping trip, I thought about the fact that I am yet again attending this black tie event solo.  I’m really okay with it, but I allowed myself to imagine what I would most enjoy about having a date, my vision for the evening, so to speak.  I like the whole idea of being looked after.  I’d like my date to drop me off at the door before parking the car.  Carry my lipstick and driver’s license, pay for drinks so I don’t need a purse.  I’d like him to lean over at the table and whisper, just to me, how nice I look; make conversation when I can’t think of anything to say to the group.  I’d like him to offer his suit jacket to me when I get chilled after dinner, even though it won’t fit me.

Relationships, just like businesses, fail when outcomes don’t match expectations.  Even dream guy would likely need some kind of clue from me as to what he could do that would make my evening magical.  And that’s the point.  If we calibrate along the way, we have a much better chance of maintaining happiness.  I bet if we approach relationships asking ourselves what exactly it is we’re in this to do for the other person it would change everything.  If we were brave enough to affirm with those close to us what they’re looking for and work to deliver it, we would find joy and fulfillment.  And we wouldn’t end up with dresses that don’t do anything for us.

I’m sure there is a little black dress in my closet.  I’m ordering opera gloves on line.  They can have them to me by Tuesday.

Gusset

At lululemon a couple of weeks ago irresistible merchandising (and an extremely handsome and friendly young sales associate) lure me into purchasing a pair of “Light as Air Hipsters". Anxious to pilot this “race-ready” undergarment that promises to let “you (and your lady parts) breathe easy”, I nevertheless make sure it takes a spin in my washer before getting close to my skin.  As with any new piece of clothing, I can’t help but keep tabs, which leaves me perplexed when this jewel goes missing somewhere between the washer and the dryer.

At first it doesn’t seem like a big deal.  Surely this delicate microfiber “built with Nakedseam technology” has adhered itself to another garment in the wash. I carefully inspect each item in the load, coming up empty.  My hipsters are nowhere to be found!  Panic rising, I think maybe I haven’t put them in the washer at all, but vividly remember carefully orchestrating their placement for fear their “moisture-wicking Transluxent fabric”, silky to the touch, will be marred if they land on top of the heavy duty hardware of my new lululemon running bra. 

Distraught, I start retracing my steps.  Maybe they landed on the floor next to the washer, or in the dust behind the machine?  Maybe they somehow made it into the bins of stinky boy-laundry waiting for the next load?  Or maybe they escaped my thorough inspection of wet clothes and snuck into the dryer unbeknownst to me?  A closer look at every item in the dryer ensues.   By now I am beside myself.  Yes, over a pair of underwear.

I remember when I was growing up nearly losing my mind over losing stuff.  It didn’t matter what it was, but if it mattered to me when it disappeared I was on the rampage.  No stone left unturned, unable to rest until my beloved whatever –it-was was found.  This is a quality of mine I have struggled to come to terms with over the years, now back with a vengeance, in especially heartbreaking fashion seeing as the hipsters never even get the chance to graze my hips.  Not even once. So close, yet so far out of reach. . .

In talking with a friend, just days ago, I am shown some soothing clarity around my crazy obsession that has left me in utter despair over the most trivial of pursuits.  We’re talking about tenacity, perseverance, and forbearance, how I will hang onto relationships in hopes that I’ll find the silver bullet or the perfect philter that will make everything right. How I will search ceaselessly for solutions to problems whether they are with my team at work or with my children at home. I don’t rest until I’ve found the answer.

It’s pointed out to me that the same behaviors are both a curse that can drive me to the brink of tears when searching for, say, a pair of lost underwear, and a blessing paramount to my success in business and relationships, when applied to solving a particularly complex challenge.

Now this changes everything.  Somehow it becomes easier to show myself some kindness and acceptance (love, even?  Ack!) when it comes to my dark side as I realize that there is a bright side to this behavior that I absolutely need to hold on to.  Hmmm.I wonder what else this logic can be applied to?

The next time you want to beat yourself up over a quality you abhor about yourself, stop to consider the positive ways your life is impacted in other applications of this trait.  It might be worth a few tears over lost underwear. And this simple understanding may mean you’ll never need to cry over underwear again. 

We all want the world to see us at our best; our armor of strength and confidence affords this, but none of us go without those delicate joints held together with nothing more than chain mail. This is what allows us to maneuver, to be race-ready, and let our lady parts breathe.  This is what it is to be human.

Hale

I gulp several deep breaths, one after another.  The tears have subsided, mingling with the water washed down the shower drain as I pull myself together.  The calm will come; I just need to let myself be in the storm. 

Sure enough he comes to me, but I can tell by the way he swallows the first few words off my lips that he isn’t ready for me yet.  As expected, he thunders off again.  I wait.  He’s back, trepidation tinged with a dose of defiance to keep the edge on.  This time I tell a story.

Earlier in the day I read this piece about how a company’s guiding principles should govern who stays and who goes. http://www.fastcompany.com/3007912/hiring-and-firing-companys-vision-mind. It speaks to the power of culture and how a leader who lacks this passion, failing to infuse her team with the organization’s “why”, is poisonous.  This I believe.  I find the parallels to the situation unfolding at home startling; and so I talk about the culture and values of our family, how deeply established these are.  When I ask for the affirmation I know will be given when I look for acknowledgement that he knows exactly what these are, I am not disappointed.  I talk of situations at the office where leaders fail to live our values and the ensuing damage to our teams and our clients.  I let him know it’s similar at home, that I have more than one person to consider here and have no intention of allowing the behavior of one to compromise another. I assure him that if he doubts my bias towards taking action in these situations, he can consult with my colleagues at work. 

I need him to understand that I am tenacious, that every time he attempts to bury this behavior in the troughs, it is only a matter of time before it crests again.  And I will be there waiting.  No one is better at managing this undulation than I am. I have been in this sea forever; I know how to ride the waves.

I keep forgetting that this is my power, which is why I find myself flooding the shower more often than I’d like.  I waste precious energy admonishing myself for my inability to control behavior, to be omniscient, to police and smother.  Ironically, I wouldn’t dream of applying any of these tactics with my leaders at the office, no matter how miserably they are failing. In fact, I would berate myself just as harshly if I did. I rely on allowing my people to live through their experience, failing if they need to, as long as there is no significant risk to our organization.  And when it comes to our culture, I won’t compromise; I won't give up no matter how long it takes to right the ship. The people I lead are too important to look the other way.

I ask my youngest if I need to be worried about his beloved brother.  He shakes his head, and I give him a beleaguered, quizzical look, the one that says “Really?”, but I’m too defeated to actually say really.  “No, really, Mom.  I think he’ll do the right thing; you need to give him time.”   Wow. His words are so anodyne and matter-of-fact I can’t help but let them soak in. Tenacity must run in the family.

Rind

I am a baker, a really good one.  I’ve been honing my craft for years, so baking disasters are a thing of the past; well, were a thing of the past, until tonight anyway. 

I decide on angel food cupcakes.  I’ve put this batter in all shapes and forms:  Bundt (even though they tell you not to), glass loaf, its namesake pan, for sure.  Have I ever done cupcakes?

Things don’t go so well. Too much batter means the cake rises over the edges, sticking mercilessly to the non-stick muffin tins.  The tops don’t quite look cracked after fifteen minutes, so I let them go a few more, just long enough for the acrid scent of burnt sugar to assault the kitchen.  The exquisite, colorful Martha Stewart papers that look so festive in my mind permanently adhere themselves to the cake, forming a second skin that leaves a mountain of crumbs in its wake when attempts are made to peel it away.

Stripped of their protective wrapping, tops misshapen by the remnants left behind on the tin, the boys and I are forced to embrace their naked imperfection. Which makes me think, why not celebrate the flaws?   

I grab just the right number of candles for the occasion, surrounding them with these tasty, albeit blemished, treats. My oldest turns seventeen tomorrow. Angel Food is his favorite.  I’m certain he’ll see nothing but the love.