Choosing Focus to Gain an Inner Edge

Hair on Fire!

Life is pretty crazy right now. Working 40 hours and being a mom of two and wife of one is more than enough for most people. However, I like to ride with my hair on fire, so I added graduate school (MBA complete December 2011) and buying new house to top it all off.

Lately there is so much happening at once, I find myself becoming fragmented. It all seems so important that I don’t know where to start. Where do I focus my attention? What priorities should I have? I want to find joy in life, but where is the joy and how do I uncover it? How do I slow it all down?

Take a deep Bbreath

Today I practiced a visualization technique learned through The Inner Edge Book Club in order to understand my personal vision. For 20 minutes, I laid down on my bed, closed my eyes and envisioned an ideal future. Simply getting out of my head for 20 minutes was a feat in itself. I gained great insight through this visualization; some already known, some not yet discovered.

What do I want? What do I see?

Seems like straightforward enough questions. The problem is that I am unsure of my abilities and afraid of the unknown. I yearn to feel successful and that I am living up to my potential rather than skating through life.

In the vision, I was reposing in a comfortable office that had my personal stamp on it. There was a window view, and customers/clients who sought me out there. Whatever it was that I offered, I was considered a confident field expert  who provided something of value.

What I know about me:

1.  I have great people skills that I need to leverage
2.  I get to the story and understand what others want
3. I see the big picture in how things work and come together
4. I love interacting with people and don’t want to work alone

 OK, what now?

Next week’s Book Club discusses choosing areas of focus and priorities. Once I am better able to define what I want to achieve, I will be able to find a path to get there. So far it is slow going for me in completing the vision, but I find myself getting closer each day.

One thing I realized it is OK not to know exactly what I want right now. I am learning the art of meaningful action; when to say yes or no. In mapping out the future, I need to simplify things and weed out noise, which is hard to do when a 5-month old puppy is destroying things while I type.

Lesson learned learning: there will always be noise

With inevitable noise, comes choices as to how it affects me. Items such as school, work, kids, puppy, the new Twilight movie, continue no matter what. Will any of them ultimately affect the goal for success? The objective is to learn which ones will and quiet down the rest.

For now, my focus is on finishing the semester and finally graduating. After graduation it will be time to review and refine my vision of success. By taking one thing off the list, it will become more manageable. The rest will have to wait for now.

 

Related articles

• an overwhelming feeling of dread (miriamgomberg.wordpress.com)
• Why did you study MBA (wiki.answers.com)
• Should You Go to Graduate School? (onlinecollege.org)

a lesson in customer experience

Cover via Amazon

What does school have to do with customer experience? As a paying student (customer) it is up to me to find value in classes. I am lucky to have the opportunity to attend graduate school, but I am still a consumer of education.

The other night I experienced a class that was excruciatingly dull. During the last 30 minutes of a 3 hour class, I looked around at other students and realized that no one was paying attention to the professor’s lecture. Some were texting on smart phones or checking Facebook on laptops (guilty), while others were drooling out of their half-sleeping mouths. I expected to hear Ben Stein call out to the class “Bueller, Bueller?”

Which is worse?

I couldn’t decide who was more ill mannered; the students for a blatant disregard for the teacher standing in front of us, or the professor for choosing to make us suffer through a lengthy and boring PowerPoint presentation?

One student rose from his seat and exited during the lecture. I was jealous of his lack of fear as he slung a backpack over his shoulder and sauntered out of class. The professor hardly noticed as she smiled and continued.

Student; 1, Teacher; 0

Most of the time, I would say that a student who left mid-lecture was more rude. The reality is that he was reacting like a customer who was being ignored. The lecture was not for the customers (students) benefit.

The answer is simple enough. If you want to retain customers, engage them. Pay attention to your customers and they will thank you and want to return. If you want to cry out, “anyone, anyone,” to a sleeping disengaged audience act as if you are the only one in the room who matters.

Related articles

• 2 customer experiences – one week (miriamgomberg.wordpress.com)
• Great customer experience = empowered people (blogs.picpacwrack.net)

Unfinished Business

Speak Less by Laura Kimball

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know I. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I once received a fortune cookie that read: “Speak less of your plans, you’ll get more done.” What’s one project that you’ve been sitting on and thinking about but haven’t made progress on? What’s stopping you? What would happen if you actually went for it and did it?

(Author: Laura Kimball)

After at heart to heart with my husband Robert about what projects have not progressed, I realized that there is a lot of unfinished business to tend to.  Some of them are personal, others professional. With his help, I narrowed it down to the top 3 projects.

Urgh, not another list!

• As mentioned in earlier posts, I have a great love of social media, customer experience and leadership. I want to find (or create, if none exists) a career which encompasses all three of these passions. What’s stopping me? Well, I have a hard time effectively focusing on school and work simultaneously. Adding something else into the mix will have to wait until after I graduate in December.

• I want to exercise more often and be able to ride my bicycle in a metric century (100km) without completely bonking. What’s stopping me? The past couple of years since entering graduate school while working full-time, I have not had the time or energy to ride as often or as far as before. Robert is a great inspiration in that he doesn’t wait to ride with anyone and will just get on his gear and take off for a few hours. I don’t like to ride alone and as a result, come up with excuses as to why I don’t just do it. Robert reminded me today that I need to take care of myself first (easier said than done).

• I want to build a stronger relationship with family. What gets in the way; time for one. There are not enough hours in the day to do everything I want to accomplish. When I am not working or studying, I often sit in front of the computer and play mindless games. Last Sunday after I came back from a week in NYC, I watched an entire season of ANTM from 10am until 8pm (embarrassing and pathetic I know). I could have just as easily watched Tyra and the girls with my sister, rather than alone.

Lesson learned: no more excuses

Talk is cheap, so are excuses. Everything accomplished so far in life is due to perseverance and hard work. One  thing that makes us unique as humans, is that we aspire to great things. Some of them will be realized and others are just pie in the sky (or a message in a fortune cookie).

 

Do you trust your fellow leaders enough to share food off your plate?

Crazy good sandwich served at Carnegie Deli in NYC

Just a little prework

I just had one of the greatest experiences so far as a grad student at UNR. I participated in a management class tying leadership to the humanities; all while sightseeing in New York City. The three weeks leading up to the trip were grueling in that I read and wrote papers on 11 different books, plays, case studies, and watched two movies as well. All of this prework prepared me to open my mind as to the connection between two seemingly different arts (business and art).

The visit to New York was challenging on many fronts. Not only did a reside in a dorm room at NYU for one week (I haven’t slept in a dorm since I was 18 yrs old), but more importantly I had to learn to trust in other people’s leadership skills.

Being that I have now been part of the MBA program for over two years, I recognized many classmates before the trip, although most of them were only acquaintances. There were a few students who were complete strangers as well. A commonality that united us all was a desire to learn.

MOMA Mia

By the end of the first day, I knew everyone’s name. The following day, we were already sharing stories about past experiences and future hopes. We became comrades in the field as we toured the city by route of museums such as MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) and MAD (Museum of Art and Design). We shared an architectural walking tour through lower Manhattan and began to understand how leadership helped shape this great city.

Lesson learned: open wide and order enough for everyone!

On the third day, we were sharing food off of each others plates. This seemingly small gesture signified a transformation from mere acquaintances to friendships. A trust had been built to share in our experiences with food. A lesson that we all learned is that leadership can be a collaborative effort, that enriches all who partake.