“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
Steve Jobs
Click here to read the entire commencement speech at Stanford in 2005, and to see the video.
I learned many many lessons over a few short weeks.
One of them is that I don’t have to assume the level of panic of another person.
But then Andy taught me that if you don’t acknowledge the panic of the other person, it can just increase their panic, and their need to get you to see the gravity of the situation.
I have learned, much more than once, that if you have bad news for work customers, make a phone call! If you don’t reach you person, just keep playing phone tag until you connect.
An email just has way too much potential to be misinterpreted, forwarded, both.
You might think it’s the other way around (I did!), but with a call you get to hear the questions and concerns, and address them on the spot.
I am also learning not to kick myself (for very long) when I get it wrong and have to learn something again (and again).
I learned the grass is always greener on the other side of the street if you are wearing rose-colored glasses when you look in that direction.
What a bizarre experience. I was able to observe two people long for the position of each other, imagining it to be the solution to most or all of their problems, in the face of evidence to the contrary and/or a significant lack of evidence.
I was calling this a Frog-and-Toad story (they swept each others’ leaves – who remembers?) but it’s not really the same plot. But let’s use their names anyway. I’m pretty sure they won’t mind.
Frog wanted what Toad had. Imagined it to be so different, and in just the ways that would make Frog happy. None of the same problems would exist. Where Frog didn’t know the details, she just made them up! She’s had a lifetime of experience in doing that, so it was easy.
Toad wanted what Frog had, and an opportunity to have it came up. They talked (they aren’t really amphibians, remember, those are just their names for this story). Frog told Toad some facts, some good and some bad. Toad pretty much focused on the good, and told about why she thought being in Frog’s situation would be awesome. While she was at it, she talked what she was leaving.
Frog looked around and said “Wow. That is another way to look at this deal”. Now Frog is happy.
Toad? Stay tuned!
I once had a CIO who had a five core principles of business and one of them was “Fail Early”. I learn this lesson over and over.
The entire Agile software development process is based on this. I’ve often seen the success of showing early results “Is this what you meant?” to get a Yes, or way more importantly, a No. So easy to change course early, if you just get that feedback! So much harder if not.
Nowhere, perhaps, is this more applicable than to driving when lost! Why not find out if I am or I am not where I think I am, way before I go even farther in the wrong direction?
In my car, I have two separate devices to tell me how lost I am, and to get me found. Sure, they don’t always work in the wilds of the places I drive, but they definitely don’t work when I don’t ask them!
It’s nice to putter around back roads when that’s the intention. But I’ve learned (or I’m fixin’ to learn) that when I am really trying to get somewhere, it’s important to know if I’m driving in the right direction. Or not.
Sally learned to treat your apartment as though you own it.
She woke up to no hot water but didn’t want to bother her landlord so early in the morning. She meant to call him later but forgot.
In the few hours between her discovery and his, the hot water tank sprayed water all over the basement!
Next time, she’ll get to the root of the problem, or at least make that phone call.
Today we feature two lessons taught to me by two teachers, both about Tree pose. Which one speaks to you?
Celeste, one of my wonderful teachers at Mandala Studio of Yoga, taught me this: “If you lose your balance but you keep your breath, you haven’t lost anything at all.” Wow!
Michelle figured out that if you practice Tree pose enough, you may find that you have enough balance to change your clothes in a gross beach changing room while balancing on one clean flip flop, never having to step directly on the icky floor.
I just learned a valuable lesson from a distant colleague: In the face of unrelenting criticism for a specific deed (or lack thereof), just confess and get on with things.
We were on our way to spending approximately forever, with 50+ people on the call, on the reasons why something wasn’t done. Then E (let’s call her E) said “Hey – that’s on my list and I haven’t done it yet. My bad. I’ll get to it as soon as I can” and the discussion was OVER. The reasons really didn’t matter. And on to other things.
Go E!
I have learned:
“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”- Seneca
What do you think of this?
You would think I would know this by now, but sadly not yet. I learned that even if my car gets 39 miles to the gallon, I still need to put those gallons in, and to do it way before I head into the Big City to meet a bus on a busy weekend evening.
After an adrenaline-filled workday, I was calmly on time to drive into Boston when the gas light came on.
Here’s another lesson: Never try to use the GPS (which wanted to tell me that newsstands in downtown Boston sold fuel – like what? lighter fluid?) and Yelp on the iPhone while driving alone! As I watched the “range”/miles remaining indicator head for single digits, I took a wrong turn onto the Mass Pike and had to drive in the wrong direction before doing that Boston-U-turn exit to come back and find the gas in Charlestown. All with a deadline. And traffic.
Very very stressful.
My very wise sister pointed out that the bigger lesson was to learn to skip the adrenaline even while doing the rest of the adventure. And if I’m going to that, I might as well skip the daytime dose as well.
Jane's Lessons Learned 