Category Archives: When Real Life Interferes

Creating Leaders…or Not……

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Thoughtful content alert. If it is one thing that you get during a career in the military, it’s a lot of discussion about leadership. It’s also a big topic for college programs, business seminars, and at least millions of pages in books and other written material. One of the questions often asked is about born leaders versus teaching leadership and while that generates plenty of conversation, that isn’t actually the point to this post. Leadership techniques can be taught and there certainly can be late bloomers when it comes to taking on a leadership role and succeeding. On the other hand, there are people who are not suited to leadership. At least, not suited to being effective leaders that can create and/or sustain a productive environment that has minimal drama. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with not having the type of personality that lends itself to leadership. The initial problem comes in when such a person is placed into a leadership position. The second and more difficult problem is when that individual is unaware that he or she is not suited to leadership. I don’t plan on dwelling on all the ramifications of that and the complications that inevitably ensue.

No matter how one of these situations occurs, it tends to end badly either through the constant loss of personnel, a loss of effectiveness, finally having to release the failed leader, and in extreme cases, the business itself not surviving. (Okay, really extreme is workplace violence, but that definitely isn’t a topic I’m going to discuss.) The secondary point here that even though what often draws people to leadership roles is more money, if someone isn’t suited, they aren’t suited. If you are ever in a position to hire someone for a leadership role, while past performance is an indicator of future performance, so is length of time in a job. If someone has held multiple leadership jobs for three years or less, that’s something to question. In some cases, it’s the nature of a business where projects end or movement is required because of wide geographical needs. Barring that, however, you have to wonder about the frequent changes. The reality is that in today’s environment, former employers are often reluctant to give adverse information and you might have to couch questions like asking about employee turnover under that person. On the flip side, if you are a person who doesn’t feel comfortable in a leadership role, that’s okay. Maybe you even try it once to see and you realize that it isn’t for you. There’s nothing wrong with that and not wanting a leadership position doesn’t indicate a lack of ambition. It can, instead, be a matter of valuable self-awareness.

About Salads and Soups…..

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I’m not going to say that I could be the poster child for Yo-Yo dieting, although I would certainly be in the running. And notwithstanding the fact that I allowed my weight to get seriously out of control, I did a homemade sort of turkey chili the other day. As anyone who has done the , “Oh, I’ll have soup and salad to cut back on calories, fats, and carbs” knows, it doesn’t always work as well in practice as in theory. Yes, the soup commercials on television are correct in that a serving size may have only 100 calories, but the problem is that a serving size doesn’t go a long way to filling up most people. On the other hand, two servings will often be adequate and that’s still pretty good from a calorie perspective. It’s the fact that there is a world of difference in soups and if you’re watching carbs, that’s really difficult. Focusing on the calorie side though, that chicken vegetable is probably fine, the loaded baked potato with bacon maybe not so much or the cream of broccoli even though broccoli is a healthy vegetable. As for salad – it’s the same story. Absolutely a good thing unless the cheeses, nuts, garbanzo beans, and croutons are added in.

Anyway, back to the soup that I made where I wanted some substance to it, but in a controlled way. Part of the turkey decision was because I had some frozen turkey stock from Christmas that I needed to use. I went back and forth as to whether to go turkey vegetable or the southwestern flavor and a little spicier won out. I wanted some black beans, but not too many and opted to take one can of a commercial southwestern black bean soup to add into the otherwise homemade. That kept the quantity of beans down while still providing flavor and “volume”, and the other ingredients were all pretty low in calorie, fat, and carbs.

Of course, one of the best soups for all of the above is the spicy seafood stew that I have in an earlier post, but we did that last week.

 

Keeping Up With The Times……

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 Okay, let me explain that my objections to jury duty have absolutely nothing to do with not wanting to sit on a jury. I am fine with fulfilling this duty, just as I faithfully vote. It’s part and parcel of our system. The problem is that the courthouses are deep in Miami and the traffic is terrible. Even trying to use the Metro is a hassle because Miami has the worst Metro I’ve ever encountered for a city of it’s size. If there was a courthouse near the South Dade Government Center, that would at least cut back on the almost 3 hours of commuting that I had yesterday.

Anyway, with that said, of the six times that I have been pulled in for jury duty, there was an interesting addition to the initial instructions that are issued to the very large jury pool before groups are selected (or not) to go to the various courtrooms. The new and fairly lengthy part of the instructions has to do with electronic devices and social media. It isn’t something that I had thought about, but the instructions do make sense. Each judge will determine the degree to which cell phones, tablets, computers, etc., must be silenced/turned off. Photographs and recordings are prohibited. If selected for a jury, jurors may not research or access information about the case electronically. The social media part was a prohibition against emailing, tweeting, blogging, using Facebook or any other form of post to identify the specific case or comment on it. There has always been the prohibition against discussing the case while it is in progress and it’s logical that must now extend to the electronic communications that are so prevalent. It would never occur to me to do a post about a case, but I do see how it can be a potential problem. I wasn’t selected for the jury by the way, although it was an all day process to get through all the steps.

Then There Are Days……

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You know how there can be situations and you ask yourself, “How did I get into this?” Not that it’s terrible, just something that you really didn’t see coming? That’s when all those sayings kick in about “hindsight being twenty-twenty”; “don’t cry over spilt milk”, “learning a lesson the hard way”; “it could have been worse”; etc.

In fact, what are all those other sayings? What’s your favorite? Like I said, this is not for one of those times when you seriously messed up, just one where things don’t turn out the way you were expecting and there’s nothing you can do to change it. I have to figure out how much “pouting time” this deserves, too. I’ve already done a rant, so that part’s over with.

 

Percentages Can Be Funny Things…..

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No, this isn’t exactly about math. As I have mentioned in previous posts, math and I did not have a good relationship, and while in retrospect and with new understanding of the mechanics of learning I know that aspect of my schooling could have been reversed, there is also a great deal of water under that bridge, the horses are long gone from the barn, etc., In what may sound odd, this post is actually about what charities you decide to give to. I have previously addressed this issue coming from a slightly different angle.

The percentage of revenue a charity spends on their direct programs is the key component for me. There have to be administrative costs and there have to be fund raising costs since getting volunteers to raise funds is very difficult and I don’t like to do that myself. However, as always happens in capitalism (and anyone who reads this blog regularly knows I support capitalism), fundraising has become its own business and it is big business. The calls that you get from professional fundraisers are no different from any other telemarketer except these are for charities rather than to sell you a timeshare (or whatever). And since most of those companies operate on a percentage of what they bring in, you can understand that their reluctance to take no from you and their refusal to remove you from a calling or mailing list is not only because they are asking for donations for a worthy cause. So if you have a certain amount that you set aside to give to charities and you have reached that threshold, don’t feel guilty with the heartrending script that is being read to you. The individual making the call probably does agree it’s a worthy cause, but remember that like any sales’ commission, the more you give to the charity, the more the fundraising company earns, too. Their “job” is to get as large a donation from you as they can and it can be especially tempting during the holidays to give extra and there is always that end-of-year push. Give what you can and understand the attempted “guilt trip” for what it is.

Sometimes You Do Need a God Cry……

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Serious Content Alert. Actually, this is more like a “have a box of tissues handy” alert. If you have ever seen the movie, “We Are Marshall”, you can guess what might be coming. There are times when you are struggling with an intense emotional loss, whether that is for a person, a beloved pet, a change in your life, that you do need to just sit down and cry – I mean bawling, sloppy, don’t want anyone to see you cry. It is often cathartic, and tiring, perhaps to the point of exhaustion, but it can also be a release of unarticulated emotion that is best drained from you. The reason that I say to watch this movie for effect is that it deals superbly with the range of grief that people experience and with the conflict of trying to move on without seeming to forget. Finding that balance after a profound loss is difficult and can wear on you at a subconscious level.

“We Are Marshall” is about the tragic airplane crash in November 1970 where 75 people were lost. Among the losses were nearly the entire Marshall University football team, coaches, flight crew, numerous fans, and supporters. There were opposing views as to whether or not the football team could be rebuilt and if the university should do so. I don’t have any idea of how accurate the movie is as to how individuals reacted, but what I do know is the half dozen or so means of coping with the tragedy that they showed is accurate. It is a movie that speaks to the pain, to the struggle of what to do with the pain, and how to get past it. I have posted before about how grief for loss certainly has common elements, yet it is also individualized. The timeline in which life can return to “normal” is highly variable as is the very definition of “normal”. When you have suffered whatever the trauma is, you will be dealing with a “new normal”, a new part of your life, perhaps dramatically so. And sometimes in coming to grips with that, a good cry will help.

 

When Past, Present, and Future Blend……

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Poignant Content Alert. At certain stages and points in your life it is difficult to not look back, selecting certain events, people, experiences, knowing that for good or bad, these are a part of what has made you, you. I know a few people who cavalierly say they never think of the past, and perhaps they don’t. I was teased a bit when I wanted the theme of this blog to be Living Forward, Looking Back, yet I think that for so many of us, that is the way we approach life. I leave in a couple of hours to fly back to Louisiana for my father’s 90th birthday, and it will be one of the moments where past, present, and future blend together. My father has now lived longer than any other member of his direct family, yet his memory is degrading. It’s still manageable, but for how long is difficult to say.

We are gathering as a family, my sister, brother, and their spouses – my hubby can’t be with us. We suspect this is the last time that we will all be together where we can celebrate in this manner, although there is the chance that my father will stabilize and the decline will achieve a somewhat steady state. That is not statistically likely, although it does happen. What we will be able to do is reminisce about those things that he wants to discuss and I will try to capture a number of the stories that he tells of his youth. Yes, it was a one-room school house in rural Arkansas and yes, they walked even though it wasn’t uphill both ways.

I don’t know if either of his younger brothers will come down – the oldest passed away a year and a half ago. My uncles may wait for a bit, so it can be “just the boys” together. I called my aunt on my mother’s side last night to let her know that we wouldn’t be driving down to visit as we usually do – my father already said he didn’t think he could do that as well as handle all the hub-bub of the birthday celebration planned for Saturday. That will be a fairly low-key event in the sense of we’re just doing cake and ice cream at the house, but with the extended family of four generations that will be present, that makes for around 30 people who will be in and out.

We will celebrate and laugh and no doubt bring up a few stories that some of us would rather forget – that little fire in the kitchen from a science experiment that was a very small, easily extinguished fire – and such things. It will be a good day and how many come after that, we can neither know, nor worry about. This will indeed be a time to “live in the present”.

 

 

 

 

What You Say Now……

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Serious Content Alert! I had another conversation recently with a friend who is bordering on exhaustion, the example of the sandwich generation who, in this case, is caught between caring for an aging parent and grandchildren. Either role would be tiring, both together bring about a level of emotional and physical drain that is daunting. The irony, as is so often the case, is that the aging parent,  when having been through this with her own parents, had talked about how difficult it was and how she wouldn’t do this to her children. Except this is precisely what she is doing. There are a number of studies that capture this dynamic and what it comes down to is relatively simple. although emotionally complex when you are the one going it through it. It is why I chose, “This Isn’t Supposed To Happen To Me” as the title for Part I of, Your Room at the End: Thoughts About Aging We’d Rather Avoid. No matter how intelligent a person is, there is a strong tendency to believe that they will never become that querulous, demanding, confused individual who truly needs to be in assisted living. In your fifties, sixties, and seventies if you are fully functional, you just can’t imagine that your body and mind will betray you, even if you are coping with it as the caregiver and watching it happen to someone else.

The main points to Your Room are: 1) that you could be lucky, but there is no way to know how your latter years will be; 2) if you refuse to make plans and the worst happens, then what you have done is forced others to bear the burden that you didn’t intend to, and 3) you force others to make decisions for you. These are uncomfortable things to think about, and to plan for, and there is nothing that makes them easy. But, and here is the very big but, not planning doesn’t cause it to not happen. What I urge in the book, what I urge to everyone when I do presentations is this. Find out what resources are available, what resources you have, and make a plan for if the worse happens. Seek out what facilities or at home assistance is available, think through if you might have to relocate. Recognize that if you have more than one child, they may not be able/willing to share equal portions of caring for you. What to do if you don’t have children is too complicated to get into, but I do cover it in the book.

Most of all, be honest with yourself now, while you can, and it’s okay to hope you never have to deal with this. Maybe you won’t, but that’s not a good way to bet. Staying at home instead of going into assisted living is sometimes a better option (or sometimes the only option), and if so, build some relief for your caregiver into the plan. It will become important.

 

Bits and Pieces……

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Emotional Content Alert! This fast trip to Maine – up on Monday and back on Wednesday has been one of deep emotion. When a place has been a part of your life for 35 years and you say farewell for what may be many years, it comes with a lot of memories. Technically, I could have taken care of the business reasons for coming via mail. The relationship part, though, that required face-to-face for me. It was good to see my friends and to give them that last hug. This morning I checked out the B&B that I will post about later this week. I wandered along the scenic street that I’ve walked I don’t know how many times. I went into the shop that is a combination bakery, deli, gourmet foods, wine, and kitchen store. Since I am traveling with carry-on, it was a container of Maine smoked sea salt. I went into a jewelry and gift shop and found a piece of hair jewelry. I saw a lovely coral colored tunic at another shop.

I finally stopped in at the bookstore and picked up a collection of mystery short stories. It’s a wonderful store and café, the kind every town should have and I shall miss visiting it. I gathered these bits and pieces to bring home with me – all but the hair jewelry and perhaps the book are perishable, but that’s okay. I stood in the harbor on what was a beautiful morning and then made my way to the restaurant on the far side of town where had a lobster roll and cold draft beer in a farewell lunch with another friend and we lingered through catching each other up.

If I have no delays tomorrow, I will be home by late-afternoon, a full schedule ahead of me for the week. As the plane lifts from the ground, I will take that last look for the foreseeable future and I will take all those years of people, places, and things that we did with me.

That Good News, Bad News Stuff……

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Yesterday completely got away from me between an unplanned meeting and then an appointment that took much longer than it should have. On the other hand, the result of the appointment was more good news than bad. For those who have never dealt with it, I have now entered the group of millions of people with tinnitus. The good news part is that the high frequency hearing loss that probably triggered it is not bad and my “ear health” is fine. The discussion with the ENT doctor was informative and since it took me nearly three months to get through the initial and follow-up visit with my primary care physician and then the appointment with the specialist, I have been adapting to this new condition. I can’t say that I’m happy about it, although since I am knocking on the door of my 61st birthday, there are certainly many worse chronic problems that I could have.

We discussed options that I could try that are successful with some people and I might check into those. We also discussed the reality that hearing does often diminish with age and the signs to be alert for. In fact, the doctor made an interesting observation about how people who have problems seeing don’t mind going to an optometrist, but they’re willing to accept some hearing loss without seeking help.

That brought to mind the elderly relative who had significant hearing loss, was well aware of it, absolutely refused to do anything about it, and yes, she had worn glasses all her life and was quite faithful about getting her eyes examined and increasing her prescription whenever that was required. It is a bit curious, isn’t it?