LOL - it's New Year - Day 38

Day 38 (Sunday 7th January 2018)

38 years ago on 7th January 1980, Indira Gandhi was voted back into power in India,
with a landslide majority. Despite her surname she is not related to Mahatma Gandhi,
but is part of the Nehru political dynasty. She was Prime Minister from January 1966 to
March 1977 and then again from the start of 1980 until her assassination in October 1984.
She was one of the earliest female heads of government - only preceded by Sirimavo Bandaranaike
the Prime Minister of Ceylon, who was elected in July 1960.

Today Is it me or are the days speeding up? It is Sunday already. Our decorations are down and the house feels strangely empty.

Today's post is by Angela Mortimer, the Founder and Director of one of Europe’s most successful recruitment consultancies, Angela Mortimer Plc.  Established in 1976, the company currently employs people in offices across London, New York, Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris, Geneva, Lyon, Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Hong Kong and provides people for clients around the globe.  Angela Mortimer has developed the careers of more than 200,000 individuals, mainly female, since its foundation. Angela believes passionately in the need to encourage everyone especially women, to achieve their maximum potential.  She seeks to inspire  confidence and positive thinking by sharing insights developed over 40 years through training, public speaking and her blogs. You can follow her on Twitter (her handle is @AngelaMortime3 - but she is less active than many due to time constraints).

For a number of years Angela was a visiting lecturer on the Mountbatten programme in New York and supported graduates in finding placements after their Internship.  Angela has made numerous appearances on television, radio and in the press, including documentaries about The British at Work on the BBC, Women in the Workplace, which was aired on television and radio, and on on the unique nature of the company she owns. Angela is a patron and founder sponsor of the National Youth Ballet with an involvement motivated by the desire to foster the themes of women, youth and excellence, and, for several years, Angela worked with the International Centre for Prison Studies counselling prison governors.

For over 12 years Angela served on both the Confederation of British Industries SME Council and The London Council of the Confederation of British Industry.  In 2009 Angela was the winner of The First Women Awards for Business Services in association with Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets and supported by the CBI, and, in July 2003, Angela won the European Women of Achievement Awards in the Entrepreneur section. More recently, Angela was recognised by the Staffing Industry Analysts as one of the top 50 in their Global Power 100 – Women in Staffing list.

Her post is NOT to do with business but it is a lovely read.

*******************************

I’m a self-admitted crybaby.  When I was pregnant I would regularly dissolve into tears at the sound of the little girl asking her mother as she washed the dishes ‘what makes your hands so soft?”  It’s embarrassing but the truth and it happened more than once with the same Fairy Liquid advert and was witnessed by astonished friends so couldn’t be denied.

Don't get me wrong – I can be strong when needed as is proven frequently in the office and on the golf course.  I can manage threats, disappointment and fear with a measure of equanimity but I have this low threshold of crying when touched by nostalgia and when touched by the kindness of another toward me.

An example comes to mind of an extraordinary kindness shown me some thirty odd years ago when my time was stretched thinly between home, office and two children under the age of 5. 

At that period in my life I was busy practicing being Superwoman.  I could manage everything in 24 hours that an organized energetic modern woman had expected of her – make lots of money, be trim and sleek after a 6 a.m. swim in the open air pool and spring effortlessly into my spiky shoes and designer suit ready to slay clients with my expertise and easy charm.   I disappointed no one – that was simply not my game.

I left my housekeeper a note that day – we had been entertaining and had run out of standard groceries and all the stuff that a family gets through at the end of a big week end – asking for a lot of basic shopping to be done.  My Housekeeper was more a wife to me.  She was Portuguese, long married and did not have a bank account of her own when she joined me.  In her family it was not considered appropriate or respectful for a wife to be this independent.  I persuaded her to open one so I could provide her with a float for my shopping.  This was a good system though her husband remained unaware of it for some time – easier that way.

At the end of my twelve-hour day I returned to the house to find a phenomenal number of soft white bread rolls were in the kitchen.  There must have been a hundred of them.  What on earth are they doing here I wanted to know.  ‘Well you asked me to get them but I’m sorry, there aren’t 100 rolls, there are only 80 because though I drove all over town I could not find any more – the bakers and supermarkets were out of stock – I cleaned them out’!   And then she burst into tears because she had failed me.  I was still mystified as to how she can have thought I wanted them till she showed me my note.  There in black and white was my writing and clearly listed was ‘loo rolls’ looking like ‘100 rolls’.

Well that was when I started to laugh till I cried.  I laughed at my clumsy failure to communicate with my lovely helper who was challenged in her second language to understand my written slang and I cried because she was so upset to have failed me with the shortfall.    And then we both laughed and cried together and that was a very good cry indeed and a happy one.  We stayed together for 25 years as a very good team and never forgot that day – a classic in miscommunication.

And that made me reflect on the astonishing range of opportunity we have to fail to communicate effectively with others unless we are meticulous in our spoken and written words.  A serious thought and a useful one to hold in mind as we enter this special time in the year when overloaded with nostalgia in every advertisement we see for a perfectly unattainable perfect Christmas and New Year, emotions might more readily be tipped from positive to sad. 

And now - if you want a really good happy cry, go see Paddington Two but take a box of tissues – no spoiler – you might need them, I did!  Happy New Year.

Selah, time to reflect - Day 38

Day 38 (7th January 2015)

38 - the number of plays credited to William Shakespeare

The Plays of William Shakespeare, oil painting c1849 by Sir John Gilbert

Depicting scenes and various characters

Picture on display in Dahesh Museum of Art.

Susan Popoola is a self-styled Human Value Optimisation Specialist, which is a good explanation of what she specialises in: leveraging the value of people in the world of work and in the wider world; she has a particular interest in supporting young people. In her post below Susan is modest about her achievements. As well as having established a successful business, she is an award winning writer (she was Women4Africa Author of the Year 2013). Susan and I became acquainted when we were regular bloggers for the Discuss HR site, the blog spot for the Human Resources UK group. As we live quite far apart (she is based in Milton Keynes), we tend to keep in touch via Twitter (Susan's handle is @SusanPopoola).

*****************************************************************

It's interesting that Megan Peppin started day one of the Advent calendar on the subject of 'being'.  You see not too long ago, a few years back to be more precise; a friend would contact me and asked what I'm doing. "Just Being" I'd respond. I particularly remember someone I'd recently met contacting me and asking what I was doing that weekend. Not thinking of how it might come across to a stranger, I responded, ‘Just Being’. “What's that?” he asked, “it sounds rather spiritual.” He expanded.  “No, not really" I responded. I went on to explain that, it's just about not making any special plans, just going with the flow and seeing how the day unfolds without feeling the pressure to do anything in particular. 

Just Being!

The Bare Necessities from The Jungle Book

“Sounds interesting,” he said, “I must try it one day.” I doubt if he did though. As I've discovered over the years, that it would be alien to his nature. He's one of those people who is used to running up and down, juggling, trying to do several things all at once. The kind of person that I more or less became, until recently.

An adept juggler - The Cat in the Hat - from the book of the same name
 written and illustrated by Theodor Geisel under the pen name Dr. Seuss
and first published in 1957

You see I realised that I had a long list of visions and dreams - things I would like to achieve and I realised that I wasn’t getting any younger, so I became a bit more focused on planning and strategizing, creating list of objectives and goals. Putting out there the various things that I wanted to achieve.

I’m thankful to say that over the years I’ve achieved a fair bit. I’ve worked on a number of great HR projects that have had a great impact. Amongst other things, I’ve written a couple of books; travelled to and volunteered in New Orleans and Haiti; done some public speaking in the UK and abroad; and started a few initiatives, specifically with a focus on young adults.  If the truth be told, I’ve not achieved half of what I would have liked to achieve and sometimes I would say that I’ve actually failed. I can comfortably speak of failing, because even though failure hurts, I also recognise that it’s not final. It’s one of the lessons that I’ve learnt over recent years as I try to use my knowledge, gifts and capabilities to have a positive impact on the world that we live in.

A few other things that I have learnt:

Outward appearances can be deceptive and success is not always what you see.

People’s perception of you will often be different from what you believe or see. People often seem to believe that my carrot has shoots like those of the carrot on the left. In my mind and based on my visions and dreams, my carrot, as a whole, is more like the carrot on the right.

If like me, you are yet to achieve the half of what you hope to do, it is very easy to look at the outward appearance of other people’s carrots and get frustrated and upset. Don’t; just continue along your path. You don’t know the full story of others.

Striving will only get you so far even with the greatest strategy and plan. You do need to have a plan and to work hard or rather smart, but you also need to be flexible with your plan. Some things just have their own time and season as well so you need patience. I don't know whether she's a virtue or not, we've never really been friends, but I'm learning to get on with her.

Patience stained glass window, 1860
Auchendennan castle house, Loch Lomond, Scotland

You need friends, however, you may be surprised to find out who your friends and allies are. There are people that you may have thought would be friends for life who are unable to go on the full journey with you, not necessarily because they don’t care, but because it’s a path they cannot comprehend or go down. There will also be people that will surprise you, appearing from nowhere with a willingness to take your hand and journey with you, even through the darkest of places.

You must own your own definition of success and walk the path towards it, with a degree of knowledge of who you are so that unto your own self you can be true. In recent times, I’ve started taking time out once more to “just be”. But “Just Being” is a bit different for me now. It’s typically a bit more reflective, a time when I take time to put things into perspective; seek some balance about things that I don’t understand and pause to reflect on achievements and how failures will eventually be turned around and become distant memories.

pausing to reflect
(female Mallard)

Sometimes, I also take the time to pray in line with “The Prayer of Jabez”

"Oh, that you would bless me indeedAnd enlarge my territory,That your hand would be with me,And that you would keep me from evil,That I may not cause pain!"~1 Chronicles 4:10, The Bible

P.S. Many a time when people talk about the prayer of Jabez, they focus on the blessing part. I would like my path to be filled with blessings that I may have a positive impact on the world. I’m also mindful of the people that I will meet in various capacities along life’s road.  Selah.

Sometimes used as a musical notation,
Selah means to pause and reflect on what you have just read