dare to dream

Be Competent

My 3rd-grade teacher Mrs. Schmerker (sp) had just written they'er on the board.  I'd raised my hand, and announced to the entire class, "You spelled it wrong.  It's supposed to be they're.

"What do YOU know?", she nearly spat back at me.

I suspect the memory got dredged up because one of my everyday goals for 2012 is to be competent.

1. No more playing dumb like I did in high school and college
2. No more not talking the skirmishing kind of shop because only men do that.
3. No more not speaking up for fear that someone, like my 3rd grade teacher, may shame or gaslight me.

In Umair Haque's post Mastering the Art of Living Meaningfully Well he urges us to write down three important lessons.  Mine are:

1. Dare to disrupt yourself.
2. Dream your very own dream.
3. Do.

How can I live these lessons if I'm not willing to be competent out loud?

Some days I'll do really well.  On others, I'll fail miserably.

I'll then pick myself up, my recovery time becoming increasingly faster. 

Because I'm learning.

Are you competent out loud?

In some areas of your life?  But not others?

If you need some encouragement, check out this article suggesting we learn fastest when we fail 2/3 of the time.

P.S.  At @theherocc's suggestion, here's rephrasing -- I am a competent person.

Avni Patel Thompson: Repatriation

Avni Patel Thompson is currently the Sr. Strategy Manager for Reebok International.  Her quest to find perceptive consumer insights and the next great product initiative has taken her from Procter & Gamble’s hallowed halls of brand management to The Boston Consulting Group’s Consumer and Retail practice.  Avni and her husband spent the past year in Shanghai, China, where she was Sr. Strategy Manager for Adidas China.  She also enjoys blogging about the brand promise at: brandsundae.com.  Originally from Vancouver, Canada, Avni holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and an undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the University of British Columbia.

***

I will follow you to the ends of the earth.

Important words that I uttered to my husband before we were married, but not ones that I had really thought about in the very literal sense.

Well, about a year and a half later, I uttered them again, but in a very different context.  My husband had just been given the opportunity of a lifetime - to run the China marketing division of Gillette for a year.  But we would need to leave fairly immediately.  And we had only a weekend to make our decision.

It would be an unbelievable adventure.  Shanghai with an expat safety net.  After all, if you don’t take the opportunities when they come, you can’t blame the world for not giving them to you later.

And so we agreed to go.  Only instead of me agreeing to follow, we both held hands and took the leap together.

11 months later, we are returning to Boston to prepare for the birth of our first child.  But it's a funny thing. Joe and I embarked on this past year as a sort of "last hurrah" before "settling down" and starting a family. We saw this as the perfect opportunity to see more of the world and experience a country that couldn't be more front and center from a business and current events standpoint.

But it was always supposed to be temporary.  Then again, I think we had thought the same when we first moved to the US, more than 6 years ago.

Source: istockphoto

So I guess it shouldn't come as such a surprise that we're not entirely ready to give that life up.  That it's not so hard for us to see a way to raise that family abroad, still working on remarkably unique opportunities.  When I see the children of expats, effortlessly switching between 3 or 4 languages, contributing to conversations on world topics, building a richness beyond their basic childhood, I can’t help but want that for our children.

And selfishly, I haven’t felt so alive and excited at work, knowing that I’ve been working on topics that can be found on the pages of any number of newspapers.  Sure, it’s been incredibly challenging at times, and we’ve never in our lives come so close to just throwing it all in and taking the next flight out.  But after the expected adjustment period, we’ve felt ourselves stretch and grow beyond what we thought we could.  We’re proud of what we’ve been able to do, personally and professionally.

Consequently, we've never found ourselves so conflicted when it comes to what our next step is.  On one hand, we know how wonderful our lives back in Boston will be - our friends, our neighbourhood, our work. It's a tough option to turn your back on, especially when in safe, nesting mode.  But on the other hand, every time we go to a dinner in Shanghai and meet leaders of top corporations and discuss all that unbelievable possibility there, it's tough for two people like my husband and I to want to leave that behind.

And so, a compromise of sorts.  We return to Boston, incredibly excited for the next chapter in our lives. But we're leaving that door propped wide open to the opportunities abroad.  China, India, somewhere else... who knows.

But international adventure?  We're not done with you yet.

What door of possibility did you walk through that has led to other possibilities? 

HBR Post: Are You Stuck in a Girls' Club?

Here's my latest post over at HBR.

One additional thought after you read this post.  If you are a big consumer of social media, have you ever considered who you typically retweet?  Men?  Women?  And qualitatitvely what does it look like?  Women as experts?  Men to chat?  Or the reverse? 

I'm quite curious to hear your thoughts.

Erin Newkirk: Her Stamp of Approval

Erin Newkirk is the CEO and co-founder of Red Stamp.  Founded in 2005, Red Stamp has served tens of thousands around the world and has been featured in dozens of media outlets including The New York Times and The Today Show. Previously, Erin was in brand management at General Mills, and is currently proud of her role as wife, mother + loyal friend.

I have been outfitted with personalized stationery, notepads + pencils from the time I could talk. As a super young child, I have vivid memories of my mom and I sitting down to write thank you notes :: she would write, I would dictate. Even then, I was drawn to my pretty paper, her perfect penmanship, and the promise of pen pals. It wasn’t just the paper...it was what the paper promised. I dreamed of a full social calendar. I was on a first name basis with our mailman. And used to wait for the mail to drop through our front door with a solid thud. Followed by a little wave as Gary stuck his fingers through the slot to signal a personal hello to the child he knew was waiting for his arrival.

Flash forward 20-ish years and you’ll find a woman graduating from college with a degree in advertising. Hopeful that I could/would land a job as a Creative Director, I dreamed of making a living out of my passion for social creativity. But the early 90’s was all about taking the job you were offered, so I settled for Operations and realized that using the left side of the brain could be rewarding, too. I learned the ropes. Was quickly promoted to leadership. Realized to get to the next level, I should go back to school to get my MBA. So I did. Loved it. Teamwork was definitely my thing. I found the internship of my MBA dreams at the company of my dreams. Went to work there full-time. Was quickly promoted.
 
And then I had a baby. And discovered my beloved dad was terminally ill. Work remained demanding, and rightfully so. My social life took a hit as I suddenly found it harder and harder to juggle it all. I missed my friends, my extended family, date nights with my husband. So cliche, but there is a reason cliches are true. Cliches mean opportunity. And this cliche was no exception.

So, I decided to do something about it. Not just for me, but for others who were finding it harder and harder to keep in touch with those they care about because of their busy schedules. Come hell or high water, I wanted to do something that would help make relationships stronger despite the hectic, sometimes frantic, pace of life.

It was 2004-2005. Life before Facebook. Before Twitter. Before text messaging. People were still mailing greeting cards for birthdays, but they needed help remembering important dates, buying cards/postage, and getting to the post office. So, RedStampCards.com was born to help people send “Fashionable Cards, Fashionably On-Time.” It was a calendar / reminder service mixed with e-commerce, high end occasion cards. Our twist was that for an additional fee, we would hand-write and send cards on behalf of our clients. It did moderately well. Other card companies followed. It was going well enough for me to get some friends + family money together, take the leap, and leave my job.

Over the years, Red Stamp Cards morphed into Red Stamp. And we started selling more than greeting cards. Desk items, personalized stationery. We moved into a 6,000 sq ft warehouse and designed our own line of cards. Our site became a haven for fine paper lovers and while I was proud of what we had built, we moved off our driving mission of making relationships stronger and, to some extent, lost sight of our strongest value proposition.


If I’m completely honest with myself, we became a bit lost in great design, fine paper + outdated etiquette. We touted the value of handwritten notes...110# card stock...luxe envelopes. But what we were really passionate about was the thought that counts, the picture that is worth 1,000 words, that handwritten notes are meaningless if they sit on your desk unwritten. How expressed words of gratitude are more important than the paper it’s {hand}written on anyway.

We were also ahead of our time with technology. We wanted to literally crawl into our clients’ computers and become their social secretary, but we couldn’t get close enough to them via the web, their computers, outdated contact management systems, and the dreaded Internet Explorer. We ran into roadblock after roadblock with development. And while we were making people happy with our stylish stationery, we had not found the application that would give the world the solution I craved back in 2004. Aka, the dream.

At the time, I cursed technology. The struggle was torture. But, the moment we decided to stop struggling and listened to what our limitations were telling us, we found the solution. Mobile. With mobile technology, specifically iOS, we put ourselves at the very place our clients needed us the most. Or, really the places. On the soccer field, on the train, in the cab, on a business trip. The places that people were being thoughtful in their head, but felt as though they couldn’t express their thoughtfulness in a way that was “good enough” for their recipients. With Apple as our platform, we were also finally equipped with the technology we needed to give people the product AND the services we had to give.

And we’ve only just begun. Our dream fuels our mission and our mission fuels our dream. And our technology gives us the legs we need to execute both. We are helping people strengthen their relationships in an engaging, friendly + easy way. Which is a pretty amazing feeling.

The big “a-ha” for me is that the process {the how-to} is really just as important as the result {the what-is}. When those things match up, dreams start becoming reality. Chances are, you don’t know how you are going to make your dream come true until you are well into working on your dream. So, decide the governing mission of your dream. Don’t get distracted by pretty objects. And get out there, learn as much from failure as success. And succeed.

Is there something you loved to do as a little girl?

Any perfect storm of circumstances that has prompted one of your dreams?

Paraphrasing Professor Amar Bhide, "For 90% of all successful businesses, the strategy the founders initially pursued did not lead to its success." Rather encouraging, isn't it?

How has embracing constraints propelled you forward?

How can technology help you achieve your dreams?

***

When I asked Erin, why the name RedStamp, she said, "Red because it's bold.  A priority. Important. Cut above the rest. Stamp because stamps are the currency of communication."

To send paper mail, emails, text messages and/or post to twitter + Facebook...right from your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.  Here's how ::

1. Open the Red Stamp app
2. Choose the occasion you wish to send your card for :: thank you, happy {birthday, anniversary, congratulations, etc}, holiday, pop-out photo, invites, photo cards, love, pop-out calendars, hello, announcements, support, and new.
3. Scroll through designs + tap your favorite.
4. Tap on the card to personalize the text and/or add a photo from your library, Instagram, Facebook. Or take a photo in app
5. Tap "Send"
6. Follow prompts to enter the appropriate address information.
7. All digital sends are free; postcards start at $1.99/1 + include domestic postage. International postage is only $0.30 more.

Ribbons and Bows

For as long as I can remember, we haven't included ribbons or bows on our presents.  I hadn't given it much thought until this Christmas.  At the insistence of my 11 year-old daughter, the presents under the tree this morning were all beautifully adorned.

Source:  istockphoto

In Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project, she writes, "To eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory."

With my children now 15 and 11 respectively, the sense of anticipation isn't what it was (wink!), making savoring things in real-time relatively more important.  For my daughter, wrapping a present beautifully is savoring.

To then express happiness, after we had finished unwrapping, it was lovely to hug my husband and children, in turn, and to say Merry Christmas.

The best dreams are those we don't simply anticipate, but can savor as they unfold.  One of my dreams is to have a happy family life.

Today that dream came true.

Christmas Devotional: What Shall We Give Him?

The following is a talk I gave in early December at our Community Wreathmaking Party at the Belmont Chapel.  It is more personal than usual, informed by my faith. 

What shall we give to the babe in the manger,
What shall we offer the child in the stall?
Incense and spices and gold we've a-plenty-
Are these the gifts for the king of us all?
Traditional Catalon lyrics

Every Christmas, I, like you, spend a fair amount of time pondering gifts, the gifts I will give to my husband, friends, neighbors, and to my children.  As parents, we  all want to give our children the best gifts.  The New Testament reads, “what man (or woman) is there of you, who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?”

So I ask myself why I sometimes believe that Heavenly Father, whose love for us is greater and purer than any earthly parent’s, doesn’t want me to give me bread --  Why I persistently believe all He will give me is a stone.

Source:  istockphoto

Perhaps my lack of faith has its roots in my upbringing. It’s been said that the picture we paint of Heavenly Father looks rather similar to our earthly parents.  Because my parents were often unavailable, I constantly struggle to shake the belief Heavenly Father won’t come through for me either.  Consequently I spend much of my life angry with God.

Petulant teenager I may be, but devoted child I am too, especially at Christmas. As I give gifts to my children, my thoughts turn to the question -- “What shall I give to the Babe in the manger? What shall I offer to the child in the stall?” Incense and spices, and gold I’ve aplenty.  Are these the gifts for my King and your King, the King of us all? 

As some of you know, my passion is investing.  That’s probably why I love the parables to do with money. The currency may not be dollars, but I inherently understand the transactions.  In particular I like the parable of the talents.  It reads: “For the kingdom of heaven is as a man…who gave unto one [servant] five talents, to another two, and to another one.  She that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them another five talents…. she that had received two, she gained another two…. But she that had received one, went and digged in the earth, and hid her lord’s money.”  Historically, I’ve interpreted this parable as chastising us for not developing our talents.

Source:  istockphoto

Ironically – again think contrary teenager -- I may not have believe the Lord loved me, but of course he’d give me five number of talents, because, well, he does love me.  Which I would go out and develop so that eventually, He would approve of me saying “Well, Done Thou Good and faithful Whitney.”  But I’ve come to believe that I am each of these servants, in turn.

In some areas of our lives, we have five talents.  We feel tremendous bounty – we are even risk-seeking (in investment or economic terms) because if we lose one talent, we still have four.  To a lesser extent, we do this in the two-talent areas of our lives.   But it’s the one talent I’d like to focus on.  This gift that we hide away, that we don’t develop, for fear that if we unlock our heart’s vault and invest, there may be no return on this dearest of talents, and our world will be lost.  The talent I’ve buried deep in the earth is that of trusting in the Lord.  He grants me this talent through multiple witnesses of His power and His love, yet I continually quash the flower of faith He would have grow within me.

There can be any number of reasons why we choose to bury a certain talent and refuse to let it grow.  Your hidden or buried gift from the Father will likely be something entirely different than mine.  A truth that you can’t accept, a trial that could become a blessing, or a dream that you won’t allow yourself to pursue.

Source: istockphoto

Tonight we are making wreaths, wreaths to hang on the front door of our homes, to invite the spirit of Christmas. The ancient Greeks and Romans used evergreen leaves to make crowns that were awarded as prizes to Olympic athletes, military heros, and kings.  Certainly this is an appropriate reminder of Him who is the king of us all.   In Christianity, evergreen wreaths represent hope and everlasting life.  I’d like for you to also consider the wreath as a symbol of the small coin known as a mite.   

Out of her seeming poverty, the widow gave her mite, her gift to God that was very small, but at the same time, it was everything. Our mite is that gift we aren’t yet sure we can give, coming from a place in our heart where we feel anything but bounty.  We talk about giving away all our sins to know Christ.  Certainly it’s a struggle to give up sins.  But for me, it’s even more difficult to give in to Him, to let go of my doubt.  But I yearn to.  And so, this Christmas I will gather my courage, and from my closely-guarded, double-bolted, and I think I’ve thrown away the key to the vault of my heart, I will offer Him this -- I will pray to our Father in Heaven for each of the next three days, that I can stop hiding my talent of trusting in the Lord:  I will pray to trust, and that He will help thou mine mistrust.  

Ralph Waldo Emerson said “the only true gift is a portion of thyself.”  This Christmas, may we give that portion we cannot quite yet give.  May we have the courage to unbury the one talent, whatever it may be. For this is the gift that the Savior, the babe in the manger, most wants from us.  If we will give this One talent, our widow’s mite, we will not only weep tears for his mercy, He will crown us with the wreath of His Love.

Merry Christmas dear friends,

Whitney

P.S.  Thanks to @terezan for her insight about the Parable of the Talents.

Susan Alexander: Good Disruptive Change

Susan Alexander is the creator of a 4 part model you can use to enable and accelerate personal change. She blogs at gooddisruptivechange.com. You can follow her on Twitter at @SusanRPM4.

Whitney brilliantly encourages us to dream and then act on our dreams. We know from all she's said and written that acting on our dreams requires disrupting ourselves, and that disruption is a discovery driven process infused with uncertainty. Personal disruption is precisely what her much-watched TEDx talk is about. With so many of us contemplating it and and taking it on, I think we need a working definition of personal disruption, as well as a solid strategy not just for enduring it, but for thriving in it. This post seeks to provide both.

Disruption, defined

The dictionary definition of disruption is very straightforward. It's simply altering the structure of something. To me, these words connote change by choice. So for a general, all-encompassing definition of personal disruption, I propose this: any change we actively choose for ourselves. Self-chosen change can take 3 basic forms. We can disrupt ourselves by: 1) stopping doing something we don't want to do anymore; or 2) starting doing something we want to do; or 3) iterating and improving at something we're already doing (and, pivoting when necessary). These basic forms of disruption, of course, can overlap and aggregate over time. On a personal level, disruption is often discussed in the context of entrepreneurship, meaning the process of breaking out of our professional comfort zone and executing on an innovative idea.This kind of personal disruption is prevalent, but there are countless ways to disrupt ourselves.

Disruption, the 3 mega forces

There are 3 mega forces we can use to turn disruption into order. Once we know what they are, we can start utilizing them to thrive when we disrupt ourselves. And when we see we can thrive in disruption, we can take on a more expansive view - we can see it as a catalyst for learning and growing, as well as finding happiness and contributing good things to those around us and the world. The 3 mega forces we can use to convert disruption to order are ordering consciousness, engaging in autotelic activities, and being in flow. Each of them is a skill we can learn and improve at with practice. These forces are key findings that emerged from the work of famed psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced Me-hy CHEEK-sent-me-hy-ee). Together, they can comprise our our mental skill set for thriving in disruption. Let's look at them individually.

I. Ordered consciousness

People who thrive in disruption are meticulous gatekeepers of their own consciousness. They actively choose what and what not to pay attention to, by actively sorting through the external stimuli around them, and the internal stimuli within them (thoughts, feelings, memories, beliefs, etc.). They limit what they allow into consciousness to what's necessary for what they're doing at that time. This learnable skill is paramount for disruption because it crushes anxiety and drives adaptability and productivity. Csikszentmihalyi explains: "what we pay attention to is no trivial matter; we are what we attend to .... [it is] our most important tool in the task of improving the quality of experience." So when it comes to disruption, we can be very proactive in setting ourselves up to enjoy the process and thrive in it. Keeping an ordered consciousness is the first step.

II. Autotelic activities

People with ordered consciousness have something in common: they love the process of what they're doing. Whatever they do, they do it for intrinsic reasons, i.e. for the feeling they get from the activity itself, not for the extrinsic rewards (although such rewards may be possible). Csikszentmihalyi's term for an activity we do for the sake of it is autotelic. In autotelic activities, the reward comes from the doing, which gives us a sense of discovery, exploration, and problem solving, as well as the opportunity to explore the limits of our abilities and the chance to expand them. We can actively decide to take an autotelic approach to self-chosen disruption. How? By immersing ourselves in the process instead of distracting ourselves with the outcome (which is unknowable anyway). Taking this approach, we set ourselves up for experiencing precisely what's stated in the prior paragraph - a sense of discovery, exploration, and problem solving, as well as the opportunity to explore the limits of our abilities and the chance to expand them. Which is the best definition of thriving that I can think of.

III. Flow

Csikszentmihalyi is best known for his work involving the mental state known as flow, in which we are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that we'll do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.

Ordering our consciousness enables us to engage in autotelic experiences, which in turn produce flow. The convergence of these forces lifts the quality of experience to a higher level - one of full engagement and focus on what we've chosen to do. Csikszentmihalyi encourages us to push more and more of our activities into the flow channel, especially those we struggle with. He writes: "... periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times in their lives .... By stretching skills, by reaching toward higher challenges, [we become] increasingly extraordinary individual[s]."

What activities do you engage in that fit the definition of autotelic?

Have you ever experienced flow, in work or play?

NOTES & FURTHER READING

A longer version of this post appears here.

Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi: Flow at 4, 6, 31-33, 69, 92-93, 119, 209.

The Evolving Self at xii-xiv, 185-86, 212-13, 218.

Beyond Boredom and Anxiety at 22, 30.

Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation: Dreaming Big Starts Small

This past week I spoke at a fundraiser for the Kanzius (pronounced Kansas) Cancer Research Foundation, a foundation that is not content with marginal improvements in treating cancer, but is working toward orders of magnitude improvements at a more affordable cost.

The basic science is this:  target cancer cells with anti-bodies that have metal nano particles attached.  The nano-particles are heated with radio waves, killing just the cancer cells, leaving the healthy cells alone.  Ergo, none of the collateral damage of traditional chemo-therapy.  They will go to FDA trials in 2012.  Here are two clips from a 60-minute special hosted by Lesley Stahl.

 

 

Seen through the lens of daring and dreaming and disruption, here are five observations:

1.    Dreams are frequently borne of our deepest sorrows -- After undergoing eighteen rounds of chemotherapy, John Kanzius knew the suffering of the children in the hospital.  He had to do something.  I couldn't help but think, it's only when "we aren't in Kansas anymore", or on our hero's journey, do we begin to make our greatest contribution.

2.    Dreams tend to work best when we bootstrap, pulling from resources on hand.  When resources are limited, we must iterate on our idea so that it can pay for itself.  This forces us to make decisions about priorities, to test, and test again.  It also allows us to begin.  John Kanzius didn't wait to write a grant, to get funding, or until he got well, or he had the medical training.  He just started.  Dreaming big starts small.

3.   Dreaming may be an inalienable right, but it is still likely to be scary and lonely.  As I've described here and here, a disruptive innovation is either a low-end or new market innovation.  Which means you are innovating where no one wants to play, or has even thought of playing.  That can be lonely.  It can cause you to second guess yourself.  Pie pans and hot dogs.  It doesn't get much lower end than that.

4.  We dream so our children can dream.  When we dream, we model for our children what dreaming looks like.  Also by living out our own life, we allow our children to live theirs.  For John Kanzius, it was even more literal.  He dreamed, so that children could live to dream.

5.  Once we invest in ourselves, it's important to take stock in others.  Dr. Steven Curley, an accomplished surgeon and scientist, could have easily dismissed Kanzius as a dilettante at best, a crackpot at worst.  He was generous enough (and smart!) to listen to Kanzius when approached.

C.S. Lewis said, "do not dare, not to dare."

I am grateful that John Kanzius wouldn't have dreamed of not daring. 

***

Thoughts?

P.S.  Thanks to Kevin Balfe and Betsy Morgan for inviting me to speak -- it was a pleasure and a privilege.

P.S.S.  Thanks to my husband, a Columbia trained Ph.D. molecular biologist cum cancer researcher for verifying that the science is in fact promising. 

Teresa Whitehead: My Have-To

Teresa Whitehead holds a degree in Family History and English.  In addition to her obvious passion for genealogy, she loves baking, reading, and playing the piano.  She, her husband, and their three incredible children live in Texas and hoard all the family time they can get.

For as long as I can remember, I have loved family history.  I constantly peppered my grandparents to tell me stories and show me their “antiques” (which meant anything older than me).  My favorite holiday was Memorial Day, when we visited cemeteries to put flowers on graves, and I started indexing records as a volunteer when I was ten.  When I was a junior in high school, I discovered that BYU offered a degree in family history, and my college and major searches were immediately over.  Since graduating, I have continuously researched for clients—through the births of three children and moves to four different states.  Sometimes I took a month or two off or cut way back, but I have always stayed active.

It hasn’t been easy.  With three children under the age of five, I have learned to sprint to the computer the instant the baby goes down for a nap, even if that means leaving breakfast dishes in the sink.  I have planned marathon library trips for days when my husband can be home with the kids, and have traipsed through cemeteries with my little family in tow on more than one occasion.  I have often wondered if it’s time to stop—if the crunch before the deadline is too stressful, if I am just cramming one more unnecessary thing into our packed schedule.  After all, I can (and do) work on my own lines—deadline free.  But professional work helps me give myself permission to do what I love and take my work seriously.  And I get immense satisfaction from seeing others “catch the bug.”

Source: istockphoto

Author and essayist Emma Lou Thayne tells of hearing Truman Capote read “A Christmas Memory” at the University of Utah.  In the question and answer session that followed, a student who had obviously been moved asked him why he wrote the story.  Thayne wrote, “Capote, small enough that his gnomelike head barely showed above the podium, paused for what seemed like an eon, thinking, the audience hushed.  Then in his childlike lisp he answered, ‘Because I had to.’”

That’s it: I keep doing genealogy because I have to.  I love what I’m doing, and even an hour of it does wonders for my soul.  My dream is to keep researching and teach others to love it as much as I do.

But to look at my day-to-day life, you wouldn’t think I’m progressing towards that dream at all.  For all intents and purposes, I’m a stay-at-home mom whose census records compete for desk space with googly eyes, train-shaped erasers and princess crayons.  I’ve gotten in the habit of referring to genealogy as my “and”—as in, “I’m a mom and a genealogist.”  It feels accurate, as if genealogy is an extra but important piece of myself that I tack onto the end of my days.  If you want to get technical, I’m a mom and a genealogist and a wife and a member of my church and a friend and a classroom volunteer, and, and, and…you get the idea.  Our passions don’t live in isolation.

Source:  Sarah Jane Studios

So exactly where does genealogy fit in the hierarchy of that list?  If it’s my dream, shouldn’t I be attacking it with gusto?  Shouldn’t I join more societies or attend more conferences?  Shouldn’t I market myself more?  And since I’m not, does that mean I’m not really committed?  Is there such a thing as a “part-time” passion?  That’s a depressing thought, because if I’ve lost my dream, I’ve lost a very important part of myself.

The problem is that all those other “ands” are have-to’s too.  I consciously carve out time for genealogy, but I’m not willing to let it push aside everything else (at least not consistently).  If it were all-consuming, it would detract from my life, not enhance it.  I have as much work as I want right now, and I take every opportunity that presents itself to teach others, even though I don’t actively seek more.  Deep in my bones, I don’t feel the need to be doing more genealogy right now.  But it seems like I “ought” to if I ever wanted to “do something” with it.  I’m doing a fairly good job of staying involved, so why am I so conflicted?

I like the sentiment of Warren Buffet’s statement: “I feel like I’m on my back, and there’s the Sistine Chapel, and I’m painting away.  I like it when people say, ‘Gee, that’s a pretty good-looking painting.’  But it’s my painting, and when somebody says, ‘Why don’t you use more red instead of blue?’ Good-bye. It’s my painting.  And I don’t care what they sell it for.  The painting itself will never be finished.  That’s one of the great things about it.”

Obviously that can be taken to the extreme, but could I adopt a little more of that approach? It feels like an awfully thin line between reassuring yourself and lulling yourself into complacency.  Can I let go of that worry?  Can I give my part-time dream the respect of a full-time dream, and stop second-guessing?

Can it be enough that my dream is mine?

What is your have-to?  Or have-tos?

Love this line -- "Can I give my part-time dream the respect of a full-time dream?"

Is it enough that your dreams are yours?

Ask Away

I got off the T this morning thinking, I need to stop by the Bostonian Tailor and ask if he'll give me a discount on the leather pants he's altering.

No, that's silly.  We already agreed to the price.

Ask anyway.

I opened the door.  A little bell jingled my arrival.  The tailor was sitting at his sewing machine. 

"I know we've already agreed on a price, but I'm trying to practice negotiating," I said.  "Will you give me a 10% discount?"

He laughingly, but warmly, wondered, "Why 10%?"

"Arbitrary,"  I answered.

"A 10% discount will make me neither rich, nor poor, and it will give you joy.  There is more to life than money. Yes."

He made a notation and we were done.

I struggle to ask for what I want.  Perhaps you do too.  Today I practiced.  If I can ask for a discount, then I am one step closer to asking for a piece of my dream.

What will you ask for?

Oh, and in case you're wondering -- I will most definitely go back to this tailor.

For more on asking and negotiating, click here.