Nearly a year ago now, I took myself off to Paris. I wanted to see the Eiffel tower, practise my French, and go for long walks in the crisp cold and contemplate.
Starting work again after a year as an international fuckwit of no fixed address, one thing on my mind a lot was time. At the start of my year of adventures, I’d felt this incredible feeling of time abundance. I felt like I could do everything I wanted to do, take every opportunity, catch every plane.
I was wrong.
I learned a lot in that year, but one lesson I took with me and still think about often is that even if you have complete control over your schedule, there are still a finite number of hours in the day. You would think that I could have learned that by looking at a calendar. And yet, I had not. It’s easy to think that if only you didn’t have to work that pesky full time job, you could do everything you imagine. I had proved – conclusively – that I (at least) could not.
You have to choose.
I had to make better choices.
There’s a category of unflattering requests, that I at least, have found easy to ignore and delete. People who misspell my name – it’s four letters, hit delete. Token women requests – negotiation practise. Bad requests for mentoring, I got more strict on. Corporate feminism – nope.
I started a new project this year. I killed something to make way for it, and I applied to it everything I knew about making projects sustainable. It’s been a successful project by any measure – the sustained execution, the achieving of the goals I had in mind for it, a random amazing surprises (including my current job). That thinking drove me to choose the chose the word “scale” for 2016 and create a text document called “The Kill List”.
At first I gleefully added things I killed or said no to, and then I stopped remembering to update it. I kept saying no though. About a month ago, I found it again and realised I had many more things to add. I killed the things I had finished learning from, and I said no to things that I didn’t think were the best use of my time.
As the year ends, I’m inclined to berate myself for all the things I didn’t achieve. But I look at that text document, and see a list of things that I stopped doing, or never started. And I’m grateful for the space I created, and the stress I saved myself. I’m glad that I made active choices to do, or not do, instead of drifting. I’m determined to keep doing that in 2017.
I feel like the “life lesson” that I have had the hardest time accepting is that you cannot improve every area of your life at once. There are times when every area of your life does improve at once (those are so great, but rare, in my experience often brought on by a dramatic life event like moving). But in general, there can only be one priority.
When it comes to the different aspects of life, certain things that are baseline – a level of activity that is “normal”. X hours a day or week or work. Y times a week in the gym, Z time with friends. But above this baseline level there are choices. An extra workout might take away from work. A bigger project or tighter deadline might mean less gym time. Giving that conference talk might mean skipping that long weekend away. Because there are 24 hours in the day, and I need to sleep for at least 8 of them. And 168 hours in the week means that if I choose everything I choose nothing.
I still kinda want to choose everything. But now I try not to.
Explaining this theory to a friend I thought, am I living by that, really? Because a couple of weeks ago I was saying my priority was work and here I am hanging out in NYC in the middle of the day.
And then I realised my true priority: for this year to be interesting, and to set me up for a more stable 2016.
I think I’ve been living out the “interesting” pretty well, but that trip I started to think more about what 2016 looks like.
I got invited to something really cool – KiwiFoo. It’s in New Zealand, and my schedule for April is hectic but when have I let little things like long flights and jetlag stop me?
So I did what I usually do, booked a flight and told myself I would figure it out. That I could get back and give a talk to let’s not think about how many people the following day. That I could crank out a bunch of work on The Project sometime during the 40 hours of transit… each way. That I could use up 7 vacation days, to spend 5 full days and change in New Zealand. That I’d meant to go to Auckland anyway. That this might finally cause me to get around to sorting out my driver’s license.
Pulled out my Amex.
And then I went back and forth, alternatively looking forward to it, and panicking about all the stuff I have to do, and in the midst got approval for this big project at work for Q2.
Woke up one morning, calm, decided, realising that what I’m most in need of right now is not inspiration, or connections, but just time to get sh*t done.
Not to disparage inspiration or connections – sometimes I have totally needed that, and these experiences are always amazing. But I’m in a serious execution phase right now. And sometimes, however amazing things are be they chocolate cake, lovers, unconferences… the timing can be wrong.
So I sat with this conclusion for a bit, to be sure it was calm and not panic in disguise, and then I cancelled my flights. Status + upgrade restrictions had forced me to buy a flexible ticket (behavioural economics makes me wonder if this wasn’t the case, would I have just felt committed and more OK about it?), but still it was a relatively expensive lesson in priorities, costing about the same as my last extravagant night out (sushi + drinks + desert for two back in January). But cheaper than therapy or a life coach, and longer lasting than the sushi.
Because the wider thing I’m taking from this is – what am I saying yes to right now?
I’m saying yes to execution. Work is crazy busy – in a good way – I’m really psyched for what I’m working on and my career prospects right now. Meanwhile not at my day-job, it looks like I’m about to fulfil a long-held dream, and I’m stepping up my public speaking (again – something that merits it’s own blog post) with a training course and a big talk in April, another in May, and four to hear back on. I’ve been consistently hitting three blog posts a week for approaching a year, and I have a number of other projects in varying stages between planning and a couple of focused hours away from shipping, that I want to keep at.
I’m committing to say yes to well-being. Last year was really rough. I feel like my 29th birthday is looming closer and it makes me think of the disaster that was my 28th (with gratitude to the friend who took me home in tears after dinner at one of the swankiest restaurants in Sydney) and whilst that was a low point, it wasn’t even the worst of it. A talk with one of my mentors and an email exchange had me reflecting on how much more confident I am since leaving Sydney. I guess 9 months of… I don’t even know how to describe it… does something to you that it takes a while to come back from. Finally, I feel like I’ve reached this precarious balance, but that it’s still precarious. So this is me making time to sleep, exercise, eat reasonably and generally rehabilitate myself. This is my project to like London, and my weekly blog posts of things I saw and did which sometimes gets me to the art gallery when I’m tempted to curl up and hide. This is time with my family, and weekends on the continent.
There should be a snappier conclusion and life lesson here, but instead I’m reminded of that quote about work-life balance, that goes “you can have it all, just not at the same time“. Each to their own, but for me at least right now balance isn’t about being pulled in every which direction. It’s about focusing on some fundamentals, rebuilding, and achieving some things that as my accountability parter from a development course last year put it “what are you going to do to make you feel worthwhile?“
These quotes set the stage for a really helpful presentation about how we see our jobs, and how we advance using a framework of Do Better, Look Better, Connect Better.
As a kid, Azzarello was into arts, and her mother said to her: “You will go to college. You will get an education. You will support yourself. Don’t expect anyone else to support you.” As a result of this, Azzarello decided to do Electrical Engineering instead of art, where she was one of three women, also achieving a minor in CS. Electrical Engineering wasn’t natural to her, but coding was ideal.
Azzarello’s first job was at Bell Labs, which should have been a dream job, but wasn’t. She wasn’t using enough of her strengths, and was interested in products and business. So she took a job as a Sales Engineer at a Silicon Valley company. She’s held every level of position at a company, didn’t drop into being a CEO – had entry level jobs. And Engineering and tech education was a big part of her success, it taught her about problem solving, and that there is always somewhere to start.
Did Product Marketing at a couple of Silicon Valley startup companies. Azzarello was technically in Marketing, but spent half her time with Engineers. At HP, she had the choice between Marketing Manager and Software Development Manager. She picked Software Development Manager, because she knew she wanted to be a General Manager some day.
The product was a mess. Quality and morale were both low, they were on a two year cycle and running late. After a year, all the problems were fixed, in part because they had moved to a 6-month development cycle. But after all that, Azzarello did not get a raise. When asking why, given that, the answer was “I tried, but nobody knows you”.
This was a huge slap in the face about how the world works. Work is not enough. To have more impact, it’s not just about recognition and raises, you need to be known, respected, and recognised. As a result, you get more opportunities, more money, and more interesting projects. The results have to be seen.
Worst job, was Sales and Marketing for HPs desktop systems, but it gave her more experience to help become a GM. You can’t get a job without experience, but you can get experience without the job. Moved to HP Openview Software business, ran a global org with 5k people. Then became CEO of a startup. Then Chief Marketing Officer at Siebal, but after that was bought by Oracle she was paid off and has been running the Azzarello group for 6 years.
Do Better
Work, or the environment, beats the “I can change the world” out of you”. The key is to focus on your natural strengths, which we often take for granted. When working in our areas of greatest strength, it feels ideal, and we don’t think that it can be impressive. When others are amazed, and it doesn’t feel like a big deal to you… that’s a strength.
We are impressed when others do the things that we think are hard.
Invert that – focus on the strengths. The ROI on strengths is higher than the ROI on stuff we’re not good at. So spending time on things we are naturally good at, has big returns! Hated every minute of working on weaknesses, and never got any better at any of it. Once she stopped worrying about weaknesses, and invested in strengths, business improved and her career soared.
No one person can be good at everything, but a team can.
Tune your job over time to suit your strengths. Know what works for you – you can change your job, without changing your job.
EXERCISE: Think about a time when you were at your best. What was special (extra good!) because you did it?
The energy in the room is tremendous when talking about strengths – I know I feel a boost focusing on a positive experience.
Celebrate natural strengths – figure out what you’re naturally good at. Don’t try to earn your primary living doing something you’re not good at. It’s painful.
Developing a strategy to use strengths and values at work.
Too Busy
To think, to reorganize… “to busy to scale”.
No-one other than you has any motivation to make you less busy. Most successful people didn’t happen to be less busy on the way – they figured out how to get things done in spite of being busy.
If you are overwhelmed by your job, you aren’t ready for promotion. People wish for work that is more important and has more meaning, no-one wants more meaningless crap.
Are you a workhorse? If you are, the reward is – more work. It feels like you’re doing the right thing, but you have to catch and wiggle out of this way of working. It doesn’t get you ahead, it just gets you more work.
There was an inventory crisis at HP. A guy spent time on crisis, but he wasn’t a workhorse, he was strategic and so delivered better results without burning up all of his time personally.
Give yourself time to think – get known for rising above work, solving problems in a more strategic way. You need a system or process for dealing with it in a different way. Move yourself out of workhorse mode. No-one will do it for you.
When you have time tot hunk, consider what the business really values. Think about how to do your job better.
Ruthless Priorities
Too many things on todo list, all of them seem important. Decide, what are the things that you will not put at risk? Ask how bad is it if this fails?
It’s not about saying no, it’s about allowing yourself to finish your ruthless priorities first. Get famous for finishing important things, not for being busy. Talk about what you are doing, not about what you are not doing.
Being a leader is about getting the most important things done when it is hard.
Defend Your Time
Your job is not to do everything and die trying. Not all requests are created equal. Advise your boss, and negotiate. Your boss delegates thinking and judgement, not just the work.
Look Better
This is about credibility. Being invisible doesn’t work – you can’t opt out of communicating. If it’s not a natural strength, develop it as a skill.
If you are not communicating, you are communicating. But, it’s OK to be just OK at it. Azzarello trained herself to be a more convivial listener.
Be visible, but not annoying. You can’t be credible if you are invisible. You are never annoying if you are genuinely adding value, or if you are communicating about important outcomes achieved.
Be more relevant, you need to translate:
Business first.
Don’t educate
No jargon.
Talk their language.
Create “the hook”.
If you have to educate someone about what/why – you are not relevant. What’s relevant is what they wake up in the morning worrying about.
Magic Communication Tool
Business initiative / realities (“hooks”). The only way to know their hooks is to ask. Really understand who your stakeholders are.
Personal Brand
Your brand is how you are perceived by others. Example: Disney has the brand as the happiest place on earth. They have turned waiting in line into an art form, and you never see a security force (but they are there).
Your brand is not what you say, but what everyone else says. Your brand is what people see from you most consistently.
PERFORMING OR PRESENTING
Performing means owning the outcome.
Not just content.
You are being assessed.
Not about having a “big personality”.
Humility is OK… invisible is not.
Don’t be afraid of being judged – seek it out.
Patty told us an embarrassing story of going to a client and having someone say: “why did you bring her? She doesn’t know anything.” She didn’t die. “Fearless” people are afraid, but do it anyway. Just because you are scared, doesn’t mean you are not qualified. Be scared, and do it anyway.
Body language is not just what you show to others, it changes you. Influences your brain chemistry. When you smile, sends stimulus to your brain. It makes you feel more powerful and less afraid. A pen between your teeth achieves the same thing.
Power poses. Wonder women – don’t hunch in on yourself! Wear a sweater (theory is that women sit like this because we are cold).
Be very focused on outcomes and excellence, and just stand your ground. You are stronger when you are yourself – don’t try and turn into someone else.
“The last thing you need is another one of you.”
Connect Better
Get help! Never struggle along. Get mentors, and build your extra team.
The most successful people are those who get the most help.
Types of Mentors
Smart people.
Can’t have too many.
Engage several per year informally.
Personal Career Advocates.
Add one every 1-3 years (informal and formal).
Business Advisors.
Be on the lookout for help at getting better at your business.
Create your personal advisory board.
You can attempt your career by yourself, without mentors, but why would you?
If you have mentors, good for you, get another. If not, get one.
“Mystery mentors”: they are your mentor, but they never know it.
Figure out what job you want, then figure out how to get that experience.
You current job will never give you all the experience you need to get the next one.
Networking Paradox.
Need a network that can help you.
Networking is about giving, not taking.
Give before you need anything.
On balance, always take less than you are giving.
Authentic Networking
Keeping in touch with people you already know.
Meeting new people.
Meet new people based on things that actually interest/inspire you.
Give positive feedback.
Reach out based on something specific.
Offer to be of service.
Recommendations:
30 minutes networking a month.
Send 10 emails a month.
Connect properly with 2 special people.
Summary
Do your job and change your job.
Do Better – impact.
Refuse to burn time on low value work.
THRIVE: redefine your job to add more value; raise the bar.
Look Better – Credibility
Be visible, but not annoying.
Be a translator: be relevant, show your value.
Connect Better – Support
Build a broad network.
All in all, I enjoyed it, and I got things out of it – more so than when I read the book, I think. I was a bit wary at first, because I hate the advice of women with other interest, take less technical roles, but I don’t think it went that way at all, and this advice is relevant whether you’re in a technical role or more of a management one.
On a Monday nights lately, I’m buzzed from skiing. I actually committed to something – an 8-week long, twice a week, race training program.
This is massive for me, as having taken a trip a month for very nearly two years, it seemed like I had lost the ability to commit to anything. And that was a problem, because it was making me unhappy. I was a strung out, nervous wreck, from travelling too much, having a stressful job (I love my job, I do, but I don’t just hang out in a micro-kitchen with breaks to take the slide all day. I work really hard).
And, I was making myself more unhappy by considering not just what I wanted, but what other people thought or felt.
So, something terrible happens and I think I don’t get to be as upset as the person who is closer to it, so I better pull myself together. It doesn’t work like that – people express their “upsetness” in different ways.
People say “oh you’re so lucky, I’d love to travel that much”, or (more annoyingly) “oh, I don’t get bothered by planes and jetlag myself, I just love it” (when they rarely go anywhere) and I feel guilty, or, angry. Because going to live somewhere for at least a month? That’s cool. Vacation? Bring it. Going to work somewhere else is often just a different commute. A different commute somewhere you don’t have a gym membership. Luckily I know people most of the places I go, but before my friend moved to NYC it kinda sucked – it’s a cool city, love it during the day, but don’t really want to or feel safe exploring it after dark, alone.
And then there’s the whole, if you’re not 100% happy all the time you should give up working for the man and become an entrepreneur thing. Which, much as I admire and support my entrepreneurial friends, is not me right now. I’m not interested in having my own company. The even more irrational flipside is, I 100% don’t want to start a company, and therefore I must be 100% happy all the time. Even if I’m not. That was getting me in a tizzy. And, the thing is, I think if you love your job you’re not going to be 100% happy all the time. Because things are never going to be 100% perfect. The raspberry panda liquorice that was so delicious, is never seen again. Product managers do their thing. Really smart people are often the most frustrating to work with. I get the highs – the raspberry liquorice, the shipping something an unimaginable number of people use, the incredible learning, the rush when you demo… and highs come with lows. I have that kind of temperament – when I’m delighted, I’m delighted. When I’m frustrated, I’m pissed. It’s easy never to get frustrated with your job if you don’t really care about it. I do, so anything less than amazing bothers me. There’s not much that’s less than amazing, but enough that from time to time I get really frustrated.
Anyway, I tell myself, all the time, that nothing changes unless you make it change. And so I took a vacation, and skiied and spa’d and relaxed. And then I came back, started working out at the new gym, upped my trainer to twice a week, and registered for race training.
Here’s the big difference – at the weekend, I do whatever it is I want to do. The weekend just gone I drove to the US with a couple of friends to buy cherry coke, and then on the Sunday I did bootcamp, 90 mins cardio, spin, and went swimming. Yes, I effectively spent the whole day at the gym – I have time to do that again now. The weekend before, on the Saturday I did spin, an hours cardio, and went swimming, and on the Sunday I did spin, 2 hours skiing, 80 mins cardio, and hot yoga. That one was pretty much a whole weekend of physical activity, interspersed with meals at my favorite restaurants in town. Awesome.
It feels like last year, every weekend I was either, on a plane, lying down because I was exhausted from taking a plane, or organizing myself because I was about to get on another sodding plane. I just couldn’t do it anymore. And the change in my energy, my stress levels… it’s dramatic.
Anyway, I guess what I learned from all this is to stop looking at how happy or sad other people are and berate myself for imagined ingratitude… and just make time for the things that make me happy. My idea of an ideal Sunday isn’t everyones… but that is 100% OK.
Abstract: In a world where computing power doubles roughly every two years, the goal is no longer efficiency, but effectiveness. The education system prepares students for efficiency, but to be successful when we go out into the world (or before!) we need rather to learn to be effective. In this workshop, we’ll discuss more useful things to excel at than email, helpful ways to fail, and the pursuit of an interesting life. It won’t improve your grades, but it’s often surprising what will help your career.
Excel at something Meaningful.
Credit: flickr / Tyson Cecka
When trying to change habits, people have more success with the things they decide to do, than things they vow not to. If you’ve ever tried to give anything up, you’ll know this. However, often the most important decisions you make are what not to do.
In the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris (Amazon) he advocates checking email only once a week. I did this for a while, and I definitely got a lot more done.
It’s easy to excel at email. You can just throw hours at it. Make it a priority and you’ll be great at it. It’s very safe to be “good” at things like that. Reply promptly and maintain inbox zero and you’re golden.
It’s scarier to be good at less tangible, measurable things. How do you measure the success of writing a blog, say? In visitors? Comments? Meaningful connections?
How do you measure the success of writing code? Lines? Features? Number of users?
Anything creative is hard to measure. But it’s much more helpful to do okay at something meaningful, than excel at something fundamentally mediocre.
No-one ever said, “Wow, X was so impressive. They maintained inbox zero.”, after all. Maybe they did <list of impressive things> and still maintained inbox zero. But inbox zero alone is not enough.
Email is my personal bugbear. I pity anyone who tried to communicate with me by it. Thinking about the state of my inbox… well I try not to, and whenever I try to tackle it people reply faster that I seem to get through things and so it gets no better. Email is something that I’ve deprioritized in order to do better at things I think are more worthwhile.
The point – don’t excel at something that’s easy to excel at. Spend your time doing something meaningful instead, even if you suck at it.
Discussion point: What’s something mediocre that you could replace with something with potential for awesome?
Have adventures.
Credit: flickr / B.K. Dewey
When I took off to China to live up a mountain and kickbox, a number of people thought I was insane. But when I look at my life now – living abroad, travelling a lot – my time as an international hobo was actually really helpful.
I don’t get phased in airports. I don’t stress out for long when faced with travel setbacks. I’m fine exploring alone.
In some ways teaching in French seemed like a pointless source of extreme stress. But now, somehow I’ve ended up giving a bunch of talks… and there is no doubt that it puts it all in perspective.
It’s hard to tell what will be useful down the line, and what will not. At some point it seemed like a very helpful skill to have beautiful handwriting. Before we had smart phones there were all kinds of things we learned that now we just look up.
If you do the things you find exciting, if you take advantage of the adventures on offer, there’s no guarantee that it will be helpful but I can tell you that everything I’ve done that has broadened my experience has been useful, whilst many things that seemed “useful” have been of little or no use to me.
Discussion point: What was something “crazy” that you did that was actually a useful learning or connecting opportunity?
Find your people. Share what you’re doing.
Credit: flickr / newwavegurly
In the book Being Geek (Amazon), there’s a section on “Your People” (blog post).
Let me tell you about my people. They do things. They support me when I do things. They don’t say “no, but…”, they say “yes, and…!”.
Everything cool that I’ve done and will do has at least one other person who I don’t think it could have happened without.
Periods that I’ve not been as happy or productive have been filled by people who were the antethesis of my people.
It’s so important, who you surround yourself with. In the wrong crowd, I’ve wasted all my energy on pointless drama. With my people, that doesn’t happen. When you’re trying to do something awesome you don’t want the people who you always have to chase around, you want the people who you can rely on. They are your people.
The internet is such an amazing way to find Your People.
Discussion point: Who are “Your People”? Why are they awesome? How did you find them?
Say yes! Fill gaps.
Credit: flickr / BuhSnarf
When I run into something where I think “this should be happening”, it’s a sign I’ve found an opportunity. It’s one that interests me, otherwise I wouldn’t have spotted it. This is why I started Girl Geek Dinners in KW, I went looking for it when I moved because I figured it would be a good way to meet people, and was disappointed to find there wasn’t one.
Once I’d connected with a couple of other women who also wanted such a thing to exist (my people!) we were set.
Gaps are opportunities. Say yes to filling them.
I advocate saying yes in general. Even though I really need to learn to say no before I have some kind of breakdown… saying yes is such a source of adventure and opportunities.
Clearly, I have no idea how to find a balance here. But, I do think that being someone who says “no, but” is an limiting way to live. Many people could use some more “yes, and!” in their lives.
Discussion point: What is a gap you are thinking of filling? Discussion point: Share something that you said yes to that turned into an adventure.
Don’t be a control freak.
Credit: flickr / chooyutshing
When you start something, you have this vision of what you want it to become. That’s great – and important – you need to have an idea of what you’re working towards. But at some point, you face a choice. You can build a tiny, solid steel, structure, completely controlled by you. Or you can give up some control and plant the seeds for an organization that will grow bigger than you could do alone, do different things you could never have imagined. There’s a risk that it will die. But – that’s another tradeoff you can make, because giving up control allows you to move on to other projects that excite you.
I stepped down from things when I left Ottawa, and other people took over. I know that things are going to change as a result but I’m OK with that – I trust them to do a good job, I can mentor and encourage, but ultimately, this new person will have their own vision – and that’s a good thing. I don’t want to stay in grad school forever, running the same things!
With the Awesome Foundation, we have a very flat structure. As a co-conspirator go around getting excited about things, and do a little more organization stuff but every trustee puts in $100 and every trustee gets a vote. I can say “I think we should do this”, but if I’m outvoted, I’m outvoted. My role here is not really a leader, more of a facilitator. There’s an important distinction.
If you want other people to help you, you’ll probably have to ask them! Asking for things is hard. Asking someone to join the board of the Awesome Foundation was terrifying for me at first – “hey! How about you give $100 every month to some crazy idea that may or may not work?” – I’ve got better at it with practise (and I don’t say that!). But you need to learn to ask for things, for starters you’ll need to ask for help.
Last year I read this great book, Women Don’t Ask (Amazon). I highly recommend it. And I started asking for things, for instance one of the first things I asked for was a t-shirt.
I know, random. But last year at Grace Hopper the Yahoo! people had these awesome t-shirts that said “I code like a girl and I’m PROUD of it”, and I wanted one really badly! It happens that I know a guy who works for Yahoo!, in fact before he moved I would take care of his cat. So I asked him if he could get me one of these t-shirts and he did.
When uOttawa asked me to create a programming curriculum for a workshop we run for high-school students, I thought it sounded like a cool idea. But – I’d already created a proprietary curriculum and wasn’t really interested to do another proprietary one. So I asked if we could open source it. They agreed to my terms, and now anyone can use the materials I’ve created.
I’m still afraid to ask. But I’m getting better at it. So try it.
And, pro-tip, start being more attuned to people’s implicit asks. When someone you think is awesome talks about this new project they are starting, introduce the topic of how you can help them before they have to. And then follow through.
Because – the real secret I’ve found in asking, is that it’s easier to ask when people want to help you because they’ve seen you paying it forward already. Or – even better – they are also attuned to implicit asks, and you don’t need to.
Discussion point: What have you asked for recently? Did you get it?
Value execution over dreaming.
Credit: flickr / dullhunk
Who has an idea for a product, or web service, or piece of software?
As a programmer, I can tell you that there are lots of non-programmers out there who have some “genius idea” that they think a programmer should build, for “equity” – a stake in the eventual, hugely profitable company.
The reality is that the company is rarely profitable, if it even gets off the ground. And programmers have their own ideas, which if they want they could implement. This is why people – especially programmers – get angry about patents, because you can literally patent an idea and the person patenting it doesn’t actually need to know how to implement it. To a programmer, implementation is everything. Ideas are 10 a penny. What does this have to do with starting an organization (or anything)? It means that it doesn’t matter how amazing your idea is, it’s nothing until you actually implement it.
And if someone else gets there before you, the idea was good enough that someone actually did it – so be pleased! And either get on board with them, or come up with something else and move faster. It also means, that it can be hard to sell your idea until you start doing.
We were the first Awesome Foundation outside the US, but we weren’t the first period. The fact that we have a network of people to ask questions to and this model has been proven made it much easier to get going.
Discussion point: What’s your plan for implementing your current awesome idea?
Fail.
Think about how big your comfort zone is. What are you OK with doing? Introducing yourself to a stranger? Going to a foreign country by yourself? Standing up and talking in front of a bunch of people?
Chances are, there is a whole world outside your comfort zone. I really recommend going to explore that, but it can be scary. Stuff outside your comfort zone is stuff you don’t know – and as you go off discovering it there’s a good chance that things won’t go to plan. You’ll fail.
You know in Harry Potter, how the bogart turns into Prof. McGonnagall for Hermione and tells her she failed everything – that’s her biggest fear. It’s no wonder Harry always saves the day, he’s OK with failing, and that makes him more able to take risks. Hermione might seem more successful, there’s no doubt that she is academically, but that’s within her comfort zone. For her to be successful in other ways, she had to learn how to fail. (It’s not quite that simple, here’s an interesting article: In praise of Joanne Rowling’s Hermione Granger series).
When we first started the Women in Science and engineering group back at uOttawa, we tried an event and people were really enthused about it… but then no-one turned up. I was mortified, and really questioned what I was doing. We didn’t run that kind of event again, but we ran different things that were successful. We learned what our members want, and that’s what we put on for them. It was a setback, but it didn’t stop us from achieving a lot of other things.
The Awesome Foundation is a great model and there’s a lot of enthusiasm for it, but getting enough submissions is a continual effort. Seriously, we’re giving away free money but people don’t fill out the application form! It was tough in Ottawa, because you get to this catch-22 – you don’t fund anything, and no-one hears about you. We persevered. In KW we work at it continually.
There’s this great lecture by Randy Pausch. It’s an hour – go watch it. In it, he talks about how when you hit a wall, have a set back. He says that walls are there to keep out the people who don’t really want it. So when you fail, and I hope you do because I think that a life without failure is a life where you didn’t push yourself – you look at your failure, you evaluate what you can learn from it. And then you keep going.
Discussion point: Tell us about a failure that you learned from.
Be likable, but don’t expect everyone to like you.
Credit: flickr / Jef Harris
Colin Powell said, “trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity”. Be likable – it’s important – but the reality is, if you want to stand out and do something extraordinary, there are people who will try and tear you down for it. People might not understand that ideas are cheap, and think that you “stole” theirs, because you got their first. If you do things, people might need to attack your success in order to excuse their own inaction – like “oh Cate, she just got lucky”.
I’m not going to lie – it sucks. Who’s had something bad said about them that they knew wasn’t true? Who was hurt by it?
A while ago now, I had someone I used to be friends with telling people (people I know!), basically that I was doing I terrible job with Awesome Ottawa. Of course it gets back to me, and of course I was upset by it. The way it all played out was interesting, because I tried to ignore it and just keep running around doing my thing, and in the face of my non-response, this woman managed to make a different story in which I played the villan.
It was difficult, but eventually it worked out for the best. But at the time? Horrible. And honestly, I could not comprehend why someone would behave like this, when they could have pinged me for a cup of coffee and got everything they wanted. I was talking to one of my mentors, and we talked about whether I could have done more. Of course I could – you can almost always do more to resolve situations, you can always try to reason with someone, no matter how determined they are to dislike you. But in the worst 2 week period of this, I went to New York to pitch to top IBM executives with my team. I interviewed at Google, and filed two patents (within IBM). I got on a plane, and went back to Europe. So the question is not, “could I have done more?” – it’s with these other priorities going on, should I have. I think I made the right call that time.
Haters will hate. I always take the time to consider if they have a reason for it, is there anything I can and should do to resolve it. But – if someone is determined to dislike you, they will find a reason to. Anything you do can, will, be used against you. So at some point, you have to say – No. I’m doing what I’m doing, and I refuse to let you distract me.
Discussion point: What strategies do you use to deal with conflict?
Know what you’re good at, delegate what you’re bad at.
Credit: xkcd
No-one is good at everything. It is totally natural that we have weaknesses. Often they are paired with a strength. For instance, I’m very logical so I struggle when people behave irrationally. When someone was being vile, I exclaimed to a friend that I didn’t understand why they would be so inefficient. The logical attitude that makes me good at programming means that I struggle with that kind of situation.
It’s really important to know what your strengths are. It’s even more important to know what you are bad at, so you can find ways to manage that.
For instance, I’m horrible at selling myself – so I hired someone to write my resume for me.
For Girl Geek Dinners and Awesome Foundation KW other people do the logistics. I would suck at that.
Discussion point: What’s something you are good at it’s associated weakness?
Strive for the love of it, not the adulation. (Be humble).
Credit: flickr / Hot Meteor
There are so many people who come home from work at 5 and spend the evening watching TV, that if you do anything, people will start telling you how awesome you are.
Appreciate that, but take it as a thank-you. Every moment you spend believing it is a moment that someone else is overtaking you.
Once I saw someone tweet something… I can’t bring myself to repeat it, but suffice to say the words “I’m so awesome” were used. I have no clue what this person does, but now I have zero interest in finding out. A couple of other people I know saw it and we laughed about it – her credibility was damaged by this gratuitously self-aggrandizing tweet.
The most impressive people don’t seem to need to talk about how gosh-darn impressive they are. They’re too busy getting on with things. At work, you need to document your achievements and put them forward to your manager for promotion. In the outside world, especially on the internet, if you’re awesome, people notice. Maybe not as fast as you’d like, but they do.
At my leaving party when I moved away from Ottawa, this guy showed up and said that he’d wanted to meet me before I left. That was really cool, it totally made my day. That kind of moment is worth more than a million people agreeing when I say how awesome I am. I’m taking it as a thank-you, and encouragement to keep going. But I don’t believe that I did anything special, which is perhaps key to doing things at all. If you only believe that someone extraordinary can start something, you’ve set the bar way higher than it needs to be. Anyone can do it. Honestly. I did. You can too.
Discussion point: What’s the most ridiculously self-promoting thing you’ve seen?
Discussion point: What act or comment from someone has made you feel most appreciated?
On the way to Toronto my friend is telling me I need to give up bagels, and I say, there’s enough change in my life right now without introducing more. But that I think it will be better next month. She says, “you always think that; you said that in August, too”.
She’s right. This month’s major source of stress has been the number of talks I’m giving. But – what have I agreed to in the first week of November? Another one. And at a Catholic school too, when I oppose religious schooling. So now I feel stressed and guilty.
Then at ONCWIC, someone gives the advice – track your time, noting that sometimes trying to please, and agreeing to something means that you’re not doing another thing that is actually more important to you.
It’s amazing, you go to these things and you hear the same comments from different people, with different stories behind them, even things you have concluded yourself. And yet – almost every time I am inspired and motivated, and grateful to have heard it again.
The impostor panel at GHC is always one of the most popular, perhaps because it’s so hard to believe that these awesome women, who seem so successful and together, are wracked with doubt the same way we are. Every year (at least!) we need this reminder. I was talking to an amazing colleague who mentioned the panel, and how much she enjoys it every year, saying it gives her hope that she can be that awesome one day – whilst I look at her and think, woah you are so awesome, I will never be as awesome as you.
In the same way that reminder is helpful, so is the one for saying no. It is hard to say no. You want to make people happy. You want to take advantage of opportunities. You don’t want to let people down.
The reminder – if we don’t let other people down, we often do that at the expense of letting down ourselves, and our true priorities.
Meanwhile, for me, a bet I placed a little while ago has proven successful way beyond what I expected. And I feel a little overwhelmed, like, I know I aimed for this but I never thought it would happen and now it’s reality and… I doubt myself. I’m nervous to do it, but also nervous that this opportunity will disappear. Particularly with so much else going on, I feel like I would have liked to clear the way a little, so I could focus on this and only this.
But, it never works out that way, does it? When there’s not much going on I seem to have to seek out my adventures, but when life is chaotic adventures are thrust upon me. All you can do is set your priorities and try hard to stick to them. Work hard, but not so hard that you burn out.
Go and get that same advice again, in the hope that this time you’ll do a little better following it than before.
I’ve determined that 6am workout classes are the way to prioritize and fit in exercise. As a result, I’ve discovered that there’s something quite depressing about oversleeping and thinking “because I did not get up at 5:30 I am not going to fit in everything I want to do today”.
But on Monday I made it, and again this morning. And instead I thought – this is how committed I am to achieving everything I want to.
Crazy audacious goals, are, by their nature, hard to reach. The hardest part of a 6am workout is just making it out the door. Manage that, and the rest is pretty easy.
I’m trying a new strategy here. I have an option of two 6am classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. One is spin, which I adore, and have to leave at 5:45 for. The other is bootcamp, which is a little scarier, and I have to leave at 5:55 for. So I set my alarm for 5:30 and on Monday my feer of bootcamp propelled me out the door and up the road in time. This morning I was groggy after a later night than I should have had (Girl Geek dinner) and ended up at bootcamp.
Which wasn’t as bad as I feared. And whilst it’s likely that I still won’t achieve absolutely everything I want to today, I do feel that I made the best start I could.
What strategies do you employ for tricking yourself into things? And fitting everything in?
My goal for July was to deal with bureaucracy and explore more. My success was so-so. I got my work-permit sorted, and found out how to get my tax form from IBM (still do to – ask for it). And my boyfriend and I took a trip to Paris… Ontario.
But, a lot of my organizational energy went on figuring out what I was going to do next. I didn’t get everything done that I needed to. I continued to read a lot of novels.
