Learning to linger ...

It’s the last day of 2011 and it’s the kind of day made for reflection. By any measure, it was a day of simple pleasures and little stress. We took a break from putting away holiday decorations to enjoy a late-morning visit with our friend Marlena and her daughter, followed by a trip to the veterinary clinic for an annual check-up for one of our dogs. Then back home, where my husband and I sat near each other, each reading a book silently, looking up every so often to smile or comment on the antics of the four sheltie “children” frolicking in the living room. We had a nice visit with our friend Sara, sharing hot chocolate and rice krispie treats, and then settled into an afternoon with nowhere to go and nothing to do. And somewhere, in the quiet moments, I got to thinking about what I’d learned this year.

I have learned that life’s most powerful lessons come when we linger – when we stop rushing and take a deliberate pause. When we realize that the most meaningful moment is now.

Roses for Grandma

I come from a family without a religious tradition. So I don’t know how I’m “supposed” to handle death. On August 13th, I went to the cemetery where my grandparents and great-grandparents are buried, to bring a bouquet of red roses to commemorate what would have been my grandma’s 89th birthday. I laid down the flowers and immediately looked back toward my car, thinking there was nothing left to do but drive home. But something told me to linger.

So I sat down in the grass in front of the gravestone and listened to the birds. I slowly and deliberately brushed each piece of dried grass, thrown from the mowers, off the marble to reveal its lettering more clearly. I arranged the flowers perfectly. I smelled them and remembered how I
always brought my grandma flowers on Valentine’s Day and on her birthday. I took a moment to wonder what my grandpa was like; he died before I was born, when he was just 8 years older than I am now. I wondered what it must have been like to have been widowed so young, and how my grandma’s life was changed by that tragedy.

I stood up and starting wandering the row of burial plots. The stone next to my grandparents belongs to a couple whose wedding date is inscribed in a heart shape, right between their names. They were married on August 22nd – the same day that Robert and I were married. It made me smile and make a mental note to put that in my will – to ask my family to have my gravestone commemorate not just my birth and my death, but the days – like my wedding day – when I was most alive. Further down the row was a stone with three names – mother, father and 13-year-old boy – who all died on the same day. I lingered at length, wondering if they were in a car accident or a house fire, and wondering who gathered around their caskets to lay them to rest.

The other side of the aisle had more stories. Two brothers – one who lived to be just 4 and another who died at 10 – their deaths several years apart. How could one family be so unlucky? Did their sons both have the same genetic disease? Did the second child know what fate awaited him? How do two parents ever recover from this kind of double tragedy?

I never knew my great-grandparents, but am glad that they are buried in the same cemetery – and the same garden row – as my grandma and grandpa. I walked down to their stone to brush off the dried grass and to give them a warm smile.

And then I turned around to look out across the entire cemetery and saw a fascinating sight – several sturdy, stately trees sheered off in the middle of their trunks by a tornado that passed through the past week. I snapped a photo and went back to my car, thinking of the phrase “cut short” and not sure whether I was thinking of the trees or the little boys, or both.

Lingering Matters Everywhere

Perhaps you’ve heard the Alabama song “I’m in a Hurry to Get Things Done.” It’s really the theme song of my life – not something I’m particularly proud of, but an acknowledgement that means I can make meaningful change. I am always working too hard and too much, rushing from place to place, assembling achievements, scheduling more commitments, amassing “to do” lists that rival each previous “to do” list. And I infrequently take a moment to just think – to take a deep breath and to reflect on where I’ve been, what I’ve learned or where I’m headed. The inexcusable lapse between my blog posts is itself a tiny bit of evidence that I have spent much of my year rushing, and not enough of it reflecting.

So, while I’m not much on the idea of “New Year’s resolutions,” I am making one this year. I resolve to linger. More often. And longer.

Because I think lingering matters. It matters at work, where the choice to slow down before rushing off to the next meeting could mean choosing to share a compliment at how a difficult business issue was handled. It could mean impacting a career in a positive way, or building an alliance or gaining clarity. Sometimes being late to the next meeting is worth it.

Lingering matters at home. Just this week, I went to bed in tears, feeling overwhelmed with the discovery that the failure of a piece of computer hardware meant that I’d lost nearly everything I’d written – personally and professionally – between 2002 and 2007. I was distraught and angry and lashing out at my husband, who didn’t deserve it. Once the lights were out and we had both crawled under the covers, I expected Robert to fall asleep without another word or gesture. But he listened to me crying and he chose to come linger with me. He slid over to my side of the bed, wrapped his arm around my waist, and said nothing.

Lingering matters with friends and with strangers. This past summer, I took a long lunch break to go to the neighborhood park with a friend and his two sons. We lingered there long past when I normally would have gotten back to my desk. We lingered so long, in fact, that I got a horrible sunburn. And it was fun, and relaxing and joyful, and exactly what I needed.

And yesterday, I met a 94-year-old woman who is housebound and under the care of hospice nurses. I had been told she loves dogs, so I brought two of my pups to visit with her. And long after my mom – who introduced me to my new friend Betty – suggested we leave, I lingered. I watched silently as this amazing woman who has lived nearly a century got lost in the sensation of petting a five-pound puppy with her own tiny, frail hands, and in the joy of being kissed on the nose by this gentle creature who doesn’t see her wrinkles or care that Betty turned off her hearing aid.

In 2012, and always, I hope you linger. I hope that when you’re in the middle of a busy day, and have a nagging feeling that one of your colleagues is struggling with something that is going unsaid, that you will approach her and ask if she is okay. And then that you will have the courage to wait, in silence, for her to feel and acknowledge your emotions – for her to recognize your compassion and concern and to let down her wall for a moment to share what is bothering her. It might take just five minutes for you to take pause to remind yourselves that we don’t check our humanity at the door when we enter the workplace each day.

Quit rushing. Start breathing more deeply. Go ahead and close your eyes the next time you are kissed or someone tells you they love you. Brush the grass off a gravestone or go back for a second hug before a new friend departs. Smile before you walk away instead of after. Look your spouse and your children in the eye tomorrow during dinner. Ask someone how their day was, and if they say, “fine,” ask for more detail. Then sit back and listen.

Life is in the lingering.

Learning to embrace vulnerability as a business asset

In business, our greatest successes are often credited to great leaders -- to men and women who exhibit unflagging devotion to their companies' ideals, to the care of their customers, and to the daily acknowledgement that their employees are their greatest assets. And when it comes to the character traits required of such "great leaders," the descriptions often center around strength -- toughness, courage, perseverance, and the ability to forego one's personal needs in favor of the "greater good."

So, for most of us climbing the rungs of the corporate ladder, the last trait we would consider embracing is "vulnerability." And yet, the willingness to be vulnerable in business might very well be what separates good leaders from great leaders -- and overwrought professionals from those whose careers bring them balance, fulfillment and joy.


Early in my career, I determined that being tough was the key to success -- particularly for women in business. I accepted my first director-level role at just 28 and quickly found myself trying to prove my worth among colleagues with more experience, more tenure, more graduate degrees, more gray hair, and more -- well, let's admit it -- testosterone. In that particular organization, there were only two kinds of women in executive leadership roles -- the "sugar and spice" women who had been promoted by the old boys' network for the softness and balance they brought to the board room (carried in, of course, on stiletto heels), and the female leaders who had checked their femininity at the door and were hoping beyond hope that their boxy business suits and tireless hours at the office would somehow level the playing field. And I, for one, was not about to become the kind of leader who sustains her power by filling the office candy bowl, smiling sweetly, deferring always to the president (even when he's wrong), and scheduling the next cosmetic surgery procedure well in advance of needing it.


Let me step back for a moment to clarify that this blog post is not a lesson on gender disparities in business -- not a diatribe on embracing femininity in the workplace. My journey toward understanding the value of vulnerability in business has been colored (and delayed, I think) by my experiences as a female leader, but what I have learned would serve me equally well if I were a man -- in any industry, at any age, and under any circumstance.


Here's where my thinking got off track many years ago -- I equated vulnerability with weakness. And I attributed weakness to the softness that women are socialized to embrace. I read books like Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office, and I spouted nail-spitting phrases like "I'm not here to be liked. I'm here to be respected."


Looking back, I don't regret the years I spent being a "tough" business professional. I suspect my previous outlook and the behavior it inspired gave me the confidence to assert myself in a tough industry and to achieve a great deal for my colleagues and customers. But recently, my career has called out for a dose of balance. I got it by embracing vulnerability as a business asset. And you can too.


Imagine what your organization could achieve if you let down your guard long enough to admit that you don't know what you don't know. Imagine how you might help your employees grow if you could truly gain their trust, and be admired for your humanity as much as for your authority.


At a large marketing conference earlier this summer, an amazing thing happened. Keynote speaker and revered marketing expert Seth Godin ended his talk by encouraging the 500 attendees to spend their lunch hour sharing with their tablemates the "one irrational fear" that they were currently facing. So we did. Strangers and comrades, we talked about our work projects, our leadership deficiencies, and our dreams deferred. And in the moment of embracing the fear -- in becoming vulnerable to those who we respect and admire -- we released the fear, made valuable business connections and left -- yes, it's true -- impressions of ourselves that were strong and authentic and anything but "weak."

My New Book, Hot Off the Presses...

Last night, I received my first copies of my new book. I thumbed through a copy, self-critical and holding my breath. Then I tried reading it to my dogs, but they lost interest after deciding the fresh ink smell was not palatable. Then I autographed the first copy for my husband.

Then, like the big geek I am, I photographed the book on a shelf in our library. Here it is, hot off the presses and sitting on the shelf alongside the collected works of Shakespeare. Didn't you just know you'd live to see the day? :-)
 

Thank you all for your support.

If you haven't heard, "The Lessons No One Taught Us" is the inspiration for my next book, which will be a collection of essays about life's most important, and sometimes most startling, lessons.

Do you have ideas for a "lesson" I ought to explore (in the blogosphere, in the book, or both)? I welcome your suggestions. In fact, I'll choose my next post from among the topics you suggest. For today, I'm just focusing on "learning not to eat too many jelly beans."

ANNOUNCEMENT: Kate's book has just been published!

Drumroll, please...

The Other Side of Demure, a collection of poetry, is now available in hard cover. Thank you to everyone for their support. Now, it's time to start planning the tour -- readings at all of the usual haunts, like coffee shops, universities and libraries. Learn more at http://www.theothersideofdemure.com/.

Learning to "go public" with your private life...

We live in a world in which the lines between personal and professional, or private and public, are being blurred in powerful and significant ways. And I, for one, am learning to benefit from these wider categories. (Though, sometimes, I find it all a little intimidating.)

Just years ago, there were things that no one talked about in “polite company” (whatever that means) – not your love affairs or your recent medical tests or your excitement over landing a new job. But thanks to everyday bloggers and other forms of self-publishing, anyone can have a platform – even if it’s just your Facebook profile, where you comment on which child has come down with a cold this week, or your Twitter feed, where you like to wax philosophical about current events or the new restaurant on the edge of town.

Privacy Vs. Secrecy; And Sharing as a Way to Connect
Last week, Oprah Winfrey dedicated an entire episode to telling the world about her recent discovery that she has a half-sister who she never knew existed. She was candid and vulnerable about what this meant for her relationships with the sister, her mother, and her new-found niece and nephew. And she was quick to point out that she chose to do the episode because there’s nothing more powerful than owning your truth. (Indeed, she could have let the tabloids and news shows tell her story – or their versions of it. But to maintain the power over your life and its truths, you need to be the mouthpiece for your own stories.)

Sure, there are things that we don’t need to tell the world (and plenty of things the world doesn’t want to know about us). But I find it liberating that we live in an era in which strangers are connecting every day, where we’re loosening up our definitions of “friendship” to let more people into our lives, where the kind of silence that used to be respected as a preference for “privacy” is now sometimes criticized as “secrecy.” That last one can be a double-edged sword, indeed, but I – for one – don’t ever want to go back to a time when families whisper the word “cancer” or when we disown our adult children for their failed marriages or when we suffer in silence when dealing with a financial strain that could be alleviated if we would only reach out for the insights of others.

I’m a connector. I am logged into Facebook and LinkedIn every day. I have two e-mail accounts, three phone numbers, a Twitter feed, a Skype account, and a penchant for attending networking events. There are many things that I do not know, but two things that I know for sure: 1. I am more likely to learn about and conquer my areas of ignorance and fear if I connect to others. 2. My life is simply richer and more joyful when I am interacting with others versus turning inward.

A Caveat

To be able to have anything meaningful to say to others, we must first understand ourselves. So I’m not suggesting we spend all our time at parties, ballgames, or business mixers. The time we spend alone is incredibly valuable -- for our intellectual and spiritual growth, and for our overall physical and emotional well-being. I try to find some time each day to just be. To breathe deeply. To get lost in a beautiful sound – like the ducks flapping their way to a water landing on the pond behind my house, or a restful instrumental song on the radio. To do something that stretches my mind – like writing a poem, or a blog entry, or reading a chapter of a great book while soaking in a bubble bath.

Becoming an Open Book (Literally)

This year, I am taking on the challenge of purposefully blurring the lines between the self who likes to listen to backyard wildlife and the self who puts on a business suit to speak at professional conferences. And, no, I’m not going on a speaking tour to talk about ducks. Well, not exactly.

In a few months, I’ll be unveiling a book of poetry entitled The Other Side of Demure. It contains recent work, as well as pieces that I’ve written throughout my 20-year career as a writer. It is – as is most poetry or short fiction – a kaleidoscope of truth, fantasy, wonders, and observations. While there are many poems in which the speaker (voice) is not the author – or at least not entirely – she’s in there. These are poems that could not have been written by anyone but me, so I have to face the vulnerability of letting a reading public into my life in this way.

Once the ISBN is registered and the book is available for purchase, bits of my personal life will become public in a way that I can never take back. The idea invigorates me, and scares me silly.

So, Maybe You’re Not a Writer

Not everyone will write a book, or release an album, or offer up their words or art in a very public way. But we can all find a project that challenges us to be more authentic, more vulnerable, more introspective, and ultimately more supportive and welcoming of the people around us.

Ask yourself what you can do this year that would make you better connected to your family or friends; better connected to your colleagues or even your competitors; better connected to strangers who live on the other side of the world. Maybe you’ll offer helpful words to a stranger when her car breaks down and she seems overwhelmed by it all. Maybe you’ll make a donation to a micro-financing organization to help a family start a business in a third-world country. Maybe you’ll post a comment to an online magazine, where your perspectives will make others reevaluate their own thinking. Maybe you’ll raise your hand to ask a question the next time you find yourself in the audience of a town hall meeting.

Peel away just one layer of self-protective anonymity in the name of reaching out to others. You might be surprised by how much more whole you feel without that shell, and how much warmer it is when you’re just a little more bare.

Learning to cook...

I've always wanted to be one of those people who works magic in the kitchen -- who applies a little bit of chemisty with some creativity and a whole lot of love, and voila! The perfect meal is served. But I've always been lacking that je ne sais quois when it comes to cooking. And it sometimes makes me feel inadequate.

For most people, cooking is part of family or culture. In my family, we never went hungry... but we also didn't live in the kitchen, dangling from the apron strings of mothers and grandmothers. There are no "famous family recipes" but there are some food traditions, like eating fried green tomatoes in the summer. Until recently, I never really gave it a thought.

But about a year ago, I was looking around my kitchen and thinking "these countertops were made for kneading dough" and "my refrigerator has plenty more room for fresh vegetables." So I started experimenting with little things. I went "harvesting" in my friend Lynn's herb garden. I learned how to make gluten-free pizza dough. I created a recipe for a really healthy and robust vegetable soup. But then I got bored.

Can't cook? Hire a teacher!

It never occurred to me that you could hire someone to teach you to cook. But my friend Jolanta did exactly that -- she hired a chef to come help me navigate my quirky food allergies and whip up something delicious in the kitchen. Enter Chef Kathy Dederich (http://www.chefplease.com/). Imagine yourself roaming the aisles of your local grocery store, with your own personal chef. (Yes, she wore the white uniform!) While I enjoyed cooking with her, I think the opportunity to grocery shop with an expert was equally valuable. I asked questions like "how do you know which kind of onion to choose?" [her answer? whichever ones are on sale!] or "should you smell the lemons to know if they're fresh?" and "are chickpeas something you buy in a can or in a bag?" I learned so much.

We spent about five or six hours with Kathy, investigating the various uses of herbs and marveling over her fancy pressure cooker. (Santa: I'd like one of those next year.) In the end, here's what I learned:

1. Going on a great "date" with your husband doesn't have to involve a restaurant or the theatre. Try a cooking date in your own kitchen. Robert and I had a lot of fun learning to work side by side at the cutting board.

2. Chickpeas are found in the ethnic aisle, dried in a bag. (Who knew??)

3. If I try and am not afraid to fail, I can cook. I don't love it, but I enjoy it. (I won't ever be a food blogger. And, for the record, I hate the term "foodie"! Sounds like a trendy way to say "thinks too much about food." But I digress...)

4. Great friends give great gifts (Jolanta -- you're the best!). Looking for a great gift for a friend? Give them an experience instead of a "thing." Our personal chef experience has given us memories that last far longer than any material gift.

5. It's not too late to learn new things. So, in 2011, I'm going to find a few more things I'm not good at (or just naive about) -- like cooking -- and try to tackle them. Could be an interesting year.

Bon appetit!