Be the Hero of your own Story!

My weeks are mostly upbeat and busy with a few weeks thrown in that are absolutely exhilarating and brilliant and then there are some weeks where all I want to do is drag myself back home, lick my virtual wounds, drag the comforter over my head and just go to sleep! This past week was in the last category and honestly after sulking alone for an entire evening and a day (the husband and kid were away at a Robotics tournament), I said enough was enough and took the puppy out for a long hike to clear my head and by the end of my 2 hour plus long walk I felt more like the "hero" of my story vs. that person that needed rescuing.

How to Break Free from Victim Mentality?

1. Take ownership and responsibility for your actions are and their outcomes.Determine what is needed and what is important to you and what do you need to do to make it happen. Don’t waste time blaming or getting angry at those who don’t want or need the same things you do. Get busy taking care of what’s important to you, and leave the others out of it.
2. Stop blaming. When you hear yourself going into blame stories, whether against other people, the world, life, whomever or whatever... say “stop” to yourself out loud, and actually turn your attention away from your blaming thoughts.
3. Become aware of the root of your sense of powerlessness. Before you construct the next narrative on who’s stealing your power, get curious about the underlying feelings of powerlessness that precede all situations. Fix it!
4. Be compassionate to yourself and others. Acknowledge your suffering with kindness, and then consider how to snap out of it. If there is a way for you to help someone else snap out of it ...more power to you. Offering kindness is the surest antidote to “Poor me.” 
5. Practice Gratitude. Victim mentality focuses you on your perceived loss . Try flipping your perspective and focusing on something that matters to you, that you do enjoy, and that you do "get." Shift your attention from what you’re missing to what you have. Today I am immensely grateful that my son and his awesome robotics team clean-swept the robotics tournament and qualified at the State Level. I am grateful for this beautiful view of a tree standing alone but strong...beautiful in it's solitude, grateful for the playful puppy who walked an hour by my side as we quietly enjoyed nature and the quiet peace.

So are you going to write your story differently starting today?

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and attention.” — Buddha

#MeToo

"#metoo - whether it was close at home or outside on that public bus (where the older "gentleman" copped a feel) or at work where you are told "you will get promoted after you come back from maternity" and yet life makes you stronger and more resilient - you take the learning and pass it along to your next generation. You teach your young man to cook, clean and help but more importantly to empathize with and respect women. That for me is true progress" 

#Metoo Campaign - is just a "tip of the iceberg" - 9 out of every woman I have talked to at work or personally has a gender discrimination or harassment (or both) story to share.  There is a monumental amount of work to be done in confronting this climate of  gender discrimination and harrassment—one in which women are belittled and undermined and abused and sometimes pushed out of their industries altogether. But uncovering the colossal scale of the problem and having women speak up is revolutionary in its own right.

In anticipation of  a "bright future" where equality is not just a buzz word but something we consciously add into our psyche.
On a lighter note,  I made one of my favorite desserts with a healthy twist - "Sakkarai Pongal" with a blend of quinoa and brown rice. This recipe is definitely not a #metoo but one of it's kind - easy to make, healthy and an acquired taste (my family loves it!). The ghee used in this recipe was also made in my Instant Pot ( I use Organic Valley  butter).

Here's my quick and easy recipe for Sakkarai Pongal -

 Sakkarai Pongal ( to bright futures)

Ingredients

1. 1/2 Cup Quinoa/Brown Rice Blend,  1/2 Cup Moong Dal (toasted)
2. 1/2 Cup Powdered Jaggery ( I used 1/4 cup jaggery and 2 tsp Stevia)
3. 2 tablespoons ghee ( use more or less, based on your preference)
4. Cashews and Raisins, Crushed Elaichi Powder (Cardamom)

Method

1. Put your Instant Pot in Saute Mode -  heat the ghee and fry the cashews and raisins golden brown. Remove and set the fried cashews and raisins aside
2. Now to the same pan add the toasted quinoa/brown rice blend and moong dal (or this might be a good time to toast it :-) )
3. Add two and a 1/4 cups of water and set on "Rice Mode" - natural release
4. When you open your instant pot you will see that the Pongal has a semi-watery consistency. That is perfect !!! I add the powdered jaggery and mix it into this mixture thoroughly ( I don't make the jaggery water mix separately...if you have the time and the inclination please feel free to do that additional step). 
5. I then add the crushed cardamom powder, raisins and cashews
6. Enjoy with your family !!!

Happy Diwali!

Bridging the Gender Gap

“Too often women overestimate the risks and underestimate themselves. Only by doing the very things we’re afraid of can we come to realize how little reason we ever had to fear. The only way to build confidence and courage is by acting with it.”

A creature of habit - I got up this morning at 6.45 AM. I jump into the morning "school run" routine. I heat up the water for the morning chai, start the pressure cooker for a choley subzi , heat up my son's AM hot chocolate and start emptying the dishwasher. I am like a "robot on auto-pilot" packing my son's lunch box with snacks and drinks, waiting for the choley to get done so that I can pack it in his thermos. I am done with most of the activities around 7.30 AM and sit down with my cup of chai (after I have poured out a cup for my mother and K1) and my customary handful of peanuts to check on urgent emails that need a quick response. As I was in the middle of a work email, suddenly the pressure cooker whistles and I instruct K2 aka my general boy friday - my son to switch off the pressure cooker and my husband to get a bag of Annie's cookies from the garage. My mother suddenly comments - Come On you are doing nothing...just ordering them around - how do you get your exercise - BollyX? 
That was the proverbial matador waving a red cloth before the bull - of course! I lost it !!! But the reality is this is not just my mother's  (Note : I said mother not MIL) attitude...this is the attitude of most women my mother's generation from our part of the globe - the expectation that a woman/girl should seamlessly don multiple hats while the men can rest and relax (on the merit of the fact that they were born men !!!).  Seriously - if women can't be a support system for women (especially your own mother) who else will be?
Anyway enough said about my gender gap travails and lets talk about the above-mentioned Choley/Channa Masala that is honestly a life-saver in my meal plans because it's so simple.

CHANNA/CHOLEY MASALA

What you Need?

Bhuna Masala - I make this by the truckload and freeze it ( I make enough to last me 1-2 months). I take a little bit of oil (about 1/2 tsp) and add jeera and turmeric - then I add grated ginger ( 1 huge knob) and garlic ( one entire one) and let it cook with 6 Red Onions till the onions brown, then I add 6 large tomatoes or 8 medium tomatoes and cook for 10 minutes, the more you cook the better the bhuna masala tastes. When it has cooled down a bit I grind the masala in my Blendetec and store in small mason jars in my freezer for use as and when needed. This makes my normal day to day cooking way uncomplicated. And if we are honest here, I am no cooking diva - just someone who loves eating and loves eating healthy. I used the Bhuna Masala from my freezer today.

Choley Masala - I use Roopak's Pindi Chana Masala - I swear by this one - but I am sure you have your favorite brand, go ahead and use that

Canned Organic Garbanzo Beans  (from Trader Joe's) - no preservatives in this only sea-salt. I wash and rinse the chickpeas out to control how much salt goes into the dish.

Ketchup,  Cilantro, Cinnamon Powder (optional)

In your Pressure Cooker or Instant Pot - first Saute the Bhuna Masala (no oil for me) but if you are so inclined with a bit of oil. Use one large table spoon of bhuna masala per can of choley. Then add the Chana Masala - everyone has their formula - I add a large teaspoon per can of Choley. I cook for a while and then add the choley. In the Instant Pot I cook the Choley for 5 minutes high pressure, NR. On the pressure cooker I cook it for 2 whistles, QR. Add salt to taste. I add some ketchup (don't ask me why, it kicks the taste up a notch) and then sprinkle cinnamon  to taste and Cilantro (if I have it).

I usually make 3 cans worth of choley and it lasts us two meals - honestly it tastes better the next day with just a side of toast. I am enjoying a quiet lunch at my desk of Channa Masala and a banana as I write this blog post

I will leave you with the thought that - the way I am countering this gender gap is I am bringing up a boy who appreciates working women, who empathizes with the efforts we put into keeping our work lives & personal lives running smoothly. More importantly I am bringing up a boy who can  COOK a killer Channa Masala.

Leading as a Woman

Source : 2014 Leading Women. Research study: Closing the Leadership Gender Gap

I heard an insightful presentation from my manager (who is a woman and the first woman that I have worked for in about 18 years in the tech field & an awesome one at that!) and it had me thinking about Women as leaders especially in the tech industry. Here are some perturbing statistics :

• 4.6% of the Fortune 1000 CEOs are women 
• Women earn 30% lesser on an average than a man for the same job ( it applies to executives too)
• In a study of 25,000 Harvard Business School graduates designed to understand why the gender gap in leadership is so persistent, the one factor that stood out was mismatched expectations between men and women about who was going to be responsible for the home front. Even among the Millennials, men were much more likely to say that they expected to be in a traditional relationship, where their career was primary (don't let me get on a soapbox on this topic, you will beg for mercy I promise you :-) )

The reality from my perspective is re-thinking Leadership as it exists in all it's glory today. Leadership at work is usually seen as a "zero-sum game" - which doesn't have to be the case. You don't always have to put work first in order to rise to the top. It is alright to be "dual centric" -- you sometimes prioritize personal life over work and sometimes prioritize work over personal life.  Reality is there is no such thing as work-life balance, at least for me and then I have to choose - some weeks priorities at work take precedence - an Ops Review, a customer summit or a deliverable with  a deadline AND other weeks my 8 yr old's SAT's (State Administered Tests) or Diorama projects become all consuming...it is just letting go and being alright with just tackling what is a priority then.
  
My advice to women (and men alike) is lessons I have learnt sometimes by observing but mostly by living and working in the Silicon Valley :

# Be Authentic - I don't believe specific traits define a leader, in fact I will go ahead and make the statement - your leadership emerges from your life story. Your life story provides the context for your experiences and through it you can find the inspiration to make an impact. Discovering your leadership requires a certain degree of commitment to develop/discover yourself. 
# Be Aware of your blind spots - Every single person has blind spots aka weak points. Being self-aware and brutally honest with yourself is key here. You are in denial if you don't see yourself as other's see you. And this perception gap is something you have to fix if you want to see yourself grow as a leader.
# Competency - I had watched a Ted Talk by Susan Colantuono - Closing the Leadership Gender Gap (the missing 33%). 

In seeking to identify Leadership traits, according to her (and I agree) there are 3 pillars.One of the key pillars is skills and competencies with running the business - strategic value, execution and financial acumen. It has to do with aligning your own or your group goals with the vision and mission of your organization and helping achieve the goals of the organization. That is the missing 33% of the career success equation for women - it doesn't mean that women are not capable enough or mathematically inclined or strategic. It just means that most of the career advice we are given is conventional and built around soft skills like networking, personal brand, self awareness (guilty as charged but I believe its critical), assertiveness, confidence, empathy and people skills. The reality is  the advice that is usually missed is equally critical (if not more critical) - Competency. I define it as the ability to have

•  the strategic ability to have a vision of what is required for your market (that will get you the revenue and market share)
• Executing to that vision 
• Looping back on how your group's  accomplishments are helping the organization realize it's vision and mission. 

I do believe at the end of the day your work and reputation does speak for itself.

I want to leave you with this quote by John Quincy Adams

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.

Dissecting the She-conomy

“You don’t have to be anti-man to be pro-woman.” ~Jane Galvin Lewis 

I was at a  conference last week where I heard about the power of the she-conomy. The reality is that there are two sides to this coin...wonderful is the fact that -

• Globally, about 870 million women who have not previously participated in the mainstream economy will gain employment or start their own business by 2020. Most of these women – 822 million – will come from non-industrialized countries, while roughly 47 million will come from North America,Western Europe and Japan.
• Women will be responsible for 19 Trillion in spending and 13 Tr in Earnings in 2016 in the US
• Senior women age 50 and older control net worth of $19 trillion and own more than three-fourths of the US financial wealth

At the same time it is perturbing to see that :

• In developing economies women are 20 percent less likely than men to have an account at a formal financial institution and 17 percent less likely to have borrowed formally in the past year.
• A study in India showed that, although accounts might be opened in the name of a woman, the decision-making authority around the use of those funds often lies with a male relative. The World Bank’s Gender at Work report (2014) asserts: “On virtually every global measure, women are more economically excluded than men.

I see this behavior in my Ma who was totally like an "ostrich with her head stuck in the sand" as far as her finances are concerned ...She was a housewife and in the past she let my father deal with all things taxes, finance and investing. Trying to learn a new skill (now that Bapa is gone) is hard for her.  However, I see the same behavior from my mother-in-law  who has worked all her life as a doctor - yet when it comes to banking, finances and investing -- she leaves it all to the man of the house. I remember her telling me, she just asks Baba for money when she needed it and he gave it to her ...so the point above by World Bank on the male having the decision making authority seems to ring true.

I believe there are 4 key barriers to women engaging more fully with finance and investing :

• lack of time 
• fear of numbers
• lack of basic  financial education
• off-putting attitudes and biases of  family members and society in general

I believe to overcome these barriers women need to :

• Get Educated About Money - Take the time to learn about how money works, and about how different investments work. You can learn in bite sized bits, tackling a concept a day, until you feel comfortable with money, and with making money decisions. 
• Fund your own retirement (take control) -  If you have a job, make sure some of that money goes into a retirement account. If you do not have a job, talk to your partner about a spousal IRA - plan your retirement
• Don't be Afraid -  Framing financial challenges as 'lessons learned' and planning for expected and unexpected life milestones can help build strength and confidence.

• Frugality is not a cuss-word - It's Not About Being Cheap or being a cheapskate, a miser or a tightwad.  It's about having security and peace of mind by spending less than you make.  It's about knowing where you stand financially on a daily basis so you can make intelligent fiscal decisions. I budget, I coupon and I forecast our savings and spending at home just like I do at work. 

At the end of the day She-conomy is about empowerment and true financial freedom. It's about building the know-how to walk that walk towards independence (vs. talking it) which is an alien concept for so many women. So what is your financial strategy...if you could change one thing  today what would you change?

The Bitter Truth : Killing Daughters one Foetus at a time

I am the mother of a son ( and truth be told I had wanted a girl with an unholy fervor...to the extent that I had  only picked out a girl's name). Much of this fervor came with my childhood experiences : the discrimination of  girls from boys...whether it was food, pocket money, opportunities...there was a difference - even in the so-called educated echelons of society. It wasn't a big surprise that my thesis for my first year of under-grad was on Female Foeticide, I got an A+ in that paper but was left with the distinct feeling that I had just scratched the tip of an iceberg...based on what I have seen in India ( and mind you a lot of this blog post is based on my formative experiences in India, so take it with a grain of salt) - sons feel entitled while daughters feel grateful for being given a chance. India has progressed yet I see that the problem  has aggravated : where now no longer is a woman just focused on the household chores, she also is expected to go out and earn a livelihood with her man. Example in Point: The three ladies who worked for my Ma in Pune, all contributed 40%+ of the household income but took care of 100% of all the domestic chores at home. The statistician in me kept asking them pointed questions and the answers I got pissed me off no end.

In a country that worships Ma Durga for ten days, it is ironical that we treat this issue with such blase disregard. Why this renewed interest in the topic, last night I was in the mood for a serious documentary and I watched an episode of "Satyameva Jayate" ( the truth always wins)  which was on Female Foeticide.

The episode is in Hindi, but the statistics from this episode are eye-popping and self-explanatory. If you are interested in watching the episode feel free to go here

(A) This problem started in urban areas and spread to rural areas...contrary to belief that it was practiced by the uneducated, it is propagated by the educated.

(B) This problem used to be prevalent only in 3 states (with Tamil Nadu leading the charter) when I did my research in 1992, in 2012 - this phenomenon has spread across India

(C) The Sex Ratio has been declining dramatically the past 20 years...

I had read somewhere - Women, who comprise half the world's population, do two thirds of the world's work, earn one tenth of the world's income and own one hundredth of the world's property

The Change lies within - it is about Society changing it's mindset, implementing checks and balances in the system, it is about these us women refusing to be victims and choosing to walk down the lesser-trodden road...

Incidentally it was Bapa who brainstormed with me almost two decades back and helped me pick the topic on Female Foeticide...it has been exactly 3 months today since he passed away (March 11th,2013) and the emptiness and grief that hit me today  was unusually sharp...

So how is your week turning out? I had wonderful food delivered by House of Lakshmi - soul satisfying South Indian Food...I have two boys calling me downstairs to go for a walk down to the Bay Trails and I am  excited to be a part of TedXSanJose tomorrow...so bonjour  tristesse thank you for being a constant companion the past three months...can I take a rain check for the next couple days!

The Next Genderation...and an Aha! Moment!

For the fact that I work in the Bay Area (a dozen years) and have had the dubious pleasure in two of the companies I worked at of being the only woman Product Management Lead...I have to say with a certain amount of regret that I haven't really been to any of the conferences hosted by PBWC. This year was a marked change...I was at The Next Genderation conference in Moscone. My first thought on walking in - (a) Holy Shit! this is a lot of women (~ 4000)  Second Thought - Dang! my hair is short ( hey if you were looking for something more than sheer vanity look elsewhere...seeing all these women with their lovely tresses was intimidating...I understand now why K1 rolls his eyes every time I come back after a hair cut)...Vanity aside I think this conference gave me a lot of food for thought...I got to see live on the stage successful women who were sharing the "secret sauce"...be it Jackie Speier talking about keeping a close network of friends who would remain with you no matter what ; to Sheryl Sandberg asking us to lean in...to gorgeous Rita Moreno who at 81 defined Joie de vivre...to Jennifer Granholm who told us to take on the hard challenges...whether we succeed or fail, we will surely learn from them.

 My head is whirling with all the things I heard...some were immensely helpful and others I will soon forget. I loved  the session on body language where I learnt not to tilt my head while listening (you are acting submissive)...don't smile too much...don't fiddle with your hair or jewellery ( doesn't apply to me ;-) )...don't nod your head ( M told me about that one a week back,  nodding your head like tilting your head is an act of submission, I am trying so hard to internalize it...but it is a cultural thing you see...most Indians are Bobble heads...)...my aha! moment came    afterwards on a long cold walk with K1...here is what I realized : The secret sauce that worked for one successful woman can bring another woman abject misery...here is my example...when I had K2...my life changed dramatically yet instead of taking my leg off the pedal...I ahem! leaned in...I took a new role which played into my area of expertise...pretty sure I would crack the code and nail it...what those 9 months taught me was humility and an acceptance that sometimes leaning in doesn't work...you need to lean back and get your priorities in order...(and my priority then was my baby...and no I couldn't afford to use the next door office as a nursery)...I chose to join as a smaller fish in a bigger pond and what an experience that was...and guess what I loved my job and got to spend time with K2 (there were no sacrifices or compromises just finding out what worked for me).So find your secret sauce...it might help you : become a CEO,  write a book, raise a happy, healthy and well-adjusted child or something as touchy-feely like finding peace/happiness...

What else did I do today - K1, K2 and I whipped up a quick 30 minute dinner that looked like this...

For the curious - it was Khichidi made with brown basmati rice, whole moong  dal and Garbanzo beans, a simple moong sprouts salad and Palak Paneer...as a friend says it - Life is good!

Anamika...the nameless one!

I feel angry... I am a woman,

I feel shame...I am a woman

I feel helpless...I am a woman.

• There is a rape in India every 22 minutes
• 51% of the rape victims are below the age of 18
• New Delhi has the dubious distinction of being the rape capital of the world
• The rate of rapes in India has doubled (so much for emancipation!) in the past 10 years
• Ironically, about 90% of the rape victims do not report in India due to social pressure and fear of being shunned ( Dalit Women and women in Kashmir stand out as classic examples)
• Interestingly, India is but 3rd in the world for reported rape cases, US is first (18 K rapes registered in the first 3 quarters of 2012 in India vs. 93K in the US)

I grew up with a understanding that there was a clear disparity, my mother was overly cautious where I was concerned...be home by six, I don't want you going out late in the night etc. etc....I understood  but resented the fact that I didn't have the same level of freedom my brother had..

I wrote and studied dutifully about the statistics of  rape, female infanticide, dowry deaths in India...I knew all the facts in theory, yet it became a real issue in my mind in 1991, when there was a case of a 8 year old girl who was raped by 3 men and then drowned...I wrote a poem about it (and then hid the diary in the back of my cupboard, I felt all the things I mentioned above every time I read it...angry, helpless and shamed)...there was but one article in "The Indian Express" after which the issue became a non-issue. I remembered the incident every time I opened the diary and read the poem (which became fewer and far between with the passage of time), I read it again today -

Rape 

Painful gasps

Dried Blood...

A sense of degradation.

No-one to hear my anguish and pain,

No-one to cover my naked body.

Stripped to my soul,

Treated like a whore.

I lie a helpless animal,

A prey of social attitude...

A toy, an object to use and abuse.

So I give up my will to live,

Death does come in the end.

I was born in a country where Gandhi taught us Ahimsa (non-violence), he said - Your voice has been heard," "It deepens our determination to battle the pervasive and the shameful social attitudes that allow men to rape and molest women with such impunity." Yet with Ahimsa, we have achieved status quo in the past 65 years...what we need now is rapid action. My hope is that the 6 men who were involved in the brutal  rape and murder of the young woman on a bus in Delhi are given nothing short of capital punishment ....Capital Punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life.

May she find peace and justice (Anamika in my books, called so many different names by others who has now evolved into a Shakti)....this nameless girl who in her death has created a revolution.

Women are from Earth and Men are Aliens....

It is so true that our work and personal lives are strife with stereotypes...be it thirty years back when my Ma commented on the lack of looks or cooking skills and hoped I would make it into medical school ( or even dental school) and redeem the lack of domestic/and other skills...that didn't happen. I did redeem myself on the face of it and did it on my terms (I am still surprised that I managed to do it...and count the blessings, its not all hard work and I will be the first to admit it).

Fighting, struggling and slowly surfacing into a generation where these stereotypes were dusted/hidden under a carpet...a work culture where 95% of the team attending a happy hour were men, 99% attending a high brow M&A meeting in Europe were men ( do the waiters in the conference room count), 99% of the folks in a product meeting are men....we are emancipated....yes there is a woman CEO at Xerox, Pepsi and Yahoo...but why then is that number plateauing at 3%...are we our own enemies?

I feel righteously virtuous that I work a full schedule, plan and cook organic meals for my family (weekly  visits to the farmer's market), do the laundry (ok with a little help from K1), manage all finances and keep a clean organized house....yet the reality is I barely keep my to-do list and life together. K1 says - let go...easy for him to say when he is not anal about cleanliness, checks balancing or giving my son meals which are not outsourced all time. You see me whining in my blog, in real life and on the phone on "how hard it is to keep things together"...the reality is it is what I said before just whining .  When I meet a man who actually takes a stand and says I am ok with my wife working and me being a stay-at-home dad...I look at him weird ( go right ahead, judge me...but it's true I faced that situation and I confess I was not as sans stereotyping....).

How can working women meet life on their own terms. Here are my seven mantras...you don't agree well then you can just go stuff it, it's OK to come up with your own list.

1. Lose the Guilt - Remember the famous Peter Principle...I can be a good home maker and a good product manager. When you expect me to cook, clean, make lunch boxes, keep an organized house, organize finances, meet work deadlines, deal with extraordinary degrees of organizational politics, hit vague MBOs PLUS be an amazing mother who volunteers time at her son's public school, bakes amazing cookies, spearheads associations etc....it ain't happening and I get in way in over my head. Well, I felt extremely guilty initially about not being able to juggle all the balls in the air and missing quite a few...now all I try to feel is gratitude that I am doing my best.
2. Outsource - I outsource some of the household work - laundry, cleaning...the cooking is very bare bones and mostly healthy stuff and we sometimes outsource that to a lady who comes and cooks some Indian food for us (when we are actively sick of my dals, pastas and soups). I am too anal about  Finances to outsource - so I end up doing bills, budgets, taxes on my own...that is a choice I am making.
3. Lean Heavily - I feel understood by a handful of women in the same boat as me...I think we have an informal support network...if I didn't have these ladies I don't think I could take some of the really long, hard, disheartening days
4. Communicate Openly - I think I overdo this one with K1 and K2....I keep letting them know what irks the crap out of me, what needs to be fixed. I think what I miss to let them know is how much I appreciate K1 taking an earlier flight and getting back home when I was sick, or doing the laundry, taking K2 to soccer games, cleaning the garage uncomplaining after our geriatric four legged companion...or K2 for all the blue faces that he gets or the sweet things that he says and all the help he tries to offer me in the kitchen 
5. Seek Balance - For me it is this blog -  an outlet. So is my Yoga class, I love putting my body through those complicated poses because while I put my body thro' those poses, my mind eases down and decompresses.
6. Set Priorities - My yoga teacher of the past 10 years said in every single one of his classes - set an intent for your practice. About a month back I said, why not set an intent/priority for that week...it can be high level and I can execute to the extent that I can...for example for this week it was to Organize my Kitchen and finish up on an XXX strategy document which isn't really due till next week and I am steadily seeing progress in both areas.
7. Team Work- I ask K1 for help...I refuse to be the victim who is doing all the work on her own and is tired all the time. I need help with grocery, K2's homework etc. etc. I have started asking for help...I don't get it sometimes and we end up having an argument on work load etc...both of us feeling wronged...however at the end of the day, we are in this together...we figure it out.

What's playing on my computer today? Ekla Chalo by Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali Poem) sung by Shreya Ghosal

Loosely translated - if no one listens to your call for help, learn how to walk alone....those are my learnings...your biggest support system is YOU, so don't let that support system crumble -- nurture and cherish it...

12 things women do better than men

Truth be told I avoid Cosmopolitan like plague - I am probably the last person who wants to - wow him  or look 15 at 50 or dress to kill or lose 20 lbs in 6 weeks (or maybe I am just a realist ;))...however when Yahoo homepage had a highlighted article with the title - 12 things women do better than men...but of course I had to click on it...if you would rather read the real deal rather than my take on it click here

The article made me smile...for all the tips I don't want from Cosmopolitan, this one mostly hit spot on (and it was unusually backed by tons of studies ) -- As they said it - Hello, ego boost! Now read on :

1. We're cleaner. Our house looks like someone just moved in (yes I am not too modest am I)...Cleanliness is almost an obsession with me...and it is not seamlessly easy...nope...it is hard work and I am pretty much at it 100%...from sweeping, mopping, dusting, organizing, donating, throwing, craiglisting, cataloging....if I left this to K1 and K2....ahem! me thinks that is definitely something that will give me nightmares...

2. We interview better. I think women handle stress better and generally prepare more.

3. We evolve hotter. Apparently women are getting better looking through evolution; meanwhile, men are staying the same...I guess my beautiful mother did not read that rule  book and I ended up looking like my dad :)

4. We survive car accidents more often. This is sad but true: Men are 77 percent more likely to die in a car accident than women, according to a study done by Carnegie Mellon University. If I could get a dime for every time I have told K1 and K2 to wear their seatbelts, I could probably retire and buy an island in Indonesia...with lush coconut trees, endless yoga retreats, amazing nasi gorengs, massages thrown in....ok ok...I digress

5. We're better at seeking comfort. A Mind survey of 2,000 people revealed that women are far more likely than men to talk through their problems. Fifty-three percent of women talk to their friends about what's stressing them out, as opposed to 29 percent of men -- thanks to that friend of mine who spent an hour out of his busy life today talking to me...I owe you one!

6. We're more recession-proof. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 80 percent of those who have lost their jobs since December 2007 have been men. Ouch. This could be because male-dominated fields have been hit the hardest, like manufacturing and finance. That really sucks...but hey, maybe it's time more men became nurses and educators (I have nothing more to add I think Cosmo says it all too well...)

7. We graduate college more often. I think women are in general more tenacious than men and like to see things through

8. We eat healthier. A survey of more than 14,000 people, conducted by the University of Minnesota, showed that women choose far healthier foods than men. The ask around our house is - let's go out, can I get Pasta, Pizza...but I do believe I am teaching K2 to make healthier food choices, appreciate the importance of eating local and seasonal and more importantly identify his produce...I have learnt a lot along the way too - my discovery in the past couple weeks - Lemon Cucumber

9. We have stronger immune systems. No one gave me this manual...doesn't ring true in our house...I am the one who is a "baby with the sniffles"...K1 and K2 are resilient.

10. We live longer. Among the world's population of those who are over 100 years old, 85 percent are women, according to the New England Centenarian Study. In general, women continue to live five to 10 years longer than men as well (no embellishments from your's truly here...what possibly could I add)

11. We're better managers, especially in this economy. This one is a little controversial, but a slew of experts are confident that women make greater bosses because they are better listeners, mentors, problem solvers, and multitaskers than their male counterparts. In a recent Daily News article, management expert Jay Forte said, "It's a very service-oriented economy, so you need employees to be motivated. Women are better connectors than men and more astute about knowing how to activate passion in their employees...(no embellishments from yours truly, seriously I don't think I could have put this better)

12. We invest better. A study of 100,000 portfolios showed that women's investment returns outperform men's, 18 percent to 11 percent. This could be because women are typically more cautious with their investment decisions and think longer term.

10/12 is not a bad score -- finally Cosmopolitan hit a chord which only Senge, Covey, Dan Pink, Karl Marx, Freud, Maslow and Cooley had hit...Love it !!!