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

Tentative Parenting : Leap of Faith

" Sometimes all you got to do is take a deep long breath, close your eyes and  take that leap of faith... p.s : keep your fingers crossed at the back that everything works out" 
                                           ---Meenakshi

                                                                                               

                            Photo Credit : Aman Barboza, Venue : Oracle Corporation

My son taught me a lesson this week - in 7th grade at the ripe age of 11 he auditioned for a role in the school play for the first time...for a boy who never sings or dances...he showed remarkable grace and fortitude. Sometimes the toughest part about a new journey - is the beginning. There is a little inner voice telling us how comfortable we are with status quo, telling us we are not ready or capable or is the risk even worth it...so we keep grinding away living a life other than the one we dared to dream about.

So K2's audition ended with him finding his "magic lamp"...he is Aladdin in their school play...my search for the magic lamp begins next month as I take my "leap of faith".

In our current world which is "turning tides" and where women are finally beginning to move beyond "could have, should have, would have"...drop those mental shackles and take that leap of faith...at the end of it all - we end up with two life lists : All the things that we did and all the things that we "wish" we had done. 

Get cracking on that first list...I am right with you!

p.s : if you came to my blog looking for an instant pot recipe - have you tried my berry jam yet - it is delicious and takes literally 5 minutes to make :-)

Happy Mother's Day & Living in the Now!

Today as I woke up in the morning - I didn't really want to think about making breakfast, lunch or dinner - I just wanted to lie down in bed and watch my DVRed shows : catch up on Castle, Grimm, Scandal and The Flash and someone bring me a cup of hot cardamom chai and some piping hot dosas and chutney. Yet, I dragged myself out of bed - made waffles for the boys and went for a killer zumba class. Lunch plans are Sausage Hash (Aidell's) followed by a grocery run and then sitting with Krish to prep for his standard tests - it's math next week. I think this is the story of most mothers (working or otherwise) on weekends. The truth is I wouldn't have it any other way...this in reality is Living with Intent for me ( here's my recent blog on LinkedIn on the topic)

Here's a picture of something I cooked for the boys a couple weeks back : it wasn't a special day but we sure made it special with the meal we ate together : Quinoa Salad, Broiled Cod, Sweet Potato Hash, Lobster Cake (for K2, K1 is allergic to all things shell fish) and Roasted Brussel Sprouts washed down with Prosecco (for the adults).

Sometimes life is about living every moment you have with intent and a child-like enjoyment and openness. As I said in my blog post - "I'll worry about tomorrow, tomorrow"

Seven Habits : How not to be a Corporate Wallydrag?

This  picture is of a cool team (Oracle Social Cloud)  and we are promoting the #Idrivefor campaign by General Motors in support of breast cancer awareness. Tweet with the #Idrivefor  and GM will donate $5 to breast cancer research. I drive for my Dad (Bapa).


My Bapa was a do-er  (lobbying for houses for the Tsunami victims, building flyovers and Metrorail, inviting cutting edge industries to  invest in Tamil Nadu - he was always on the go) -- there has been so much of talk around cancer awareness this month, I lost him to cancer - so have been thinking of him constantly this month (and most other months).

A lot of the lessons I learnt from him I have applied to my day-to-day work and personal life. Some of these sound deceptively silly stupid but have worked for me consistently over the years

#1 Don't think Showing up Equates to Productivity -  Trying to solve issues, work through real problems for your company - ensuring that you are aligning your actions to the bigger company goals are critical. Don't get too comfortable with status quo
#2 If there is no work, find some - let's be honest when there are organizational changes, there is usually a lull in productivity and there is a lot of gossip time by the proverbial water cooler - I will be the first to admit that I do indulge in "some" gossip - however, I try and get updated on market reports, product training and professional training when I get these lag times. It  helps me feel rejuvenated, useful  and ready to tackle new problems.
#3 I eat craw - ok not to gross you out or anything , but this is my metaphor for the things I least like to do - I make my weekly to-do list (there is one for work and one for home). I keep a day for my least liked chores on the To-Do List ( hint : that day is Wednesday) -- so if I seem especially crabby on Wednesdays now you know.
#4 Fight the tyranny of the urgent - this was a concept I had read in a magazine article a while back and it stuck with me. There are urgent little things that have to be done "right now" that get in the way of the things that really matter for the business - these little things have a way of getting in the way of the big things ...unless it is something that my boss absolutely needs right away (look at the priority set) -- I try to schedule it in vs.letting it get in the way of real work.
#5 Give up Multi-tasking - I am a busy mom, multi-tasking is second nature to me - I am checking my email while I am cooking my son's pasta in the morning or quizzing my son while chopping the vegetables...what I have realized over the years is - sometimes that is just not enough. Our brains are wired to focus and when I multi-task, it reduces my performance and efficiency. I am trying mindfully to be 100% present in whatever it is that I choose to do at that moment
#6 Be Authentic - At the end of the day life is too short, so I am really WYSWG ( what you see is what you get) . I don't behave differently with people based on their standing in life. Having observed my father's interactions with people ( and being exposed early on in life to sycophants, cars with flashing red lights and a lot of undue attention - look there goes the collector's daughter!) ) - I realized really early in life that it's better to be who you are vs. wear airs. Maybe, that makes me naive but I know in the journey that is life I will be content and happy. And work place will be about real connections and friends.
#7 Practice Empathy - my father was so good at this but I was so quick to judge people based on their aptitude, attitude and capabilities. He always told me - Ma, everyone has a calling and everyone has a bad day. It is so easy to be the judge and the jury and so hard to go beyond the facts and look at what is really happening. Look at what is really happening and don't judge so quickly. My father is gone, and it's so hard for me to practice this but I am trying everyday.

At the end of the day only you can control your output at work and your feelings of accomplishments that go with it - key is to be true to yourself, make connections and help contribute to the business goals. So it's my turn to quit talking and start doing...let me know when you are ready to join me :-)

Tentative Parenting : The Phenomenon of Indian Standard Time

6.30 AM : I wake up to the irritating beeps of the smoke detector, signaling that it needed a new battery. Pulled the offending machine out and tried to change batteries, couldn't - so kept it aside.
7.00 AM : Attended to urgent emails and work stuff. Started the kettle, heated the milk for my son's morning hot chocolate, started packing his lunch box and snack bag. Get ready for work
7.30 AM : Wake son up and give him his milk, pack my lunch, clean up the kitchen and remind him to pack his school bag with homework, lunch and snack bag
8.05 AM : The prodigal son is still sitting with his half-finished milk staring into space...the shrill voices start and I start a count down for him to finish his milk...
8.26 AM : Half worn shoes, sleepy eyes and we rush the long distance of less than a mile to school...the prodigal son skips the assembly and goes straight to class to avoid getting a tardy

I am at my wits end as to how to fix this malaise... the prodigal son gives me a bewildered look - when I tell him - Why don't you stop adhering to Indian Standard Time...he says - but Ma I am Californian! (alrighty then!)

Are we Indians being branded wrongly - as the race that is perpetually late?  I believe there is no smoke without fire in this case...

 I am guilty as charged on the personal front - to family dinners, meeting friends...I do get a little lax with my rules but have a stringent double standard when it comes to work stuff - I need to be punctual...no excuses.

Here are a few guidelines I set for my son this week :

#1 Set Realistic Timelines - Plan backwards...see how much time you need to get ready for school, then add a 15 minute buffer - that's the time you need to get up in the AM
#2 Get Organized - Pack you soccer bag in the night, keep your shoes out and pack your homework the night before...to avoid running around like a headless chicken in the AM and helping convert your working mom into a screeching banshee.
#3 Enjoy Downtime - if you get to a place early, enjoy the 5-10 minutes of peace and quiet...we got to his soccer photo shoot 20 minutes early today...he played with his friends while I baked in the heat catching up with the soccer moms.

Lesson for Prodigal Son and Working Mom - Being on time,every time conveys more than a sense of good timing - it tells people that you are on top of things, organized, can be counted on for stuff and that you value them and their time and ultimately value yourself.

Tentative Parenting : Sometimes Prioritization is a 4-lettered cuss word!

 pri·or·i·tize - To arrange or deal with in order of importance

Dealing with Engineers and Sales  it had been pretty uncomplicated to negotiate product priorities with the teams. We agreed on some basic tenets (revenue/customer requests, competitive differentiation, architectural improvements etc.)  and the team allowed one person (the product manager) to set those priorities based on those tenets and trusted them to do it right. I tried to apply those same rules to my parenting and it usually works when I am dealing with K2 (alone) and I give him options to pick from -- initially he rebelled and as time passed he understood the importance of options and priorities. Tried to apply the same principle today in the afternoon when I tried to get K1 and K2 to decide on the flavor of cake they wanted baked : K2 loves Vanilla and K1 loves Chocolate...after 1/2 hr of negotiation and them still being at an impasse  - Epic Failure !!!

I gave up and took out my baking mitts and ended up baking both a Vanilla and  Chocolate Cake...with help from the 2 K's - K1 got to the Chocolate Cake before I took my pictures :-(

Serves: 16

ACTIVE TIME: 5 minutes

TOTAL TIME: 35 minutes

INGREDIENTS

• 1 Cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
• Handful of chopped nuts & dried fruits (raisins, hazelnuts, almonds)
• 1 Cup Mango/Pineapple Puree (or any fruit you wish to add)
• 2 Egg Whites
• 1/2 Cup of Fat free Milk
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 Cup of Sugar (I used Stevia)
• 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1/2 Cup Cocoa Powder (unsweetened)  -- for the Chocolate Cake
• Pinch of Salt to Taste

PREPARATION
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  I stick all the ingredients in my Food Processor and blend to cake consistency. Pour into a round well greased cake pan. Bake 30-35 minutes till  toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Nutritional Insights : Calories per Serving - 120, Carbs - 10 g, Fat - 5 g, Protein - 8 g, Fiber - 3 g 

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.

Waiting for Godot

I had the strangest conversation with someone I was mentoring last month. Here is how it went -
Friend: So, I have been in this role for 4 years and I am bored - there has been no promotion, interesting stretches in the job or monetary uplift
Working Mom : So what did you do about it?
Friend (surprised look) : Whaaaat? I am waiting for my manager to offer me the position of  Lead ?
Working Mom : Have you had a conversation with him letting him know of your interest?
Friend : Well I am working so hard , my work should speak for itself
Working Mom : So the reality is ...managers are not mind readers. You need to have a candid conversation with them around your career aspirations and interests. If  (a) the conversation does not yield a milestone map with them on your progress (b) status quo....it is your cue to stretch yourself and explore other opportunities. Yes it's hard and in situations inconceivable given the comfort level and security in your current job but the decision is yours to make.

How many times have you followed your dream....said damn the consequences this is what I want to do and I bloody well will do it come hell or high water? 

I was watching Shark Tank yesterday and one of things the Shark Robert Herjavec said was - the worst thing you can do is nothing. It resonated with me because ...It is very easy for  a person to get into a state of “Anomie”…a mindless state of just being …reminds me of a play I had read ages back in a literature class. The play was titled “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett. It was about two sad men – Estragon and Vladimir and it follows two days in their lives while they wait expectantly and unsuccessfully for someone named Godot to arrive. They claim him as an acquaintance but in fact hardly know him, admitting that they would not recognize him were they to see him. To occupy themselves, they eat, sleep, converse, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicide — yet they are afraid to even take that final step of suicide…what if the belt or the rope broke…they were plain afraid…still waiting for Godot. It was a simple play which our English teacher had us enact and dissect and yet what remained twenty five years later were memories of those two sad men…waiting, afraid and in limbo…

Action is better than inaction any day...you have to try, fail, learn and do it over in order to grow. By failing you are setting yourself up to savor the successes that come by small or big. The best advise I have ever received was from my father who is no longer with me - He definitely lived it...he transformed himself from a child who lived in an orphanage all through middle school and high school to a full scholarship student (oh!so hard) to passing the IAS Exams at age 22 and he ended up the Head of a State.

He said Get out there and do something, Take Action. Don't take action because your neighbor did it ....but take it because there is this fire in your belly (I read that as Passion) that is forcing you to take action. You have one life -- Live it -- GET OUT THERE & DO SOMETHING

Tentative Parenting : To Fail is the first step to success

“It’s failure that gives you the proper perspective on success.”                                                                                   Ellen DeGeneres

K2 : Ma, so remember the class representative thing - I wasn't selected
Working Mom : So who was selected K2?
K2 : R and M...they are more popular. Maybe I shouldn't participate again
Working Mom : All that matters K2 is that you gave it your BEST shot not whether you won or lost. 

There’s an old Chinese saying, “Failure is the mother of success.” You don’t have to look far in this culture to find celebrated examples of this very notion: Einstein is rumored to have flunked math for years; Steve Jobs was fired from the company he started, only to return a few years later and take Apple to new heights; Walt Disney himself was fired early in his career by a newspaper editor who told him that he “had no imagination and no good ideas.”Resilience is actually built through children coping with occasional bumps, not by only experiencing perfectly smooth rides as they travel through childhood. (Source : Huffington Post. Read more here )
Given my background in Psychology -  I know that the parents of the current generation are running ourselves ragged in a herculean effort to do right by our kids—yet the reality is I hear about grown-up versions of my son (and your child) sitting in a school counselor's office saying they feel empty, confused, anxious and not so good about life in general. Is it true that when we  parents are too attuned - we molly coddle our kids into these needy soft patsies...GOD FORBID!

I recorded my son's practice speech for Class Representative - he was sincere and wonderful, Above all I really value the 3 things he talked about : Creativity, Hard Work and Collaboration. I did tell him this - K2 -  focus on those three things you promised to bring to the table and I promise you they will hold you good stead for a long time to come.
Notes for my son and self : Falling down or disappointment is a regular aspect of everyone's life and I am very clear that I don't want to cushion K2 and shield him...he is learning to roll with the punches and bounce back from failure... Early experiences with failure will help him  make tough decisions as he grows older and ultimately guide him to success.
How is your week playing out?

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?