The Great Divide

When I grew up in Michigan, The Great Divide was a college retail apparel store (I hear it's now called "The Split Mitt"?). One side was Blue and Gold (or Blue and Maize, depending on how much of a Michigan purist you are) and on the other was Green and White. One half for Michigan fans, one half for Michigan State (Sorry CMU!). The joke, of course, that many of us knew first hand was that even in families, there were clear delineations in support of your favorite Michigan college team, so much so that you needed to separate them out with a big dividing line that zigzagged through a store to keep your college team purchases from blending together.

Even the ceiling tiles are divided...

When I started this blog, I focused on what it was like to be a female entrepreneur. I wrote about learning and technology and games. Sometimes I wrote about personal stuff, but mainly I kept it professional. A few years ago, however, I started to shift. Work was becoming less of a driver of my personal growth, and my blog reflected how my life had moved from career-first to a big ol' mixtape of personal and professional. Sometimes even political. I started posting my reflections from the services I participated in at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara. I started posting about my kids more. About personal accomplishments. Suddenly, my blog was much more about me and not about my work.

I think that's ok. Blogs can be whatever we want them to be. For me, Learning In Tandem has become all of me, and it has been great to have an outlet to reflect and write about my life.

But the more I shared, the more I wondered if I was doing this right. I was no longer just an entrepreneur, but also a technology executive. I was no longer focused solely on games, but on building scalable technology. I was no longer just starting out, but now mentoring and coaching. I had moved in many ways from simply learner to learner and teacher. I find these days I have more to say about how to survive and thrive in the tech industry. Often, I keep these thoughts to myself, as I didn't know if they had a place anymore on this blog. In short, I felt like I was writing for everyone, which ended up with me writing for no one.

Today, I had an epiphany (which, besides wooly mammoth, is my favorite word). And so, I'm starting a new blog, just for my professional writing. It's roadmapher.com and starting this week I'll be posting about what it means to be a product manager, and product management strategies, and generally things that reflect what I do all day long in building products and businesses. Maybe there's even a book in there, somewhere. I'm anxious to see how it goes.

As for Learning in Tandem, I'll still be posting here. I'll cross-post things that I think are interesting, but I'm going to reserve this blog for focus on learning, whether personal or professional. This blog has grown up with me for the last 10 years and for those of you who have read along, I'm not going anywhere...just hopefully posting more, now that I have more clarity and focus.

Maybe it's more of a Venn diagram than a Great Divide? Either way, I hope you'll follow me to my new blog if you're interested in what I do, and stick around here at Learning in Tandem if you're interested in who I am.

(I'm totally a Spartan, btw. I can sing you the whole MSU fight song if you'd like. Don't even think of buying me U of M gear). 

My next adventure

Three and a half years ago, I started my new job at lynda.com. My own company had been acquired a few months earlier and I needed something new. Taking the position at lynda meant moving across the country. It meant selling my house and buying a new one, getting my kids settled in new schools and it meant making a big decision about my budding relationship with my now-husband, John. It meant going from being the boss to being part of a system. Taking the job with lynda.com changed my life in every way you can imagine.

Today is my last day at lynda. Over the last few years I've had 10 bosses, 3 titles and 4 desk changes.

Moving (On) Day

I've been through numerous restructurings, shifting company priorities and this spring, the acquisition of lynda.com by LinkedIn. I have learned to navigate through the changes of a rapidly growing company, to hold on to what's important, and to live by the wisdom:
If you're ever in a situation where you aren't happy, ask yourself two questions:

• Can I change it? 
• Can I live with it (and I mean really live with it, without bitterness or regret)? 

If the answers to those questions are both no, then you have to move on.

Over the last few months, I've been thinking about, as LinkedIn calls it, my "next play." One of the things I've loved about LinkedIn is their understanding and openness to people's personal growth and career paths. I felt like I was at a crossroads, just like I was many years ago as I entered college. I had been asking myself, "what do you want to be when you grow up?"

The Universe has a great sense of humor and timing, sometimes. I was presented with two dream job opportunities on the very same day: one in learning and one in product. One allowing me to leverage my expertise in immersive design, practice what I preach in my book and to build a team of instructional designers; the other allowing me to apply my experience and passion for product development and build a team of product and UX rock stars. One providing the safety of a large organization with big budgets and benefits; one providing me the opportunity to lead a small company to greatness. One that would be the culmination and professional recognition of my career so far; one that would push me to learn and grow.

I had a mini-breakdown under the weight of the decision. I talked to my mom. I asked my girlfriends for advice. I talked to my husband, my VERY PATIENT husband, about it ad nauseum. I got differing views: Follow your passion! Take the easier job! Don't underestimate the importance of flexibility! Take the one that makes you excited!

Any guesses which I took?

In the end, I had to take the position that would leave me with no regrets, the one that I knew in my heart would enable me to be better, the one that is a challenge and an interesting problem to solve, the one that made me light up whenever I talked about it to my friends and family.

Today is my last day at lynda.com/LinkedIn and Wednesday is my first day as VP of Product at ShipHawk.

For me, it's never about what's easy. It's about solving the puzzle, finding the solution, learning and growing and constantly challenging myself to be better.

I will miss my colleagues at lynda.com and will forever be grateful for the experience of building something great. I've learned and grown in the last few years more than I thought possible. And I am THRILLED for this new opportunity to do something amazing; I can't wait to jump in with the ShipHawk team!

After all, shouldn't we all be striving for passion and greatness?

I am surrounded

Watson & Sherlock

I'm writing this post surrounded by dogs: Sherlock laying next to me, wearing a cone because his eye infection is creeping back and I need to keep him from making it worse before he sees the vet. He is grumpy. Watson is my headrest; his poodle coat is too long and woolly and it heats up the back of my neck. He really loves our new couch because he can lay along the back cushions again. Darwin is chewing on a piece of dirty, knotted rope on the other side of my lap. He's chewing noisily and won't stop moving, shaking the whole couch and annoying the other two. He's a giant pit bull that thinks he's a little dog.

The house is quiet, except for Darwin's chewing and the faint sound of Sallie singing in her bedroom. She's home sick today with a fever and various other complaints. In a little while, I'll ask her if she's hungry and she'll chat all the way through lunch, telling me about some scenario playing out in her room with her stuffed animals.

I love being alone. I love quiet. I don't have music or a movie playing in the background on days like today when I work from home; I don't usually have the radio on in the car. But it's rare that I'm ever actually alone. Dogs. Kids. Work. Church. The only time I have to myself anymore is when I'm driving to pick up or meet someone, or sometimes in the bathroom (although kids and dogs aren't always respectful of a closed bathroom door).

My husband John knows that I'm an introvert, although I try to fake otherwise. I hate labels like that, "introvert," but I do acknowledge that labels help people understand complex dynamics quickly, so sometimes I'll use it to explain why I avoid social hour in between church services, or why I don't want to be the one to call for takeout, or why I am completely exhausted after I speak at a conference and need to decompress.

I find myself tired a lot now. Exhausted, even. John and I both work full-time, manage the schedules of our 5 kids with us in California and figure out how to stay present in the weekly routine of the 6th one who is back in Pennsylvania for most of the year. He's never out of our thoughts and we're constantly planning trips and phone calls and Skype conversations, the planning of all these things tempered by the difficulty of negotiating them. Daily life isn't just us, the kids and the dogs...it's all of the kids' other parents, too.

And work. There aren't a lot of jobs in the world where you can work by yourself, and I don't have one of them. It's funny because I intentionally chose a career path that focused on helping people learn. I love it. I'm passionate about it. And it, by design, surrounds me with people.

Beyond family and work, I'm still surrounded. I'm on the Worship Committee at church and work to create worshipful lay-led services to support our ministers. I need the feedback of my committee members and the members of the congregation to be successful. I am constantly working on new start up ideas, seeking out other entrepreneurs and experts to collaborate with, networking and building relationships. People, people everywhere.

I am surrounded. I fantasize sometimes about just driving someplace quiet, alone. Maybe reading a book. Maybe just listening to the ocean, or the sounds of the mountains. I think about what it might feel like to not be responsible for or to anyone but myself. What a relief that would be. I think about when I read Eat Pray Love and how selfish I thought the woman was, and how absolutely glorious it still sounded to me. What a luxury, to be free of commitment. How light that must feel. Nobody to make dinner for or pick up from somewhere, no deadline I need to meet.

I'd probably be so incredibly, incredibly lonely. No one to tell me something funny that happened to them at school. No one snuggle with at night. No one to hear my favorite part of the day. No one to waggle their whole body in excitement to see me when I come through the door. No one to tell me I look beautiful today. No one to giggle with about a goat who sounds like he's saying "mom." No one to hear singing in the shower. No one to ask me for a hug. No one to be devastatingly proud of as they perform on stage.

Darwin is snoring

Sometimes when I'm feeling suffocated, overwhelmed and buried, I think about what I've surrounded myself with. All of these people and animals...I might not always be able to handle all of them. I shouldn't think I have to. Being surrounded can be a lifting up, not a holding down. Because it's love, all of it is love. I chose this life, all of it. My family, my pets, my career, my friends, my spiritual community...even my Facebook friends. It is love, not responsibility. They challenge me and make me think and reflect and grow. It is love, messy and crowded and busy. It is love, loud and yes, sometimes overwhelming. I am surrounded by love. And right now, love sounds like a pit bull curled
up next to me, snoring. 

Finding seashells

Life. I don't know why I'm constantly amazed at how it gets in the way of the important work of reflection. November was such a tough month, and also a fantastic month, but the end result was no blog posts. I logged in today because I wanted to write another post, but first I need to write this one.

When I started Tandem Learning in 2008, I used blogging to document my founder journey. Over the years, it has evolved to be less about selling and documenting my professional journey, and more about documenting MY journey. I now write about things that move me, interest me, challenge my thinking and this blog is my documented reflection time, my place and space to dump out the clutter in my brain and try to make sense of it with words and grammar and, sometimes, editing.

I still think of blogging as a release and synthesis, and am shocked that anyone at all reads what I write. Sometimes I write when I'm angry or frustrated or sad and I don't know how else to process my feelings. Sometimes I write when I have an epiphany and need to write it down. Sometimes I write because I'm preparing for a service at USSB and this is my "writing repository," so I post it as a blog post. Sometimes I still use this blog for professional observations, critique and sharing. The key theme for all of my blog posts is reflection and learning. Reflection is how you process and learn, thinking back on situations or emotions and giving them meaning. What am I learning? What does it all mean?

So when a month goes by and I haven't blogged at all, it makes me pause. Am I learning as much without that point of reflection? How am I synthesizing everything that is happening without taking the time to write about it and give it meaning?

More than a month has gone by. In that time, I've experienced major shifts in my professional life, witnessed great achievements from my kids. I've participated in another startup weekend. And in the

world...Measure P was voted down. Ferguson. The Rolling Stone article on campus rape and UVA. GamerGate. Eric Garner. Thanksgiving. My amazing husband turned 40. Maybe it's just been too much to process. Maybe it's too early to reflect. Maybe it's easier when there is so much going on to just be, to let it wash over me and recede like ocean waves, to wait and see what remains washed up on the shore, those bits of shell and beach glass that remain. It's time to pick up and examine those bits, the important things that move me and change me.

I don't know if the storm is over, but it does feel like it's time to reflect and discern meaning. It's time to do the work. It's time to blog again. 

My activist heart

I was Worship Associate at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara yesterday and as part of the service, I not only got to be the voice of Mother Earth (!), but I also delivered this reflection on the tension of wanting to devote your life to making the world a better place and the daily demands of life.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

You might not think by looking at me that I am an activist.

In college I worked in inner city schools in Lansing, Michigan to try to prepare the kids they deemed “disadvantaged” to go to college. Later, after grad school, I quit my corporate Training Manager job and helped start a charter school in Philadelphia based on the radical constructivist educational beliefs of Paolo Freire. I’ve participated in pro-choice rallies and I even got to sit in the office of the Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania and explain how the legislation they were passing to heavily regulate women’s health facilities would impact the women of Pennsylvania.  I financially support several grassroots and lobbying organizations that support movements like equality, clean water and climate change.  On Martin Luther King Day, I take my children to work on projects in the community.

I’m proud to be a Unitarian Universalist, in part, because of our history and beliefs rooted in social justice. I am an activist in the deepest part of my being, wanting to change the world, leaving it better than when I came into it.

There’s another side to the story, though. I don’t know what happened to those kids I tutored in Lansing…I graduated before most of them would have ever even applied to college. Two years after helping start Freire Charter School, I had to leave and get a “real job” because I couldn’t afford my student loan payments. That legislation in Pennsylvania passed and many, many clinics that had provided abortion services were forced to close their doors. By that time, I was accepting the job that moved me here to Carpinteria.

I want to be an activist, I want to stand up for my liberal beliefs, I want to make the world better, and yet the demands of daily life: my financial obligations, the things I want to be able to provide to my children and the things that simply bring me joy…these things are in constant competition with this feeling that I can, and should, make a difference.

I feel this most acutely when I see the phenomenal work and effort of others. Becca Claassen, one of our own congregation, has dedicated her time, energy…her life…to her passion: protecting our water in Santa Barbara county and working against climate change. I cannot tell you how much I admire her and the work that she is doing, standing up for what she believes in. Her passion and commitment is inspiring as an example of living our principles.

Watching Becca and others who live their values makes me deeply consider if I’m practicing what I preach. We all have our unique passions that drive us, and mine is gender equality. As a woman in the tech and gaming industries, I’ve faced more bias, discrimination and harassment than even those closest to me will probably ever know. I’m not alone and gender discrimination in the workplace is just the tip of the iceberg. Recent public conversations about street harassment, rape culture in schools and college campuses and the heightened focus on domestic violence prompted by arrests and indictments of NFL players, fuel my passion to work toward gender equality. When I see the work of Wendy Davis in Texas, I long to join the cause that seeks to make this country, this world, just as safe and full of opportunity for my daughters as it is for my sons.

There is a tension. I’m not in a position that I could quit my job and dedicate my time to gender equality, even if that’s where my activist heart is. I have bills and kids and a house to take care of and commitments to honor to my family and to myself.

What can I do? For me, the sentiment “Think global, act local” rings true. Maybe today isn’t my day to change the world in a big, public way. Maybe there will never be that day. But today is the day that I can teach my children about gender bias and discrimination. It IS the day that I can raise issues in my workplace that level the playing field. It IS the day I can write blog posts, post articles via social media. It IS the day that I can offer financial support to those who are dedicating their lives to the causes I believe in. It IS the day that I can jump in when I can, to march in a rally or make canvasing calls.

Today is the day that I have shared my passions with all of you. Maybe you are a passionate feminist too…maybe there are ways we can work together and support each other. Maybe today is the day that you share what you’re passionate about with someone after the service and you make a connection that leads to action that really does make the world better.

Maybe I don’t have to be an army of one to change the world. Maybe we are the army already.

Becoming a mom

When Jackson, my firstborn, was about to turn 1, I knew I wanted another child. My pregnancy with him had not been easy, and with 3 months of bed rest fresh in my mind and the complications I experienced with a second round of fertility medication, another pregnancy seemed too great a risk. We decided to adopt. In the late summer of 2004, I traveled to Russia to meet my son Vardan. 

When people ask, I've compared the process of international adoption to pregnancy. The first trimester is filled with emotion, anxiety, and trying to figure out what all of this means to you...with adoption, it also means A LOT of paperwork. More than you can even imagine. It also means a lot of decisions. One of the unique decisions that you can make in the adoption process is selecting the gender of your child. I agonized over that decision, until one day, sitting alone in the car and talking to...I don't know. Myself? the Universe? God? I heard myself say, "Jackson needs a brother." And so the decision was made. 

The next few months, like the second trimester, is just waiting. And waiting. Your paperwork has been submitted and you fill your days thinking about your new child, wishing, wondering and trying to make plans. The last few months are just like the last trimester of pregnancy. Can I just have this kid already? I want to meet him! The wait is almost painful with anticipation.

My last trimester of the adoption process began with the arrival of an email with two pictures attached of our "referral." He was beautiful. Big brown eyes, chubby cheeks, and curly brown ringlets covering his head. From the minute I saw him, I was in love. We had a name picked out for him, but when we saw him, we knew he'd already been appropriately named Vardan. Every day waiting to meet him after receiving that email was agony, but a few weeks later, he was cuddled up in my arms for the first time. Our first trip was to officially accept him as our son, and then we had to leave him at the orphanage and wait 6 horrible weeks until our second trip to Russia and court finalization of the adoption, when we could bring him home.

It was that second trip, after leaving the orphanage and walking around the streets of Sochi with him, that I feel like I actually became a mom. Sure, when I had Jackson, I had that moment too, holding him in the hospital, the nurse came in to give me a shot and he cried in empathetic pain and I knew that he was MINE and I was a mom. But it wasn't until I had Vardan, 18 months old and holding on to me like a koala bear, that I really felt what it meant to be a mom. 

Some people have asked me why I chose international adoption. The selfish truth is that it seemed easier. There is an abundance of babies in overseas orphanages who need homes and families to love them. But it wasn't even that. I didn't want my son's "real mom" showing up some day. I didn't think I could handle the competition of another mom. This little boy was mine and I didn't want to share him.

As I walked along the Black Sea shore, holding my son, I felt desperate. Suddenly, unexpectedly, I wanted to meet Vardan's birth mom. I knew that it was not a competition for who was more of his mother, and I desperately wanted this stranger who had given birth to my son to know that he was going to be ok. I don't know much about her. I know he was her first child, that she was an immigrant from Armenia, and that she was only 4'10". I know that she was a hairdresser, was homeless and living with a friend, she didn't smoke, and before she gave birth to our beautiful boy, she visited the orphanage on numerous occasions to make sure that he was going to be ok. That's the piece that stuck with me: she wanted to know he was going to be ok and there was no way for me to tell her.

I can only imagine her life, and the circumstances that led to her decision. I can only project my own experience of motherhood on her, this woman who lives on the other side of the planet, who gave me the most precious gift in all the world. When I was flying back from Moscow to New York City, all I could think was: I want her to know he's ok. He's safe, he's beautiful and he's going to be ok. I wanted her to know that it didn't even phase me on that flight when he stayed awake for 36 hours and only wanted me to hold him, feeding him Cheerios one-by-one. I wanted her to know when Jackson met him for the first time after our long trip home from Russia, the first thing he said was "Oh brother, I've missed you so much." Later, I wanted her to know when we got his asthma controlled and he said his first English sentence (I want that!) and he got his hearing aids. I want her to know how he's shockingly gifted at Legos and that he plays a mean trombone. I want her to know that he's got a big heart. I want her to know that he asks about her, and wants to learn Russian so that if he meets her someday, she'll understand him.

If you've seen my family and I walk in to church on Sunday, you know that we take up a full pew. Together, my husband John and I have six children. Some people have said, "Oh, you're a blended family!" and usually we reply, "No, we're just a family." And this is why:  our family is not defined by biology, but by choice.

Your heart, the love you can give, is not finite or discriminate. It multiplies and grows in ways you can't anticipate. When you have a child, you think, I could never love another person as much as I love this baby. And then, miraculously, you do, with the next child, and the next and the next. There is no limit, and that love is not tempered by the circumstances that brought a child to you, only by the openness with which you bring her into your heart.

John tells me that I have a big heart, and if I do, it's because each kiddo that came into our family...by birth, by adoption, or in our big fat geek wedding last summer: Jackson, Vardan, Sallie, Clarisse, Elvis and Zevon, have shown me how to open my heart bigger and wider, not just to them, but to the people, history and circumstances that brought us together. I've learned that being a mom is very little about giving birth to someone and everything about the choices and sacrifices you make for another to help them grow. I understand now that it’s only a good thing to have more people to love and nurture our children. Our family is big and complicated and, more than anything, loving. 

On this Mother's Day, I'm thinking about Vardan's first mom, his Russian mom, his biological mom. Maybe I'll be able to share the blessing she gave me with her someday. Until then, thank you - cpaceba, Anna, for helping me see what it means to be a mom.

A pirate girl looks at 40

When I was young, up to and even in my early 30s, 40 seemed far, far away. I could never have imagined, not in a million years, what my life would look like as I reach my 40th birthday. In my estimation, by 40 I'd be a big shot, changing the world in grand, ambitious ways. I didn't really have a plan for myself, other than being very important in some highly recognizable way that made the world better for my having been in it. 

So here I am, reflecting on my mistakes and lessons learned as I reach this milepost which, now that I'm here, doesn't seem so momentous anymore. It almost feels like hanging too much importance on a single step in the process, like the new phenomenon of celebrating 8th grade "graduation" or worse, kindergarten graduation...i mean, really? And yet, it seems as good a time as any to debrief with myself (and evidently anyone who reads my blog) on what 40 really signifies.

If you've ever heard the Pirate vs Ninja personality assessment, or the iteration Pirate - Ninja - Cowboy, I am clearly a pirate: throwing it all out there, wearing my heart on my sleeve, too honest to be a sneaky ninja, too ambitious to relax and enjoy the ride like a cowboy. It's ultimately being a pirate girl that has shaped my life so far and landed me here, ironically near the ocean, with a list of miserable failures and joyous accomplishments 

Here's what this pirate girl has learned at 40. I wonder what I'll have learned in another 40 years?

• Everybody has big ideas. The coolest people are the ones that do something about them.
• Even your best ideas are terribly flawed. You should let other people help you improve them.
• My mom is (almost) always right. 
• Happiness is not tied to how much you weigh.
• Fitting into my skinny jeans still makes me happy.
• Nothing makes me happier than hearing my kids laughing. 
• 80s pop culture was the best. 
• Power corrupts absolutely. Think about that when you get a little power.
• There are bullies and mean girls at every age. Ignore them. Their desire to hurt isn't about you.
• If you can't ignore them, talk about them. It's easier to ignore them with friends to distract you. 
• We undervalue water. We shouldn't be taking it for granted.
• At the end of the day, the most limited resource we have is time.
• Always tell the truth. Especially when it's hard.
• If someone asks you to lie, still tell the truth. And get away from that person.
• Some people want to believe the lies. Distance yourself from those people, too. 
• There are a lot of really smart, kind, loving people in the world, but they aren't well-organized, so they're sometimes hard to find. 
• Find work that is fulfilling. You don't have to love it; even the best jobs have bad days and downsides. Find something that when you wake up on Monday morning, doesn't make you dread heading into work.
• There will always be Mondays when you dread going into work.
• Don't settle.
• The most important decision you make in life is who you choose to spend it with. 
• Be gentle with others. They have volumes of stories you know nothing about.
• Don't assume. 
• Actions speak louder than words.
• People change all of the time, but you can't change them.
• Dance as often as you can. You can't be sad if you're dancing. 
• Be silly.
• Take risks. The worst that can happen is usually not all that bad, actually.
• Approach every situation with love.
• You don't get a second chance at everything. 
• Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone.
• By the time you're old enough to eat anything you want whenever you want, you're wise enough to know that you shouldn't.
• There's nothing like having a long talk with my sister. 
• There's nothing like having a long talk with my daughter.
• Even though I don't want them to know it, sometimes my kids are smarter than me. 
• Go outside more.
• Play more games.

My sister and I are born on the same day, a year apart...my first, best birthday present. Enjoy your last year in your 30s, sissy...I'll see you on the other side of the hill ;)

Learning through "infuriating feedback"

One of the things that I'm most passionate about doing well when designing learning is providing feedback. In immersive design, practice without feedback is useless, and often can reinforce the wrong behaviors. For example, if you're trying to perfect your golf swing, heading to the driving range and hitting a bucket of balls without the guidance of a golf pro to help critique your form may lead you to practicing a whole bucket full of bad swings. 

Yet very rarely do any of us perform a task in a vacuum; we're constantly bombarded with feedback, both subtle and obvious, that reinforces what we're doing well and discourages us from continuing less than stellar behaviors. We love hearing the good stuff, getting that positive reinforcement. In game design, quick victories are by design to make players feel good, feel confident, hoping to hook them in to continue playing even as game play becomes more difficult and complex, and victories and positive reinforcement are harder to come by. In "real life," the same dynamic exists. I love to hear the feedback of people after I speak, to hear how something I said struck a chord or helped them make a connection or see something in a different light. Even better, I love when people compliment my kiddos, as that provides me with some positive evidence from non-biased sources that I'm doing ok in the toughest job that I have.

Negative feedback, critique and even punishment surround us every day too. I am always amazed as a mom about how often I have to say, "chew with your mouth closed," or "put some clothes on," or "put your dirty laundry in your hamper, not just on the ground next to it." More subtle things, like a look from my boss or my husband, are enough to make me pause and consider what I just did to elicit that reaction. In game design, negative feedback design creates for interesting play dynamics; losing points, finding yourself in a death spiral that you just have to wait out, or an abrupt game over when you make a bad decision are all ways to provide critique to your play performance and prompt you to try again and do better.

This continuous flow of positive and negative feedback help us learn and shape our future behavior. Other factors contribute to our decision-making, but ultimately, it is the balance of potential risk and reward that are in constant competition to determine the decisions that we make, and we depend on this river of feedback to help us determine if we're on the right path.

Which leads me to the best boss I ever had. 

Imagine you're at work, managing a big project and people and faced with situations and decisions that are new to you. You have a one-on-one with your boss and you go in prepared to describe the situation and get insight and feedback on how to proceed. When you enter the office, your boss is nose to the laptop and barely acknowledges you're there. You know that you have limited time, so you ask if you should get started. "Yes, go ahead," your boss says, still not looking up from the laptop. 

You start describing the current status of and issues with the project. You describe what you've done so far to resolve issues as they've come up, and you end with the current dilemma and request advice on how to proceed. 

To which your boss replies, still not looking up, "what do you think you should do?"

Infuriating. If I knew what to do, I'd just do it! I want guidance, I want insight, I want feedback!

I had a couple of meetings that went exactly like this with my boss. Every time I left those meetings, I was pissed. How rude! What am I supposed to do? Why didn't my boss give me any advice?

And yet...

I was getting feedback. My boss was saying: "you don't need me. You actually know how to proceed. I trust you to figure this out. If you make a bad decision, that's ok, you'll come back to me and I'll repeat this again and you'll try something new, until you find the right answer."

It was these "non-feedback" meetings that gave me confidence to make decisions. They helped me learn to reflect, consider options and take my best guess. Sometimes I didn't make the best decision, but often I did. As I worked with my boss longer, our meetings became less about resolving issues and more about personal development and strategy. 

Coaches, mentors and managers can give helpful advice and guidance in some situations, but the best way they can be leveraged is to challenge you to do your own thinking and growing. When you're designing practice in immersive learning, consider designing with infuriating feedback: opportunities for reflection and safe failure. Not only will you build confidence in decision-making, but you'll be teaching leadership and reinforcing risk-taking and experimentation. 

TMI

I'm on a panel tonight on information overload at an event for the Association for Women Communications in Santa Barbara. A few days ago, we held a quick "panel prep" meeting, and as I listened to the other women on the panel describe their professional focus on helping people manage not just information overload, but finding balance in their busy lives, I couldn't help but feel more like one of their typical customers and less like someone qualified to share the stage with them.  Six kids, full time job, my book just out...I could use some expert advice on information overload!

I've been reflecting on how I manage my life, my engagement with social media and my interest in technology. I don't think I've ever really thought about it, but I have implemented some strategies to keep me sane. I'll be talking about these tonight, but as I'm preparing for the panel, I thought it might be useful to capture some of the ways I find balance and how I've learned to manage too much information.

1. I don't watch TV.
Seriously, we don't even usually have the television on in my house, and if we do, it's usually one of the kids watching something on Netflix. I don't have the news streaming in the background, I don't have a television in my bedroom (an neither do any of our kids), and if there is a tv show that I want to watch, we watch it streaming online. I haven't watched tv for years, and I have to say, I haven't missed it.

2. I have a separate Twitter account for news.
I don't think it's unusual for people to have multiple Twitter accounts, but I have two: one for news monitoring, and one for everything else. If I want to know what's going on in the world, I check my news account and monitor the feed. I could also use Tweetdeck or another filtering tool for this, but I have found that having a separate account is easier for me to manage, and allows me to moderate what information I take in, when.

3. I don't use a computer at night.
I do use my phone and iPad, but I have found that they are much easier for me to put down. I also typically use my mobile devices for playing games at night, if I use them at all, so I don't usually take in new information while I'm using them. I find that when I'm on my computer, I tend to spend more time at night working, when I really need to disconnect and rest. This policy also allows me to honor my next strategy...

4. The evening is for family.
I spend most of my day on my computer. From the time I get home until the kids go to bed, my time is focused on them. There were many years, especially when I first started my company, that I never turned off my computer, never stopped working. It was brutal and impacted everyone in my family. Over time, I've learned to separate my work time from my family time. It has made a huge impact on me, and has made the time I do spend working more productive, because I'm always working against self-imposed deadlines.

5. If I'm feeling overwhelmed, I go to the beach.
I'm lucky; I can walk to the beach from my house, so when I get that overwhelmed feeling, off I go. The beach may be it for me now, but in the past, taking a bath, working on a creative project, or playing a game were all ways I could decompress. Everyone has something that takes them from hectic to calm; find yours and use it liberally.

6. Understanding the value I get from social media.
Facebook and Twitter go on, and are no worse off when I take a break. Stepping away sometimes actually gives me more perspective on what value social media brings to me. It helps me set boundaries and "rules" for what information I subject myself to and when I open those gates. Sometimes when I see the negative stuff, I have to remember that 1. I have a choice of what information I allow in, and 2. People who are negative and hurtful through social media are likely also that way in real life. If I wouldn't have a drink with them in real life, why would I "hang out" with them through social media? Block, unfriend and unfollow are great curation tools for TMI.

7. Quiet and focused energy.
Yoga is my friend. A brisk walk or workout is an active way to clear the clutter in my head, but taking a few minutes to meditate can also help me refocus. They both really do the same thing for me: extract me from the information stream and help me focus on my health, energy and what's really important.

I'm sure I've employed other strategies that aren't coming to mind, and I'm also sure that you all have even better tips and advice to share. Please add your own information overload strategies in the comments, and I'll share them with the panel tonight!

The happy revolutionary

I read an article yesterday on the 21 Habits of Supremely Happy People. It's a good list (and it wasn't a top 10 list, so that made me less suspicious). I've been thinking a lot about happiness lately, because I'm pretty ridiculously happy. It's taken me a long time to get here and there were a lot of missteps and big ol' mistakes that I made along the way. But here I am! Happy! And yet...

There's a big part of my personality that has always been perpetually dissatisfied. These are the parts that want to make the world better. These are the parts that want to call out injustice, the parts that get angry at the liars, the cheaters, the bullies, the mysogynists. These are the parts that want to take on new challenges. These are the parts that want to write books and start new ventures and fight against a broken status quo. The dissatisfied parts of myself are the parts that have pushed me to do the things of which I'm most proud.

Should we want to be supremely happy? Can we reconcile the complacency and contentment that comes with happiness with a desire to change the world? Can we be revolutionaries and still be happy?

I'm struggling with this. There are some days that contentment wins, and I embrace this wonderful time in my life with gratitude and appreciation. And then...the inevitable guilt: I'm not doing enough. I should be doing more. Am I wasting my life?

There are some days that the revolutionary wins. I write, I plot, I rally the troops. I get shit done. But I long to just be in the moment, to stop and read or listen to the waves or watch old Farscape episodes and just be happy.

I don't know that there's an answer, or that I'm asking a question. I do know that just being "supremely happy" or only focusing on changing the world would both leave me unsatisfied. So the eternal struggle for me is being a happy revolutionary: embracing happiness without being a sheep, changing the world without letting it jade me. 

Misery loves company

My second service as Worship Associate at USSB is this Sunday, and since we're still in the month-long theme of "despair," my reflection is another serious one (I really hope my next service's theme is "joy" or "love" :)! The theme this week is "Misery Loves Company" and I'm posting my reflection here.

I have a friend I refer to as Eeyore. Eeyore, if you know the character from Winnie the Pooh, always sees the clouds instead of the sunshine. Despite her gloomy outlook, I know I could count on her to be there for me whenever I need her, because she has been. She's the friend who's known me the longest and best, the friend who no matter what life threw at us, I knew we'd be there to hold each other up. For years, through budding careers, new marriages, new babies and world travel, we shared in each others' lives and struggles.

Our friendship was easy when times were good. We seemed to run on parallel tracks and these connections of work, marriage and motherhood kept us bonded as we traveled down our happy paths, finding support and love and sisterhood in our shared experiences. 

Then, slowly, life wasn't so happy anymore for either of us. We shared in this transition too. Eeyore embraced our time together as a place where all of her grievances against life could be shared. Every interaction with her, every girls' night out, every "catch up" lunch was filled with a laundry list of everything bad in her life. Her ex is crazy. Her other friends don't call enough (I suspect I don't either). She hates her job. She doesn't have enough money. She feels trapped in her new relationship. Her clothes are getting tight and she doesn't have enough time or will power to diet and exercise. She worries she's drinking too much. She wants to go on vacation but she doesn't have the time or money. 

There was a time, looking back on it, maybe too long of a time, when both of us participated in commiserating. I, too, had relationship drama, money problems, self-image issues. Our conversations, with each of us taking turns sharing our problems, were a safe place to work through all the bad stuff. We were both deep in places of sadness, grief, depression and with each other, we didn't have to hold back or pretend that everything was ok. Neither of us were fine and it seemed like our friendship was the one place where we could embrace where we were without shame or guilt or ego. 

And then something changed. More accurately, I changed. It wasn't enough for me to talk about the bad stuff anymore; I wanted to do the work to make things better. I started focusing on the good things in my life and realized that even in the darkest hours, there were still good things - lots of them. I started moving on. It didn't happen all at once, but I noticed that when we met for lunch, I'd start feeling frustrated or annoyed, maybe at her or maybe at myself reflected in her, that every conversation was a repeat of the last. We had been stuck in despair together, a support system for each other when it seemed like no one was listening. But I wanted out. I had hope. It was becoming clear to me that she didn't.

There are certain crossroads that we come to that are so subtle that we don't even realize we've past them until we're well down our new path. So it was with Eeyore and I. I had taken a sharp left at some point while she was forging straight ahead. My new path was lifting me up and my heart was becoming lighter. Every day it was easier to breathe. Talking to her was a harsh and unwelcome reminder of where I had been and where I didn't want to be again.  It felt like she was clinging to me, trying to hold me down with her as I was struggling to claw my way up. The very things that had drawn us together and strengthened our friendship were the things that were making it impossible for me to maintain it. 

When I would talk about selling my company, she’d answer “it must be nice for you. Too bad I’m stuck in my job forever.” If I’d bring up the cooperative parenting my ex and I had established, she would invariably respond with a story of her ex’s attempts to disrupt her efforts to have a peaceful relationship for the sake of their kids. She seemed to be bitter, almost angry, that my life was getting better while she still felt stuck. I started to feel guilty that I could see the silver linings when she could only see the clouds.

I tried to lift her up with me, encouraging her to try new strategies: take a class! Stop responding to your ex’s abusive emails! Let’s plan a trip! Let’s go shopping! Her answer to everything was “I can’t.”

It is hard to let someone you love move on without you and it’s difficult to leave someone behind. I finally had a glimpse of light and I needed to grab it without a shadow eclipsing its warmth and promise. Eeyore and I stopped getting lunches. I suspect that as difficult as it was for me to hear her continued despair, it was just as difficult for her to see me happily moving forward. We each needed a different validation and our parallel paths had diverged so much that we couldn’t see each other reflected in our own lives and experiences any more.

I still feel the loss of our friendship. There are things I’ve wanted to share with her, happy things and yes, new sadnesses and frustrations, too. Our conversations now are strained, shallow – only touch points of the realities of our daily lives. While I know Eeyore values our friendship as much as I do,  we both seem to have come to the place where we know that we need to love each other from a distance to allow ourselves to grow beyond the things that once bonded us together.

There is mourning that comes with letting go of despair; the mourning of what you lose when you let go of the people who once held you up but have begun to hold you back. As we move past despair, we grow and evolve and our hopes and dreams change. We should hold the people who have helped us get there in our hearts, even if, for awhile, we cannot hold their hands.