http://www.flickr.com/photos/mathoov/2429733088/While in Austin, I started reading the book, The Case for a Creator. My brother-in-law lent it to me after we watched the lunar eclipse together in December. Lee Strobel, the author, starts the book as a devout atheist. He speaks to scientists and researchers to examine their views on the origins of life. Though they have divergent views, there is one thing that they all agree on – the odds of life being created in its first instant were a case against all odds. The numerous conditions that had to come together to give life its first breath is nothing short of a miracle. Life, as we know it, was a long shot from the very beginning.
I thought about this idea over the weekend when Kira Campo, a Twitter friend of mine and Founder of The Creative Practice, were talking about creative projects we’re both pursuing. She asked if I thought they were a long shot. I absolutely think they’re a long shot, just like everything in life. As Brian so often tells me, “We get what we settle for.”
If nature and life itself have anything to teach us it’s that we have to believe that the long shot is possible. Somehow the necessary elements conspire and catapult us into a life we imagine. The turning points aren’t always obvious and often entirely unplanned. If we live long enough and look back on the moment that really make our lives what they are, we realize just how coincidental and synchronous life really is. Go for the long shot that you really want – it’s just as likely to come to fruition as any other possibility.
http://www.sevenof.com“You can’t use a Western mind to understand Eastern philosophy. To really understand it, you have to change your mind.” ~ Dr. Nan Lu, OMD
Dr. Lu used this quote to close his talk about Traditional Chinese Medicine at the Integrative Healthcare Symposium earlier this month. It reminded me of how often we try to understand a new concept based upon our past learning. Of course, this is entirely logical. Our experience gives us a language and lens by which to process novel ideas. Though just because this pattern is logical, doesn’t mean it always serves. What’s perhaps more powerful, and yet more difficult to do as we get older, is to just take a learning as is without trying to compare it to what we already know.
This is how children learn. They’re little sponges. No prejudices, no judgements, no nagging voice in the back of their minds that is chattering away. They take a new lesson as just that – new and to be appreciated in its own right.
What if we could do that as new situations and experiences come into our lives? What if we could set aside that chattering, monkey mind, and just take in the new information for all the glory it has in its own right? If we could do that then I am confident that there isn’t a single challenge in all the challenges our world now faces that we wouldn’t be able to solve.
A group of women in Bangladesh helped by microfinance loans from GrameenFor a number of years, I’ve written about and donated to Grameen America and Kiva. Both organization provide microloans to entrepreneurs. Kiva works in the developing world and Grameen America works right here in New York City. Given my support of both organization, I was thrilled to get the information below in a recent email from the organization that explains the beginning of their new partnership.
If you have an interest in supporting entrepreneurship as a way to give lower-income individuals and families a greater chance for economic independence and freedom, please read on and consider supporting this partnership.
“We’re excited to tell you about two huge developments with Kiva and Grameen America.
First, there’s a new film featuring Grameen America showing for just one night on Thursday, March 31. To Catch A Dollar: Muhammad Yunus Banks on America tells the story of how the Nobel Prize winning Dr. Muhammad Yunus and Grameen America are helping bring the microfinance revolution to bear on addressing poverty in the United States.
Second, we’re proud to announce that we are partnering with Dr. Yunus’s Grameen America to provide financing to low-income entrepreneurs in the United States.
Elizabeth’s Story
Thirty years ago, Dr. Muhammad Yunus began a quiet revolution. He found that poverty could best be alleviated in his native Bangladesh not through charity, but through unleashing entrepreneurship. By grouping rural women together, he was able to provide financing for businesses that banks weren’t interested in serving.
Fast forward thirty years, and Dr. Yunus is working to bring group lending to low income entrepreneurs in the United States.
And Kiva is going to be there to help. Through our new partnership, entrepreneurs like Elizabeth, pictured to the left, are able to grow their businesses and communities.
Browse Grameen America’s loans, and learn more about Elizabeth and other Grameen America entrepreneurs.
To Catch A Dollar
Speaking of Elizabeth, she is featured in To Catch A Dollar, along with several other Grameen America entrepreneurs.
The documentary introduces viewers to Grameen staff and borrowers, as they work together to prove that the group lending model can work in the United States. Following the documentary, there’s a special panel, recorded earlier this month in New York, featuring Robert De Niro, Kiva President Premal Shah, financial guru Suze Orman, Dr. Yunus, and CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo.
The film will be showing at over 200 theaters across the country. Remember, this is a one-night-only event, so please get your tickets now!
A strong showing on Thursday will help guarantee international distribution for the film and get the word out about microfinance, so buy a ticket and take a friend. For those in the San Francisco Bay area, the Kiva team will be attending the screening at Embarcadero Cinemas. Drop by and say hi!
Dr. Yunus
Grameen and Kiva are in many ways a natural fit. The inspiration for Kiva came during a lecture by Muhammad Yunus at Stanford in 2005. His experience in Bangladesh inspired Kiva’s founders to travel to Uganda and begin the long journey of building what would one day become Kiva.
We’re thrilled to announce that earlier this month we passed $200 million in loans made on Kiva. This would have never been possible without Dr. Yunus’s inspiration, and for that we’re eternally grateful.
Speaking of microfinance in the United States, Kiva will be co-presenting the Microfinance USA Conference in New York on May 23-34. For more information, click here.
One final note: don’t forget we have borrowers from over 40 countries who are looking for loans every day.”
From http://www.rockandtheology.comOn Saturday morning, I started a busy week of yoga teaching at New York Methodist Hospital. I went to the Geriatric Psychology Unit. Because it is an acute care facility, I always have a different group of patients whom I work with in a small group class. Their cognitive and physical abilities vary widely. This weekend I met a woman, Ruth, who spoke very little and though she could hear me speaking, my questions didn’t register in her mind. Their illnesses are both fascinating and heart breaking to witness. My mind can’t help but go to the thought that some day I and / or the people I know and love may find ourselves in this same situation of loss as the years tick by.
There was a piano in the room where I was teaching the class. Ruth slowly shuffled to it and played a church hymn that she probably learned as a young child. Her shaking that was prevalent throughout the yoga class completely stopped. Color came back to her cheeks and for a moment she seemed aware again as she played the hymn. I was astonished and asked Caroline, the recreational therapist, why Ruth could play the song perfectly but not answer the question, “how are you?” Caroline had a very simple answer, “Music is the very last thing to go from the mind. Cognitive abilities, math skills, and speech can be completely gone but music sticks with us until our very last days.” I had no idea.
I’m certain that there is a very sound, neurological reason for this. Perhaps musical ability is stored in an area of the brain that is not affected by the loss of cognitive ability from aging. The writer and philosopher in me finds this notion to retaining music as a beautiful, powerful justification for making creativity and the arts a very necessary part of our lives at every age. When everything else falls away, and I mean everything, we can take comfort that music will become our final voice to the world.
“Imagination sometimes has to stand in for experience.” ~ Steve Martin, An Object of Beauty
I just started reading Steve Martin’s latest novel, An Object of Beauty. From the first 10 pages, I was hooked, as I always am with his writing. Lines like the one above are common place in his writing and have such an inspirational effect without slapping the reader in the face.
Just as I started to read An Object of Beauty, I also saw the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car. It’s the story of how GM pulled its well-received electric car from the market in 2005 and the conspiracy behind the decision that involved politicians and oil companies. None of the parties involved could imagine a world beyond their gas-guzzling vehicle experience.
A large company that I read about frequently is making some horrible investment decisions. Despite all of the market trend and competitive intelligence they have, they are refusing to invest in new technology. The new technology wouldn’t be that expensive to invest in. It wouldn’t even be that difficult to implement. They aren’t investing in new technology because the company’s leaders aren’t personal fans of new technology. They would rather plod along on the same road that has carried them to success up until now rather than try something new. As an investor in the company and a huge fan of the brand, I find their decisions frustrating. I can only imagine how their more progressive team members feel.
Experience has its place in our decision-making. It can be a helpful lens through which to view opportunities, though where I draw the line is when experience is used in place of imagination. What made us successful in the past will not always make us successful going forward. Times change, customers change, the world changes. And to stay relevant and engaged, we need to change, too. Experience doesn’t like change. The imagination embraces change, is fueled by change. Make good use of the imagination’s love of ambiguity. The only certainty we have in this world is that sooner or later, everything everywhere changes.
I found the image above here. I wouldn’t recommend any of these reasons.
I read a lot of career blogs. Managing a career, changing jobs with grace, and interviewing tips are all common topics. Most of the career advice I read is personal advice for how people can manage their own careers. This post is different – it isn’t necessarily for job seekers. This post is for people who have openings on their teams and are conducting interviews. If you fit that description, I have some advice based upon an experience I had in the not-so-distant past that ruined my opinion of a brand I really loved.
I went to an interview for a new role that really intrigued me. Though the opportunity seemed perfect on paper, I made sure to wear my skeptical spectacles so that I could be objective. I had a wonderful conversation with the recruiter (who is a top-notch professional) and met the hiring manager and his VP a few days later. 30 seconds into my interview with the VP I knew this role was not for me. But all was not lost. I learned so much about interviewing based upon the VP’s example of what not to do and I wanted to share it with you.
1.) Please read the candidate’s resume. I don’t care how busy an interviewer is. Talent is a company’s greatest resource and talent, perspective and current, needs to be treated with respect. Rest assured, the candidate did her homework and prepared for the interview. The interviewer needs to reciprocate.
2.) Frantic is a bad vibe. Again, I don’t care how busy an interviewer is. If the hiring manager can’t hold it together with grace under pressure, chances are his or her team won’t feel comfortable asking for guidance and support. And that’s a leader’s job – to support and counsel a team. Be there for them before they ever sign on the dotted line.
3.) You need to have solid answers to these 4 questions: a) what keeps you up at night?, b) what you do better than the competition?, c) what does the competition do better than you?, and d) if there was a recent turnover in management, why? If an interviewer can’t answer those questions, I would recommend that the candidates interviewing head for the door. Run, don’t walk. Guy Kawasaki thinks so, too.
4.) “I’m new” is a really poor excuse for not knowing your business and the market. And if it’s March, and a leader was hired in November, I’m afraid the “I’m new” excuse doesn’t fly for any question a candidate asks. In this ever-changing economy, 4 months is more than enough ramp up time.
5.) Practice what you preach. For example, if the company’s mission is health and wellness, then the employees of the company need to be healthy and well. If a hiring manager is working herself to death in the health and wellness field makes, that person is a poor role model, for the team and customers. It also ruins the company’s credibility in the field. And by the way, it’s not sustainable. Abuse the body and mind long enough, and eventually they will give out.
6.) Don’t assume you know someone’s MO solely based upon the company they work in. Someone may be part of a large corporation without being a corporate drone. It is possible to be outspoken and innovative even in a large company with a lot of politics. Don’t assume that someone’s corporate experience means they can’t add value in a start-up or nonprofit. Everyone has something unique to offer, and the hiring manager’s job in interviewing is to find out what each candidate offers (by asking them!) and if what they have to offer matches what the company needs.
7.) To get more information about a candidate’s background, please don’t say anything like, “Tell me something that will make me feel better about hiring you.” I wish this didn’t need to be said, but that’s the exactly what the hiring manager said to me at the end of my interview. That’s poor form, and it’s just plain rude. My former boss and mentor, Bob G., had a great line that I use all the time that is so much more effective and polite. Whenever he didn’t understand something or if he was unsure about what someone meant, he didn’t put them on the spot in an uncomfortable way. He simply asked, “Can you tell me more about that?” It works like a charm every time. It gets candidates to open up and share without feeling like they need to defend themselves.
What other tips do you have for conducting successful interviews? Let’s put an end to really bad interviews!
One of my favorite SXSW features is Knitta, Please, a now-large scale project begun by Magda Sayeg in her then-home of Houston. Everywhere she looked it was gray, and as a dedicated artist she wanted to infuse her environment with handmade color. She didn’t have paint. She had something better – yarn.
I first learned about the project at a commercial shown prior to a documentary screening at SXSW. My favorite line from Magda – “you don’t knit for hate. This is a goodness project.” And the world needs more goodness. In 2005, she started Knitta, Please, an organization dedicated to incorporating woven graffiti into urban environments. The work of the Knittas can now be found on 5 continents. The variety of pictures on her website’s gallery speak for themselves. Hop over there and take a look.
To earn more about Knitta, Please, check out their website and blog. How might your art help to bring more color to the world in a meaningful way?
I snapped the photo above in the green room at the Austin Convention Center during SXSW and posted it to my Tumblr photo blog. And yes, it did make me think about how many places in the world need more art.
In the past few weeks I have been bowled over by the amount of crisis in the world. I almost don’t bother to open the email alerts I get of what’s coming up on the nightly news. I already know what they’ll say – covering the dual crisis in Libya and Japan. The photos and descriptions of events happening in both countries are terrifying. And still, despite all of the destruction and violence, I do think this is an hour that holds a lot of promise. These two crises can bring us together is a powerful, meaningful way.
Thomas Friedman wrote an excellent column this week about our perfect storm of problems – the prolonged abuse of our environment is coming to bear in one natural disaster after another, violent revolutions in the Middle East threaten a great portion of our energy supply, and the ever-evolving situation with the Japanese nuclear plant casts a long shadow over our society’s view of nuclear energy. It would be easy to designate blame to a party other than ourselves, to point the finger away from us. In this hour of our history, the most helpful thing we can do is to take a good long look in the mirror, collectively and individually, and ask what we can do in this moment and in every moment going forward to create a healthier more sustainable world in every dimension.
For some sad reason, humans often require a burning platform before we can allow ourselves to change. I wish we didn’t, but the truth is until we have a darn good motivation to change, we just plod along as we always have. Something has to inspire to mix it up. Maybe the crisis in the Middle East is what we need to finally make our peace with all people, of all faiths. Maybe these terrifying natural disasters will change our daily habits to do what’s best to sustain and nurture our natural world. Maybe we’ll let go of even a fraction of our energy consumption. Perhaps Yuka Saionji is right, these crisis can be the catalyst to our own evolution.
http://nscblog.com“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.” ~ George Sheehan
I read this quote earlier in the week on a daily email I receive from Tiny Buddha. MJ, one of the wonderful readers of this blog, recommended it to me a few months ago and I’ve been reading it daily ever since. In line with my year of writing about new beginnings, the ideas that it raises really resonate with people who are always in the process of becoming.
George Sheehan’s quote hit a cord with me today as I wrestle with a possible career / life transition that allows me to combine my love of health and wellness with my equal love for technology and writing. For the past few months, I really thought I could make my money through one avenue and have my other personal passions live in my post-work hours. After SXSW and IHS, I’m recognizing that this dual-life takes much more energy than its worth. And since I can’t let go of any of these passions, they’re all too near and dear to my heart, I have to do some personal R&D. I need to find a way to fuse them together to create a happy and financially stable life for myself.
I’m aware that this is a tall order, and if I could get away with less believe me, I would do it. But I can’t. I have to become who I am meant to be. Anything less would just be a huge disservice to all of the people who have given me so much for so long. My family, my friends, my mentors, my teachers. There’s so much that the world needs and to make the most use of my time, I need to bring to bear everything that I have.
You do, too. A lot of us spend a lot of time being less. Now, I’m talking about running ourselves ragged for the sake of doing more, more, more. I’m talking about taking a look at what really makes our hearts sing, what really makes us come alive, and finding a way to do those things more of the time. Yes, we are still occasionally going to have to make choices that are less than ideal, though if they serve a long-term higher goal of getting as much happiness as possible in this lifetime, then we just need to recognize these less optimal stop-overs as exactly that – incremental steps to fully becoming the people we’re meant to be.
At SXSW, I had the great good fortune to meet Michelle Ward, a.k.a. The When I Grow Up Coach, through my wonderful friend, Amanda. A few weeks ago, Michelle sent out a tweet about decision-making, encouraging all of us to go for the choices that make us say, “Hell yes!” Now, isn’t that just about the best decision-making tool you could imagine. So elegant. Option A makes you say, “Eh, maybe” and Option B makes you say, “Hell, yes!” End of contemplation. For people like me who have a tree diagram for every decision they make as well as pro con lists out the wazoo, this little test is a life-saver. I’ve already used it a dozen times and reduced my stress considerably as a result.
Michelle’s test is a sure way to get to exactly the successful state that George Sheehan describes in his quote. Our courage, determination, and will become so much stronger, and honestly easier to have, when we have “Hell yes” on our side. Give it a go and let me know how it turns out!
I’ve been following the site Jane Nation and its associated Twitter feed for a few months. I found Jane through a Google search for a project I’m conducting at work. I was looking around for online communities that focus on women at various life stages, and Jane surfaced high on the ladder of my search.
A few weeks ago, I sent Lisa Beatty, the mastermind behind Jane, a note to see if I could guest blog for the site. Lisa was so encouraging of my writing and this blog that she made me an even better offer. She wanted to know if I would syndicate my content from this blog onto Jane Nation in the various Sisterhoods (lifestyle groups) that comprise the site. My answer was an enthusiastic “yes” followed by an equally-enthusiastic “thank you”. And so, our partnership and mutual adoration began.
My thanks to Lisa and her Jane-In-Crime, Karen Moran, for making this opportunity possible. Going forward, you can find a lot of this blog’s content in the following Sisterhoods on Jane Nation: Flying Solo (for the single ladies), Reclaiming Your Health, Reinventing At Any Age, and Passion Pursuer. I hope you’ll join the 2,500+ women who comprise Jane Nation – welcome to the sisterhood!
Christa Avampato 