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How to dare yourself into success

28 Jun concert

Most goals are hard. There’s a high degree of difficulty, and therefore a high risk of failure. And I never want to show up in front of friends, family, coworkers or (gulp) my boss as a failure.

But I am risking it all now.

My current goal is a biggie—it’s losing the equivalent of a gold brick in weight. I’m doing it the old-fashioned way: no pills, no programs, no prepackaged meals or bars … just good, old-fashioned counting calories, eating real food and literally walking my butt off. And it’s working.

But unless you live under a rock, you know that anyone who has tried to lose weight has failed (often more than once). So don’t you think I’m a bit crazy to admit that I’m doing something hard, something I’m likely to fail at, to everyone (including you, dear reader)?

Yup. Crazy.

But I’ve decided that this is exactly what I need to be successful. If I hide my efforts, it gives me the motivation-sapping opportunity to make excuses. To slack off. To quit. And that would most certainly make me a failure.

So, instead, I’m telling the world. Telling my marathon-running boss, my pageant-winning coworker, my REI-model coworker, my gloriously-skinny-after-two-kids cousin, even friends who will probably judge me for holding onto the equivalent of a spare tire’s worth of weight after each of my own two kids.

Oh, man. If I fail at this, I am in trouble.

But I would argue that getting to a goal requires a declaration that is exactly this big and bold. It means Continue reading →

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You know you’re rich when…

29 Nov Are you wealthy? How do you define prosperity?

I watched with morbid fascination this past weekend as news reporters relayed the following Black Friday-related stories.

  • Stores including Target, Toys R Us and Wal-Mart opened on Thanksgiving night, further stretching the shopping marathon.
  • A couple camped outside of an electronics store from Monday through Friday morning (yep, they spent their Thanksgiving on the sidewalk) to be first in line to get $199 42-inch TVs and $299 laptops.
  • A dozen people were sent to a hospital after a woman pepper-sprayed a crowd during a scuffle involving sought-after items in a large retail store.

Do any of these stories bother you? At some level, each put me on edge.

The name Black Friday originated in Philadelphia, where it was originally used to describe the heavy, disruptive traffic on the day after Thanksgiving, according to Wikipedia. Later, an alternative explanation suggested that “Black Friday” is the point at which retailers begin to turn a profit, or are “in the black”.

That’s really what Black Friday is about—retailers making a profit. But at what expense? This year many national retailers set a new precedent by opening on Thanksgiving. It makes me sad, thinking of my best friend (a longtime retail manager) and how she was never able to spend Thanksgiving with her family 250 miles away because trying to get Black Friday off work was impossible.

The Macy’s CEO tried to spin it another way, saying that seasonal workers don’t mind the extra hours, but I still find it sad that many retail workers have to choose between being employed or being with family.

I also find the decision to camp out for bargains quite sad. Just how much money are they “saving,” anyway? I put a pretty high premium on the opportunity to sleep in (or even just be at home, not away on business), so the idea of spending several windy, rainy nights in a tent on a sidewalk does not appeal to me.

I do this mental arithmetic: How much is my time worth? How much money am I actually saving? The answer to this question informs lots of my choices about money, including whether to hire a housekeeper (it creates time I can spend with my family instead) and myriad other conveniences.

By the same token, when I don’t choose convenience, such as when I choose to make my kid’s birthday cupcakes instead of buying them at a store, it shows how much I value what I am creating.

My core reaction to all of the shopping lust that crops up during this so-called giving season is a real assessment of what wealth is.

Are you wealthy? How do you define prosperity?

Are you rich? Are you wealthy? Are you prosperous? By almost any measure, I am.

I should clarify. Before you imagine me in a totally different tax bracket, I’m not among those with elite wealth, what I’ve heard described as “jet money.” At that level, you aren’t just going on fancy vacations … you’re flying there in your own jet.

Sure, that’s wealth. But I think too many people see that as the only definition of wealth, and fail to appreciate the prosperity in their here and now.

One way I used to describe prosperity post-college was “you don’t have to balance your checkbook before ordering a pizza.” It’s great to be able to splurge—even on pizza—without second-guessing your financial means.

By far, my favorite description of wealth is from my mom. My folks married early, lived frugally and worked tirelessly for years to build a small business and raise two little girls. After more than a decade of work, my folks finally “made it,” which (to me, in middle school) meant the ability to buy clothes at the mall, not just at Goodwill and garage sales.

“I felt like we were rich when I could go to the grocery store and buy anything I wanted,” my mom said.

And isn’t that a great measure of wealth? Consider how few people in the world have access to a wealth of choices in a grocery store, much less the means to buy whatever they want?

So, throughout this holiday season as you enjoy giving and receiving, consider your own definition of wealth. Do you have enough? Plenty? Prosperity? Wealth?

I believe I do, and that alone frees me from the compulsion to shop at 4 a.m. or grapple with other shoppers over some discounted item. I have everything I need.

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Ten tips to make gift-giving more memorable (without a trip to the mall)

24 Nov Gift

Hi there! In anticipation of Black Friday tomorrow, I’m taking fifteen minutes to share some gift-giving strategies that will help you avoid the chaos that is the mall. Here are ten tips:

KIDS

Build a library—No matter what their age, consider giving kids your favorite books from childhood.

Instead of toys, buy children experiences. (Happily, these toys are donations.)

For younger kids, the beautifully illustrated Caldecott medal winners are always a good choice—avoid bland books that feel more like flash cards than stories. Parents will thank you for helping them avoid reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear for the 347th time.

Create an experience—Buy an admission to a water park or play area (and join them in the experience, too!). One of my friends took her tween niece and nephew geocacheing, which was a huge hit. For a bigger gift, buy a family membership to the zoo or children’s museum, which they can enjoy all year.

Connect to their interests—For teens, special interest magazines are a great choice (teen magazines focusing on sports and art), as are sports equipment, sleeping bags for camping and sleepovers, summer events such as a music day camp, adventures like horseback riding, and age-appropriate event tickets.

ADULTS

Think local—support a local restaurant by giving a gift certificate or choose a gift from a local boutique. Tickets to an event (“Taste of ___” or a music festival) or a subscription to a performing arts group are also great choices. If the adults have kids, offer to babysit so they can go out and enjoy their gift!

Think consumable—whether you offer homemade goodies, gourmet ingredients, local wine or spirits, adults can appreciate an indulgence that won’t end up in a landfill or donate-to-charity pile. I love giving Penzey’s spices to help friends replace old and dusty spices lingering in their cabinets. Penzey’s cinnamon alone will blow your mind.

Think charitable—consider what matters to the recipient, and choose a charitable gift that supports the cause they’re passionate about. This might spawn a more charitably minded family tradition.

WEDDINGS

Wrap smart—Sometimes a card can get separated from a gift, and the happy couple will feel quite embarrassed about sending a broadcast message to their wedding guests asking, “Hey, who gave us this toaster?” Avoid any confusion by sticking the card inside the gift box (or taping it to the gift box) before wrapping with paper.

Celebrate the future—Consider giving the couple something they can enjoy for the long-term, such as bottles of wine to be cellared until their first, fifth or tenth anniversaries.

Send it—Don’t bring your gift directly to the wedding or reception site because it can be a huge task to gather and transport these gifts home. Instead, send it to the couple’s address before or after the wedding (but not immediately after the wedding, as they might be away on their honeymoon and can’t collect a package from the front porch).

YOUR SPOUSE

Finally, for your spouse or significant other, I think the best gifts are those that create more time and memories together. Buying a limo tour for wine tasting, a weekend stay at a cozy, romantic hotel or a class you can take together creates memories that will last far longer than this coming holiday season.

So, enjoy each other and celebrate the best thing about the holidays—special time with friends and family.

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I am thankful for … mentors who guide my career

24 Nov Hopscotch

Happy Thanksgiving! It’s my favorite holiday—we celebrate our many blessings, we give to the less fortunate, there’s always room at the table for another; we cook, eat, nap and watch football. What could be better?

There’s more: I’ve never had someone get mad at me for failing to buy them a Thanksgiving Day gift, or send them a Thanksgiving card. The hardest holiday shopping is the Costco parking lot the day before the big event, and even then, it doesn’t require traffic cops like the mall does on Christmas Eve. (Not that I’d be caught dead there and then.)

But I digress. It’s Thanksgiving, and I wanted to share what I’m thankful for. Since this is a blog about work and purpose, I wanted to specifically acknowledge mentors who have been important to me: I got a wonderful surprise via Facebook last week, which was a blog post via aPriori International about my blog post on styles. You can read the whole thing here, but my favorite part is this:

We don’t bring Heidi’s blog to the forefront just because she is a participant in our programs or because her latest post references the principles we espouse. Rather, we feel her documentation of her learning expands the risk that is inherent in learning. By jumping into Market Force courses, Heidi admitted to herself that there are things in her life with which she needs assistance, from employee assessments to personal time management to … whatever. And so by writing about her learning, she is taking a greater risk, a critical action in the process of becoming your “whole self.”

The thing that this post immediately brought to my mind was Charles Bukowski’s poem, “The Rape of the Holy Mother.”

Before that title freaks you out, read what this poem is really about: “To expose your ass on paper/ terrifies some/ and/ it should:/ the more you put down/ the more you leave yourself/ open/ to those who label themselves/ “critics.” (full poem here)

As Travis Carson, author of the aPriori post above, rightly says, learning is inherently risky. And that’s why today, on Thanksgiving, I am especially grateful for mentors.

Mentors challenge you. They allow you to fail. They guide your learning and your experimentation. They’re not about “thinking out of the box,” they’re about tearing that whole damned box apart.

Which is pretty cool, don’t you think? So here’s my list (and only just a start) of career mentors who have helped me make pivotal choices.

I am thankful for Yvonne Young, my second-grade teacher, who constantly repeated the phrase, “You are loveable and capable!” She built tremendous self-esteem (and daring qualities), and her expert storytelling remains so memorable that I try to mimic it with my own children.

I am thankful for Andy Gottesman, my high school debate coach. Winning in debate helped me feel fantastic about myself in high school even though I was pretty nerdy. That’s a big deal, but more importantly, I truly believe that speech and debate skills got me through college and prepared me for the world of work.

I am thankful for Cliff Rowe, my college journalism professor. Cliff literally changed my life when he prompted me to apply for a fellowship even though I hadn’t declared a major in journalism. I ended up winning the fellowship, a $1,000 stipend to intern at a newspaper, and then Cliff then directed me to an idyllic summer at the Port Townsend-Jefferson County Leader. By the end of five months there, I was hooked, and spent the next nine years in newspapers.

I am thankful for Pat Jenkins, my first, full-time newspaper editor. He took a chance on hiring me fresh out of college and pushed my writing far, far forward by taking the time to show me how I could improve (not just making corrections and moving on). He helped me develop strong reporting skills to really immerse myself in a community, and also helped me navigate some tricky political stories that resulted in the resignation of a judge.

I am thankful for Dan Cook, my business reporting editor, whose passion for digging into a story completely changed my reporting style, who managed to reign in this spitfire with good humor and tons of patience, and who taught me the value of having conviction in your work (and knowing when to take a pass).

I am thankful for Lynn Parsons, marketing and business development consultant, who understands the value of real business relationships (not just LinkedIn connections) and how to manage clients with diplomacy and grace, and who I admire tremendously for running her own firm through any economic cycle. She is the master of client service.

I am thankful for Craig Robbins, Chief Knowledge Officer and “dean” of Colliers University, who has given me hours of insight into work styles and systems, and who has the kind of advice that is tough to hear but absolutely essential if you want to get through any roadblock.

And I am also thankful for Katherine Steen, director of Colliers University, who since 2006 who has given me the platform and opportunity to speak to a broader audience, share my expertise and connect with people from around the world, and tackle challenging projects with zest.

There are many more on the list, but I wanted to recognize the people above because the each played a pivotal role in my career development. I am deeply grateful for everything they shared and invested in me.

If you’re from the USA, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. If you’re not, give thanks anyway. I’m taking this weekend off blogging to spend with my family, but I’ll send you a post later tonight on gift-giving and see you back here on Monday, Nov. 28.

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Another reason to celebrate

19 Nov photo

I’m usually not blogging on the weekend, but today I wanted to take a moment to share the reason I’m celebrating: My daughter, Audrey Joyce Katherine Tretheway, turned one year old. She can walk and run, but still has no teeth! My best friend calls her a mini-me.

Audrey (or AJ) is named for treasured people in my life:

Audrey Nelson, my grandmother, an amazing artist, children’s author and cook,

Audrey DeWitt, my husband’s close family friend (very much like a grandmother),

Joyce Tretheway, my husband’s grandmother (She was better known as G.G. Vodka–the GG stands for Great Grandma–because of her drink of choice in the afternoons. She baked seven banana cream pies for our wedding.),

Katherine “Kitty” Stout, my grandmother who always speaks her mind,

Katherine Steen, my friend, exceptionally smart chick and tremendous supporter.

I know it’s a long name (my son also has two middle names), but I imagine that given the strong women and incredible love behind it, the names will serve her well.

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What your work style says about you

17 Nov 11.17 Style

Have you interviewed for a job lately?

If you’re like a lot of my friends, the answer is yes.

And you’re probably been hit by the same question that most hiring managers ask: “Tell me a little about yourself.”

Ah. The big one. Where to begin?

When I’m hiring someone, one of the most important things I want to know is what that person’s work style is. How do they behave with groups? Under pressure? Left to their own devices, where would they start in a project?

Answer this: If you were planning a party, which of these roles would you be most comfortable filling?

You come up with the big idea—the party theme, the reason for having it.

You get everyone excited—call your friends, get people on board

You make it happen—call the caterer, the DJ

You make sure it works—check to be sure you bought ice, vet the DJ’s playlist to be sure it’s not lame.

If you could only pick one of these, which would you most like to do? Which would you be least likely to do? This is the type of question I ask to try to assess a work style.

The question of styles is answered by dozens of frameworks, including Meyers-Briggs, Kolbe, the Predictive Index, DiSC … the list goes on. My favorite, by far, is taught by aPriori International and my friend (and kickass coach) Travis Carson. It’s called Market Force.

In Market Force parlance, I’m an Influence. (I’d pick number two on the list above). Here’s what they’d have to say about me:

“The Influence is one of the easiest styles to pinpoint because they’ll be the antsy one at the end of the conference table, itching to end the meeting and talk about what happened in the game last night, especially if the meeting is dragging on. It’s not that the Influence doesn’t pay attention or is lackadaisical, they just have a lot of energy.”

Ha! Energy. My mother often tells people that when I was little, she’d just put her head in her hands and cry because I was such a busy little kid, she just couldn’t entertain me or keep up with me. But all that energy turned out to be a gift. She even goes so far as to tell harried parents of overactive kids, “Don’t worry, my daughter was worse! And she turned out OK.”

Here’s a bit more: “You’ll need to get them to focus that energy on a project. In doing so, watch for the Influence to go at it from a relationship perspective. They like team and social environments because that is what keeps them motivated.”

Right again. Take the people, the interaction, out of the project and you’ve taken most of the fun out of it for me.

More: “The Influence can take a project and run with it, and usually can do so without a lot of details. They use their energy to figure it out and are certainly ‘commit first, then figure it out’ types. If you want a project to get off the ground as soon as possible, hand it to an Influence.”

Yep, there’s the Firestarter in me. I make things GO.

But it’s good and bad: “Something to consider about the Influence is their propensity to over-task themselves. When they do, the response is to retreat and subsequently, neglect the request. Although cognizant of it, they’ll use their sharp verbal skills and, aptly enough, influence, to find their way out of a tight spot. They want to work fast and have no problem letting the discussion drift off into disparate subjects. Keep them focused but make sure they’re having fun and are in action as often as possible.”

You know what makes Influences crazy? Slow drivers. You know what makes us tick? Mood. We can smell it from a mile away. If the project’s not fun, if the mood is sour, we’re onto it and either working passionately to change it, or disengaged.

So, tell me about yourself.

Take fifteen minutes to figure out your own style (check out aPriori’s blog posts, mini-articles about each of those styles). I find that by learning more about my style and my natural reactions to stress and challenge, I’m more effective because I see the big picture—strengths, flaws and all. GO.

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Five things I’m not afraid of anymore

16 Nov Times square fisheye

Hi. I’ve got fifteen minutes and I’m thinking about fear today.

If you plotted fear on an axis, it might look something like this:

Fear is the part that goes backward. The part that takes you forward? That’s love. The opposite of fear is love.

A very smart lady, Nancy Morris, once told me that in a training session (she’s teaches the art of accomplishment). It stuck with me long past the lesson itself. And now it’s absolutely, irrevocably cemented in my head because I have proof.

Here it is, my proof. Five things I’m not afraid to do anymore:

Wear a bathing suit. Show me a woman who thinks her body looks just perfect in a bathing suit, and I’ll show you—never mind, you won’t find her. Like most women, I wasn’t excited about pouring my aging, post-two-babies, plus-two-C-section-scars body into a bathing suit to take my toddler to the pool. But when I saw the absolute joy as he kicked and wiggled and experienced the water, I lost my fear of being judged for flab. Love conquers fear. I’ll take public humiliation any day for a chance to go swimming with my kids.

Talk back. From time to time at work in various jobs, I’ve butted heads with colleagues or managers. Sometimes, it’s a matter of opinion. Sometimes, it’s a matter of principle. I can shut up and take it, or I can speak up and try to change things. I choose the latter. I’ve learned that when I care more about doing a job than keeping it, I can be enormously effective. Love conquers fear, so I can stand on principle for the things that I’m passionate about, and as a result, get vastly greater satisfaction in my career.

Swing for the fences. I wrote a novel. That’s big—you put your butt in your chair for hours and hours and hope the muse meets you there. I’ve also supervised a complete kitchen remodel while seven and a half months pregnant, including sourcing all of the materials. I’ve gone to Egypt for weeks alone when friends wouldn’t go with me. I’ve moved away from my friends and boyfriend to take a new, vastly better job in Portland.

All of these things had huge potential for failure, but I’ve found that swinging for the fences is the best way forward. I’m not afraid to take risks because I might not accomplish what I set out to do. The alternative, not risking it, is that I will definitely not accomplish what I want to do.

Dabbling: one of five things I'm not afraid to do anymore.

Dabble. I embroidered a bunch of Christmas stockings for my family (ahem, I don’t sew). I started a blog. I tried Twitter, started and stopped and started again. I got an iPad and dozens of apps. I got a treadmill. I took the GMAT. I cut my hair (bangs for the first time in fifteen years). I tried silver nail polish (not a good look) and jeggings (comfortable, but weird). I bought quince at the farmer’s market.

I can’t tell you whether the quince thing will be good (I’m still searching for recipes), but I can tell you I’m happy I tried so many of these things. I might end up hating them, grow out my bangs, throw out my jeggings, and go back to my regular life. And that would be OK. I’m no longer afraid to try something and have it be an absolute failure. I order the weird things on the menu because, who knows? I might love it. And if I hate it, I’ll order something else.

Be real. A while ago, as I was working on a corporate communications strategy for Facebook, my boss and I were on the phone playing with Facebook’s groups functions, each of us on our own computers with our own accounts. I had just created a company page, and now I needed to add him as an administrator. Problem: He wasn’t my Facebook “friend.”

Uh-oh. “Don’t be friends with your boss on Facebook” is the number one cardinal rule of social media, is it not? Or even, “Don’t be Facebook friends with work people.” I’ve heard that before. So when my boss said, “Well, I guess you’ve got to add me as a Facebook friend now so I can be the admin for our company page, too,” I just did it, and damn the consequences.

Which were … none. Rather, nothing more than my boss kindly asking how my novel-writing weekend went (when I posted that as a status update). Happily, I’ve never put anything online that I’d be ashamed to have my grandmother or CEO read or see. But still—there’s definitely a work-life separation that I think most folks try to achieve. I, for one, am over it. I’ve gotten over the fear of being real. I’m just going to be me, seamlessly, in work and in life. The “Work Heidi” isn’t a different person from the “Home Heidi.”

So that’s me, I’m WYSIWYG. What about you? Do you have any fears? Hey, you’ve got fifteen minutes—start conquering them. GO.

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Because we’re “the sharing family,” that’s why

15 Nov 11.15 Water symphony

What are the rules that guide your life?

Today, “don’t hit your sister” and “don’t sass” were featured in my household. Ah, parenthood.  

I’m not one for issuing a lot of don’ts. In fact, if you know me at all, you’ll agree I’m not a rules-follower. I never follow a recipe to the letter (not even my own). Policies make my eyes glaze over. So you can imagine I wanted to take a bit more creative approach to rules for my family.

To guide our kids into becoming the adolescents and (gulp) grown-ups my husband and I intend, I felt like the rules needed to be relevant to all of us—kids and grown-ups alike. Here’s what we started with:

How we treat others: Share. Encourage. Be truthful. Be gentle. Keep your promises. Forgive. Love each other.

How we behave: Whatever you are, be a good one. Enjoy moments. Look. Listen. Create. Start. Keep going! Finish. Make the most of it. Be safe, but have an adventure.

How we treat our home: Ask first. Clean it up. Put it back. Care.

(By the way, if you are as awesome as my friend Katherine, you should definitely include one of her family’s rules on your list: #10. Rock and Roll!)

Inspired by the beautiful typography on Pinterest, I came up with this little graphic for our home. It’s still a work in progress. Design majors, don’t laugh. But it makes sense of all of the little lessons I’m trying to teach my little people, every day.

My son Drew has constant questions about why we do things, and I realized that being matter-of-fact was startlingly effective. It’s more subtle than “because I’m Mommy, and I said so.”

Instead, I say, “because we’re a ____ family.”

It started with the phrase “We’re a sharing family.” My CEO’s wife wrote an anecdote for a special book I assembled for his tenth anniversary with my company that struck a chord: She described how he has always been passionate about sharing and giving. From a very early age, their children were taught that they were part of a sharing family, and that they would share their means and their time with people less fortunate.

The story totally resonated with me. I decided immediately that we, the Tretheways, are a sharing family. I tell this to Drew over and over. It’s starting to stick.

Last March, on his third birthday, we weren’t allowed to bring homemade cupcakes to share with the class (and I won’t be caught dead buying cupcakes stuffed with unpronounceable, non-food ingredients from the supermarket). So, instead, we brought the one food item Drew loves more than anything: fruit leather.

Seriously. They’re my kid’s candy bars.

We brought them to school, and I told Drew he could start passing them out to his friends. He hesitated. (I mean, come on—we’re talking about a just-turned three-year-old giving away his favorite thing.) Then he went over to each of the dozen kids in his class and handed them a piece of fruit leather. “We’re a sharing family, so you can have one,” he said, seriously.

I was bowled over. It was working! Drew has even convinced me to share stuff I did not intend to share with him (um, no thank you for backwash in my root beer) because he’d remind me that we were a sharing family. And so, I shared.

I soon realized I could leverage for a few more salient points. And so, we are also a clean family. We take baths. We brush our teeth. We clean up our toys. We don’t waste.

We're a sharing family. Here, Drew shares his find: a tiny crab.

This summer, when we were at the county fair, Drew spilled some caramel corn on the floor and then picked up and ate the fallen pieces faster than I could intervene. “Drew, if you spill again, would you please just throw the popcorn away?” I asked him.

“Because we’re a clean family?” he asked. I was going to say because the floor probably had all kinds of germs growing in that accumulated funk, but I stopped myself. “Yes, because we’re a clean family, and we make sure not to leave our messes behind.”

“Here, Mommy,” he said, and offered me the bag of caramel corn. “And we’re a sharing family, too, right?”

Once I’d scooped my jaw off the floor, I literally stopped us among a stream of fair-goers, got on my knee and hugged that platinum-blond boy as hard as I could. “Yes.”

Uh-oh … I’ve gotten carried away telling the story and went longer than fifteen minutes. Sorry. It’ll happen again, I’m sure (I’m not a rules-follower). In the meantime, why not take fifteen minutes to consider what your rules for living are. And if I were to describe you and your family by one word, what would it be?

“We’re a ____ family,” you would say.

And I’d say, “Nice to meet you. We’re the Tretheways. We’re a sharing family.”

P.S. I’ll leave you with this little quote: “What I love most about my home is who I share it with.”

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You are not air-dropped into corporate culture

11 Nov Culture

Hi there. What’s your day been like? Meetings? Deadlines? Buzzwords?

Oh yeah, I hear that. In my newsroom, back when I was a journalist, we used to make fun of the worst corporate-speak press releases that came in. They were chock-full of business clichés like “leveraging synergies” and “thinking outside the box” and “win-win situation.”

But the most frustrating one for me was “corporate culture.” It was as if culture were an immovable force, a wilderness that you’re air-dropped into. Somehow, as the employee, you’ve got to survive it.

But I don’t buy it.

I see corporate culture not as something that comes at you, like a ball thrown for you to catch, but as something you constantly create and affect, like being in a swimming pool, making ripples of your own.

You heard me: you are responsible for your corporate culture. Not leadership. Not your manager. You.

I told you a while ago in Guiding by Goals that I developed a list of three business goals in response to a challenging colleague. Last on the list was “Thrive in a positive and professional work environment.”

But when that colleague was finally out of the picture, I realized I was wrong.

My goal assumed culture was something thrust upon me, something I had to react to. But it didn’t credit my ability to change things, to make the company I’m in become the company I intend. So I changed my goal. My new goal is this: Lead culture and best practices.

Let me give you an example of leading culture. This summer, I partnered with our Chief Information Officer to present a fun lunch-and-learn to our corporate team called “Apps & Apps.” I demonstrated six appetizers (I adore cooking), and the CIO demonstrated a bunch of cool apps for iPad and iPhone.

It was a hit! So many colleagues said it was the most fun program they’d seen. More importantly, I think it shifted the company culture just a little bit further toward what I intend—a place where everyone has something interesting to contribute, where we enjoy each other and have fun learning together.

I’m sure you feel like sometimes your corporate culture is lacking. Maybe your sense is that everyone’s got their head down, grinding under project deadlines, budget cutbacks and political wrangling that can truly take your eye off the ball of what’s important.

Out for drinks with colleagues one night, someone asked me how I’d handle a particularly cranky set of folks who never seemed like they enjoyed work or each other. What would I do?

“Forget ‘em,” I said (or another word starting with F), speaking from my gut and shocking myself as much as I did them. And then, I added this quote from another colleague: “You can’t get blood from a rock.”

My point is this: you can spin your wheels forever trying to “get everyone on the same page,” “achieve buy-in” or any number of other business clichés. Or you can just be who you were meant to be: a positive, dynamic, inspiring influence on the culture of your company.

I love the quote, “Don’t try to win over the haters. You are not the jerk whisperer.” (Another good blog on this here.) So that’s where I draw the line on creating culture—be the influence, but be OK with the fact that not everyone will follow.

That’s because some people show up for work and are unprepared to participate in culture. They see it as happening to them, and if they don’t like it, chances are they’re living in resignation and resentment, a hole they’re not likely to climb out of.

Take a risk. Throw ‘em a rope, be your authentic self, live the culture and values you intend to spread throughout the organization. You’ll surprise yourself with followers. And who knows? The haters might just come around, too. (I keep talking to those cranky people, thinking, Someday….)

Take 15 minutes to go affect your corporate culture by being the kind of person you want your whole company to be—inspiring, polite, thankful, collaborative, fun, engaging, risk-taking, authentic. Don’t wait for someone else to take the cultural reins. GO.

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Three things I can’t live without

10 Nov Three things feat

Hi, how’s it going? Good week? Big plans for the weekend? Me, too. A whole weekend on my own (away from the family). I hardly know what to do with myself!

There’s a game that circulates on Facebook from time to time, asking you to write in a few items that you’d take with you to a deserted island.

Well, sometimes they ask, “What would you take with you to a desert island?”

And (the writer geek in me speaks up now), if they were really asking that, I’d say: Enough food and water to last throughout my stay, and shelter of some kind. Because, really, if we’re talking desert island, it’s all about survival.

But if we’re talking deserted island—you know, white sand beach with palm trees and tropic fruits in abundance, but no people—then it’s not about sustenance. It’s about company and creature comforts.

(OK, desert island/deserted island lecture over. You may now resume reading a normal person’s blog.)

So what three things would I take?

Assuming I could get power, I’d take a laptop with Internet access (a girl can dream), my Kindle and my feather pillow. I’m pretty sure I’d get more novel-writing done there than I do here in the cycle of work/family/sleep/work/family/sleep.

But these are a far cry from what really matters to me. I have three words, imprinted on a silver bracelet more than a decade ago: “Adventure, Joy, Creativity.” These remain the hallmarks of what make me, me. These are three things I can’t live without.

One of the three things I can't live without? Being a world traveler. Feature photo by Kiwinz, insert photo by MikeBehnken.

And remember when I told you about the three business goals I developed for myself in Guiding by Goals? Well, I have three things I can’t live without in my personal life as well. I strive to be:

  1. A lifelong learner
  2. A world traveler
  3. An involved parent and partner.

I told a former boss about these three personal goals and she snorted. “That doesn’t seem very ambitious, Heidi, aren’t you already doing those?”

Well, yeah. I am. But I think of these goals as ever-present, not just something out in the distance that you have to work toward, bit by bit. In fact, their presence in my daily life is exactly what’s so important about them.

I have ‘lifelong learner’ on my list because I’m always on a learning curve. Whether it’s new technology (the impetus to start my blog, so that I could learn WordPress), or a new skill like embroidery (hey, if knitting can be hip, don’t you dare knock embroidery), I dig that experimentation phase when I’m not really sure how to get from A to B, but enjoy the trial and error.

I also can’t seem to get enough of smart people. I read more than a book a week, hopping from marketing books to general corporate strategy, then over to Chick Lit, taking a right at mystery and suspense, short jog to legal thrillers and rounding the curve with some literary historical nonfiction and memoir. (Hyperlinks are to recent recommendations.)

And to really plug into thought leadership, I go for Harvard Business Review (try #HBRchat sometime on Twitter, it’s fun and you’ll meet interesting people) and TED’s rich collection of presentations. (By the way, I’m putting you on notice that it’s now one of my goals to give a TED talk.)

So, do you have three goals for your personal life? (Or four or five, I’m not a stickler.) Are they goals with a finish line, like “Lose 20 pounds” or “Write a novel,” or are they goals that you are accountable to both now and in the future.

I’d argue that the best goals are those that you can and must achieve continually. Then, there’s no time like the present to achieve them. GO.

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