Not Exactly

Yesterday was a big quarterly event at work.

The management team that I work in sponsored the first event of the year with the intent of congratulating everyone on a job well done last year, setting our what we want to achieve this year and just having a bit of fun and getting to know each other.

The day went brilliantly. My colleagues are some of the best and the brightest and my team is the best in our company (I would say that, wouldn't I?).

I agreed to present FISH. Not the smelly kind. The inspirational kind.

If you don't know what I'm talking about click here.

I love the FISH! Philosophy. It goes hand in hand with my high energy, playful nature. But this isn't every one's style and it would be fair to say some of my more conservative, less American colleagues were cynical and suspicious!

I was nervous and scared to death. Please refer to the before or after posts for one of my previous speaking engagements. I am not naturally at ease in front of an audience. Fortunately, no one notices that I am shaking in my mind and I can act well enough to convince them this is a piece of cake.

I got right into it. At the end the audience was enthused and excited and engaged.

AHA! Mission Accomplished! I just wanted them to hear what I had to say and take it on board.

It's pretty simple. FISH has 4 Principles.
1. Play
2. Be There
3. Make Their Day (no firearms required)
4. Choose Your Attitude
That's it.

But the impact these very simple messages made was fabulous. Everyone took it on board whole heartedly. I was thrilled to bits. I thought success would look like 4 or 5 people thinking that yeah, this might be workable. But loads of people came up and said that it really had an impact on their way of thinking.

What I hadn't anticipated was a co worker taking it to heart so much that she has decided that she just can't do this job any more. She ain't having fun. She ain't enjoying it.

So today she decided that she needs to go and do something else. Some might think this is a failure. I don't think so.

You gotta do what you are passionate about. You might not love every minute of it but you gotta have passion, enthusiasm, drive. You gotta have enough to want to get out of bed every day and decide to do your very best, have a great day, and infect everyone around you with your buzz. Otherwise, why bother getting out of bed?

This colleague realised she just couldn't quite muster it. I applaud her courage to recognise this and to take the steps which will give her the opportunity to do something where she can find that enthusiasm. Hopefully, she's going to go on and find something that really lights her fire.

OK, so not exactly the result I was expecting but a good result nonetheless.

Now everyone else get fishing!

Dissertation Interview

Yesterday I was interviewed by a young woman from Algeria. She is working on her MBA in International Studies and her dissertation is about women leaders in business and the alleged glass ceiling.

I enjoyed doing the interview. It gave me an opportunity to think about my career and the choices I have made. It gave me some insight to the impact those decisions and those around me have had on my current career trajectory.

I don't know if I helped or hindered her. I don't know if I proved or disproved her theories.

I do know that my career has never been the same since having children. I also know that I am glad it isn't.

Women in Film

Check this out!

Rumours of a Hurricane by Tim Lott

As a American expatriate I am always on a mission to understand the native inhabitants of this fair island. I am in equal measure delighted and befuddled by their behaviour.

My husband finds my behaviour amusing but is uncertain if my actions are uniquely me or something endemic to the the entire population of the US of A. Hard to say, really.

Part of my daily life is spent trying to navigate the waters of the cultural differences between the Americans and British.

A while back a member of the Thames Valley American Women's Club (of which I was on the board as their newsletter editor), gave me this book. I finally found it at the top of my pile and decided to see if I could fit it in before I had to get started on the next book group selection.

Rumours of a Hurricane is set in the tumultuous period between 1979 and 1990 in southern England, specifically London. Margaret Thatcher is being elected to Prime Minister as the novel begins.

The main characters are Charlie Buck and his wife Maureen. They are climbing the social ladder and navigating the rocky seas of the massive cultural change that occurred in Great Britain during the 1980s including the destruction of the labour unions, the rise and devastating fall of the property market, the effects of the implementation of feminism and the emergence of a belief in the dream that any man/woman could run their own business. The decade is easily one of tumultuous change.

But Charlie and Maureen are just trying to make it through. They start the decade in their early 50s. Their marriage is flawed to begin with leaving the couple to turn away from each other in the face of the changes . Charlie brings a suitcase of family history and a drinking problem to the journey which impairs his ability to cope with the changes. Maureen regains her power too late to repair her marriage having made too many bad choices. Their son Robert is lost in the chaos.

The title refers to an hilarious (although only in hindsight) event when a BBC weather man reported that rumours of hurricane in southern England were highly exaggerated which turned out to be unequivocally untrue. In fact, the hurricanes wrecked widesprea havoc. This is used in the book as a metaphor for the tendency during that decade to underestimate impact on people's lives of the events happening all around.

This book delivers a searing and insightful look into the psyche of the British people, particularly the inhabitants of the southern half of the island. I had tremendous sympathy for the characters and found their struggle to be real, horrifying and incredibly sad.

The novel is funny and heartbreaking. Lott is a talented writer who captures characters in a humane and vulnerable way without descending into sickly sweet sentimentality.

I couldn't put the book down. I read it morning and night in every moment of free time. My Facebook addiction suffered. My blogging suffered. My family suffered (not really - just seeing if you're paying attention)!

If you seek an understanding of the British, read this book. If you want a funny look at the 1980s in Great Britain this is the book for you. I highly recommend it! I am now going to go away and find more novels by Tim Lott.

Oprah Extravagance

I am normally a big fan of everything Oprah. But today watching her show I nearly threw my shoe through the television.

Her guest was Colin Cowie, party planner extraordinaire. They featured some of the parties and specifically some of the weddings he has put together. It was extravagance and over-indulgence over the top.

Wedding guests were given miniature wedding cakes in little boxes. The flowers alone must have cost tens of thousands of dollars. People feel enormous pressure to put on weddings bigger and better than the last one they went to. I know people who put off getting married just so they can save money to have the big princess wedding. Not a good reason!

I am reminded of the wedding photographs of both sets of my grandparents. Neither of my grandmothers had wedding dresses of the white meringue fluff type. They both wore pretty suits and carried a sensible bouquet. I even remember my grandmother telling me that they got married in the morning so the men could work the fields in the afternoon.

Mr Cowie then gave us a tour of his home. Shiny surfaces and organisation abounded. His dishes were colour coded. His white dishes were perfectly organised. And he had a whole other room for his coloured dishes and glasses. I saw no cupboard that contained plastic Tupperware dishes or children's sippy cups. Sorry, Oprah, my house is barely big enough to contain what it needs and I sure as heck don't need more than 2 sets of dishes, everyday and my wedding china. That's just excessive.

He had another room that was dedicated to gifts. He had a place where he pre-wrapped and stored gifts of fragrant candles and bottles of champagne/wine so that he could just pull one out when it was appropriate. I think giving generic gifts is rude and inconsiderate. And once again, I have a spare bedroom for guests not gifts. And "couture ice cubes". Are you kidding me?

Oprah and Colin kept telling us that "Love is in the Details". This really pissed me off. Details are something I rarely have time for. I'm lucky to remember my children's caps before they go off to school. If I manage to have the time to cook a meal for guests, I'm having a good day and nobody cares that I've cooked lasagna. They are just happy to be sharing food together. We've had friends over for soup! I don't love them any less just because I didn't have matching napkins and napkins rings with a beautiful centrepiece.

She then showcased a clothing range called Splendid which has t-shirts and trousers for bumming around in. The tops are $58 and the trousers are $98. Now, I don't know about you but I know I don't spend that much on my bumming around clothes. Is she insane?

Has Oprah lost touch with reality? Has she lost touch with her target audience, all of us little people who are just getting through everyday struggling with school fees and mortgage payments and insurance costs? My family are more well off than many. And the pressure to keep up with the Jones is intense. Imagine how hard it must be for so many of her viewers especially when she is a role model for so many women. Must we set such high and impossible expectations? Doe she know how unattainable her lifestyle is? And how inadequate that can make some feel? Let's show how to throw a party within the budgetary grasp of the common woman! Now, there's a show idea!

A word to Oprah: don't forget where you came from and remember most of us are still there.

And a word to Mr Cowie: get a life. I get excited when I get everyone out of the house on time and with their hair combed and teeth brushed having had a nutritious breakfast.

NOTE: The Oprah Show broadcast schedule in the UK differs significantly from the schedule in the USA. this show was originally broadcast in August in the USA. You can see the details by clicking here.

25 Skills for Women

I almost stole this and posted it as my own but....I decide to link to it instead!

Being A Woman

What's the best part of being a woman?

This didn't even take me 2 seconds to think about. The best thing by miles about being a woman is having a body that is capable of growing another perfect little human being. I remember being pregnant and just amazed at myself for how incredibly cool it was to feel this little being growing inside of me.

They ate what I ate, drank what I drank, felt my moods and my increased heart rate. And then they came out of me perfectly formed little human beings. With their own thoughts. Their own minds. And it was the strangest feeling. Ever! I had procreated. Done my bit for mankind. Done what I was sent here to do.

The worst thing about being a woman is panty hose (tights) and bras. I hate them both and avoid wearing the former at every opportunity. I have to wear the latter when I leave the house but only when I leave the house!

Middle Aged?

In Oprah's magazine (which I read faithfully every month and pay an arm and a leg to have it delivered to me here in the UK) there was an article about 40 something women taking stock of their life. The article posed some fascinating questions and I thought I might ask you to answer them. Even if you aren't 40.

I'll do my best to answer them myself although definitely not in one post. This is going to require lots of thought!

1. When you were 18, what did you imagine your future would look like? How close is your reality to your vision?



2. What is one piece of advice you wish you'd been given as a young person?



3. What is the best money you ever spent?



4. What was your biggest financial mistake-the complete waste of money that haunts you to this day?



5. What has been the best surprise of married life? And the worst?



6. What is the best thing about being a woman? And the worst?



7. At this point of your life, is there a dream which you will never fulfill? What is it and what makes you so sure it's out of reach?