Month: March 2011

Life Goes On…

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Colorado is such a beautiful part of the country. I often have to remind myself that I actually live here. You are never far away from a trail, the mountain backdrop provides astounding vistas, eagles soar, horses roam free and wildlife share the land with us.

Cows roaming the Tellar Farm Trail

This morning I hiked the Tellar Farm Trail, a beautiful trail about fifteen minutes from my home. The trail runs through a working farm so you actually hike among grazing cows. At this time of year there are tons of newborn calves in the field stretching their legs and running around with youthful exuberance. There fur is soft and their huge eyes full of beauty and wonder. It is apparent they have not habituated themselves to humans like the older cows. You can see them trying to figure out who these strange creatures are walking so close to them. Some are more bold than others and stand their ground as you draw near. Others bolt more quickly. But eventually they clear the path and allow the humans to continue walking on the trail.

This morning as I hiked I experienced both the up and down side of life. I saw one cow that had just given birth and the calf’s fur was still wet. The cow kept licking her newborn and nudging it toward her udder encouraging it to suckle. The newborn’s legs were still wobbly and it stayed close to its mother for protection and encouragement. It was so beautiful to see, the continuation of life.

Further down the trail to story was much different. A black cow crying out in pain, placenta hanging from its backside so at first I actually thought I was going to see a birth in progress. But the painful reality soon set in. There on the berm was a lifeless body, a little black calf laying on its side motionless, looking like a dog that had been hit by a car. The mother would walk a few steps away and let out a painful cry. A few hikers stood on the opposite side of the berm looking on. As they tried to get closer to the lifeless body, the cow came charging back, standing over the body and protecting it. The calf was dead and the mother appeared to be crying out in sorrow.

Within a hundred yards of each other the complete cycle of life was playing out before my eyes. On one end birth and renewal and on the other end death. It was a powerful experience. And I thought I was just going out for a hike this morning.

Doll Up and Get Ahead

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The Supreme Court has decided to hear the Walmart sex discrimination case – not the case itself but whether or not it can be tried as a class action lawsuit. The implications are huge as, more often than not, individuals are powerless against big conglomerates such as WalMart. The only way they can have power is to band together. If it goes to trial as a class action, it puts considerable pressure on WalMart to settle and change. The emotions are running high and the opinions vary. Is this true gender discrimination or merely the sour grapes of a bunch of women who truly did not have what it takes to be good managers? Can’t wait to see how this one turns out.

But let’s face it, its not just big bad WalMart. Our society still has deep seeded preconceived notions regarding men and women and although many barriers have been overcome gender equity still does not exist. Take for instance the comment allegedly made by a WalMart manager to the woman in the lawsuit who was seeking a promotion. The advice she was given was to “doll up” and “dust the cobwebs off of your make-up.” I know I can recall many times saying something like that to a man who was asking about promotional opportunities. There is a part of me that is always surprised when I hear these things. I mean, come on – still today? But, I guess I still live in somewhat of a protective bubble.

It does not change the fact that women are still expected to look a certain way, behave a certain way, embrace the feminine ideal and all the while balance the opposing characteristics that typically connote leadership – strength, assertiveness, decisiveness, power and authority. Talk about Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And if you don’t look a certain way, as a woman it can hurt you.

Why does a woman have to look a certain way to prove her competency?  If she is clean and dressed neatly that should be all that matters, right? When this whole “doll up” and “dust the cobwebs off of your make up” thing surfaced yesterday, a friend of mine questioned whether wearing make-up is necessary in order for a woman to be successful. That really got me thinking. I’ve never considered not wearing make-up to work or to job interviews or to social events. It has become just a part of what I do. I never stopped to question why until now.

As a young girl, I looked to Madison Avenue to define beauty. Growing up in the “British Invasion” era, magazines were loaded with pictures of Twiggy (weight and women, a totally separate blog) with heavy eye make up and very distinct upper and lower lashes. Mary Quant was a household name. Make up and fashion were it for me. I remember begging my mother to let me wear make-up. I was probably the last girl of my peers allowed to do so. My mother would not even let me pluck my eyebrows resulting in a truly remarkable Freshman Year class picture of me with one continuous eyebrow. Talk about mortified!

Make up was and still is a part of my life. I’ve never really considered otherwise. So the question of whether make up is necessary to be successful is not an easy one for me to answer. On the surface, I would say yes it is. Our society is so ingrained in how a woman should look and part of that look requires make up. As to whether it is fair or should be part of the “package” that women present, that is a completely different issue. It’s not fair. And I learned a long time ago that life isn’t fair and to get over it.

The other side of the coin is one of personal preference. Make up makes me feel better. I want to look good. And if you have ever seen me without make up, I can guarantee you that it is not a pretty sight. I use make up for me, not for others. It may have been ingrained in me for all the wrong reasons, but it is part of who I am and I do not regret that. Wearing make up makes me feel good. It gives me self confidence. And self confidence never hurt on a job interview. But wait, that’s right, I am a woman so don’t be too self confident or it will turn people off…  Oh well.

“We Are The Notes Of Your Opus”

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The other night I again watched the movie “Mr. Holland’s Opus”.  I just happened to stumble on this movie a few years ago. I don’t remember how. I do remember Richard Dreyfuss being nominated for an academy award for his performance, but did not actually watch the movie until a few years after its release.

The movie chronicles the life of Glen Holland, a would-be rock musician who takes on a teaching job to pay the bills until he can make it as a musician. He gets dragged kicking and screaming into his fallback profession, teaching, and initially just does what he can to “eek” by. That is, until he actually is able to help a student overcome her fears and personal demons by learning to master playing the clarinet.

The movie is filled with songs from “my era”, and rightly so as it chronicles his teaching career from the late sixties until the early nineties. Mr. Holland gets students to love music by playing the Kingsman’s song “Louie Louie” or making the correlation with them between Bach and the Toy’s song “Lovers Concerto”.  I will not share more than these few glimpses into the movie, as I believe everyone should watch it because it is that darn good.

There are two takeaways that I got from this movie, one personal and the other more global. The personal side for me takes me back to my days teaching Theatre and Dance at Hiawatha Park. You see, I too was going to be famous. I was in a band, we had an agent, we were recording, it was just a matter of time. And in the interim, I needed to do something to pay the bills. So, teaching in after school programs for the Chicago Park District seemed like a great way to “eek” by. Well, fame never came. And it was a bitter pill for me to swallow. After all, I was not going to be like all the rest – I was going to make it. But I didn’t. I was a failure.

And so there I was, stuck in a nowhere job teaching young kids. I didn’t even like kids. But it paid the bills. And that’s the way it started, until one day when I was able to teach a young girl how to do a pirouette, or teach another young girl how to do the time step, or teach a young boy how to be the Cowardly Lion. I didn’t even realize it at the time, but something changed. All of a sudden I was putting my heart and soul into teaching this band of young people how to dance and act show after show, dance recital after dance recital, year after year. A whole group of young women stayed in my program for 12 years. We formed a dance company, we performed outside of our own little parks and recreation program. I even turned down a promotion a year before some of them graduated high school so that they could have one more year of being in shows.  Then I got another opportunity for a promotion and decided it was time to leave. After all, it was only a theatre and dance program, right. No big deal.

The final performance of the Hiawatha Park Dance Company was at Woodsmoke Ranch near Starved Rock Illinois. We had performed there over the summer for a couple of years. One of the parents owned a lot on the ranch and got us in the door. Once we were in, we were asked back. We performed that evening, cried a little, but knew it was time to move on, door closed.

The next day, they took me to the community room and played for me a tape that they made. The tape chronicled my years teaching at Hiawatha Park and ended with a montage of the end of almost every show we had done. You see, after every show they would give me flowers. They would always try to hide them from me, but I always knew they were going to do it. So together we all watched the many years of them giving me flowers flashed up on the screen to the tune of Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand singing “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore.”  It ended with the final show and the final gift of flowers. The only other time in my life that I cried harder was when my mother died. I could not believe the love and the caring that I was feeling. And to quote from Mr. Holland’s Opus, “there is not a person in this room that you have not touched. We are the notes of your opus, the music of your life.” That is exactly how I felt – and I never had felt so blessed.

To this day, I am in touch with many of the young people who gave more to me than I ever gave to them. They probably don’t realize it, but when you feel like a failure and then someone helps you understand that you were made to do something else, that your life has a different purpose, that is such a great gift. I can never thank them enough for showing me that I was not a failure. I felt like Glen Holland at the end of the movie. And to this day I remain in contact with many of them. They hold a very special place in my heart and always will.

The second takeaway is a little more global. Teaching is such a noble profession. A teacher never knows who they will inspire, who they will excite, who they will save. I was dragged into that profession kicking and screaming and now thank God every day that I had that opportunity to teach. Teachers are very special. They have the power to change lives.

So here is the The Last Scene From Mr. Holland\’s Opus. Once you watch it, I don’t think I will need to say more.

 

 

What is retirement anyway?

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My former student Jenny got me thinking about the concept of retirement. When I posted that I was on the faculty for two schools and going around the country doing presentations, she lovingly said that it sounded like I was too busy to be retired. And that was an interesting point. After all, what is retirement – or better yet, what is it supposed to be?

I remember thinking in 2008 when I made the decision to retire that there was no manual to teach you how to do it. For me, I spent at least the last fifteen years of my “formal” working life on a treadmill that was insane. Working 80 hour weeks, always high pressure, dealing with community issues and demands, and all underscored with the politics of working with elected officials. Sounds crazy doesn’t it – but for a very long time I was energized by it and got satisfaction from accomplishing lots of things in the relatively insane environment called local government.

When my mother died, that all changed. The things that once energized me no longer made sense. The things people would get upset about seemed unimportant – and with life being so short, spending 80 hours a week doing something that gave no satisfaction just seemed ridiculous.

But when you retire, there is a moment when you question your purpose – what am I supposed to do now? From the literature I have read regarding retirement planning, most people have a financial plan in place when they decide to retire but they fail to have a life plan. And although being financially secure is extremely important, it does little to address your purpose for being. And if that is not addressed, then you hear the stories like that of “poor Joe”,  he worked so hard all is life just to retire and die.

Right after I “retired”, I took a few months to just “be “- get up in the morning and see where the day took me. Quite often it took me hiking, or planting in my garden or having lunch with friends, or training for the Bolder Boulder. Then it took me to part time work at Crate and Barrel (my fun job that I love and do a couple of days a week). But eventually it took me back to where it all began – teaching.

My career started out teaching Theatre and Dance in after school programs at Hiawatha Park in Chicago. I LOVED IT!  Directing and choreographing plays – doing all elements of play production, working with some of the best young people Chicago had to offer – and learning from them as much if not more than they were learning from me – that was heaven. Developing Chicago Park District University was another career high for me – putting together training programs for over 1200 field staff complimented by University credit programs they could take was an incredible high for me. And it occurred to me that the first love of my work life was education and being involved in the educational process. And without consciously planning for it, I came full circle to where it all began – teaching, educating and learning just as much if not more from the people that I teach.

Now I work on schools for the National Recreation and Park Association. And I travel around the country (at my own pace) presenting on a wide range of topics that deal with what we used to call “soft” skills, but are really core skills that every leader and manager (or leader and manager wannabees) need to master. Its fun, and I am always learning – what more can you ask for?

So I guess it all depends on your definition of retirement. I thank God that every day I now do only what I love and that I am young enough, healthy enough and financially secure enough to do it. That is my definition of retirement and with that being the case, then yes, Jenny, I guess I am completely retired!

We’ve come a long way – or have we?

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Last week I had the opportunity to do another presentation on Women and Leadership. And although I have done this presentation several times over the past eight years, every time is different and every time I come away with a different perspective.

I have crafted the presentation to cover the history of barriers that women have faced on the pathways to leadership – from not having the right to vote or hold public office by law (repealed in 1920) to not having access to prestigious universities: Harvard (1963), Princeton and Stanford (1969) to the US military academy (1975). I also cover the barrier of the right to equal pay (granted in 1963 as part of the Civil Rights Amendment) and other less overt barriers such as how innate sexual characteristics equate to leadership expectations and the delicate balancing act for women leaders.

I am always amazed at how most of the women I present to are not aware that these barriers existed and were removed less than 100 years ago. I guess when you grow up with access to certain rights and privileges, it is easy to assume that they always existed. And although many barriers have been removed, women still average 80 cents on the dollar to what a man makes, spend on average 1.7 hours doing house work to a every one hour spent by a man, spend 2.1 hours in childcare to every one hour spent by a man and often assume the primary responsibility of caring for her aging parents and quite often her spouse’s parents as well. In a world that still quite often defines success as giving your time primarily to your job, this presents quite a conundrum for a woman trying to achieve her leadership goals.

And although this may sound hopeless, all you have to do is have one young woman sit in on your presentation and get it. I had that last week. She was the room host for my presentation and at the end of it she told the whole room that she had no idea of the barriers women had to overcome and the challenges that still exist in both the domestic and economic realms of their lives. She also did not know that the rules of the game were different for women leaders than for men and she felt energized to know that she was going to go into the working world with information that would help her navigate the personal labyrinth she will face on the road to achieving her leadership goals. She said felt better prepared to work with both men and women.

I had tears in my eyes to say the least. That is what it is all about. It’s not about radicalism or men bashing – its about understanding where you’ve come from, where you’re going, the challenges that still exist and how in your own unique situation you can overcome them. And when you feel like you are helping those just coming of age, that is such a gift. God, I love the education process!

I Can’t Believe This Is Happening

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This morning started out like many others, taking the dog out, skimming the newspapers, sipping my coffee. I was unusually tired this morning as some heavy winds came our way about 3 a.m. and woke me up. I got up to get some water and was tempted to turn on the TV but decided against it. I am glad I did.

When I reached for my trusty iPhone this morning and did my daily look-see on Facebook, one of my friends had written that she could not believe what was going on in Japan. I immediately logged into Google News and saw that Japan had been struck with an earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter Scale. It is devastating to see what earthquakes do and the lives they affect.

I immediately turned on CNN and could not believe my eyes. Pictures of the tsunami spawned by the earthquake were unreal, surreal. Houses, cars, trucks and boats all being pushed along like they were tinker toys. The fury of the water was unbelievable with water reaching as far as 14 miles inward. Heartbreaking, heartbreaking. But even more heartbreaking is the fact that a colleague of mine left last week for Japan to visit her family. She is perhaps one of the nicest people I have ever met – a genuinely beautiful soul. It is my understanding that she had not been home in years and was so looking forward to seeing her family and seeing old faces and places. Before she left she bought some chocolate to take to her former school. She was excited, looking forward to a great adventure and going home.

As I write this we do not know what has happened to her. We pray for her well being and for that of her family. We are all worried sick and hope that they are all ok and will contact us as soon as they can. Bad things are not supposed to happen to good people – this time this disaster has really brought it home.

When my mom passed away, I was struck by how things that I used to think were important no longer mattered and that I got such joy out of the smallest things. She taught me a lesson that I sometimes forget and then something like this happens today and you don’t know the whereabouts of a very dear person and you are reminded once again. We sometimes forget what is truly important – family and friends. So to my friend in Japan, I love you – am praying for you. Come back home safe and sound.

Gender Equity – Myth or Possibility?

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The best definition I have ever found regarding the concept of gender equity is “the same opportunities and constraints (for both genders) in full participation of both the economic and domestic realms.”  I will never forget when I first started living on my own and compared my salary to that of certain men in my life. At that time, I never understood why, based on what I made, that I did not get a comparable discount in my expenses. After all if I am making only 66 cents on the dollars (luckily today its moved up to 80 cents on the dollar), then shouldn’t my rent be only two thirds of what a man pays or shouldn’t my grocery bill be only two thirds of what a man pays. Unfortunately that is not the case. So, what’s a girl to do?

To quote a recent article in the Huffington Post written by Heide Grant Halvorseon, PhD., The Trouble With Bright Girls Article “(women) are routinely underestimated, underutilized and even underpaid. Studies show that women need to perform at extraordinarily high levels, just to appear moderately competent compared to male coworkers.”

Ok, ok. I know what you’re thinking. Here is my bra-burning, women’s lib side rearing up its ugly head again. Not really. I have changed my beliefs regarding women’s issues and gender equity from my “we shall overcome” mode to a more “what can each individual woman do to affect the types of changes necessary” mode in my perennial quest to create a more universal environment of gender equity.

The article goes on to suggest a simple change strategy that I feel is important to share. The author surmises that the toughest hurdle we have as women lies within. How we, as women, tend to judge our own abilities more harshly and differently than our male counterparts. Bright young women who identify their self worth and abilities by their intelligence tend to give up more quickly than men when faced with a difficult challenge. They are quicker to self doubt, lose confidence and ergo become less effective learners and problem solvers over time. They start to view difficult challenges as lack of competence (after all, if I am truly smart I should “get this”) versus an energizing prospect.

Don’t we socialize young women to behave and be good little girls and praise them for being smart while we provide young boys, who tend not to sit still and play nice in the sandbox, with feedback to pay attention and try harder.  We tend to create in young women the belief that being smart is something you either are or are not. The article goes on to say that most often, bright girls come to believe that their abilities are innate and unchangeable, while bright boys believe that they can develop ability through effort and practice. So “when a problem seemed hard to learn, bright girls were much quicker to doubt their ability… and become less effective learners as a result”.

When was the last time you had a female friend who told you they were not going to apply for a job or promotion because they just weren’t ready – they needed more time to develop the skills needed or more time to gain the knowledge necessary to do the job effectively. I doubt that you would ever hear that comment from a man. Men tend to possess confidence both in what they know and don’t know. They don’t get bogged down in where their “flat spots” are, they simply have the confidence to deal with them when the time comes.

I think this is a great lesson for all women. First, lets create more of that “pay attention and try harder ” mentality in young women. Maybe it is not always in their best interest to be the nice, quiet little girl. After all, the world they will grow up in is certainly not nice and quiet. Second, encourage your female friends to take risks and not doubt their skills and abilities. When they say they are not ready, tell them to try anyway and see how far it takes them. With no risk there is no reward.

In my mind, it is simple strategies such as this that, over time, can help achieve greater gender equity. Whether gender equity can ever be totally achieved, well that is another blog for another time.

Stuff

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The subject of stuff came up today – buying stuff, wanting stuff, saving stuff, borrowing stuff, getting rid of stuff, your stuff, my stuff…and whenever the evocative subject of stuff comes up, I just have to chuckle. After all, how do you define stuff? When I looked up stuff in the dictionary, I got the definition “to fill or pack tightly” – when I looked up synonyms for stuff I got the words cloth, fabric, textile, material, substance, matter, bits and pieces. So, when I stuff a turkey on Thanksgiving, am I packing it tightly with textiles?  When I go shopping to pick up some stuff, am I picking up bits and pieces of substance? When I go to your house and look at your stuff, am I looking at your matter? And if I have too much stuff, do I have an overabundance of fabric?

I cannot take credit for my fascination with the word stuff. It came from the poet laureate George Carlin. George could be raunchy and irreverent, but he had a love for the English language and was a master at using it to create great comedy. So, as I get ready to put away the stuff I bought at the grocery store, I leave you with a link to his comic routine on stuff. May you have many years of good laughter remembering this routine. I will never view the word stuff in the same way again. George Carlin\’s \”Stuff\”