A Thing or Two - June 20, 2019

Hey there, Friend!

Way, way back in the day, I worked in the travel industry. I remember the day that I first read the term "ugly American," which was used to describe how Americans travel internationally, expecting an experience that was similar to home, and kicking up a serious fuss when the places they visited didn’t turn out to be that way.

Having just returned from a long road trip and unplugged vacay on Prince Edward Island in Canada, I can tell you that, while I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m an ugly American, I absolutely was annoyed by some of the differences we ran into. I mean, it’s CANADA. It’s RIGHT THERE (pointing toward the border that’s not very far away at all).

As an example, on PEI you can’t get iced tea. Wait…you can, but it’s in a bottle and sweetened. My husband pretty much only drinks unsweetened iced tea, supplementing his hydration with a little bit of water 🙄 . So, not being able to get tea was an unhappy surprise. Finding two Starbucks on the island fixed the problem for us, but…what’s up with no iced tea? We asked a few people and they looked at us with looks that said, "Who wants to drink THAT?" See? A surprise.

It’s also impossible to get a burger that's cooked at a cooler temp than well done—even in the finest restaurants. It’s a law. As rare (me) and medium (him) burger eaters, we were fairly stunned. It was also surprising how indoctrinated the culture seems to be around that; the people we talked with about it were visibly fearful for us in our lower-temp burger eating. In low tones they’d ask, "Aren’t you afraid you’ll get E. coli?" No. Actually not. Now that I think about it, I bet their fear of getting sick also explains why every vegetable is cooked to mush. I thought it was a British influence…a spin-off of "mushy peas."

And, there’s nowhere to go to have indoor fun in bad weather. As we faced what to do on a cold, and very rainy day, we asked several locals for recommendations. We felt certain they had many such gems given how long and hard their winters are. The questions drew blank stares before we heard that in bad weather they tend to stay in and knit or go to a restaurant to hang out and drink/eat. No movies during the day—you can only go to the movies at night. No bowling. No axe throwing (our new fav thing here at home!). Nada.

There were other cultural differences we ran into, but suffice it to say, I got busy acclimating to them outwardly, while feeling seriously bugged about them internally. There may have been more than a bit of kvetching involved, too.

A few days into the trip, I realized that I wasn’t having fun. A friend even asked if we could cut the trip short (we could have, but something inside told me staying was the thing to do). It was then that I remembered something that I’d learned many years ago from a friend. I’ll share it with you in a minute. But in remembering, I was able to transform the PEI experience for myself.

Now back at home for a bit, I’ve had more time to process the differences in our cultures, and my responses to them. And, as I often do, I’ve connected some dots for myself around things that have only the merest hint of a similarity to what I experienced on vacay.

One of them has to do with us. As VAs, we dive into differences every single day. Some are big, like other countries. I think beginning work with a new client or joining a new team is like that. Some are smaller, like having to find something different to drink because what you want isn’t available. I think learning a new system or app can be like that—especially when you find that it doesn’t really do something you’ve been used to being able to do. And you can also find yourself out in the rain. I think doing client work and finding yourself in a pickle on something for which there’s no written process or procedure can be like that.

Our job, though, is to navigate those moments and those differences with grace and professionalism. The real question is—how to do that when you’re having WTF moments left and right?

Now I’ll tell you what I remembered being taught by my friend. Her name is Hedy Schleifer, and she is a phenomenal teacher about relationships. One of the things she teaches is that in a relationship between two people, there’s a bridge that connects the homelands that the two people come from. Each person’s land and all its culture and customs are foreign to the other person. And to form a healthy relationship and experience, each must cross the bridge to the other’s homeland without bringing anything from her own home. No expectations. Nothing to unpack. Just a willingness to experience and learn without expectation or judgment.

On PEI, the more that I was able to cross the bridge and experience the culture there, going with what it had to offer me, rather than what I imagined I wanted, the more I enjoyed my time there, and the more I felt a connection to the place. And, the more that I was able to embrace what I found there and the more connected I felt, the more that I found other things to enjoy that I might not have gotten to experience if I’d been stuck in my wrong-headed imaginings about sameness. I even teared up as we left the island at the end of our stay.

I think we need to do that in our work, too. I think crossing the bridge is a path to navigating with the grace and professionalism I mentioned earlier. Try this: the next time you bump up against someone or something that’s different from what you wanted and expected, imagine crossing the bridge without all those wants and expectations and see things and people with fresh, curious, wide-open eyes. Maybe it will help you, and maybe not.

I know that my biggest take-away from our trip is that, in all things, it’s only when I’m willing to dive into what is (rather than into what I expect) that I’m able to know, for sure, whether I’m in the right place.

Differences can be wonderful. PEI, in all her glory, didn’t turn out to be a place that I fell in love with. It’s not likely to be a place that I return to anytime soon. And that’s ok, in the same way it’s ok to realize that a new client isn’t right for me, that a new app isn’t the right one for me to use to do my best work, and that I’m not willing to work without, what are, for me, appropriate process and procedure docs.

The key, I’ve found, is to make the decisions about what’s right for me from a place of immersion and real knowing, rather than from a discomfort due to a lack of sameness.

Love,

Have you tried to estimate how much time something will take you (in order to schedule it), only to be really OFF? And have you tried to learn from mistaken estimates, but it hasn't worked? If so, you're not alone. I hear that a lot. And that's why I'm loving Hourstack (for web, iOS, and Android). It integrates with the calendar and other apps you probably use, has a task timer and other fun stuff built in, but I'm most excited about the feature that allows you to track the time you allocate for something, and have it tell you how much time you actually spent doing it. Tracking that info and applying it to future scheduling could be, I think, a game changer.

If you're doing what you love for your work but feel like you're getting nowhere, You’re Not Meant to Do What You Love, might give you a reason, or a new point of view to consider.

Why it matters: When Marsha Sinetar wrote, "Do what you love and the money will follow," it was mind-blowing for countless people. The challenge is two pronged: whether the passion creates something a person can be paid to do/produce, and if so, then whether a person is sufficiently talented doing that thing to have it create successful "work" that can support them well financially. With the world of work changing rapidly through AI, automations, changing beliefs about what employment is, and so many others, maybe it's time for us all to consider if we are the fortunate ones whose passions can also be our work, or if our work and our passions might be different things, to be explored and enjoyed in different ways...maybe through work (what we're good at), and a hobby (what we love).

On vacation, being unplugged did not mean skipping one of my favorite events of the year, the Scripps National Spelling Bee. I'm never sure whether to say that the spellers are gifted or just uber-prepared, but either way, it's magical to watch them do their thing. And I, with my love of words, admit I would have lost during an early round of the finals. LOL

In case you aren't a Bee fan, this year something amazing happened. The Bee ran out of words to challenge the spellers, and after 20 rounds and 3+ hours of flawless spelling, they crowned eight co-champions—all of whom are under the age of 15!

Most years, we end up with a single winning word. This year, we have eight. In celebration, this month, I offer my favorite (I love the way it sounds!).

auslaut (noun)

final sound in a word or syllable : end position of a sound in a word or syllable

"Pronouncing the final sound in a word—the auslaut—shows proper diction, but I'm not sure that the world cares so much about that anymore." 🙄

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