Who’s Driving Your Decisions?

September 17, 2013 by 2 Comments
dashboard vignette image

A dashboard vignette

Yesterday, I not only exercised while on the elliptical, but I also multi-tasked and browsed through the October 2013 issue of Runner’s World magazine.

One article that I skimmed was titled, “Going Crazy,” and described the author’s one-time decision to run his first 10-miler “on the morning of the hottest day in weeks without a drink or bite of anything.”

Reading that article reminded me of the time that I, a routine 5K runner, made a spur-of-the-moment decision to run my first 10K race in downtown Raleigh a few years ago.

I remembered the uneasiness that I felt at the start of the race, after hearing two women tell me that they had been preparing for several weeks in advance to run the race.  I also remembered the pinch that I felt in my upper left leg during the race, as I injured myself (I did finish the race in good time but pulled my quadricep, which required a physical therapy visit and a two-week rest).

In his article, the “Going Crazy” author revealed that he performed self-examination after making his “crazy” decision and hypothesized that inner nature can often confound our decision-making process, stating:  “Everyone has some inherent nature they have to fight against.  Some people have to try not to be mean.  Some not to be greedy, some lazy, or cynical, or vain.”

I think a bit of youthful vanity may have driven my decision to run a 10K without adequately preparing.

How about you?  When was the last time that you made a “crazy,” spontaneous decision that resulted in unintended consequences, and what were your reasons for making the decision?

In sports, we often hear the phrase, “your real competition is you.”  I agree and think the phrase can also be applied to personal decision-making.

In his song, “12-12-84,” South Carolina native and country music singer David Ball sang it best:  “Time is a teacher.  Oh, and time has taught me well.  What brings a man to his knees is often brought on by himself.”

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Strength Times Three

September 8, 2013 by 2 Comments
three roses image

flickr three roses image

Last weekend was Labor Day weekend here in the U.S., and I gave myself a break in posting.  To make up for the omission, I’m distributing a second post today.

Part of my mission in authoring this MySheCave.com blog is to share inspirational stories about women and to encourage equal rights for women across the world.  Today’s post is dedicated to three brave and inspirational women and has been drafted in that spirit:

Diana Nyad  – What more can be said about the 64-year-old woman with a 35-year-old dream who never gave up on achieving that dream?  Her advice to “never, ever give up,” is not only good advice for women and girls facing hardships and challenges but is also equally valuable advice for men and boys.  And, from now on, when we hear or read the words, “Cuba-to-Florida,” we’ll certainly remember Diana and the fact that a woman was the first person to achieve the milestone of swimming from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage and without swim fins

Venus Williams – The final women’s match of the 2013 U.S. Open Tennis Championships is being played today.  Though she’s not playing, Venus Williams deserves some recognition by the two women who are playing (one of whom is her sister) and by all the other women who play on today’s professional tennis circuit.  Why?  Because Venus took a major step to advance the reality of equal pay for women tennis players.  Do you know the story of how Venus argued for equal pay among women at Wimbledon?  Though I’m not a professional tennis player, I still would like to say “thank you” to Venus.  It’s hard to believe that it was only six years ago that female Wimbledon winners were being paid less than their male counterparts.

Sushmita Banerjee – Also known as Sushmita Bandhopadhyandian, Sushmita wrote a memoir about her dramatic escape from the Taliban that became a Bollywood movie, Escape from Taliban.  On Thursday, Sushmita was shot dead by militants, allegedly members of the Taliban, in Afghanistan.  Sushmita was a brave woman who likely endured 20 bullets for her beliefs related to freedom and equality for women.  I want to ask every woman who is reading this page to consider these questions:

  • Who among you wishes to live in a world where you can’t run a business, because you’re a woman?
  • Who among you wishes to be ordered to wear a burkha or another article of clothing, because you’re a woman?
  • Who among you longs to be denied the right to walk outside of your home unaccompanied, because you’re a woman?
  • Who among you wants to be forced to have your husband’s name tattooed on your left hand, because you’re a woman?
  • Who among you is willing to die, as Sushmita did, to defend and protect your rights as a woman?

In October 2012, feminist Gloria Steinem told a San Diego, California audience that the global women’s movement still has a long way to go.  Women like Diana, Venus and Sushmita are the ones lighting the way.

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Testing You

September 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
tape measure image

tape measure image

I consider myself lucky to have worked within marketing organizations that have been agile and metrics-driven.

I genuinely enjoy the task of conducting marketing tests, A/B tests or otherwise, because I find it fun to experiment with real-world marketing data. Over the years, it’s been gratifying to report on marketing test results and utter the phrase, “…our results show.”

I think the idea of formally examining one’s efforts from time to time is a good one.  What about you? How often do you test yourself or measure your progress against your personal goals?

Years ago at a software industry event, I had the pleasure of meeting one of authors of the book, The Balanced Scorecard. After the meeting, I began to question whether I could apply a balanced scorecard methodology and approach to my personal life and determined that I could do so, if I adjusted the book authors’ four metrics quadrants slightly.

Rather than measuring my personal growth from the authors’ suggested learning and growth, financial, internal business processes, and customer perspectives, I decided that I could measure myself through these four revised quadrants:

  1. Spiritual
  2. Personal
  3. Learning and Growth; and
  4. Financial.

Since then, I’ve tried to measure my progress against specific goals that I’ve established inside each of my “personal quadrants,” though I admit to going off-course with tracking my progress over the years.

And, my admission points to one of the important realities of testing: failure. Sometimes tests and metrics approaches fail, and sometimes we fail.

In this video interview with Spanx founder and billionaire Sara Blakely, she tells a story of how her father would remind her of the importance of setting personal goals by raising the same question nightly at the family dinner table when she was growing up. Her father’s question was: “What did you fail at today?”

I think the biggest failure would be to avoid testing ourselves. Would you agree?

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Screaming Data Means Streaming Data

August 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
streams image

streams of water image

I love the violin music in HP’s latest moonshot server commercial.

Besides that fact, I also like the way the video makes reference to today’s Internet and includes stats about the voluminous amount of Internet data that’s being shared, such as:

  • “…43,000 searches a second”;
  • “…16 million tweets an hour”;
  • “…900 million dollars in online transactions”; and
  •  “…doubling in size every 36 months.”

Without doubt, if the Internet could talk, it would be screaming.  Data sharing over the Internet is happening with terrific force today, and one way that data is being shared if via online stream.

Are you familiar with the concept of streaming media?  If so, are you an active participant in the process?  For example, how often do you access your favorite music via online music streaming sites such as Pandora.com?

What about videos?  Do you enjoy posting or watching videos on Youtube.com or other video streaming sites?  Have you ever used a streaming player like Roku or streaming device like Chromecast to stream your favorite TV episodes?  Last, but, certainly not least, have you benefitted by learning something new after viewing a streamed educational video on a site such as Academic Earth?

If you haven’t joined the streaming media user trend, chances are that you will soon.  According to a 2012 US Digital Future in Focus report by comScore, 105.1 million Americans now watch videos online daily.

If you’re a streaming media newbie, here’s a list to help introduce you to some of the most popular streaming media sites in existence today:

If you’re an experienced streaming media user, I’d love to hear about your favorite streaming media sites and content.

I’ll admit that a favorite streamed media content example of mine is this YouTube clip posted by a friend that shows a surprise tango performance delivered by twin sister and brother-in-law at my wedding reception back in 2010.

Come on…what about you?

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Sharing Old News

August 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Old News newspaper image - urbantimes.co

Old News newspaper image – urbantimes.co

What I’m about to share is old news.  Literally.

To what exactly am I referring?  I’m referring to the fact that this post is a “scheduled post,” i.e. I drafted this post in advance of today and used an automated scheduling feature within my WordPress application to publish this content to you on today’s date (Monday, August 19, 2013) and at a specific time.

Have you ever considered the age of the content within the individual blog posts that you read?

Since blogs and other social media channels have surfaced as news vehicles, these new digital channels have been touted as ideal platforms for sharing “late-breaking,” real-time news information.

But, is this age of instantaneous news a reality when a good majority of the social content being shared today has been prescheduled?

As a holder of a journalism degree, I’m comfortable with the concept of an editorial calendar, and the fact that social media content creators today may be using content scheduling applications doesn’t surprise me, but, what about you?  At this time when digital news channels are so dominant, do you think the news information that you receive is really new?

Though this is my first scheduled MySheCave.com post, I can understand how other bloggers could appreciate the flexibility of prescheduling their posts from a blog management and administrative perspective.  Can you think of reasons why a blogger might want or need to schedule posts in advance?

Already, there’s some evidence that prescheduled posts yield poorer engagement results than manual postings by digital markers, however, I think it’s more important to consider whether or not scheduled online news postings could pose harm to readers.  For example, are readers being deceived in any way if they read a post on a certain day that was written months before?

As long as online news channel subscribers are aware that today’s social media channel content, including its timing, may not be exactly as it seems, I think readers will be ok.

And, with this post, I’m doing my part to inform and share this news, which as I mentioned before, is not new.

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How Do You Lighten Up?

August 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment
NC IntraCoastal Waterway view taken at Wrightsville Beach in August 2012.

NC IntraCoastal Waterway view taken at Wrightsville Beach in August 2012.

Today, I could write about the news here in the U.S. of an alleged murder confession via Facebook and discuss the implications related to social media and our society at large, but, instead, it’s the weekend, and I’d prefer to stick to lighter subject matter.  I hope you won’t mind.

Let’s see…light, trivial things.  What are some of your favorites?

I’ll make a confession of a few things that provide me with a lightness of being:

According to Wikipedia, in his novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, author Milan Kundera “challenges Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of eternal recurrence (the idea that the universe and its events have already occurred and will recur ad infinitum)” and puts forth an alternative theory – the idea that “each person has only one life to live, and that which occurs in life occurs only once and never again – thus the ‘lightness’ of being.  In contrast, the concept of eternal recurrence imposes a ‘heaviness’ on our lives and on the decisions we make…”

What about you?  Does your life feel light or heavy these days?  What are the things that immediately lighten your load?

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What Are Your Carrots?

August 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
yogaearth.com's carrots image

yogaearth.com’s carrots image

If you’ve ever visited a horse farm, then you’re probably aware that horses are often fed carrots as a special treat.

In fact, the tradition of feeding carrots to horses goes back quite a while.

According to the World Carrot Museum site, in 1787, George Washington wrote a letter to Benjamin Fitzhugh Grymes stating, “I am convinced in a proper Soil, the culture of Carrots will be advantageous for feeding the farm horses, and every species of Stock.”

Have you ever witnessed a horse owner use a carrot as an incentive?  Have you ever seen a horse be rewarded after completing a certain action with a carrot?  I have.

In the workplace arena, managers often struggle to know which factors or things will motivate their employees to achieve optimal performance.

Money (high base salary and opportunities for bonuses, etc.) is a major motivator for some employees (sales and business development staff, usually), while others may be more interested in gaining increased visibility and recognition within the organization.

Some employees find the specific projects which they are assigned motivational, while others are more motivated by the position titles that they hold than by the tasks that they complete.

What about you?  What are the things that motivate you, both professionally and personally, and give you a personal sense of fulfillment?  Money?  Material things?  Personal relationships or spiritual connections?

What are your carrots in this life?  And, more importantly, who is providing them?

Sometimes, it’s up to you to feed yourself.  And, doing so isn’t easy, if you aren’t aware of the things that bring you true joy and satisfy your soul’s appetite.

Don’t wait to find your joys.  As author Elizabeth Gilbert wrote in her book, Eat, Pray Love:  “You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.”

Go, and grab your carrots!

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Backtrack Thinking and Reverse Calling

July 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment
examiner.com's accidental butt dial image

examiner.com’s accidental butt dial image

The last post I drafted was my 100th consecutive weekly MySheCave.com posting.

Ironically, my annual beach vacation started a week ago today, and I promptly missed drafting a weekly post last Sunday.  Therefore, today’s post, my 101th, will be a “double post,” featuring two, unrelated topics that you will hopefully find somewhat interesting:

Topic 1:  Gertrude Stein

Why Gertrude?  Well, have you ever said or thought something and wondered if you were the true originator of those specific words or thoughts?  That’s what happened to me recently with Gertrude Stein.

Though we haven’t visited Paris together yet and even though my husband’s family originates from Galicia, Spain, he and I have often happily spoken these words to each other, “North Carolina is where we live, but Paris is our home.”

For a few years now, I’ve been thinking that the expression was “our little saying,” but, I recently began questioning that thinking after glimpsing a scene from The Devil Wears Prada movie that was re-airing on TV.

During the scene, I heard a voice say that Gertrude Stein once stated, “America is my country, and Paris is my hometown.”  Upon hearing the statement, I asked myself the question, “Didn’t I already think of that?” and then came to the conclusion that “our little saying” wasn’t solely ours.  Again, what about you?  Have you ever caught yourself questioning whether your statements and/or thoughts are original ideas?

Topic 2:  Reverse Butt Calls

In this age of mobile computing, you may have heard about or experienced butt calls, but are you aware of reverse butt calls?

A teenager recently educated me about both terms and the difference between the two – the former being an unintentional dialing instance and the latter being an intentional call action taken by a caller who wants to deliver a particular message to the dialed recipient but wants the dialed recipient to believe that the call and message were delivered unintentionally.

I remember making a few prank phone calls with friends using a good old rotary dial phone back during my teenage days, but the idea of reverse butt calling someone seems a bit more complicated and a bit less fun.  Would you agree?

If so, I would bet your chronological age is well beyond those fun, challenging and unforgettable year numbers between 13 and 19.

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Figurative Flames Burn Brightest

July 14, 2013 by 3 Comments
Candle Night in Gouda, western Netherlands

Candle Night in the city of Gouda, western Netherlands (image via poppiesandicecream.blogspot.
com)

Yesterday morning, a Dutch friend of mine who I met during my college years tragically lost his wife.  She passed away after being hit by a drunk driver on the morning of July 5, 2013.

During the days between the accident and yesterday morning when his wife passed away, my friend requested that his family and friends follow a Dutch tradition and light a candle in honor of his wife and in hope that she would recover.  Sadly, all of the well wishes and hopes in those lit candles were extinguished yesterday, when my friend’s wife drew her final breath.

Often, during tragic times, we long to see the beauty and bits of good in the dark reality.

In this instance, in my opinion, the candles lit by my friend’s loved ones, literally and figuratively, provided a source of positive light during this darkest of times.

To what kind of figurative light am I referring?  Love light, of course,  And, when it comes to love light, there are many spectrums.

Some have said that a mother’s love burns the brightest, but I’m certain that the familial love between other family members (including those of the furry kind), the passionate feelings between lovers, and the heartfelt feelings between friends can compete.   And, I would be remiss as a Christian to fail to mention who I believe to be the greatest source of love light, my Savior.

What do you think?  What kind of love light have you experienced in your life, and which flames have been the strongest?

For whom would you instantly light a candle?

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