Double Standards

A man can have a bad day,

And simply take it in stride,

He'll grab a beer or hop on his bike,

And let the stress subside.

But a woman's bad day is different,

She's judged for her mood and behaviour,

And criticised for not being herself,

As if she's done a great disfavour.

A man can be tired from work,

Driving, meetings, and more,

But he comes home to a clean house,

And a meal waiting at the door.

A woman also works and studies hard,

But before she can even rest,

She's cooking, cleaning, doing laundry,

And still trying to give her best.

A man can hold meetings anywhere,

Without being questioned or stopped,

But a woman must hurry home,

And not leave her family dropped.

Men can delegate with ease,

While women are delegated to,

And when someone does help them out,

They feel obligated to say "thank you."

Women must always be gentle,

No matter how they're being treated,

But men can act macho and strong,

And their behaviour is often repeated.

Yet today's world is changing,

With women as breadwinners too,

Balancing work and responsibilities,

Without giving up what they must do.

Men pursue their dreams with ease,

Without sacrificing their role,

While others take on the burden,

To ensure their dreams stay whole.

But equity is what we strive for,

To level the playing field,

Where both men and women are valued,

And their contributions revealed. 

There's a Metaphor is this one for Everyone!

What I'm about to describe may seem mundane and irrelevant, but stay tuned!  I rarely paint my nails - I attribute it to never being as 'girly' to want to do it and also to the fact that I cook a lot and don't like toxic chips of polish getting chopped into my food.  Either ways, you'd think then that I wouldn't have a vast collection of nail paint bottles. But that isn't quite so as I discovered yesterday.  I needed to find some time for myself - some peace of mind and something to submerge myself in; so I dug into my dresser and found the huge vanity case in which I stored my nail paints.  It was a little dusty and as I pulled it out I realised it was really heavy. Why? Curious, I opened it and realised that over the last few years I had accumulated quite a few of these tiny glass bottles; some out of compulsive shopping at the marts, some because I needed a particular colour to go with a certain dress on an annual event. 

Here's an Idea for You

In what areas of life have you made investments (time, resources, effort, emotions, etc.) that you felt would be worthwhile at the moment and later forgot about or never went back to? How many of these are intentional and how many purely due to poor management?

Defining Idea

“All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams.” – Elias Canetti, Swiss Author

Now here's where it got interesting.... I tried thinking of the last time I used some of these paints - and couldn't recall. Even today, as I thought about which colour enamel I wanted on my nails, it was the more current, recent bottles that I found myself going for.  It was a good day, in terms of time – plenty to spare since I couldn’t focus on anything else anyway. I told myself that I had two choices 1) as always, pick a colour that pleases me today and bring out the artist in me, 2) once and for all sort this case of colours and get rid of all these ugly bottles that have probably gone rotten inside and lighten the load.

The newer collection

I went with the latter. I first started out by laying a sheet of paper on my bed and turned out the entire case to spill the bottles on it.  ‘Oh my goodness!! I have so many nail paints! For someone who doesn’t paint her nails very often that sure is a lot! I wonder if Kim Kardashian has a whole wardrobe filled with these tiny bottles.’ I had planned to sort them in two categories – keep and throw. But as I began sorting, I found myself almost willingly not putting any into the ‘throw’ side of the bed and instead created a pseudo category ‘maybe’. By the end of the sorting I had three piles – keep, maybe and unsorted! None were going!! This was confusing. So I’m actually saying that I have all these paints that are both usable and perfectly fine but I haven’t used them and just bought newer ones instead and now lost inclination to go back to them?  This wasn’t good!

Here's an Idea for You

Have you made the time to clean up lately? When you have, are you among those who would rather replace than work on fixing?

Defining Idea

“If you’re too busy to build good systems, then you’ll always be too busy” – Brian Logue

Why is it that in all these years (6 to be precise, because it was a collection of nail paints only since my marriage) I hadn’t once revisited some of the nail paints which I had surely procured for a reason? Why is it that in all the time in between, I hadn’t thought about doing this exercise? Perhaps I could have reused them earlier had I sorted them out before. The last time I did something similar is before my wedding, because I had to move houses and belongings. 

Here's an Idea for You

Do we require life altering events to make some important changes which aren’t truly dependent on these events anyway?  Priority-wise how much scope do we have for better resource management if we allocate planned and better time to it? Do you change before you 'have to'?

Defining Idea

“One reason people resist change is because they focus on what they have to give up, instead of what they have to gain” – Rick Godwin

Older collection

Getting back to the three piles of nail paint bottles I had in front of me.  This sorting wasn’t working.  So I decided to use another method – the litmus test of nail paints – the thinness test.  I opened each bottle and checked the consistency of the nail paints. I was so sure that I’d lose at least half of them with this method.  So I started with the newest and put them all in the safe zone.  They’re new! Obviously I remember the reasons I bought them and the PRICE I paid for them – too precious to throw.  Then I went through the older lot… one by one… opening each bottle after a vigorous shake and checking if the paint was thin or thick – hoping that it was sticky or even dried up so it would go straight in the bin. But, to my surprise – every single bottle was worth being used at a nail spa! Great consistency, still smooth, not split and almost entire bottles full of paint. OUCH!! Now what?

Dust and mold on the bottle

I took a moment to think about what made me not go back to these paints every time I opened my vanity case for picking a colour?  Was it that the colours were outdated now? True for around 15% of them. What about the rest? Had any of them proved bad for my nails? True for around 5% of them. For the other 80% I realised that the only thing that prevented them being used is that they lost appeal purely from their exterior, not interior. Huh?? Whose fault was that? They looked perfectly fine when I purchased them. They still have the same qualities to get the job done.  So I was responsible for this? YES. Keeping them unused had caused the outer prints to get oxidized. In some cases there was dust and mold under the rims of the lids on the bottle and some just had some hardened paint from spills on the outsides which made them look unappealing. I hadn’t taken the time to clean these ever! 

The unsaveable lot

I dropped everything down, put on my floaters, grabbed an umbrella and some cash and went to the store to buy a bottle of acetone and a bottle of spirit. The acetone would help me thin some of the paints that were still good, but could use some thinning to last another couple of years. Spirit would help get the outside clean and disinfected. Half an hour later, I had some fabulous looking, top quality bottles that looked fresh off the shelf. And the 20% that hadn’t passed the test? – I got rid of them.

Here's an Idea for You

Identifying quality resources and focusing your energy on working on only these is absolutely essential, but do you have a process that works well in identifying these? Is it fool-proof? These processes are time consuming, but save a whole lot of time and costs in the future. They also give you an accurate estimation of your assets.

Defining Idea

“I’m convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day you bet on people, not strategies” – Lawrence Bossidy, GE

The outcome – I have a lighter, better-organized, all ready-to-use and almost feels-like-new range of nail paints waiting for me to use them more often.  It actually has me excited to paint my nails at least once a fortnight from now on! And, I have space for my nail paint removers, cotton wool and manicure set in the same case (which I didn’t before). But here’s the best part, and my biggest eye opener – After I had all my nail paints ready to go back in the case, the case now looked dirty, dull and like it needed a good cleaning itself in comparison. And you know what? I would never have thought about that had the nail paints in this management system not looked so fresh and new. 

Oh and I figured that Kim Kardashian wouldn't own a wardrobe of nail paints - she would just leave that to the nail spas! But I'll leave that topic of lean resource management for another day :)

Here's an Idea for You

Management systems that hold, lead and manage resources are only as good as the resources they manage. Do you feel great about being current because the resources you manage aren’t as current? How often do you challenge your own potential? Are you open to challenge or do you see it as a threat?

Defining Idea

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, you need a good team.” – John Wooden

“If you get the culture right, most of the other stuff will just take care of itself.” – Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com

A Bucket Full of Happiness

Life is a long journey, a journey with many stop-overs, many fuel-ups required, many break-downs but yet the destination - the climax, keeps us on the path.  The best part of a journey are the pleasant things you pick up complimentary along the way - sweet nothings, a memorable sight, an unforgettable conversation, or just the speed.

No journey can be compared to another, every journey even to the same destination has a different experience. Sometimes you travel alone, sometimes you have company. Even when in company, each person's experience is so different, each one's expectations are different too.  So what makes a journey happy or unhappy for a person? Is it the experiences or circumstances to a person at the time, is it the expectations they have of what they wish to experience, is it the company they have, or is it mere destiny that decides this too?

A wise man once told me "Every memory you form in your lifetime helps you create new expectations." If that's true, then every expectation is based on experiences and so it's the experiences I have or don't have that are responsible for my journey to make me happy or unhappy, right?  But the funny thing is I can only experience to know, and if knowing makes me look back instead of forward maybe we're just build wrong? Maybe, life's journey isn't about looking for happiness. Maybe life itself is happiness and the experiences life bring just take us to our destination with buckets full of memories so that we can think about how much of the happiness we were born with, did we share along our journey!

"Miracle Child" - A poem dedicated to my unborn

Oh what thrill, oh what joy!
The love of a mother's heart knows no bounds,
I know not yet girl or boy.

From that moment I whispered in God's own ear,
"If be thy will, then so be it now, here..."
This mother's heart your creation aware,
Dreamed day and night your miracle to bare.

When the time was right and hope turned to doubt,
I stared at the stick; two bars to turn out,
Skipped a beat, a tear in my eye
Called Daddy dear who wasn't nearby.

That blessed moment forever we'll cherish
When gifted we felt, a joy none can perish.
For a gift you are; a gift of God's love,
A sign of a miracle from Jesus above!

The wait now begins; forty weeks with you in,
Your face for a glimpse is all I dream and imagine.
Three months though in agony, all trials I'll overcome,
An addition to us, Dad and I look to welcome.

Now the moment is near, our voices you hear,
Every loved one awaits to hold you, my dear!
But take your sweet time, a lifetime we have,
To love and adore you, to rejoice and be glad.

When Life hits the 'Pause' button

I think it's fair for me to say that we live in a time and age where most of us at least the Gen X, Y and upwards live non-stop kind of action packed lives.   To say the least, time-management and work-life balance are the biggest challenges most executives and even students deal with.  While some of us have managed to slip in time for ourselves and our own development within our maxed out schedules, there is barely any time to include an added hour for others or unplanned events.

My life is pretty much the same.  Between a well synchronized outlook calendar, smartphone and Google calendar that has every activity listed to the tee, including private and life events, the only free time seems to be that to breathe, eat and sleep.  But fortunately for me everything seemed to work perfectly well since my husband and I live in our nuclear family; my parents in a different country and his the kind who don't keep in touch.  As long as we managed to give each other our required attention and also take personal time out among our busy schedules I was pretty confident that I had created a perfect little world around me.  In fact, I could (and do, being a corporate trainer) give lessons in time management to several top executives on where and how to save precious minutes.  Why, I could even write a book on it!!!

All until a fortnight ago.....  two Mondays ago, when reality hit me!  No matter how many gadgets you have, how many efficient apps that assist you to be better at time management, no matter how organized and planned, there are some things in life that just throw you off (way off) your plans and that's when you can do nothing but stop and PAUSE because that's what life throws at you - the pause button.

Being 24 weeks into my pregnancy with our first child, like any other mother, I'd been going through a whole surge of emotions - excitement, eagerness, anxiety, joy, worry and most of all happiness.  While the first couple of months crawled by, I soon got back into my regular routine, barring a few activities which were no longer advised.  But apart from that, there seemed to be lesser time to do all the things I wanted to get done before being a full-time mom for at least half a year! I had things planned out (the perfectionist that I am) in such a way that I would have everything in order well in time before by baby was due in May.  Work wouldn't stop; I even hired two more BD execs to take on Mumbai sales while I go out of action, clients were informed and I had the next few months' plans in place.  Everything else could be handled over the phone.

On that Monday, two weeks ago, while trying hard to juggle through a very tight schedule and deadlines and a sudden urgent job that required me to travel the next day, I experienced uncomfortable tummy cramps.  I decided to down some antacids and wait it out as I had so much to take care of, it seemed like a low priority at the moment.  In my attempt to complete things and get work organized in my absence for the next couple of days, I even ignored the severity of the cramps which were now nearly unbearable.  After getting off a conference call at 6:45pm, when I could not even lift myself off my chair, I scrambled my way to ring my next door neighbour's doorbell. She's a doctor and her clinic is in the same apartment's commercial complex outside.  Only then did I realise that in my fast-paced life, I had ignored labour pains.. for nearly 20 hours and passed them off as a gas attack!  Reality hit me hard - very hard indeed!! Was it all worth it after all? Was my attempt to delay hitting the pause button myself going to result in a very bad consequence? There was no time to think - I dropped everything, got my husband and had him drive me to my gynecologist.

The next two days were a struggle.  It's a miracle that both baby & I came through safely and are now fine.  But that was a very close call, a call I could have prevented altogether.  A call that if had I the ability to go back in time I'd have taken sooner, almost immediately in retrospect.  My doctor tried her best to prevent a preterm delivery and miraculously succeeded however I spent the next 12 days confined to a declined bed at the hospital, hoping and praying my baby would stay put and stay safe. I had all kinds of pipes and wires going through me and even celebrated my birthday there.

God was kind enough to just hit the pause button this time, but sometimes our resistance to accept His plan causes pause to turn into STOP.  What really opened my eyes even more in the two weeks that I lay there was, while I had made little to no time for so many others in my life before this due to busy schedules they were making the time for me! They were there! They all had a much better awareness of how and when to use their pause buttons.  It made me realise just how selfish I'd grown, just how small my world was and opened my eyes to the possibility of a whole new universe that can exist even in the slow lane! A more meaningful one.

I now have 14 weeks at home, grounded on bed, but I don't regret it one bit. And I'm looking forward to it to reconnect with life, its meaning and most importantly the people I care for.   Most of all I thank the Lord for His mercy and grace to show me the more important things in life.  I know I'll be a better mother now, than I would have ever been before.

Uncle Ronnie, Mom, Aunt Ruby and Savio
- Just a few of the regular visitors at the hospital

Cake for Baby & me :) Thanks hubby!

Birthday at the hospital