Leadership

You know you have attended many leadership courses, and many of them are very very powerful, but the minute you walk out of that room, you return to your normal life and somehow manage to forget what struck you so strongly in there. I wonder why?

This week I had chance to lead a core school in which leadership is once again a center topic. Before I talked about this to the school participants, I was trained on how to talk about it in a way that will make difference to folks. One thing that became quite clear is if you want anything to happen, it takes about 100 days to develop certain initial pattern. Put it simply, you force yourselves to do something over and over again for 100 days then you will find it hard not to do it beyond that point. Leadership is the ability to make changes that add value. In 100 days, if you force yourselves to practice anything and everything that is true to the principle of true leadership, this will become a habit and you will find it easy to stick to it. You can do a lot of things in 100 days, such as learn a new language, any new US president needs to brief the nation in 100 days on major progress, and it took Napoleon 100 days from exile to an ill-fated campaign that ended his career. We can all do a lot of things in 100 days, I am starting right here at home.

Disney World

I had a chance to visit Disney World & Resort for the first time, thanks for a client related speaking engagement I have to say. Epcot/Swan Resort and Magic Kingdom/Grand Floridian were the two places that I got to see for a few minutes outside of the busy meeting schedules. There was a little girl who is about 2 at most and her mom standing on the paved road in the massive backyard of the Grand Floridan compound, they caught my eye when I was just trying to rush to the conference room few feet away: they were whole-heartedly watching a mommy duck and 4 yellow furry ducklings crossing the road. The mommy duck cracked a little, as if to gently remind her babies to keep up with the pace, there are yummy food in sight, or simply just reminding them of her presence. And the little girl and her mommy held each other's hands and watched these cute creatures with such love and something I can't describe. That was the moment that I said to myself, I need to spend more time with Ellie, seriously. And of course she needs to visit Disney very soon :)

Water Heater

Our water heater has been rusting away, so we finally decided to devote the weekend to fix it. What thought to be a half day job quickly turned into a one day then two day, now looks like two day plus a long night kind of job. Let'see, Dan has made 5 trips to Home Depot in the past 36 hours, we have cut 4 long cooper pipes, sanded them down, and sweated 8 pipes (the pipes were certainly hot enough to sweat, so did us), 1-2 ugly and the rest a bit more presentable, I learned how to take off the fire extinguisher and be ready in case we need it, and watched Dan caulk the wall to prevent future leaking. Maybe we or more accurately, Dan, can open a plumbing shop next time around.

Let's see, what else. Ellie made her first camping trip over the memorial day weekend. We stayed in Coyote Lake campground for 3 nights and 4 days, Matt and Di brought their three little kids including baby Simone with them. Ellie stole all Simone's toys, or snatched them is the more accurate description. There was another time when we looked away for a minute and then found Ellie was sitting on Simone's back, and amazingly both babies were enjoying their relative position. Later on we found the same between Ellie and another kid who is 4 months older, except the position has changed and now Ellie became the pillow of that kid. One can't help drawing conclusion from these two data points that survival the fittest, truly.

Workwise, recently someone asked me an interesting question of "are you a change agent"? It made me think for a while. Consultants are in the business of persuation and influencing. And most importantly, we do it in the way that doesn't sound like we are persuading the clients, rather, it feels like the opposite done skillfully. The more I am in this business, the more I realize it is not just the quality of the work, it is how you communicate it, to whom, in what sequence and what are the key messages to different audience. It is an art, and I am still a very naive student in it.

Sunday

My parents are making 5 dishes today for lunch, I am anxiously waiting for the meal with the excitement of a little kid. We went shopping in Ranch 99 yesterday and bought bunch of stuff, oyster mushroom, halibut, crab, lychee, etc. Ellie is enjoying her mid morning nap while we prepare for the meal.

I have to fly out this afternoon to Chicago, it puts a bit damp on my weekend spirit, but you do what you have to do to enjoy the moment. It is a great Sunday with the perfect temperature of 73 degree outside. Birds are chirping and neighbor's kids are playing basket ball on the street, things are just humming away.

Huntsville

Ellie got on the plane for the first time this weekend, oh well, more precisely, since after she was born, considering all these miles she has already flown while inside of me. She did better than I would have expected and was curious the whole time about the people, the buttons on the seats, and she gave the flight attendant a big smile and earned a set of wings and a full smile back. We had a long layover in Denver, plenty of time for me to carry Ellie all the way from gate 33 to 85, seems like miles while you are carrying a 18 pound baby, a heavy laptop bag and a diaper bag that's about to explode. But it is all worth it, Ellie was just fascinated by all things around her and kept her smiles.

Landed in Huntsville right on time, grandpa took his brand new metallic Subaru to the airport to pick us up. He literary just picked the car up from the dealership that morning. Hmm, that's the smell of the new car, just love it. Ellie was the immediate star and center of the attention from the grandparents as soon as we got home. Uncle and aunt and their kids soon arrived and lots of fighting on who gets to hold Ellie the first. Grandparents' sister and her husband also got here not long after, they just adored Ellie.

Weather was completely gorgeous in Huntsville, it was balmy 80 degree all through the weekend. I even started dreaming about retiring here, why not, waking up by the birds chirping at 9 in the morning is so much more pleasant rather than the annoying alarm clock at 4 every Monday. Oh well. it is ok to dream at least.

Crawling

Ellie has been rolling around very nicely and effortlessly for the past few weeks. But yesterday she officially crawled, to the dancing penguin. She moved so fast that she got to it before we even knew it. It is all about the proper motivation I figured.

I spent the morning sorting out Ellie's pile of cloth, she had so many pieces that actually have not ever been worn even once, and she has already out-grown them. They say babies grow so fast and I am appreciating this fact every day.

I took Ellie out for a fun afternoon in the kite park after her afternoon nap. She was very impressed by the dragon and the lantern shaped ones, started giggling while watching them fly. But her attention moved quickly to the grass around her, the green and tender grass seems to completely mesmerized her.

Kronberg

Spent a whole week in Kronberg, very productive sessions with Fishbowl presentation ending on a very high note. Eager to come back home though to my family and see Ellie. It took a little while for Ellie to re-recognize me, I think this time I was gone for too long, a whole 5 days. I need to do a better job at spending more time with my precious little baby.

We went to Napa Valley on Saturday, had a nice picnic, Ellie had a bit of Gouda cheese and milk, she seems to be really satisfied. We visited my friend in Marin on the way home, it is so nice to be able to drop by friends' house without pre-arrangement, it is spontaneous and I wish people do it more often.