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.

Commisary and Frankfurt

It is Sunday today, I am on my way to Kronberg. Spent a whole day with Ellie and grandma yesterday, we went to the Commisary and bought a ton of stuff for everyone, Grandma also got a nice haircut from the same place that I go to, she liked my style and wanted to experiment on herself :)

Dan and I had two date nights this week, or more accurately, a date night that was executed in 2 parts: Friday we went out for a nice Korean BBQ dinner, and Saturday night we went to see Avatar in 3D. I have to say I was really impressed by the movie, they did not overdo the 3D effect, rather did it whenever it makes the most sense, the storyline was good and the acting was very nature. It is sad so many good people died but overall the good defeated the evil, the tree of the souls stood tall and the loved ones were united.

Dan and I took Ellie to friends' house last weekend to celebrate Chinese New Year of the Tiger. We had probably the most festival feast throughout the year, home made dumplings, Chicken soup stew, pork short ribs, grilled lamb, a whole salmon, mushrooms, and lots of little side dishes. Ellie had her first Durian, honestly, it was the first time for Dan and myself too. It smells funny but tastes really nice. It is full of nutrients and supposedly very good for babies and kids.

Learning

Client made an interesting statement that got me thinking, she said after all the intensive amount of work for the past few weeks, she learned many things including team work, methodology, etc, but most of it all, she learned about herself. I asked what was it, she said it is about her own limits, for stress, for managing ambiguity and her threshold for frustration. She did not know she could stretch herself so much until she did it during this project.

What an amazing statement, we often think the most learnings come from the subject matter at hand, the content and domain knowledge, and the "hard" stuff around this issue at hand. But it is the "soft" matter that truly inspire and inherently motivate people to push the envelop and defy their own limits. And companies either retain talent or lose them depend on if they provide these type of learning opportunities that allow employees to learn and excel.

Vancouver Olympic 2010

My co-workers and I sat at the high rise office building looking out the window on Thursday and observed the Olympic torch relay in Burnaby. Crowd was there, policy cars were there and what's most moving was that the torch was carried by a paraolympic athlete sitting in a wheel chair, no motor, just by her bare hands, rolling the chair for the 3 miles while carrying the torch. I missed watching the opening ceremony on Friday, need to catch up on the Internet some time, I heard it was wonderful.

One of my clients is going through tough personal issues, I can see how those things are getting through to her, wearing and tearing her down. She is a brave lady who survived cancer, a divorce and over ten years of a significantly handicapped child, so she said she can get through anything but still it takes toll on her. We chatted from time to time, I think women communicates different, we appreciate a pair of sympathetic ears and just someone who is willing to listen, and things feel better that way.

Bebepod

We bought Ellie another new thing: a shiny, soft, watermelon red Bebe pod. She loved it so much that she insisted on sitting in it the all night, played with the rattle that sit on the top of the table incessantly. Way past bedtime and there was no sign of sleepiness.

My parents did another 3 hours of Skye with Ellie, they got so good at baby sitting over the Internet that I could even go downstairs to cook a quick meal.

Today is cloudy and rainy, we stayed at home mostly and played with Ellie. Rolling over is so easy for her that she doesn't even bother to grunt about it. She just raise her hip, pull her hands forward and tilt, and there she goes. Dan and I think she will be crawling soon.

Milk, Planes and Airports

I feel like I can write a book about milk and travel now. Although I brag about being a pumping master, I really can't handle it very well when things don't go well. Let me tell you why.

United mis-delivered my checked luggage twice in a month: the first time the bag was on the plane that came in 3 hours later after mine original flight, I had to sit at the airport waiting for it, ruined the first part of my night; second time, the luggage somehow went all the way down to LA and made its way back to SFO around midnight, then they informed me that they will deliver the bag to my house between 1-3am, of course I believed them and waited up, and of course nothing and nobody showed up, not between 1-3am, not between 3-5am and not between 5-7am, when I finally got hold of someone at 7am, they said the delivery crew never picked it up from SFO therefore the bag had been sitting there the whole night, and finally it made its way to my house around 9am. Now, the funny part. Last night I got on the plane and made such a big complaint to the United agent that they sent the general manager of the airport to get on the plane and made sure my luggage IS really on that plane. They also made a very nice gesture of upgraded me to first class for free. Oh, so I thought my night would finally go fine. Of course it didn't: first of all, we sit on the runway for over an hour due to the heavy rain and gust in SFO, then we took off, got to SFO, but could not land due to the weather, circled for another 2 hours in the air until the caption said he could not hold it any longer due to fuel and safety reasons. We landed you know where, SJC airport. Of course they could not let the passenger off because they said this was international flight and had to clear customs in a port of entry which SJC wasn't. This is complete nonsense for anyone with common sense. So, after an hour they worked it out with SJC airport police department, by that time many passengers were so upset or uncomfortable that they insisted to get off at the risk of being arrested. So I made my case of getting off the plane, and talked to the caption about the need to having to pull my bag out of the plane, etc. Surprisingly he understood what I was going through and let my bag be pulled as an exception - he announced to all the other passenger that he can let people off the plane but ALL checked luggage had to go back to SFO.

Oh well, I consider myself very lucky that night, after 4 hours of delay I got home WITH my precious bag of breast milk. And I kept wondering about those passengers who had chosen not to get off the plane at SJC, waited for someone to refuel the plane, waited again for someone to push the plane out, waited for the arrival approval from SFO and waited for their luggage, hoping it would come out ok. I hope no one has to go through this experience again, just reading it is exhausting enough.

Missing Ellie

Dan said Ellie was fussy all day and only had 20 oz worth of milk. Not knowing what's bothering her and not being able to be there to help Dan out just broke my heart. Chatted with a few working moms at the firm and sharing the day to day struggle of work life balance actually provides a better perspective for me, knowing that I am not alone and we are doing the best we could for the little baby.

First tooth

Ellie's first tooth came out on Jan 3rd, 2010. And Ellie took the first bite of solid food on Jan 4th, 2010, well maybe not too solid, it was one little bit of pureed banana. And she visited Ranch 99 for the first time on Jan 10th. Daddy was very happy, in fact, too happy, he bought 5 baby spoons and 2 cans of baby carrot puree. The spoon is designed very nicely - the tip would turn white if the temperature of the food is over 41 degree, so that baby doesn't get accidentally burned. Oh well, baby deserves only the best of course.

Vancouver Border Control

Vancouver was one of the first airports to announce that they will hand search each carry on luggage after the attempted Chrismas bombing. But when I turned up at the airport, the situation turned out to be much worse: they have enforced zero carry on luggage policy. Thousands of men and women carried their laptops in their hand, or throw the little things like lip stick, cell phone, chewing gum, whatever, into a plastic bag since they won't fit into human being's two hands any more. They don't know how long this policy will be enforced, perhaps throughout Feb during the Olympics. Everyone was very grumpy, but there seems to be nothing anyone can do about it. I wonder what's the limit that the public has to pay as a consequence for something one individual has done.

Wall Street is announcing record breaking bonus this year due to the astronomical performance the stock market has been through in 2009. While this is a free capitalistic system, they would not have the basis to enjoy the market performance if it were not because of the government bail out, which of course came from main street. Again, what's the limit that the public has to pay to ensure the interest of individual institution or individuals have be to protected, all in the name of the entire financial system.

Happy New Year 2010

We woke up at 6:30 this morning to welcome the new year and the new decade. Oops, then I realized that we missed watching the blue moon last night, it only happens every 2.5 years and for blue moon to happy on the new year, it is even more rare, some thing like every 19 years. Oh well, Ellie will be able to appreciate it more next time. Plus the weather was not ideal last night, very cloudy and rainy, blah blah, now I am just making excuses for not diligent enough to watch it.

I gave Ellie a bubble bath, pleased to find out that her Eczema is getting better, thanks for the A&D ointment and Hypo-Allergenic detergent we have been using. We are getting ready to go to friends for pot roast tonight, will bring along a bottle of Chandon Moet to celebrate the arrival of the new decade.