I like this blog!

Hi all,


I like this blog; what a great start it's gotten off on! Thanks to Angie and the other HF's for kicking it off :).


I've connected with things that Lucas, Shernell, and Chris have all talked about, so hopefully I can collect my thoughts enough to bring it all home in the post.


I've been out in San Diego for the past few weeks, and will be out here until the end of July. I've met a lot of new people, as well as new types of people, and tried some new experiences.


I like what Lucas said about how he's all about music, and that he is proud to share with others what it genuinely reflects about him. 


When you are first getting to know people, say like when you are starting a new job, or joining a new organization, people will gravitate towards certain topics that generally they can find some common ground on. Arguably, a couple of the most popular topics are: music and sports. For me, I pretty much know nothing about either of the two topics, and what I do know I've realized I shouldn't brag about. For instance with music, I only know top 40 hits that are played on repeat on the radio, so that you end up hating the song within 2 weeks of its release. And with sports....ummm anyone wanna talk about figure-skating?


So these two topics have been a barrier for me whenever I start working with new groups of people. And I've often found myself in groups with lots of males, so when they get started talking about sports, I'm completely lost, and feel left out in the corner. But a couple of weeks ago, I was at a team cycle meeting at my internship which was meant to go all day from 7 am to 3 pm. In other circumstances, I'd probably be blanking out at several points during this long stretch, but my manager Vince was so great at infusing in stories about sports of all things, that kept me completely fixated and inspired. Strange. 


One story that he used was about the Tigers pitcher. The pitcher almost pitched a perfect game, but the ump called his last one safe, costing him the rare achievement. Vince asked the team what kind of look we expected the pitcher would have when the ump made that call. Most people said upset, disappointed, pissed off, but Vince says that pictures after showed that the pitcher was smiling. After the game, the pitcher said that he had played his very best, so there was nothing to regret, and that he only had more games in the future to look forward to. 


Vince also tied this into a personal experience he had with his 8-yr old son who lost a championship game in little league baseball. His son was asking him "Dad, I played my very best, but we still lost. Why?" And even when Vince was re-telling the story he was getting a little choked up, but he said he told his son that "Even when you do your best, sometimes you still don't win the game". 


And then he tied it into our work meeting by saying that every day you can look in the mirror and you can ask yourself "did I do my best today", and you can either answer yes or no. And that all he wanted from us was for us to just go out and do our best. This really hit me in a strong way, because no matter what the outcome of doing your best is, no one can take away the integrity that is instilled in you from it. 


For me this ties into several of the ingredients that Shernell talks about, including #2, about helping others find meaning in what you ask them to do. 


Change of topic - since I've been out in San Diego, I've started surfing! I've been out 4x, and am still a humble beginner, but I've definitely made some strides. For me surfing is definitely a new thing that takes me out of my comfort zone mainly because of one big reason. I don't like the water. I've never liked swimming, or going to the beach. When I was a little girl and my mom put me in swimming lessons, I refused to jump in the deep end even with floaties on AND a noodle. Aaaannnd it doesn't help that I'm vertically challenged because  "waist-deep" in the water for normal folk equates to shoulder-deep for me; you throw in some tempestuous waves in there, and ahhh scary-ness!


Surfing is hard! It's hard on many levels, but for me probably what was hardest is that I take a very technical approach to things (thanks CMU). My surfing instructor David said that this made me a good student because he could tell that I was listening and trying to implement all the things he taught me. But at the same time I had so many processes going on in my head, plus the fear of being swallowed up by the waves, plus being self-conscious that I looked like a complete dufus,  that it was just mayhem in my head. But one thing that David said to me that really helped give me a breakthrough was that "Hey, at least you're out here trying it. There's so many people that have lived by the beach all their life and have still never been in the water trying to do the things that we're doing now. But you're out here, and no you don't look cool, but you're trying and you haven't given up, and that's very cool. Pound it". So we pounded it (they do that a lot out here), and I tried to put some of the thoughts in my head to rest. 


Long post, sorry! - dawn