What does it mean to “Level Up Your LinkedIn Profile”? Look no further than Ms. Portia Obeng! Her generosity of spirit is unsurpassed!
Which words (illuminating? relevant? brilliant?) could possibly express the magnitude of our #gratitude for your endless support of so many students, Portia?
If there’s anything this pandemic has given us besides uncertainty, it’s the gift of time. How did you spend your time over the past two years?
Was it time well spent? Did you become laser focused on what’s important? You already knew. Did you rise and fall (many times) getting lost in the ebbs and flow of uncertainty? Or did you reach out and connect with someone to see if they were all right?
What the world needs now and always is connectivity, not the virtual kind but the humankind.
“When we meet face to face, we become human. We lift each other up. We need this.” – Rev. Cecil Williams, Pastor
Technology can be a beautiful thing. I taught my 91-year-old Mom to video call me on her shiny new red iPhone XR. My 92-year-old Dad wanted to touch my face on the screen. We laugh a lot.
We celebrated one hundred days since the birth of my good friends’ beautiful baby boy and raised a glass of Prosecco in one hand and waved at the faces in the little Zoom tiles.
We celebrated the life of our faraway dear friend in Malaysia last week and recorded a message for her to hear in her final days.
And we, colleagues and students, are about to celebrate two years of online teaching next month! Has it really been two years?
Some may ask, what is there to celebrate? Will Covid continue to lurk in the shadows as we make our way onto flights and visit Level 4 countries? How much risk are we willing to take when we share a coffee with a friend or colleague, hug family, or hold the hand of someone suffering?
Human and Virtual Connectivity
Thirty (!) years ago, I was in the computer lab at University of Calgary, updating my resume. I had just returned from a three-year posting in Sulawesi with the University of Guelph and Global Affairs. A young man peered at my monitor and asked, “Do you speak Bahasa Indonesia?” And I answered “Bisa! (Yes, I can!)
That was the beginning of our long-term friendship. His Mom cooked me Indonesian food and he now is in San Francisco. We stay connected with visits and chats and have lively discussions about life in the time of COVID.
Recently he shared with me Conor Neill’s Sep 2020 video on two ways of approaching life, “Freedom from or Freedom to” and also on “making a choice or decision”. Professor Neill, who teaches leadership at the global IESE Business School in Barcelona, has explained with great clarity about the distinction in both. Tune in as he asks:
Do you want to live your life merely to survive and removing pain or live your life making choices with confidence?
Do you want to choose and take full responsibility and commit to making your decisions work or do you want to continually validate and justify the decisions you’ve made and say it wasn’t the core of me that has failed?
I believe wholeheartedly in “freedom to …” and choosing confidently, all in, 100%. Go celebrate! Go for coffee, maybe with someone new! Go hug and smile! Hold both hands, touch a heart, connect a soul.
I don’t know about you but my parents taught me anything worth having requires hard work.
Hard work may mean a lot of hours which doesn’t fit neatly into this world of fast > faster > fastest.
With no formal #marketing background and the infinite support and encouragement from all my instructors, friends, family, and colleagues University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, I owe a huge debt of #gratitude. It’s no small feat to earn this certificate over four years.
Squinting at tiny source code through my reading glasses, scratching my head at search engines and landing pages, sweating at the possibility of simply not “getting it”, these are the benefits of being a lifelong learner.
I also have the privilege of teaching “Fearless Networking: Connecting Creatively and Confidently” at the School of Continuing Studies and with our learners, my learning has compounded like interest earned.
Our School is not only a place where you can build skills and learn more but it’s also a community and network where we help one another and stay connected. Why not join us as a lifelong learner? It’s hard work but it’s definitely worth it!
People are not only looking for ways to cope with and combat COVID but also ways to deal with sudden feelings of doom and despair.
Field trip in the City
Time for another “field trip” with Creative Mornings! I know I’ll return refreshed and recharged. Members choose from a weekly “menu of field trips”.
We owe huge thanks to Tina Roth Eisenberg (Swissmiss) who started Creative Mornings in 2008 out of a desire for an ongoing, accessible (and free) event for New York’s creative community. Read more …
Our network zooms in from 216 cities across 67 countries to listen and learn about an astonishing range of topics.
Proudly volunteer driven, the fine folks at Creative Mornings know how to host and have fun.
Creative Mornings World-wide
Since COVID, thanks to Creative Morning field trips, I’ve:
Before COVID-19, we had a choice in how we learn and teach at post-secondary institutions: in-person, on-line, or a bit of both.
As instructors, we collaborate with industry experts, fellow faculties and ancillary services, and communities within our network to enrich the learning process for our students.
In the mere weeks prior to shutdown, we had no idea how very fortunate we were to attend two on-site workshops at the Toronto Public Library. The expert Business and Reference Librarians at the two largest branches of the Toronto Public Library customized and seriously over-delivered for our students, teaching how to job search effectively and perform company research strategically using databases accessible and free with a TPL Card on:
Ryerson Chang School Mid-level Management with Angjelin Hila, Librarian, Toronto Reference Library
We cannot thank you enough!
And as students in the City of Toronto, both cohorts were eligible and left with Library cards, giving them 38 ways to access many services free. Here’s a few:
Learn 70+ languages with Mango Languages. Access online with your Library Card.
Stream kids’ videos including Sesame Street. Use your Library Card to sign into Kanopy.
Learn online courses on digital creativity – graphic design, web design and more. Free with your Library Card.
Kids and families can listen to a story by phone any time of day for free by calling the library’s Dial-a-Story (416) 393-5400 in 16 languages.
Even during these extraordinary and difficult times, we can still almost find whatever we need at the Library. Even those with modest incomes and no wi-fi hover near their Library branch to catch the Library’s wi-fi connection. Again, we cannot thank you enough.
But did you know the Toronto Public Library have become pop-up food banks?
Yes, TPL’s Ellesmere Road distribution centre is now a food warehouse, helping the Daily Bread Food Bank , North York Harvest Food Bank, and Second Harvest get food out to those in need. In a week, 10 out of 100 TPL branches are now food banks and still scaling.
Library volunteer
To no surprise, a call to action for Library staff to be volunteers was filled within an hour. Who else knows their communities best? And it’s no secret that a Librarian’s superpower is infinite compassion. Librarians, as your 2013 Entrepreneur-in-Residence and now guest speaker, I’ve witnessed on several occasions your patience and your grace when helping everyone and anyone. You are the most humane of us all.
Thank you for keeping us well-fed and well-read … and safe! We truly cannot thank you enough, Librarians, but know we appreciate all that you do as our most vital community hub. Stay safe and see you again soon!
Last Friday night, we were three women left standing,
or dare I say, “swimming” in our community centre’s pool out of twelve who had
started in “Older Adult Swim One” (very tentative beginners) nine weeks ago.
Like a wet bathing suit, my fear of water still
clung to me. But that night, it felt different. The water was warm, almost
inviting after coming out of the cold. The pool was all ours. The other classes
finished a week earlier. So peaceful, so calm, and under the watchful eye of
Andrew, our Gen Z instructor, we got to practice on anything we wanted.
We all tread water for awhile, arms and legs going
off in all directions, different speeds, awkward motions with our life jackets
on until we tired out.
Then while the others were swimming, I tried to float
(again) on my back. I tried everything during these nine Friday lessons.
Missing a few didn’t help. I floated with the noodle, that lengthy lifeline.
I tried to float without the noodle still gripping
tightly to the pool edge with one hand and then letting go. I tried
visualization but this jack knife pose sunk me. I tried positive self talk but I
had too much on my mind. I tried to relax but I kept breathing at the wrong time
so that water kept going up my nose.
Then I stopped trying so hard and resorted to a
silent prayer. “Please if there is a God, let me float even for 2 seconds.” I let
go of the edge and I finally felt this odd sensation for first 2 seconds,
then again for 3 seconds. Was this floating? I could hear cheers from my swim-mates
and Andrew. “You did it!” I did? I did! Funny how moving towards your goal can
feel so empowering and motivating even for two seconds. I walked out of the
pool wondering when I could get back in again to experiment and try again.
My Swim Report Card
I did jump into the deep end!
Our “report cards” were displayed on the table as we exited. We should have given Andrew a medal for bravery. He survived teaching adults for the first time. My swim mates perfected their kicking and gliding. We all had our small victories. But as in all victories, it is the journey we revel and relish. We started out as strangers, four generations – Gen X, Y, Z plus Boomer, as equals in a learning environment that made us braver, friendlier, and kinder. #whenweallwinweallwin
Black Friday is no ordinary Friday. Big box retailers like Amazon are having the “biggest ever Black Friday”starting one week in advance, of course. Although it’s Prime Time on Amazon, Warren Buffet, the highly successful investor, and us ordinary folks would be hard pressed to buy time. So “I better be careful with it (time). There is no way I will be able to buy more time”, Buffett cautioned his friend, Bill Gates, in their 2018 interview.
Billionaires, Gates and Richard Branson, believe we need to “schedule time to just dream and think freely.” As a non-billionaire, I schedule my dream time efficiently – while I am dreaming. Clarity comes often just before I open my eyes. Allowing our minds to rest and wander gives us access to creativity. Time gives us creativity.
I met Frank O’Dea, co-founder of Second Cup, in 2013 and again in 2018. His struggle with alcohol and abuse is remarkable in “When All you Have is Hope”. In “Do the Next Right Thing – Surviving Life’s Crises”, he outlined the need to:
First find peace.
Draw on a higher power.
Do the next right thing.
Take the time. Time gives us peace.
I once envied youth for all the time they have ahead of them. I urged them to not waste one single second. Of course, they laughed at me. They have all the time in the world, don’t they? Apathy perhaps?
Comfortably past mid-life now, I no longer envy nor worry but watch with wonder the way youth race through life at Mach 9.6 speed. What will they do with all that time on their hands? More importantly, what will time give them? More opportunities? More wisdom, experience? More apathy? (surely not)
Will they meet new people #IRL (in real life)? Will they gain new perspectives by learning from others unlike them? Will they rise like Frank O’Dea when faced with unfathomable struggles? Time will tell.
I’ve met Sandra Shamas . When asked if she is a comedian, she says, “only if they laugh”. “My Boyfriend’s Back and There’s Going to be Laundry” was a big hit. We’re the same age. I borrowed a math “quiz” from her Show while making not too fine a point about the value of mentorship and experience. “How much time do we have left to live?” I had asked during a keynote for a bewildered group of aspiring entrepreneurs a few years ago.
We’ve got 30 years if our stars align properly. Sandra had asked: “What’s that in days?” 10,950 days, not a heck of lot. Try hours? 262,800 hours. Really? 15,768,000 minutes. 946,080,000 seconds, yep, that’s all we’ve got.
Looking back 30 years, I was the same age as they were that day. I asked them how many years separated us. 30 years. I then asked them to reflect on their lives so far and what they hoped to accomplish in the next 30 years. I asked them to think about how many more stories they would have to tell in another 30 years.
Then I shared with them a quote from Lubna Olayan
now the first Chairwoman of a Saudi bank and one of the most powerful and
influential women in the world according to TIME, Forbes, and Fortune. In “Fortune September
2015 , she said: “The more challenges you face in life, the more of
life you experience – this lived experience gives one the “influence” to impact
others’ lives.”
As mentors and mentees across the generations, we would make time to listen to understand one another instead of dismissing ourselves as Millennials and Boomers. We might learn something from one another that might help us save time. Anyone need more time?
Time gives us opportunities to share our experience and knowledge. Lifelong learning takes a long time, a life time. regardless of our age. Why not collaborate and co-create? Time is ticking so we best start now. #cometogether
A swim in
the pool is no walk in the park especially when you’re absolutely terrified of
water.
Be Fearless – Mind over Matter
Fear has staked a claim in my mind the size of an Olympic swimming pool. Oddly I’ve snorkeled in Cuba and Bali, shot the noisy rapids in Stanley Mission, Northern Saskatchewan, punted leisurely along the River Thames in Oxford, sailed on a Hobie Cat off the coast of Zanzibar, water-skied in hippo-inhabited Lake Kariba, Zambia, and splashed about in a swimming pool in Sulawesi. Clearly there’s a huge disconnect – what I fear, how I think, and what I do -but fear is fear.
Mine is a life long fear I haven’t yet controlled as it has taken up long term residence in my mind. But I’m ready now for transformation and here are three lessons I’ve learned along the way:
Lifesaving Lesson No. 1 – Don’t go from zero to hero! Find cheerleaders.
Registration for Adult Swim Level 1 at our recently renovated community center pool was imminent and at a very reasonable cost. I could hear my Mom reminding me, “Remember, you get what you pay for.” I registered.
As I snapped my brilliant orange flotation belt snugly around my waist, I suspected that the real price I was about to pay was much higher as I slid into the pool and my life flashed before me. I clung vise-like to the edge of the pool, to the rope that separated the lanes, to my instructor’s arm, to anything and anyone within reach.
But when the water began to worm its way into my ears, my heartbeat rose rapidly from 60 to 600. Panic! I cannot see. My eyes are shut so tight that I cannot hear. I’m going deaf, too? Is this possible?
The water wound its way up my nose and into my goggles. Now my eyes are swimming but not me. I’ve stopped breathing. I sputtered. I choked. “I am a rock.” Simon & Garfunkel are in the pool, too? My heart sunk as does my body. I’ve failed. Again.
These damn goggles were so tight and any common sense I once had have now been squeezed out. Flipping my goggles up and down, up and down, and my fingers like windshield wipers, swiping i\intermittently in and out, in and out, all resolve has faded away. My classmates’ arms and legs turned into windmills whipping about and now the water has transformed into tsunamis. Time to declare a state of emergency. But they don’t.
Suddenly I heard The Marvelous Ms. M! “Jean! Bend your knees. Go on. Slightly bend your knees first. Then tilt your head back. Relax. Breathe. Feel the water around your ears, your face. Then let go.” Really? Is that all there is to it? I can do this.
And I did … if only for ONE long second. Discouraged, I wanted to quit but my cheerleader, The Marvelous Ms. M, wouldn’t let me and that is how I found myself one week later, muttering, “Make friends with the water.”
Lifesaving Lesson No. 2 – Have a positive mental attitude. Make friends with Fear.
Changing one’s mindset is no mean feat but my mantra “Make friends with the water” stuck with me as I walked to the pool last Friday. Smile. Positive mental attitude. Shake hands with the water. Tame the water dragon wreaking havoc within me. I told myself as I would tell my networking students: “Be like Yoda. Be fearless!”
I summoned all the courage I had. I set an intention. I prepared for a realistic outcome. Remember Lesson No. 1 – don’t be a hero. Just get used to the feel of the water. I don’t have to float on my back … not just yet. Let the water fall around my ears and on my face. It doesn’t feel too bad. Breathe out and not in especially while under water. Repeat my key words – relax, calm, gentle. Breathe. Believe.
Our young instructor handed out weighted colourful rings to be dropped to the bottom of the pool for us to retrieve. Do I have to keep my eyes open? The Marvelous Ms. M laughed. “You’re hilarious!”It was messy but I did it 3 times. It didn’t look pretty because the belt kept me bobbing while grabbing. And I still haven’t learned how to laugh under water yet.
Time to float on our backs. I could see my key words floating above my head. I still have the belt on. We flip over to float on our stomachs and I heard The Marvelous Ms. M say my name. I stood up and shouted, “I must still be alive because I heard you!” Everyone laughed. I relaxed.
Next up was the flutter kick. Grip the mini “surfboard”. Try not to leave indentations. Kick kick kick. I have squash legs. No problem. I yelled over to The Marvelous Ms. M. “I’m a duck!” What fun until I swallowed some water after I said “duck” and inhaled more water through my nose. What the … duck?
We move to the edge of the pool, shallow end, of course. Pushing off on our side with one arm extended, resting on our “surfboard”, we flutter kicked on our side. More bobbing with my belt and I started to roll as if I was in a kayak. Not pretty again but I’m not ready to part with my belt…not yet.
Our instructor wanted us to try swimming “free style”. He has already forgotten. Some of us still can’t float, flutter kick, nor glide. His voice is calm and soothing. Maybe he can hypnotize me as he shows us how to keep our faces in the water. I can do this. VERY important – don’t breathe in. Straight knees and kick kick kick. But what do I do with my arms? Pretend you’re Michael Phelps, he grinned. My ears must be clogged. “Michael Phelps? Where?” He added, “And did you know your arms don’t move at the same speed as your legs?” Really? No kidding. How do we know what we don’t know?
The final few minutes we learned the do’s and don’ts of wearing a life jacket. This I thankfully know. Before we parted, my classmates agreed to reward ourselves with a glass of wine next week… incentive and positive reinforcement, this I know, too.
But before our next swim lesson, I need to and want to practice. Maybe the glass of wine is the much-needed incentive.
Lifesaving Lesson #3: Practice Practice Practice – 20 hours vs 10,000 hours – good enough or mastery?
Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his book “Outliers – The Story of Success”, “10,000 hours is the magic number to become world-class in any field.” although he also said the rule doesn’t apply to sports. Whereas in Josh Kaufman’s book “The First 20 Hours … How to Learn Anything Fast”, the author focuses on rapid skill acquisition. Our swim lessons are once a week for an hour over 9 weeks so we have two additional hours for practice.
I made it to “Leisure Swim” yesterday and logged in 20 minutes of practice. I found motivation while getting tips from the young lifeguards on duty and so empathetic, kind, and professional … AND they kept an eye on me.
One old enough to be my grandson told me to make a star so I visualized a starfish. “Arc your back!” I faltered and floundered but I kept trying. I finally found myself floating on my back, a starfish gazing into the overhead lights. I saw stars.
Am I ready now to try without the belt? It’s not as easy as it looks but I floated … for TWO long seconds. “Fill your lungs with air, Jean.” Like a balloon? He nodded. But do I hold my breath? Is that how it works? “Inhale lots of air quickly and exhale slowly.” This makes sense.
My newly adopted grandson/lifeguard reassured me that he’ll be working next weekend. Sweet! An accountability partner! And although it was fleeting, I had a small taste of victory in those two seconds. What would ten seconds feel like? Feel the fear … and do it anyway.®
