My Wish for You in 2010

Thank you Peggy for this wonderful wish. Back at you!
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My Wish for You in 2010

May peace break into your home and may thieves come to steal your debts.
May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet for $100 bills.
May love stick to your face like Vaseline and may laughter assault your lips!
May happiness slap you across the face and may your tears be that of joy.
May the problems you had, forget your home address!

In simple words, may 2010 be the best year of your life!!!

Goodbye 2009, Welcome 2010. The best is yet to come!

I absolutely love Winter with its holiday traditions, cuddling with kids by a warm fire, snow ball fights and because it affords me the opportunity to reflect inward and direct giving outward.

Winter affords for reflection on accomplishments and personal growth during the year as well as planning with anticipation for the opportunities that lie ahead.

With Winter upon us, my wish for each and everyone of you is the gift of reflection. I hope you and your families have a warm and wonderful holiday and Happy New Year.

Goodbye 2009, Welcome 2010. The best is yet to come!

2010 Reading List

I am so very excited to have received a Kindle to assist me in meeting my reading goals this year.

The boys and I have an extensive list (see below) and I am so excited to embark on 2010 and a literary journey...check back monthly as I plan to blog on each read!

2010 Book List
What is the What - Dave Eggers
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
Dune - Frank Herbert
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
Germinal - Emile Zola
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

I Wish You Enough - Anon

Thank you Marnie for sending me this story about a father and daughter in their last moments together.

They had announced her departure and standing near the security gate, they hugged and he said, "I love you. I wish you enough."

She in turn said, "Daddy, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Daddy."

They kissed and she left. He walked over toward the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see he wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on his privacy, but he welcomed me in by asking, "Did you ever say goodbye to someone knowing it would be forever?"

"Yes, I have," I replied. Saying that brought back memories I had of expressing my love and appreciation for all my Dad had done for me. Recognizing that his days were limited, I took the time to tell him face to face how much he meant to me.
So I knew what this man experiencing. "Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever goodbye?" I asked. "I am old and she lives much too far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is, the next trip back would be for my funeral," he said.

"When you were saying goodbye I heard you say, "I wish you enough." May I ask what that means?"

He began to smile. "That's a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone." He paused for a moment and looking up as if trying to remember it in detail, he smiled even more.

"When we said 'I wish you enough,' we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them," he continued and then turning toward me he shared the following as if hewere reciting it from memory.

"I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright. I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more. I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive. I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger. I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting. I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess. I wish enough "Hello's" to get you through the final "Goodbye."

The Importance of Making the Connection

“The world as we see it is only the world as we see it. Others may see it differently.”
– Albert Einstein

Does anyone remember the “Reach Out and Touch Someone” advertising campaign? I do, so vividly, and for some reason couldn’t shake it from my thoughts when asked to introduce the guiding principle on connecting with others.

Guiding Principle: We: Connect with others outside our immediate workgroup to share relevant information and leverage different viewpoints.

N.W. Ayers was hired to help AT&T soften its image in during a time when AT&T was being criticized for its perceived monopoly on the telecommunications industry. Tony Galli came up with the idea and built out the concept focused on communications as the beginning of understanding. For many of us, the campaign is ingrained in our memories as is the reality that connecting with others is an essential element in American life.

Understanding the essentials of connecting, but admittedly being one who often gets swept away in the fast paced nature of my own life, I started to outline why connecting with others is important which led me to a Zig Ziglar story about the importance of connections.

The story goes that the Ziglar goes out to dinner after one of his motivational conferences and has a good experience with the waiter. The waiter provides excellent service, and at the end of the evening, in addition to leaving a tip, Ziglar and some associates leave a nice note of thanks and praise with the tip. The story goes the waiter chased out onto the street after the party, near tears, to tell them that no one had ever done anything so kind for him. The connection that Ziglar and his associates made was so small, but made a significant impact.

Tying the story to our highly competitive and ever changing professional world, connecting with individuals outside of our immediate workgroup is absolutely essential for sharing information. Ensuring information is shared with the right people at the right time in order to make the right decisions is critical to a department's success as well as the holding companies collective success. Information sharing to recognize and reward team members is equally important as one way to demonstrate People as our Competitive Advantage.

In planning, connecting with others to leverage a broader point of view on topics both small and large just makes plain business sense while promoting diversity of thought. We don’t want team members that don’t question one another, and who don’t look at each opportunity/challenge uniquely. Instead, we want to motivate a work environment that thrives because of everyone’s contributions.

Finally, connecting in order to network and build enduring, mutually beneficial, relationships is fundamental to personal success as well as building trust throughout the greater company.

We can all work to support this guiding principle by:

• Remembering the significance of small gestures as a mean to connect with others.
• Ensuring project teams have the appropriate mix of team members with role based assignments to leverage diversity of thought.
• Reaching across the organization to someone not at your location or not in your workgroup to find out what they are working on and, if the opportunity presents itself, how your role might assist.
• Proactively having a communication plan for key initiatives that addresses who needs the information and what vehicle it will be delivered in.
• And yes..... even stopping, turning, and listening to a neighbor or when they ask “how are you?” authentically responding versus saying “fine”.

Let’s use our understanding of the indispensible need for humans to communicate with others as a method of understanding so that at every interaction we are consciously thinking about “reaching out” and making a connection.

Thanks for letting me share,
~Stacy