There are so many things you don't know about me

 One of my favorite things in life is revealing to people (particularly people who are much younger than I am) that I have been to Burning Man, not once but several times.  There is always a pause, sometimes a small gasp and ineveitably, some flavor of affirmative comment-  "That's so cool."  "Wow, you?"

And then I smile  knowingly and decide how many stories to share.  And believe you me, there are stories. There's the "critical tits" bike ride when hundreds of women ride topless through the desert. There's the  playa choir that I discovered my very first year and have sung with each year since.  This is the most soulful, spirited choir I have ever sung with.   The year that Michael Jackson died brought a particulary poignant memory.  We sang an arrangement of "Man in the Middle" and many people in the crowd just sobbed.  There were the epic drives in the RV and the sonic blasts from a nearby camp that woke us up in the middle of the night. (night, what night?)

Why is it so much fun to surprise people with your sordid (or savory) past.  Another place where I have loved to share stories of my misspent youth is at my summer camp. I am most definitely one of the senior citizens among the staff.  The young counselor staff range in age from 17 to mid 30's.  There are a few older staff like me who just love the place so much they keep returning whenever they can, but for the most part it is a young crowd.  These young women work hard during the day and many of them party hard at night, staying up into the wee hours of the morning.  Then they wake up the next day and do it all over again.  Ahhh those were the days.  Indeed there were days in my youth when I was right there.  I love to share the story of the night I "fell asleep" down the road at the boys camp and woke up at about 5:00 AM.  In order to return to my tent without getting caught, I drove stealthily down the road, parked my car and stripped down to my underwear and a t-shirt so if someone woke up and saw me I could claim I had just gone to the bathroom.  HA! My young counselor friends find the story hard to believe. 

There is so much of my life that seems hard to believe now.  The days when I was at the pinnacle of my career are in the rear-view mirror. No more flying thousands of miles a year, meeting with high-powered people, solving big thorny business problems.  Gone are the days of speaking at large conferences and enjoying lavish dinners out with clients. Yup.  Now it's pretty much dinner on the porch with my husband, my dog and a few friends.  I can now indulge my passion for music and theatre.  But I don't often share stories of my career with my actor friends.  Who cares, really? For now, this is my life.  This is me.  And there will always be so many things you won't know about me. 

(This post was originally penned on 8/8/20)

And the Children Will Lead the Way

As so many of us are struggling to find our way through the current crisis, we are looking for strategies and ideas.  Where are the silver linings?  What is working to distract us from the horrors of the evening news?

I listened to a fascinating interview yesterday on the podcast Lovett or Leave It from Crooked Media.  A psychologist shared some very tangible strategies for keeping our mental health strong. Strategies include turning off the TV as the images can stay with us long after we want them to disappear, finding things to do that bring us joy (his favorite was watching Tiger King..um okay).  Getting outdoors and moving our bodies is another great tried and true tactic.

But I think the best guides for us in these difficult times are children.  If you have children or grandchildren, you know that they are experts at finding joy and fun in most everything they do. Their secret weapon is their imagination.  They dress up, they make friends from their stuffed animal collection, they play with sticks and rocks.   They lose themselves in books whether they can read them or not.  They run around outdoors in all kinds of weather.  Visit the neighboring elementary school playground during their afterschool program and you will see kids wearing shorts and t-shirts even when there is still snow on the ground.  Weather, what weather?

Kids have an uncanny way of being in the present.  At my beloved summer camp, I watch girls throw themselves into all kinds of fun.  From lying on their belly in the field looking for four-leaf clovers to hooting and hollering in the dining room when a special dessert comes out of the kitchen. Camp provides endless opportunities for boisterous fun and for quiet contemplation which is why it is such a special place for both children and adults.

And at the heart of the simple philosophy of camp is the practice of imagining yourself as the person you want to be.  If I were the person I want to be in this time of being quarantined at home, what would I be doing?  I would be exercising my creativity. I would be trying to be kind and loving to my husband.  I would be reaching out to friends and family.  I would be appreciating the beauty that surrounds us. I would be exercising compassion for myself and others and I would be looking for ways to experience joy.  Many of these practices come quite naturally to children.

My granddaughter Mabel is a bundle of energy and spirit and joy.  She lives every day filled with exuberance and fun.  Would that we could all be so lucky to live that way. Here's to finding your youthful spirit friends and to being the person you want to be, even through the most challenging times.

What Happened to My Sunny Disposition?

As I return to this blog after a protracted dry spell, I am struck by the irony in the name of the blog-  Remember What You Know.  When I began writing here 5 years ago, I felt that there was often deep wisdom to access as we move through life, that even as new experiences presented themselves, there was some "knowing"  that would help me navigate and understand. So I try to always remind myself to trust my instincts, my intuition, my innate knowing.

But here's the rub.  Nothing about what is happening to our lives right now feels familiar.  There is no "knowing'. There is no historical context.  And it all happened so damn fast.

I have been thinking alot lately about optimism and the power of positive thinking.  I am truly one of those eternal optimists.  I wake up just about every morning feeling cheerful and hopeful.  Or at least I used to.  My husband and I joke about our diametrically opposite outlooks.  He, a trained architect, is always thinking about the worse case scenario, anticipating the worse.  I, on the other hand, choose to focus on the promise and the possibilities. This makes for an interesting marital dynamic. As the current nightmare began to unfold, I held out hope for as long as I could that all would be well and we would get through it with minimal disruption and heartbreak.  And as my anxiety mounted, my husband remained cool as a cucumber looking at me with a shrug and that "told you so, I knew it was going to be bad" look that is so insanely irritating from a spouse.

So now we have been housebound for almost 5 weeks and the daily news reports have been an avalanche of bad news- an empath's worst nightmare.  How can there be this much suffering, this much horror?  What kind of dystopian nightmare are we actually living through?

The other dynamic at play is that apart from being an optimist,  I am also an extreme extrovert.  I thrive on being out in the world with people.  I thrive on doing what I love which is making theatre and music.  This theatre-making that I love so much is a team sport.  Not only do actors love to perform for an audience but they thrive on doing it together, with other creative souls.  All of my upcoming theatre projects have been put on pause with no clear sense of when we might return to the spaces where we gather.

The other great joy in my life is spending summers at a camp for girls in Vermont.  I live for the summerime when I can be at my beloved summer camp, surrounded by children and young adults, perched on the side of a beautiful lake, singing and playing and living in a warm and vibrant community.  It is unclear whether camp will happen this summer and if it does, how will the experience be altered. If we are unable to return to camp it will be a devastating blow not only to me, but to the hundreds of kids and their families who yearn to return to this special place where they can be their best selves.

So in the face of all of this, it's very hard to stay upbeat and cheerful,  to maintain my optmistic nature.  So I do the best I can and appreciate what we have.  We live in a beautiful place.  We have space, we have a big garden that will no doubt be spectacular this summer.  I have a devoted dog who is about the best companion a girl could have in a pandemic.  I have a new flock of chickens and 12 fish who survived the winter in our fish pond. And of course I have a wonderful husband.  We've had 36 years to practice "getting along" and we're doing just fine.  So these are my companions for now.  I sit with all of them every day and dream of a brighter future.  I miss my friends dearly.  I weep when I think about how long it will be before I can see my sweet granddaughter, Mabel, or my kids in Denver. But it won't be forever.  Sitting at home for a while longer is a small price to pay to help us get through this horror.  And I trust that my sunny disposition will return soon. And on the bright side, here I am returning to this blog.  That is definitely something to celebrate.

Leaving a Legacy in Song

What do we do in our lifetime that lives on?  I am thinking about having an impact, about leaving a legacy.  Some might associate the word legacy with money but that is not what I am talking about.  I am thinking about something far more meaningful.

A young woman who I work with at my summer camp told me earlier this summer that she desperately wanted to find a way to have a meaningful impact in the world.  It was a curious thing to share to a group early on in our time together.  We were just getting started building our team and our community, but I know she felt it deeply.  We all want to leave a mark in one way or another. Whether we are starting out in adulthood or transitioning out of the workplace, many of us ponder where and how we will be able to make a difference.   What is it that we have done that will live on in the hearts and minds of our friends and family and community?

If ever there was a way to leave a lasting legacy, it is through creative work (think Shakespeare or Hal Prince) or through music.  The soundtracks of our lives give context and harbor memories for us over the years.

I was lucky enough to spend several days this week with a man who has become a legend at our summer camp in VT.  His name is Biff Fink and he has penned a collection of the most beloved songs that we sing. A career educator and musician, he lives in Nashville now and continues to write songs.  If you are a camp person you probably remember the boisterous singing that happens at camp.  And with luck, you also remember the reflective songs that help us slow down and appreciate our world and our loved ones.  This man has written songs of each kind.

This week he turned his pen and his heart to a small little play based on the children's book, "What Do You Do With a Chance".  I have no doubt that he worked on the script and the song that goes with it for some time before arriving to share it with us.  He certainly made it look easy.  We had about 20 little girls come and work with us to create our show.  We created simple costumes and made some fun wands with streamers.  We rehearsed the text that our actors would say and the movement that our dancers would do. We had girls playing simple instruments as accompaniment.  We called them the Jinglettes.  And then we learned the new song.

I was lucky to hear the song before he taught it to the girls and it was a moment I will never forget.  He had sent me the music and an MP3 of the accompaniment so I was able to read along as I listened to the music.  And I knew at that moment that I was listening to a song that would live on at our camp- probably for generations.  I am a fourth-generation camp person.  My grandmother and mother went to this camp and so have both of my children, along with a large extended family.  I now have a granddaughter who I hope, one day will be lucky enough to don her own green shorts and white shirt. And I am fairly certain that when she does, she will sing this beautiful song.  Here's a taste.

Aloha in the Hills

Another sun is rising in the sky.
Another breeze is blowing down the lake
Can't you hear the call of all that longs to be
In every single, sacred breath you take?

Whatever makes an ordinary day
Turn fresh and new and beautiful to see?
Well, it's not the things that we're so certain of
But chances that we take that make us free

Aloha in the hills, Aloha in the skies
Aloha in our hearts, Aloha in our eyes
And when at close of day
That ol' moon begins to rise
We'll bless this very day
(we'll bless this very day)
We'll bless this day
With thanks that we're alive. 

Of course, these are the lyrics which need the music to accompany them for full effect. But back to the question of our impact.  How lucky would we all be to know that something we had done had wriggled its way into the psyche of other people?  Our words, our deeds, even the smallest gestures might do that.  It could be something we have built or created, a recipe that we shared,  a nickname that we invented, a trip that we took together. (Think RV trip across the country with two girlfriends and a dog- "Ten Legs and a Tail"- see blog entries). Maybe it's a question that we ask someone at just the right time to help them start seeing things in a new way.  Maybe it's a funny joke that we told.  Maybe it's a tree or garden that we planted that we know will be there for years to come. There are countless moments in our lives, both large and small,  that will be remembered and yes, even cherished by others.

I for one, am awed by people like my friend Biff Fink, who have written a collection of beautiful songs that will stay with me for life.  What is the impact that you hope to leave?

Ode to the Camp Counselor

You Should Be So Lucky to Hire Such Exceptional People

I am in awe.  No, really.  I am awed by the spirit and energy and bottomless commitment that I saw amongst the camp counselors that I worked with this summer. 

It’s that time of year when summer camps are ending their season. Happy campers are returning home to their families, counselors are moving on to their “other life”- school or work or travels.  The last few days of camp are a crush of creating those last special memories, packing up trunks and putting camp to bed for the winter.  It’s exhausting work but it’s part of what camp counselors do.  They pitch in.  The share in the work and the fun of being part of a community. They have learned about stepping up to help, about being resourceful and being cheerful in the face whatever comes their way.  They have spent buggy nights on an overnight in the woods with their campers.  They have weathered the drama and excitement of a sudden summer storm from the inside of a tent or cabin.  They have thrown themselves into “Harry Potter Day” or “Mississippi Mud”,  a once-a-summer decadent chocolate dessert that is met with nothing short of pure mayhem.  They have jumped onto the stage in the annual talent show and performed a goofy skit or song.  They have learned how to “make their own fun”. 

This was my 17^th summer at my camp in Vermont.  I have been lucky to be there whenever my life and schedule have allowed. And as one of the older people at camp, I too take home valuable lessons every summer.  I create special memories and push myself in new ways.  But with the benefit of experience and of a long and successful business career, I think often about the quality of the people at camp and the skills that they are building.  I think about why I would want to hire them, no matter what organization or business I am working for.

If you are running a company that is moving fast, wouldn’t you want to hire folks who are hard-working and flexible and cheerful; who can roll with the punches when the direction changes?

Wouldn’t you want to hire people who will pitch in and say yes, who will not complain but will meet each challenge with a can-do spirit?  Wouldn’t you want to hire people who have learned how to be a contributing member of a community; who will say yes to starring in the holiday video or being on a taskforce to tackle some thorny cultural issue inside the organization?

I have spent a lot of time in my business life thinking about company culture.  I have managed teams and have hired lots of folks at different levels.   Like many executives, I hire for cultural fit and for character.  Sure, skills are important, but hiring the right kinds of people with a moral compass, with a strong work ethic, with an ability to collaborate and cooperate is more important than any one skill.  I look for life experience and a sense of humor.  What kind of people do you want around you when things get difficult and challenging?  For me, I want people who will keep slogging through whatever challenge is in front of them, who will laugh and see the humor in it, who will support their colleagues, without judgement. 

This is what we learn to do at camp.  The next time you see “camp counselor” on a resume, consider the possibilities.  This person might be the best hire you will ever make.  And if you’re thinking about trying something different next summer, I highly recommend being a camp counselor.  It’s the hardest work you’ll ever love.

Why Can't Life (Work) Be More Like Camp?

For anyone who has known me for any length of time, they know that I am a camp person.  I come from a long line of camp people, going all the way back to my grandmother who went to camp almost one hundred years ago.  I have spent 16 summers at camp, first as a camper and later as a counselor.  That does not include the many years in between when I was a camp parent as my two children were campers and then counselors.  So this camp thing runs very deep for me.

This summer after a 15-year hiatus, I returned to my camp (Aloha Hive) in VT as a counselor, heading up the performing arts department.  It was a blast. It was hard work with plenty of challenges and abundant rewards.  And since for most of the last 15+ years, I have toiled at a range of companies, I spent a lot of time thinking about how organizations run, how they inspire (or not) their people.  I mostly pondered how the principles that guide building a camp community could apply to companies. 

I marveled as I watched the camp community come together.  I observed the power of simple living, of hard work and pitching in, of silliness and fun, of being present in the moment and appreciating the beauty around us.  I was astonished to watch the counselor staff become confident young women and commit to bringing their best selves to their work at camp.  I was inspired by their hard work and their adventuresome spirit and by their great sense of fun.

There was a moment towards the end of the summer that crystallized for me the spirit of the place.  By the end of the summer, the staff was pretty well spent.  They’d devoted their entire lives over 8 weeks to a group of kids and to each other as members of the community.  Before everyone could say their goodbyes and head home to their “other life”, we had to close up camp and do a series of work projects, many of which were not very glamorous.  I was given the task of dolling out these projects.  One counselor, when asked to clean the “dungeon”, the area below the kitchen that is dark and dank and riddled with spiders, looked at me with a smile and said, “I am the luckiest person alive!”

How often does that happen at companies?  Not often enough. In many companies, employees become expert at dodging the unpleasant tasks.  So how do we inspire our people to bring more of themselves, to commit more, to truly share the best version of themselves?  My camp has a core mission statement- to create fine people.  Imagine if more companies, as part of their corporate mission statement had “creating fine people” on the list.

Each company that I have worked at over my career has had their own set of practices that are intended to create loyalty and company spirit.  One company stands out for me- Eons, founded by Jeff Taylor (founder of Monster.com) Jeff is not only an extraordinary entrepreneur but he is an inspired leader.  At Eons, Jeff believed in creating memorable moments and rituals. The company spent every Wednesday night working late, eating dinner together, celebrating individual and team accomplishments and often having fun.  He inaugurated an annual “Leap” into Boston Harbor.  This typically happened in the early fall, when the water was still relatively warm.  The entire company would walk down the pier from our offices and take a leap into the harbor.  Apart from just being a wacky and fun thing to do, there was a lot that was unspoken about this ritual.  It was a leap of faith, a leap of solidarity, a leap of shared celebration.

While Eons did not succeed, the esprit de corps was remarkable and the things that bound us together reflect many of the principles that are at play at camp.

  

When I was interviewing to join my last company, BiddingForGood, I told the CEO, that apart from my skills and experience, I was really a camp counselor at heart.  At that moment in the life of the company, that resonated with him.  He hoped that having a “camp counselor” join the company would go a long way towards uniting the employees and would help bring out the best in them.  I’m proud to say that I think we did that. Our holiday videos became an annual ritual that has been immortalized on YouTube.  While not everyone was enthusiastic about participating, most people did.  We were silly.  We sang and we danced and we laughed at ourselves. And our customers loved it.

There is much that has been published and disseminated on creating a positive company culture.  It is my sincere belief that if more companies were more like camp, we would make the world a better place. So herewith is my checklist of simple things you can do at your organization:

  

1.     Spend time together away from technology.  Have meetings with no phones and no computers.

2.     Eat meals together. 

3.     Be silly.  Allow time for laughter.

4.     Do skits.  Instead of long boring memos on new company policies, demonstrate through skits.

5.     Celebrate creativity with costume parties, holiday videos.

6.     Take recess.  Get outdoors.  Do walking meetings.

7.     Sing.  For birthdays, for holidays, for fun.

8.     Have rituals. Leap into Boston Harbor.

9.     Set lofty goals.  To create fine people.

 If you have been lucky enough to go to camp and have brought some of your camp experience to your workplace, I’d love to hear about it.  Share your stories with me. I might just put them in a book. 

Shifting Gears Through An Identity Crisis

Shifting Gears Through An Identity Crisis

There are some who get through life with a “slow and steady wins the race” approach.  That would not be me.  The arc of my life and the twists and turns along the way have always been made up of periods of wild activity, a life jammed to the gills with commitments and obligations, interspersed with occasional periods of slowing down. This last year I have taken the opportunity to slow down…. kind of.  I penned a blog last year called, “A Report From the Slow Lane” on what it means to slow down. In another blog, “The Last Lesson my Father Taught me”, I shared thoughts about the importance of slowing down.  

Now "slowing down" is a relative term as some would hardly characterize the last year for me as a “slowing down” time.  I worked on a number of theatre projects, I launched my Great Gifting Experiment last fall, I brought my beloved puppy, Smooch into my life,  and I topped off the year working at my awesome camp, Aloha Hive.  Directing the performing arts department for a camp of 158 little girls can hardly be described as slowing down or restful.  But even within my year off, I have had periods of extreme busy-ness as well as periods of less activity, more reflection.

Perhaps most importantly, I have, for now, left behind the very consuming career as a sales and marketing executive that I had built over three decades or more.  It begs the question- (Cue Opening number of Chorus Line “Who am I anyway? “Am I my resume?”)  Sorry folks, once a theatre nerd, always a theatre nerd. 

But how do I really define myself?  I have always been an interesting stew of different interests, pastimes and passions.  Being a Mom was an incredibly important chapter for me.  The countless hours in the car and on the sidelines of the soccer field will count as some of my most precious memories.  My career has also been incredibly interesting and mostly fulfilling.  I have many former colleagues who I count as dear friends even today.  I am proud of much of the work that I have done and the teams that I have managed and nurtured.   So who am I when I’m no longer the busy executive or the Mom with a houseful of kids?  I ask myself this question as I try to write my “headline” on LinkedIn or Twitter.  I have tried to break out in the past while tackling this challenge and have included words in my headlines like “rabble-rouser” or “spark”

I was at a camp reunion recently and saw many old friends who I have not seen for a while.  By the end of the weekend, I was a bit weary of trying to answer the question about … what I’m doing.  What am I doing?  Right now, I’m resting.  I’m thinking.  I’m writing.   I’m imagining.  Would I take a job if it felt like the right job, a job that would be challenging and fulfilling and put me back on a team?  Absolutely.  Would I jump into another theatre project?  No doubt about it. How about get another puppy.  Hold on, sister.  I’m not sure about that one. 

Often in life when we are casting about for new opportunities, we are advised to have an elevator speech.  What’s my elevator speech?  Well.  I might say I’m a marketing executive, a theatre buff, a camp counselor, a devoted friend/wife/mother, a seeker, a chicken-farmer, a singer, a dreamer.  Oops.. the elevator speech is getting a bit long.  Too bad.  That’s what it is for now.  The order might shift and the intensity around one descriptor over another might change.  But that’s the crazy mixed-up stew of my life right now.  Right now,  I am not defined by one persona.  It’s not always comfortable but I think it’s where a lot of growth and learning happens. So if you’re looking for a fellow seeker, or a marketing consultant or a director or an actor or a rabble-rouser, hit me up.  Who knows what might happen.