A Letter to the Right Side of My Brain

Dear Brain,

And you know who I'm talking to.  I'm not talking to the analytical, logical, scheming left side of my brain.  No, I'm talking to the carefree, luscious, flirtatious right side of my brain.  You know, the one I've been ignoring for a while.  The one that is inspired to dream and write and take photographs and sing songs.  The one that is intuitive and a bit more trusting.  Now I could never ignore you completely.  I've still allowed you to do some dreaming and I encouraged you to be part of some wonderful artistic collaborations- most notably the production I just finished of La Cage Aux Folles.  But I was not really in the drivers seat on that one.  I was along for the ride and it was a thrilling and stimulating ride.

It I had my druthers I would probably choose to live most of the time with you, my right brain,  in charge.  I would be open to the possibilities and looking for signs from the universe.  I would be in tune with the energy around me.  I would commune more with the birds and the flowers and all God's creations.  I would choose to trust more instead of doubt.

Lately, I've had to do a lot of work with my left brain in charge.  I've had to become deeply analytical and focused on the "data".  This is no doubt useful practice.  It's not unlike the discipline required to get through those "required" courses in school.  I like to think that I can buckle down when I need to and focus and deliver information the way my colleagues need to get it.  When I invite my left brain to be in charge, I look to the data first.  I look for patterns and I look for validation.  But the most surprising thing has begun to happen.  I have found myself looking to the data, only to confirm what I had already figured out using my highly attuned emotional intelligence and intuition.  Go figure.

I have learned the important lesson that certain people need to get information in certain ways and in order to convince them of your point of view, you need to deliver the information in a way that they can understand and relate to.  Oh, would that the world would just sign on to my amazing intuitive powers and believe me without the dashboards and spreadsheets.  I know this probably sounds fairly traitorous to those who live for the data.  But remember, this is a letter to the right side of my brain.

Let's dream for a minute or two.  Remember that musical you were working on a few years ago? The one that has been sitting on the shelf waiting to be brushed off and explored again?  What about those book ideas that were floating around inside for a year or so.  What about the idea of creating a personal board of directors and writing about it?  I'm betting that there have been threads of ideas that have been percolating inside but without being invited into the light, they have stayed fairly hidden away.   Remember how much fun you had making those  beautiful wind chimes out of driftwood and wire and beads?  What about the "where have you been for the last 20 years project"? The one where you were going to connect with so many of the fabulous and inspiring people you've met along the way and hear where their lives has taken them and what they have learned along the way.  That's probably another idea that could end up in a book, or a blog, or a web series.

HA!  Look at you brain.  You're getting kind of excited.  I can feel your energy starting to bubble a bit.  You're beginning to step out a little and throw out your arms and your chest and smile at the universe. I'm not sure that I can completely put you in charge.  No, that might be asking too much. But I am inviting you to step into the light.  I am encouraging you to assert yourself a bit more.  If you want to play the piano and perhaps write a song, don't hold back.  You can do it.  I'm giving you permission.  No, I'm insisting.  Maybe we'll even go back to the desert in August to Burning Man.  Now that'll help you break out.  Imagine the possibilities.

Your devoted body and soul.

Lessons a Theatre Director Taught Me About Leadership

Apart from spending time with family and friends, there are two areas of my life where I spend the most time and energy. The first is my work and the second is the theater.  Like many dedicated theatre folks, I manage to find the time and energy to be part of productions several times a year, whilst still keeping my busy and demanding job.  One thing is for sure and that is that it's not easy to balance both.  But midway through our run for La Cage Aux Folles at the Emerson Umbrella in Concord, MA, I reflected on the experience and most importantly the lessons that I learned from our director.

This was no small production.  The sets, the elaborate costumes, the wigs, the make-up, the orchestration, the choreography,  all made for a very complex and challenging scene backstage.  There were wigs flying, fast costume changes, dancers hurling shoes in every direction.  There were prosceniums turning,  shimmery curtains opening and closing,  and sets moving.  It was all a bit head-spinning.

It's not all that different from the company I worked for at the time.  In my company, there were different departments doing their thing, priorities shifting, customers surfacing with questions and feedback, employees needing to work through issues and find solutions.  The backstage scene at the theatre is more intense and more concentrated, but there are days when things felt pretty darn chaotic at work as well.  I have worked with a number of CEO's and colleagues along the way in my career and have observed very different styles to get results.  Being a leader in a company is a lot like being a director for a production.  You have a group of people (hopefully talented people) who need to come together to work hard and achieve results.  In the case of a play, they need to mount a production and invite an audience to share in the experience. In the case of a company, the work and rewards are on-going.  There may be sprints along the way or big product launches, but the team needs to collaborate to achieve great things.

There are some very simple principles that I observed during this production, all guided by a very gifted director.  Here are the lessons he re-affirmed for me:

1.  Have a plan
2.  Set a vision and articulate it well
3.  Be kind
4.  Push hard for the results you want to see
5. Value every person's contributions
6.  Do it with love

HA! you say.  The "L" word.  Where does that fit in the workplace?  I'll get to that in a minute. First a bit about the first 5 on the list.  Our director came to the first rehearsal with a very clear plan, not only of the rehearsal schedule all the way up to opening night, but also his vision for the production and the time we would spend together.  He brought photos and imagery, he articulated some themes that were important to him in telling the story of the play.  He set a very clear vision whilst still expressing his expectation that everyone would bring their own ideas and vision to the process.  It was at once inclusive and inspiring.

He was incredibly kind and supportive of every single person involved with the production.  This is not necessarily the norm.  Tensions often run high in a production that needs to get mounted in a short period of time.  Maybe it was having a clear vision and plan that allowed him to stay calm and not get too impatient as we all worked to learn our part. And he pushed for sure.  He did it very nicely but he pushed us hard and set a very high bar.  The cast in this production were all very talented and experienced so everyone knew they had a job to do and put their heads down to do it.  But there was no doubt that the cast wanted to make him and at the rest of the production team happy.  He pushed hard and we pushed to deliver the results he was looking for.  Sound familiar?

When have you been in a company or part of a team who works hard because they don't want to disappoint their colleagues?   In the best companies and among the most successful teams, people are intrinsically motivated to work hard and to be there for each other.  It's one of the great joys of being part of a high functioning team.

And finally, what about the "L" word.  I don't use this word in a sappy, sentimental way.  I use it to express the times when we are seeing the very best in each other.  When we do not come with judgment but with a joyful anticipation of the goodness that we will find in each other.  Our director wrote a long email to the cast and crew shortly before we opened and it was really kind of a love letter.  He expressed something about every single person in the show that honored them and their unique gifts and contribution to the production.  It was impossible not to feel valued and to be inspired to do our very best work.

I  have often been heard at work saying that  "I love my team."  I have found that when a team, either at a company or in a play, can truly appreciate each other for our unique gifts, then the best work happens.  I have a sign on the whiteboard in my office, with a nod to Seth Godin, that says-  "Where is your art?  What are your gifts?"

So thank you Peyton Pugmire.  I am honoring you by name here so that when you get famous someday and are receiving some fabulous award, I can say I spotted your extraordinary talent early on.  Here's to leading with love.

10,000 Hours of Practice

Much has been written about what it takes to be great at anything.  In Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Outliers, he talks about how great artists and writers and musicians and yes, even business people get great at what they do.  They put in the time.  10,000 hours sounds like a lot but when you think about the people in our society that really excel, it's probably a drop in the bucket.

When you think about the great athletes that we have loved to cheer on, consider the hours and hours and years of practice that brought them to where they are. When you consider the books that you have read and loved, consider the months and often years that the writer put in to create that piece of work.

Right now, I am part of a production of Oklahoma with a local theater group.  Doing theater is one of the great passions in my life.There are a a number of reasons for that.  But this time, I have been thinking a lot about the responsibility that I feel and the challenge we have all set for ourselves.  We are a collection of people from all walks of life, from different towns, from different age groups with different levels of experience. Yet we come together with the same goal which is to work hard, to unite as an ensemble and to ultimately delight our audiences.  Perhaps most important is that we do all the above and have fun while doing it. In this particular production, I have a fairly significant role which means that I've had to work especially hard on learning my lines and my blocking and choreography.  I have felt an enormous responsibility to my fellow actors and indeed to the entire production team to show up ready to do my part, to remember where I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to be doing. This is not trivial in the midst of a busy life and alongside a demanding job.  How much room is there left in my personal RAM?  Seriously.

We are heading into the final stretch... what we call "Tech week" in the trade.  It starts tomorrow and goes right until we open next weekend.  We will sweat the details of sound and lights and hair and makeup and props and cues.  We will continue to discover our characters and the relationships that we have on stage with the other actors.  We will not rest until we reach the finish line?

Have we put in 10,000 hours?  No.  Have I put in 10,000 in my lifetime, learning to sing and to dance and to be on stage with my fellow actors.  Absolutely.  I could sit back now and relax, with a hope and a prayer that we've rehearsed enough and all will be well.  But that's not what I'm planning to do. I am going to keep going over my script and my choreography.  I'm going to think about our little patch of farmland in Oklahoma and the assortment of characters that inhabit it. I'm going to ponder what it means for the farmer and cowman to be friends.  I'm going to smile as I listen to the glorious music that Rogers and Hammerstein wrote so many years ago.  Now there was a writing team that put in 10,00 hours and then some.  Aren't we lucky that there are dedicated people in our world who put in so much effort?

I applaud them whether they be artists, technologists, educators or business people.  Sure there are those among us with extraordinary, natural talent who make it all look
easy.   But most of us just need to put our heads down for much of the time and grind it out.  Would that it could always be as much fun as doing a wonderful show like Oklahoma. YeHaw!

The Last Lesson My Father Taught Me

My father died this week.  The last and perhaps one of the most important lessons he taught me was  to slow down.

Like many people, I lead a very full and busy life.  During my workday I am rushing from meeting to meeting, and outside of work, I am trying to fit in the things I love to do- theater and music and time spent outdoors.  And of course there is time to be spent with family and friends.  All of this adds up to a fast-paced life.  So when my Father lay dying this last weekend, I had to put on the brakes.  This was not easy to do.  It is not easy for me to slow down but it was the only thing to do.  There wasn't anything more important than just being there, being present. The errands could wait, the emails could certainly sit in the inbox for a couple of days or more.  Nobody needed me more than my dear Father and family.

There are other times in my life when I have gotten not-so-subtle signals about the need to slow down.  I once went through a patch of getting three speeding tickets within the space of one month.  This was when I was a busy working Mom, rushing between dropping off the kids, picking them up, getting to work and everything in between.  But there is a cost to all of this rushing.  Of course three speeding tickets signals that I was potentially a hazard to myself and others as I dashed around.  But the cost is more insidious than that.  The cost is that you miss the opportunity to experience the small things, the moments that can mean so much.  Whether these moments are at home, at work or in life.  When we rush, we miss so much.

Most of all, we miss the opportunity to feel deeply.  I have continued struggling over the last few days with the sense that I should be somewhere, that I should rush back to work or to rehearsals or to the endless list of things that wait for me.  But as I have heard from so many friends during this sad time, many of them have said, go slow.  Take the time to grieve.  Do not rush.

So I am not going to rush.  I am going to continue to wander about for a few more days and to feel deeply this terrible loss.  I hope that I can remember this lesson when I jump back into the fray.  I hope that I will slow down when I can to feel and to reflect and mostly to be grateful for what I have.  If we could all live to be 94 years old, with a devoted spouse, a large and loving family and many great adventures to point to, that would indeed be a gift.

The Special Sauce of a Camp Reunion

I have been writing this blog for a year or so and the topic that always seems to fly off my pen (or keyboard) is camp.  Now there are camp people in the world and there are people who have not yet become camp people.  But this story is about a reunion.  This was not just any reunion, mind you, but the 100th anniversary of my summer camp in Vermont.  The camp is Aloha Hive and it is a camp for young girls from age 8 to 12.  There is a sister camp nearby called Aloha Camp for older girls and a boys camp called Lanakila.  My grandmother was a camper in the very early days of these camps and since that time three more generations of our family have come to spend their summers in this beautiful setting, away from the hustle and bustle of their busy lives to learn new skills, to live in a supportive community and to "become their best selves"  I ponder this and reflect on the title of my blog-  Remember What You Know: Musings on Creativity, Generosity and Being Your Best Self. Well imagine that?  I wonder where I got that idea?  That being your best self thing.  Oh right, that was probably at camp.  But back to the reunion.

The reunion this past weekend was such an incredible celebration of friendship and place and community.  It brought together decades of women with their spouses, and children and friends.  There was a great showing from almost every decade, including a new crop of soon-to-be camp parents.  They have their babies in tow now but one certainly hopes that those babies will be lucky enough to spend their summers at this magical place as well.  There was a spirited and energetic staff who stayed after camp, when many counselors go home to collapse for a few days and rest up.  But not  this group.  These counselors brought the same wonderful energy to the activities of the weekend as they no doubt brought to the kids who were in their care this summer.

So I reflect on the power of a place that brings people back over the decades.  Many of us have gone to a high school reunion or a college reunion.  I have had a blast at every reunion I've ever been to.  But high school and college were a 4 year chapter in my life.  I was there and then I wasn't.  Those friendships were special and carry wonderful memories with them but they are not quite the same as the friendships that I have made at camp.  Maybe it's the fact that we really do create our own community in Vermont without all of the trappings and distractions of technology and work and the demands of raising a family.  For young counselors, when they come to camp for the summer, they leave behind their friends and the typical college scene that is mostly about them.  When you come to be a camp counselor during your college years, you find yourself thinking about the children in your care instead of yourself.  You are giving yourself to something much bigger which is surprisingly rewarding for many young adults.

The weekend was a cavalcade of memory-inducing moments.  There was the candle-lit banquet on Friday night with lovely music and great conversation.   There were the activities that we once loved- archery and arts and crafts and swimming across the lake or paddling our canoes.  There was rest hour on Saturday after lunch.  Anyone who knows me or has read this blog knows that I am a big fan of rest hour.  There was a hike up to special spot in the woods and a campfire with stories and songs.  It was so special by that campfire that nobody wanted to leave, despite the growing darkness.  And then there was a fabulous talent show.  One of my favorite stories of the talent show was from the husband of one of the former directors of the camp who was there with her teen-aged children.  From all accounts they were stunned to see their Mom acting in a skit, sporting a sequined gown and acting very silly. This was not the Mom that they knew.  I love that.  Because at camp, we can be as silly as we want to be.  We thrive on that.  We celebrate it and we realize that without even knowing it, we are becoming our best selves.

On Sunday, we gathered once more to reflect, to sing and to hear from former and present camp directors.  We were inspired by their tales of the footprint that this place is creating in the world.  This is not the only camping organization that is turning out fine people but it is certainly one of the ones leading the way.  The women who have lead this camp are all extraordinary in their own unique ways.  There are of course some extraordinary men who are part of the story as well, but this weekend was mostly about the women.  And for me and my daughter and my friends who have experienced this place, that is a gift.  To follow these women and to feel confident and important in the world.  To feel that we are capable and open-hearted and willing to take on new adventures. To know that we will try new things and push ourselves and be part of something much bigger.  That is the gift of this place and that was the gift and the special sauce of this weekend.

So next time you think about going to a camp reunion, just do it.  You'll be happy you did.

Confessions of a Cry Baby

Sometimes the world feels like a really sad place.  This week a dear friend's Mom passed away and I attended her funeral.  She had lived a very long and rich life and was celebrated for that.  I shed lots of tears at the funeral.  Not so much for the extraordinary woman who had passed,  but for her family, her children, the fragile relationships that hold them all together.  I cried because life really is too short.

And then this morning we all awoke to the news of Robin William's passing.  What a loss.  What a tragedy.  I am so so sad that his life ended so abruptly at such a young age.  So I cry for him and for  those of us who will miss his gifts his extraordinary talent.

I cry a lot.  I cry, not because I am falling apart, but I cry because I feel deeply.  Some people don't know what to make of my tears.  There are those who misinterpret them.   There is a classic story that took place when I interviewed at the company where I now work.  When my company hires executives they do a very exhaustive process of vetting the candidate, complete with a set of personality tests and assessment tools.  They want to dig deep and know what they are getting.

This process culminated in an interview with a psychologist who administered the tests.  This interview lasted a full three hours and really delved into a lot of personal information about my successes and stumbles both in work and in life.  You can probably see where this is going.  As we delved into some of these chapters in my life,  I, as I am wont to do, shed a tear or two.  I didn't blubber.  I didn't sob.  I just reconnected with some old wounds that made me cry.  I pulled myself together fairly quickly and explained it away by admitting that I occasionally shed a tear or two, no big deal.  I mean we had been talking for almost three hours.
 The psychologist then asked me how I felt about his sharing what had happened in his reporting of the interview.   He offered to hold back the details of my emotional moment but I said- what the heck.  Open the door.  Share what you want.  This is who I am.

Well here is where the story gets interesting. As the interview process progressed, my tears became "a thing".  They were discussed.  There was concern that I would be discovered in my office in a pool of tears when things did not go according to plan.  There was concern that I would fall apart when they needed me to be strong.  This line of thinking was only exasperated when one of my references, a fabulous former boss, in the course of giving me a glowing reference, shared that he and I had cried together no less than five times.  I'm not actually sure if that was true but what I do know was that he and I had a very close and strong friendship and while we enjoyed working together, we also often talked about life, about things that had nothing to do with the workplace.  This. my friends, is when I cry.  I don't cry about work.  I cry about life.  I cry about dying and suffering.  I cry about babies and puppies.   I pretty reliably cry at weddings. I cry when I feel deep compassion for the people in my life and their joys and their struggles.

There was a time when I apologized for this tendency.  I apologized for making people feel uncomfortable.  But here's what I've learned.  People are usually uncomfortable when you are uncomfortable.  If all I'm doing is experiencing something fully and deeply, then lucky me.  If you are someone who has seen me weep, please don't assume that I am falling apart.  Consider instead that I am  living as fully as I can.  I'll take that any day.

I Believe in Magic- a Story of Camp

One of the most wonderful things about summer for me is that I have a fabulous camp tent tucked away under a large pine tree behind my house in Vermont.  This small oasis brings me untold pleasure.  I have pondered how such a simple thing could be so powerful and yesterday while lolling about, reading a book, I figured it out.  On the tent fly above my head was a drawing and a caption over the drawing.  The caption reads - The Tent of Magic.   This drawing was created on this tent fly during the summer of 2002.  My tent platform was constructed by my very handy husband and son and the tent fly came from the summer camp where I have spent many blissful summers as both a camper and later a counselor.  One theory about the utter joy that my tent brings me is that it recalls for me so many moments of simple happiness and pleasure.  Campers at my camp spend an hour every day during "Rest Hour" relaxing in their tent with their tent family.  This family consists of three campers and one counselor.  Campers are often busy during rest hour, writing letters home or reading a book, maybe playing a quiet game of cards.   The counselor,  often takes the opportunity to actually nap.  I, by the way, in my many summers as a counselor had perfected this.  I would hit the cot and the pillow and be out for a solid hour.  What a fabulous concept.  Rest Hour.

But back to the magic.  Is there something magical about what happens at camp?  I believe there is. There are several stories that back up this claim. After many summers heading the performing arts department, I was asked to be the head of the nature department at camp.  This was certainly going to be a different gig.  No boisterous singing and playmaking but something quite different.  I was affectionately referred to as Mother Nature.   I was, after all, a Mother at that point with both of my kids at camp with me.  It seemed to fit.  There were two things that happened that summer that made me feel that there was truly something magical going on.  The first was when, with a group of kids, we created a small pond in the front of the nature hut.  We found an old white enamel bowl and dug a hole in the ground where we placed the bowl.  Then we got busy planting some plants around the edge of the pond.  We found some small rocks that we put around the edge and even harvested a lily pad or two from the lake to put into our mini pond.  (I'm not sure if you're actually supposed to do that but we were in the making magic business so we figured we were safe).  We filled the bowl with water.  I think we actually got real lake water for our pond, not just out of the faucet.  And then we sat on the ground and admired our handiwork.  

The next morning, before breakfast, I came down from my cabin quite early. This time of day is one of the most magical times at camp as the mist is rising from the lake and there are "fairy handkerchiefs" dotting the green grass of the playing field. These are wispy little webs that cover the field on dewy mornings.   It was very quiet and peaceful as others had not yet come down for breakfast.  Imagine my surprise when I arrived at our newly constructed pond and there, sitting on one of our little rocks on the edge of our pond, was a very happy looking little frog.  I was beside myself.  It was as if we created a spot for him and he just simply moved right in.  You can only imagine the delight we all felt.

The next incident took place not long after my frog arrived.  There is very special place at camp called Rainbow's End which is up on a hillside in the woods.  Every Sunday night throughout the summer, the entire camp hikes up to spend a very peaceful and quiet time in this beautiful spot.  There is singing and there is storytelling. At the end of the evening, all of the campers walk down the hillside to return to their tents.  This particular night I was bringing up the rear with another counselor and we heard the most startling noise in the trees.  It turns out that it was a pair of red-tailed hawks, high up in the trees, doing some kind of a flirtatious, swooping dance together.  It was unlike anything I had ever seen.  My fellow counselor and I felt incredibly lucky to have been there at just the right moment to see it happen.

So several days later, still reveling in what we had seen, I decided that I would take a chance and organize a "hawk walk" and return to the spot where we had seen them before.  It was going to be a different time of day but we were ever hopeful.  So off we went, hiking up the trail to the spot.  There were only 3 or 4 kids who signed up for this activity.  Apparently hawk walking doesn't quite hold up to rehearsing for the play or sailing or arts and crafts.  Nonetheless, my stalwart nature girls and I set off on our adventure. We walked, we stopped and we waited, we walked a bit further and stopped again and we waited.  I might even have tried to imitate the calls that we had heard the night we had seen the two birds.  But I am no expert and there was not a sound from the tree canopy above.  We spent a good 30 minutes out on that trail.  The kids were very disappointed as I had implied from the name of the activity that we were actually going to see a hawk.  So dejected and disappointed, we began to return to camp.  I had clearly lost my cachet as Mother Nature.  Would I ever recover?

As I pondered this question, we rounded the bend on the road through the woods that would take us back to camp and we heard it.  It was the same screech we had heard before.  We stopped dead in our tracks and waited.  Sure enough, the two hawks began their ritual again and we were there to see it.  The kids were thrilled as was I.  I had redeemed myself as Mother Nature and felt that surely there was something truly magical going on.  It was the last time anyone at camp that summer saw or heard from the pair of hawks.  We just happened to be at the right place at the right time- twice!

There is a sign at the end of my driveway now with a wooden cut-out of a camper in her green shorts and white shirt waving.  The sign says "Honk If You're Going To Hive". We put this sign up in June every year to welcome the counselors and the families who are driving by to drop off their kids at camp.  It gives me such pleasure to hear the honks every day as these lucky kids and young adults drive by on their way to this special place.  I am overcome with pangs every summer at this time with the yearning to be there, to be part of the warm and wonderful community, to be outdoors, to make new friends, to sing my heart out.

I don't think the tent in my backyard or the camp down the road have a corner on making magic, but wherever you find your magic,  I recommend you spend as much time there as you possibly can.  And on those lazy days of summer, think of me enjoying my rest hour in the Tent of Magic.