Jumping thoughts

Mid-week and I don’t know what I did in the last couple days. Monday and Tuesday were filled with meetings, difficult conversations, and planning for “future”.

Difficult conversations: I think the hardest conversations to have in a work place is to give negative feedback to others. Receiving feedback is hard, giving it even harder. I need to give some to some teams members and hesitated and consulted with others for few days before actually delivering it. It is definitely something that I need to learn to do and do it better. One thing to keep in mind is that giving feedback is hard for all parties, while it gets easier with practice, it will always be hard. As leader, I should take it as an opportunity as personal growth instead of avoiding it.

Portfolio approach to vaccine: I learned that another colleague left the country to go back to home to take care of elderly parent and to get vaccines. Here, we don’t have a clear timeline of when we will get vaccines, so I’ve been contemplating few options and we have come up with a plan. Once I have a plan, I feel relief as I am taking control of my future in some ways. Vaccine seems the only way to get extra protection, physically and mentally to get over with this never ending pandemic.

Time affluence: in one of the podcast, this concept came up and I really like it. Research has shown that being wealth with time, or have control over time makes one happy and fulfilling. This is so true. One can be wealthy but have no time with the family or do things that bring joy for oneself, then that’s not really wealthy. If I can have control of my time, most part of it, then I can plan to make the best out of it to my preference.

College process: husband watched the netflix documentary on college application scandal and we got to talk about it. The competition is fierce and the ultimate outcome or objective seems to narrow to me. For now, I prefer my girls have a balance approach to life and value experience, relationships, intellectual curiosity, physical activity, above grades. Single focus on getting to Ivy league doesn’t guarantee success, defined as life fulfilment, so why kill oneself for it. Yet, I also understand that there is high correlation between getting a fulfilling job and grades/schools, so the dilemma. Fortunately they are young for now, and I think my role is still to institute good habits, hobbies, so they would be ready when they need to be serious about career decisions.

This friday is holiday and I feel I can really benefit from 3 days weekend, so I get back to this book, so fascinating, yet I read zero pages since Sunday.