Nothing is ever random ..

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Your future is being worked on, are you participating?

We all want an empowering, thriving, innovative, equal, peaceful, healthy & wealthy future.

🗣 Then WE all need to make an effort. Personal, Professional & Civic!

At the least – don’t mock or hinder someone/something that is making an effort towards the future that you so very much want.

Diplomatic Distance

There is no need to burn the bridge. Just find closure within and take a detour ♥️

Sometimes by creating a diplomatic distance  you allow yourself to view the positives of the people and the situation rather than the constant stream of negatives.

The universal flaw

To know your own flaw and work on it and is massively powerful!

These unpleasant memories …

Life is unavoidable!

Hindsight is always 20/20!!

🎤 And, I have yet to meet anyone, including myself, who has forgotten an unpleasant experience. With time there could be detachment and maybe forgiveness, if at all.

♥️ Let’s not fool ourselves and maybe fight the fight that is worth it because they are all memories.

For all my extrovert-ness these things are ridiculously hard ..

For all my extrovert-ness the few things that I find ridiculously difficult are:

🗣 Asking for help – and it’s not a lack of need. Because who doesn’t need help!

🗣 Self Promotion – my resume is a sorry example of that.

🗣 Taking a compliment, especially in person – it’s almost as if I need a credited institution to validate my dry shampoo skills so that I can accept ‘your hair looks great today!’

🗣 Seeing my own worth – I have no quip here because if I start on this, it will turn into a book.

Is it ego at play or need of control or am I just wired that way? Who knows, but it needs to change and I am taking actionable steps!!

And, no I don’t think being an extrovert or an introvert automatically makes the above possible. It’s was my perception that the above may come organic to me as being an extrovert.

😳 It took me only 30days of contemplation before I ‘invited’ family & friends to ‘Like’ my page. And, the push that made me do it was my self-thought of ‘well, I don’t want I spam my personal page with my posts all the time so whoever wants to read my work will ‘Like’ with the Facebook page or better yet will subscribe to the blog’

🗣 This amazing Kathleen Taylor artwork speaks to me – I am a science & signs person – and I spotted it at the cutest store wild oats and billy goats. This will be in my office one day, I will buy it! Because ..

It’s a bird and the message is what I need.

Do you struggle with owning the intangible? How do you go about it? Share some tips in comments .. all of us could use it! ♥️

You are you, always & forever

Words are powerful but you didnot need me to tell you that!

My 4yr old proves it to us, time & again.

I have ridiculous amount of professional fear! Not the kind where I think I will lose my job because I have no obvious reason to reach that conclusion, at this time. And, the career journey has been filled with accolades mixed in with some humble learnings.

The fear is mostly my overthinking on steroids so much so that the only part of my body that has any muscle definition is my brain.

Earlier this year I tried to dig deeper to find the cause of that fear.

Is it financial?

Is it embarrassment if I ever lose a job?

Is it …. I circled the drain!

Around May of this year, during a meeting, a client exclaimed “ Gosh, you have an incredible voice. We need to get you to record our demo” – I smiled and let out an “aha!” With some filler crap like “where is the million dollar check? Sign me up!”

This compliment was not new to me. In college, I had the honor to be ON AIR with Cecil Doyle of NPR station on UL campus. My voice got 2 compliments that day. I was so happy I could have worked there for min wage all my life but then I slept over it, reality set in and that 5am coffee house shift called my name.

Fast forward to August and I found myself in a sound proof room with 4 strangers and an amazing voice artist. This was a 3 hour journey and in the end one would be clear if their voice can be of a voice artist.

Turns out I am an excellent fit for commercials. My dramatics are on-point but then if you have met me then you don’t need me to tell you that!

That night as I drove home I understood the cause of my fear.

‘I am not a head of product but I work as a head of product.’

Once I said that out loud I could hear it – I am Shivani. Anything beyond that is a choice I have made.

A choice that can be made over and over and over again. As long as I am not afraid of rejection & failure.

The question of Age: Cake or Caution!

“Aww so adorable!! How old are you?” said the lady, casually and yet with intrigue to the pre-schooler.

” I am 4 ” he announced and then with face full of pride he added “I was 3 but now I am 4 “

The lady smiled warmly and said “That is amazing, such a big boy you are and growing so fast”

I watched over this interaction and had a moment of pride for my 4 year old. It also triggered a memory of my childhood/teenager years where an age conversation often turn a bit longer than 3 sentences.

As a child/teenager often my age was assumed higher and a conversation about it would go something like this:

“How old are you? (No Pause for response) Looks like are you 22.”

“I just turned 19”

Seemingly embarrassed or flustered “oh really. You seem so mature and grown. I mean you face is young but your attitude is so grown” (No Pause but insert a nervous forced laughter) “you can talk so well and are so understanding. I really thought you are 22 “

The most OK part of this interaction was that I was, matter of fact, very thrilled to be viewed as older. Mostly because that gave me validation and a sense of belonging with the group I anyway related the best – the grow ups. I was/am a curly haired, short stature Faby* who was loved for her ‘personality’ – Sure there were fans of my beauty but they all had the same last name as me or were in some way related to me.

Faby = A somewhat heavy person who is called Chubby by well-meaning family and relatives.

Word Creation Credit = Me!

Fast forward decades and somewhere along the way the adults hesitated to comment on my age. Well, not just to me, in general it is a social taboo to ask an adult their age and worse if you ask a female.

The question ‘How old are you?’

• to a child it is asked often with enthusiasm and the higher count is celebrated.
• to a teenager it is asked often with enthusiasm, is celebrated as a move towards adulthood.
• to an adult it is just not asked, or worse a higher count of that number is used to judge and box that person in some society created standards-by-age.

What nonsense is that?

My teenage years age conversation, unconsciously, conditioned me to think that:

• To the society, it is only exciting if you age until a certain age. Beyond that you best not reveal your age.
• To the society, age has a direct correlation to ones outwardly appearance. Best keep appearance youthful and since 20ish seems to the cut off where it is acceptable to ask someone their age – then the appearance standard but me 20ish too.
• To the society, age has a direct correlation with maturity. In case you are mature/self confident beyond your age then keep that to your self! Or best act young’ish!

I could go on but this is a well understood concept and I hope you sense the sarcasm!

There is a certainly a value to society created milestones for various phases of life. From toddler to senior citizen, as they are either tied to cognitive development and/or needed to define operational rules/benefits that are fit for a particular phase of life. For Ex: Legal adult age or discounts for senior citizens. But this is not about that.

What if there was no social taboo on asking “How old are you?” to anyone regardless of their age and it would prompt an enthusiastic response which would be celebrated back. Just like pre-school days ..

And then maybe there would not be any age-trait assumption conditioning.

Maybe when one tells their age:

We won’t categorize them

We won’t determine their coolness – whatever this means!

We won’t judge their social status

We won’t be sad for them

We won’t assume their disinterest in anything youthful

We won’t think they are immature

We will take them for what they are

Think about it!

I love the privilege of being mature, being youthful, being adventurous, being me regardless of my age. So, don’t hesitate to ask me “How old are you?” and when you are asked respond with an enthusiasm of a pre-schooler!

I am 39, by the way.