Careers and Jungle Gyms

It feels like I have been taking a break from things. I don’t know if it’s accurate to call it procrastination because I simply ignore my tasks until they ‘fall’ off my list. This blog was meant to be my mental fridge but it fell of my list. Well, it feels like my mind is constantly getting cluttered yet I choose to ignore the signs and not blog. I must get better. Hmph!!

Anyway, I recently had a health scare which included surgery and plenty of recuperation time. My super friendly workmate ‘gifted’ me a whole bag of magazines: health, housekeeping, fitness – to keep me occupied while I was a convalescent. Surprisingly, I did get around to reading the magazines and shockingly, I gained sprinkles of wisdom and ‘aha’ moments.

I was reading Claire and I stumbled onto an interview with Equinox President, Sarah Robb O’Hagan. My initial impression was here we go, another woman who has ‘shattered the glass ceiling’. As I continued reading the interview, I was drawn more to her and I realized how intuitive, and business savvy she is. No wonder she is the Equinox President.

One mantra of her in particular jumped out at me. She was talking about her career track and how it wasn’t always vertical. At one point, she discusses how to she took a shot to work with Nike, even though it seemed like a career regression. Hence her wisdom: Careers are more like jungle gyms than ladders—sometimes a sideways or backward step can propel you forward.
Imagine that! It totally blew my mind! You see, I have been having internal struggles with the same issue last year. I switched jobs and I now work and an extremely lucrative place that I have been eyeing for quite some time. Problem is, it seems like a total career regression and 98% of the time I sure as hell don’t know what I am doing. Honestly, it is depressing at times.

Think about it, we have been programmed to think that the only way is up, and never sideways or vertical. Well thank you Sarah for challenging my assumptions and beliefs on career. I now believe that I am in my jungle gym and this seemingly backward move is going to propel me much further than being on a vertical ladder.

I know there are millions (maybe thousands) like me who feel exactly the same way. Hopefully this will inspire us all to look at the big picture and propel ourselves in our career jungle gyms.

Appreciating Chaos

I must say I am a sucker for planning. I am one of those people who if I don’t plan my wardrobe for the entire week I am stuck by Tuesday. I plan weekly meals (by weather season). Yes, you read right. It’s currently winter so I make lot of soups and curries. Sunday is always fish day: Salmon, Tilapia, or any other fish we fancy. Tuesday is always poultry day: turkey, chicken. Thursday is always lentils day. During the summer, I maintain the same theme but with salads and grilled. I have a workout schedule too, and a cleaning schedule too. You get the picture right? This mama is a sucker for planning!!
So – back to my wardrobe conundrum. As I shower on Wednesday morning I begin to panic and wonder if I am going to wear the same clothes I wore on Monday on Tuesday (the horror!!!) Are you still with me? On the planning thing?
Anyway, this week my world was completely floored. I have come to appreciate the chaotic and unpredictable randomness that is life. Every day this week, a random event has inspired me to action or thought in positive ways; and, evidently more planning. On Monday, I received an email alert that immediately prompted me to plan out how I am going to spend more time with modern baba next year. Dare I say date night?
On Tuesday, a random conversation with a very wise colleague made me stop and think about marriage and what it means to me and my daughter. It’s always the hallway conversations that inspire light bulb moments no?
On Thursday, I was talking a walk around my office building and I ran into workmates I have never interacted with beyond ‘hi’. Anyway, they invited me for a walk to Starbucks and what ensued was an hour of hilarity, incredible insight, and most importantly forged friendships. Who knew that taking a walk outside would lead to more friendships and planning my personal long term professional strategy?
As I plan how I am going to spend the next two weeks of my holiday entertaining my three year old, I do wish you sprinkles of randomness and elements of planning this holiday season.
Namaste

I’m a Bitch with Etiquette

Or so I learnt. . . . . .

Apparently the ‘alpha, arrogant, go getter’ female attitude doesn’t sit well with men team-mates at the workplace. So, instead of pushing back, we gently cajole, maneuver in an oh so nice meaningful way that says ‘there’s a bitch sizzling in here – back off’

Whatever happened to leaning in? Or claiming what’s ours?

If only there could be more of Wendy Davis or Hilary Clinton in us. Would we be more bitchy with less etiquette? Would there be more women CEOs on the Forbes list? Would women make as much as men? Would there be less – child marriage? FGM? Human trafficking?

The tide is changing – slowly but surely. More countries are electing women to lead them (hello Australia) – ( Hillary 2016??), and women are making more and more strides in places we never thought womanly possible.

Meanwhile, I will continue to embrace my bitch with etiquette persona and chip away at work.

Happy Friday!!!!

The Complete Guide to a Mama and Toddler’s Workout

As any mum will tell you, it gets incredibly challenging to balance family and personal needs. My personal favorite is the exercise dilemna. As a full time working mum, I feel I can never quite get the work out I need. It seems like there are only two options: wake up insanely early (which I can NEVER do) like my girlfriend who wakes up at 4 am for a Zumba class 😦 gasp! OR, wait till the young one is asleep, finish all household chores, prep for the next day and when your eyelids can barely stay open, then attempt to squeeze a workout in. Yeah, I wonder how long that attempt will last *snickers*
I recently came up with a fabulous idea – why not combine modern toto’s evening time with my workout time, you know, like a hit two birds with one stone kinda thing. You see, we both LOVE to dance. So I figured, why not dance Zumba – via XBOX – together? It seems pretty straightforward right? Well, I forgot to mention a couple of things: modern toto is 2, yes 2! That means she is super agile, can never sit still, has the attention span of a fly and the coordination of a hmn (what’s the most uncoordinated being you could think of?) Well, you get my point. So here we were, all dressed up and ready to dance. If you have used the XBOX before, you know that the camera has to find your image at all times for you to see your progress as you dance along. Of course that didn’t happen due to the ‘agility’ of modern toto. Within seconds, she was all over the place and I spent most of the first song running after her or calling her back to reclaim her ‘spot’. Eventually she did but I forgot she was there ‘oops’ and accidentally nudged her. Que tears, wailing and running to modern baba to tell of mama’s offense. I finished my class in guilt and proceeded to bring out the yoga mat for ‘floor work’. As soon as she saw the mat, she grabbed it, and lay down to ‘sercise’ *sigh* We spent the next 15 minutes fighting for space with her shoving me to move over or scoot over. Scoot? Where do 2 year olds learn such complex words? I am puzzled. Back to ‘sercise’ I finally finished my 15 minute ab work with lots of interruptions and very little accomplishment. You can find the workouts here. Hopefully they can help a mum who needs to workout at home. So there, I accomplished some but hopefully it will get better soon and mdern toto and I can compete in some synchronised ‘sercise’

Bonus. London 2012 Closing Ceremony

I know NBC edited out some parts but it seemed better than the opening ceremony to me – maybe because most of the music reminded me of my teen and college years. Good stuff! Well job done Brits, now to wait for the Paralympics. I hope I remember to watch 🙂 

1. Modern Totolympics

And number one goes to. . . . . drumrolll please. . . . . . yours truly modern toto!

For showing her Olympic spirit and participating in whatever sport modern wazazi were watching. She swam on the floor with every event Phelps, Lochte, and Franklin won. She ran every race that Jamaica and Kenya lost won, and attempted to ‘dive’ every diving event we watched. 

A budding Olympian for sure, watch this space. . . . . . . muahaha

2. The New Kid On The Block

Gaby Douglas

David Rudisha

Kirani James

Missy Franklin

Enough Said

3. The Comeback Kid

We all know of one or a few or many of them.

Didn’t make it last Olympics because they:

Were labelled disabled – Oscar Pitorius

Utilized poor strategy – Sanya Richards-Ross

Didn’t train well – *blank*

Got shot – I forgot his name

Freaked out – I am sure we can find a few if we look for them

Doped oops 😦 – Justin Gatlin 

I am sure we can relate to them in our daily grind, learn from them and strive to do much better!!

4. Olympic mom athletes

Being a modern mom is like training for the Olympics everyday, at any one point in time you could be:

Diving – to prevent toto from eating the crap food she threw on the floor last night

Swimming – to get you and toto bathed in time to leave the house in time in the am

Gymnasting – to find a favorite shoe or dress or bottle under/beside/ furniture

Weightlifting – carrying 20,000 things (handbag, grocerries, toddler, shoes, ) as you get into the car or house

Running – after the toto to stuff food into their mouth or get them to bed.

I am in awe and reverence of women who mysteriously balance the juggling act of training everyday for two Olympics, modern motherhood and Olympic sports. My favorite two Olympic moms: 

Kerri Walsh – After winning Olympic gold in Beijing, had baby #1 in May 2009 and baby #2 in May 2010. Just won gold  #3 in London. 

Lashinda Demus – Couldn’t qualify for Beijing because she just had twin boys. Came back with a bang in London 2012 to win silver in 400M hurdles, yes you read right – hurdles. Her twin boys are 5. 

5. Athletics ‘aka’ running

Running athletics is all we know. It’s the only international sport Kenya excels in 🙂 (Maybe in 2016, we can compete for a gold in Rugby eh?) So naturally, we watch all running athletics events: 100M and everything in between to marathon. Sadly, Kenya seems to be getting worse in previously Kenyan dominated events. Exhibit A: losing 10,000M mens to a Somali British ‘Mo Farah’, Exhibit 2: losing men’s marathon to a Ugandan ‘Kiprotich’, oh the irony. 

Meanwhile, I will celebrate with the Jamaicans Caribbeans in their ever increasing dominance of sprint sports: 100M, 200M, 400M, 800M. I bet you they will soon ‘cross over’ to long distance running athletics. 

Excuse me while I train for my 5K *wink*