Pretty amazing man.  A list of books he authored a mile long.  My husband just pointed me to Peter Drucker's wiki...  and many of the ideas that run through most of Drucker's writings that are quite interesting and worth checking out.  Wiki Link Here

Now I have to first go back and re-read The Social Animal.  Then, I think I'm going to have to go out and buy Drucker's 2001 book, The Essential Drucker.

~Arry

My side note: TGIF. February has been the month that just kept on going and going with no resting moment...  (With only myself to blame), I'm kind of pissed at myself for not having gotten in one single blog post last month (February)...  ...

Anyways, the post I shoulda woulda coulda have written last month is about this inside (no longer inside) "joke" my husband and I have with each other.  It's all about, "thank you" and "you're welcome".

Thank you.

You're welcome.

So simple.  These are one of the very first simple pleasantries of social etiquette you learn as a very young child.  What comes after, "thank you"?  Why, it's "you're welcome!" 

I'm going to point this out (on behalf of myself and my husband), and then you will start hearing it everywhere - the radio, at work, after dinner with friends, in gift-giving situations, on NPR, on the news, on television shows....  Today (and I mean it in the current times, say the past 5 years to today sense), you'll hear the following series, "thank you".... "[no], thank you".   I think maybe a few years ago, maybe it was 5 years ago, maybe it's been going on for a decade, but at SOME point, "thank you - you're welcome", became "thank you - no, thank YOU!" .... which became "thank you - no, thank you" .... which became "thank you - thank you".

Thank you [for having me on your radio show].

[No] Thank you [for coming onto my radio show].

This might only be me, it might only be our thing (me and my husband) - but I really wonder, have we as a society lost our sense of grace, humility, and social etiquette, that we cannot accept a thank you from someone?  The way it feels (more than it sounds) when you really sit and stew on this for moment, it feels like that the person who follows the "thank you" with a "thank you" is saying the following:  No, I will not accept your thanks.  I didn't do anything for you, because really, implicitly, I did whatever I did for me.  I'd rather you accept my thanks, because that'll make me feel a little more comfortable.  Really at the end of the day, I need to acknowledge you did the favor for me.  I'm the one that benefited here.  I am unworthy of the thanks - it was not my pleasure to serve you.  I'd feel more comfortable acknowledging that it was you that has just served me by saying thank you instead.

Is that what you feel when you think about this?  Are we that weirded out as a society from the idea that it's OKAY (actually, REALLY GOOD) to serve another person?  And after having lovingly and graciously served another person, when receiving words of gratitude, are we as a society disturbed with the idea of OWNING the act of service by saying "you're welcome"?  What's wrong with taking care of another?  What's wrong with giving to another?   

Try it.  After someone says "thank you" to you, follow it old school with a gracious "you're welcome".  You're welcome says that your action/gift/service/words was intentional.  I was happy to do it.  I am happy to have you over.  I am happy to host you.  I enjoy making your life better.  I wanted to share with you those true words.  I'd do it again.  I accept your gratitude. 

xo,
Arry

I believe it.  Create yourself, over and over and over - it's part of the fun of life.  :)

~Arry

A headline caught my eye today and reminded me of my own 2013 mantra I've been trying to spread to my colleagues, family, and friends: "NO MORE CODDLING!"  (reminds me of our All Things Wishful mantra).  The article had the tagline, "Stop Reacting and Start Leading" and underneath, the words, "To start off 2013 on a new note, consider this as an idea: people should be held responsible for solving their own problems." 

DING DING DING - YES YES YES. 

Hey.  This isn't being mean or vindictive or unkind.  Seriously. To constantly be saving someone's butt, to constantly be covering for someone's inefficiencies, to be constantly have your feet held to the fire week after week = THAT'S MEAN and I'd contend, SERIOUSLY CRUEL.  I'm not here (on this earth) to coddle.  I'm not here to get worked to the bone.  I'm here to live, to grow, and to work - make a positive impact or dent in this universe.  I'm assuming those around me are here to do the same.  (And to add to that, if you treat someone like a functioning adult, and if with coaching the person grows and rises - how much BETTER is that than doing via coddling?) 

It's a struggle many face, in our day-to-day jobs - and for those of us that want to rise and build platforms as leaders in our companies, communities, industries, .... to rise, we need EVERYONE on the team to rise up.  I see this left and right, the over-functioning, over-performing soul that is doing the work of many.  Yes, it's great that they are so awesome at doing so much - BUT it's not scalable.  It's not healthy.  It doesn't work.  I HATE working like that.  If someone is not holding their own - let them know/coach them, give them an opportunity to stand up, and if they cannot - let them go.  Hold people accountable - don't be afraid of letting failures happen (as they are learning moments & teaching opportunities).

In the article, there were a lot of similarities to the Sales Leader versus the Consulting Leader (the world I work in).  The funny thing is, very often the "firefighter" will get promoted over and over again because they are "saving" the company from their self-created "destructive" non-decisions of ineffectiveness.  Seems backwards to me. 

2012 - yes, 2012 was the year it came together.  2011 is the year I started cleaning up my act after seeing this wonderful helpful wellness doctor (Mimi, SheIsWell.com) for several months - I learned a bunch of things (she changed my life in so many ways) about me:

• DIET COKE IS POISONOUS! Remember my post on that from 2011?  Every time I have ever accidentally had a drink w the fake sugars in it - it's reconfirmed each and every time.  BAD.
• Beef.  Meat and Arry do not go well together, particularly beef, rabbit, and pork.  I really dislike the taste of chicken and pork any ways, so no big deal.  Over the past year, every time I think I'm having a craving reminiscing about my once love for delicious hamburgers... and I eat one, I end up with nausea, deep aggravating sickness where I gag with each breath of air and I go stumbling around gasping for something bubbly ginger ale to stop the sickness.
• Alcohol.  My love for boozing and schmoozing was not helpful to my health.  My liver was not functioning - and with each toxic super processed "food" I ate, each dirty martini I ingested, and the late night hot dogs and pizza was being compounded on top of the last toxic thing I had put into my body to exponentially disable my body further and further away from health...  I still struggle with this.  I try to manage it by minimizing my time out on the social scene.  
• Dairy.  Oh dairy.  Cheese.  Pizza!  Cream cheese.  Sour cream.  Yogurt.  ...  I used to and still do LOVE the taste of these wonderful decadent dairy products...  However, as I started cleaning up my act and my awareness of how much what I ate or drank was affecting my health and happiness...  (similar to the feelings of nausea when I eat certain very rich meats), I would notice this disturbing gross unpleasant after-taste whenever I ate dairy.  WHY!? I have no idea...  it doesn't go away very easily either.  Experience this a few too many times, I've learned to dislike dairy - dislike what it does to me.  My nutrition major friends at Cornell would tell me, "dairy is for baby calves - not human adults".  I should have listed to them a decade ago.
• Processed ____.  Bread.  Cookies.  Refined sugars.  Pasta.  All sorts of processed machine genetically modified chemically enhanced non-foods are not good for me.  Pasta is my weakness - so I still eat pasta (but the super kinds made from Quinoa and quality grains).  The other stuff - tastes pretty good going down, but then when I started becoming more and more aware of what I was eating, it seemed to be counter-intuitive to be putting that sort of stuff into myself after all the other efforts I was putting in.  After all, (see list above), I learned that there are some unsavory-once-thought-to-be-delicious things I used to enjoy eating that were no longer enjoyable and helpful to me. 
  

So where does that leave me?  It leaves me mostly vegan (because I'm human).  I've been mostly vegan for about a year now and have been becoming more and more so to this day.  I feel healthier.  Cleaner.  ... and then learning, reading, watching more about the way food is produced today... well, as you know, they say ignorance is bliss...  So what do I do as I get to know more and more... 

I have a choice: 1) make a change or 2) pretend to be ignorant and continue on.  Decided to make the change - and thankfully, my husband is in full support.  I'm healthier, happier, less sick, supporting the other mammals who have feelings (like my sweet Mochi puppy), and... lessening our carbon footprint.  :)

~Arry

Caveat = these themes are "works in progress":

At home, in the entry way, we have a very large whiteboard that greets you.  On it, we have three bullets, with three themes written next to them.  We read the three themes everyday - sometimes the themes get edited, a word added, changed, removed...  or sub-bullets added...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Be: slow, thoughtful, planned, committed, aware

2. Building:
     - Community, friendships
     - Our war chest and savings
     - Our family strength (home, quality time) <3

3. Explore and travel together

Think we need to add a couple more - make it five themes.  Still working on it - probably be something about developing platforms and knowledge in the world of design and technology.  Maybe one on working towards and accomplishing one big personal goal (Dae is working on his 2013 Iron Man) - I have to commit to that one big personal goal still.

xo,
Arry

Good morning! 

My husband and I are about to head off to our weekend getaway to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary - can you believe it?  It's been ONE YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (An amazing wonderful first year at that!)...  as we were preparing for our little getaway, we got side-tracked (as we tend to do) in a conversation that was interesting, I thought I'd recap and share it with you.

Arry:  Honey, it's so weird...  (looking through some old photos)...  I'm in my thirties and just starting my "adult" life.  There are so many of my peers from high school that already have been married for 10 years, have multiple children, ...  I feel like such a late bloomer. 
Dae:  I'm a late bloomer too, sweetie.  Hey, I'm in my forties and I'm just getting started, too (walks over and gives me a kiss.)   I got a good theory on this one.
Arry:  Oh?  Oh please, do tell.  I'm ready!
Dae:  Well, it's my "delayed maturation theory".  Some people, just peak earlier - they're the jocks, the cheerleaders, the cool popular kids in high school that were out dating, partying and drinking when you were probably at home studying, reading books, and practicing the piano for tens of hours.  They just mature earlier. 
Arry:  Yes, I was.  All I did was work, study, practice instruments, read....  I never went to a single dance in high school.  I didn't have any boyfriends (never got asked out).  I was pretty socially awkward when it came to being "cool".  I didn't even realize I had sexy parts until I was in my twenties.  (hehe)  What about you?  Did you party in high school?
Dae:  Well, yea.  I got to do both - party early in life and til later in life (he winks).
Arry:  Hmmph. 
Dae:  Back to my "delayed maturation theory"...  those nerds, the band camp kids, the computer lab nerds, the studious ones like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, .... they grew up later.  They are the late bloomers peaking later in life because they are busy studying, going to med school, putting in their 10,000 hours of expertise-building in the early life.  The kids that went to undergraduate college, med school, law school "bought" extra time by going to school longer than the early peakers.  They have delayed maturation - AND they are the ones poised to change and take over the world.
Arry:  Hmmm....  this is good thinking and thanks for the flattery.  I suppose that's why our parents may have told us to take our time with dating and getting married.  Maybe?  Though, I bet my mother didn't intend for me to wait this long (lol).  I've actually never thought about this in this way before...  I've got to write this up, permission?
Dae:  Yea, knock yourself out.  You're going to do that right~ now?
Arry:  Yup, going into my head-space now. 

So there you have it, for now... according to Dae's Delayed Maturation Theory, it seems to be that there are the early peakers, and the delayed peakers.  I'm one of those delayed peakers and feeling on track, sorta.  Lots of new stuff to come...  I'm kind of excited, but mostly scared about it all right now.

xo,
arry

Happy new year, friends!  May 2013 bring you tons of hugs, laughter, smiles and successes.  I'm running a little behind this year - I started thinking about my dreams for 2013 a little over 2 weeks ago, and I'm still working on what my 2013 year will feel and look like.  I focus on putting words around what my dreams will "feel and look like" instead of setting goals or "new year's resolutions" - because opportunities and successes come in many different forms, people, and times (timing is key, isn't it?).  What you really want is to accomplish the feeling you are going for or the vision of what a goal might be like - and you want to make sure your expectations are flexible and open enough to recognize (and receive) those opportunities and successes.  :)  Paint the picture of what that future dream state feels like, looks like to make it achievable.  Tie your conscious goals with your subconscious dreams.

Break it into 3-5 pillars that are integral to your happy well-rounded well-balanced life.  For example, mine looks sort of like:

1. Family - building and investing in my family, having a deeper sense of "home" with my husband.  Taking the time to talk, walk, hang out together really makes me feel so secure in my home base.
   
2. Personal - personal goals like get healthier, become a true vegetarian or learn a new language.  I want to be able to feel clean, purposeful, and thoughtful about how I eat and drink to minimize the nausea/migraines I get even further.
   
3. Career - focus on carrying a low center of gravity, getting published, ...  executing larger and larger business deals.
   
4. Community - getting back into the world of community, building friendships, maybe sitting on a board or two again, ...  contributing to the "betterment" of the community we live and work in with bigger impacts.  Changing the world feelings that help give me and the people around me hope in humanity, in our future, in life.
   
5. Platform - focusing on what my platforms are, growing the ones I currently have or growing new ones.  Not sure what these are still - I've been brewing for a couple years now, but this is still one I struggle with.  ....
   

Still working on the details, but that's what the main "Pillars" of my 2013 are looking like for now.

Happy new year!
~Arry

2012 has been a year of growth, learning, and opportunity - particularly in the practice of leadership.  We all judge each other on this skill - the ability to lead, the ability to follow, create vision and execute success.  We all judge each other regularly, too.  Why do some rise faster than others, why do some seem to get more opportunities, why are some considered "high potential" and others not?  In general, companies get it right.... maybe 50% of the time.  Maybe smaller companies get it right more often just because the tolerance for getting it wrong is so low (it really really hurts the entire small company when they have the wrong people in leadership).

Leadership...  is a big word.  It means a lot of things to many people...

This past year, I've been given the opportunity to grow and lead a small business unit for the company I work for, Logic20/20, and it's given me the chance to thoughtfully invest in certain key individuals that work on projects with me and play with different ideas.  Certain individuals have a certain... special something, x-factor, hunger, drive, ... it's hard to describe or pinpoint.  Over the past ten years, I've tried picking out what that certain something special is - and invested in many people through the mentoring I do with the University of Washington students, ad-hoc mentees I take on, etc...  it's taken me a little while to put my finger on it as I've been very conscious in thinking about, analyzing afterwards, observing, ... reaffirming and tweaking my thoughts on this.  I used to think some people could get away without doing this.  I thought maybe perhaps there are special exceptions to the rule...  but no.  Yea - not so much.  I do have individuals I work with that I just wish, I wish would do that something consistently.... I send them friendly reminders, I nudge them, I gently prod them....  but then, my trust in them goes down because I have to "PM - project manage" them.  No, there is no exception - not in the way I judge the high potentials in my business unit of those I want to continue to invest in, grow into replacing me some day.  I cannot afford to hand-hold a person into leadership - they have to be there, consistently, ready to go, over and over and over again before I'm willing to put myself on the line and invest in them.  I actually tried it out for months of September to November wondering how long I could keep the"free pass" I assumed I had going because of my special "dire" circumstances.  Didn't work.  No - not in the way I am and have been judged by the leadership team of my employer.  It is all about consistently being ready to play your A-game at every meeting, in email, on the phone, offline - OVER and OVER and OVER again.  That is how you earn your stripes for leadership - through consistent diligent demonstration.

• Be on time - or even EARLY to every single meeting and commitment.  A minute late, fine.... A minute late twice, that's too often.  Five minutes here and there, and your credibility is tanking.  Obviously your time is worth more than the person(s) you are meeting with - that's not going to get you that far.  Those that show up consistently, diligently, are the ones I invest in - because they are undeniably dependable and trustworthy.
  
• Show up ready to play an A-game every single time - this means shirt ironed, belt, shoes, hair done, make-up on, coffee in hand, ready to go.  You know when that someone comes running into a meeting 10, 20 minutes late week after week with some lame excuse like traffic, a meeting ran late, didn't see this on my calendar, blah blah blah blah blah blah - the  people in the meeting that have been waiting all think (whether consciously or subconsciously), dude - plan ahead!; don't you know how to run a meeting on time, it's a recurring meeting - get it straight, why'd you bother showing up, ....  Show up with a pen and paper.  Demonstrate active listening - nod, speak up, take notes. 
  
• Take direction/advice only ONCE - then execute it repeatedly (not just that one time).  If your boss, project manager, employer, lead, etc... has to ask you more than once, that is not a good sign.  The minute I find myself thinking, I've said this before - I ask the person to take notes, sometimes, I'll even email a follow up.  I tend to feel like the biggest loser on the face of this planet if someone has to ask me more than once to do anything - it does happen (we are human).  This is the ideal one should be shooting for - the ability to take constructive feedback, advice, direction well.

To me, leadership is always about consistently demonstrating it: leading by example + servant leadership.

Please share your thoughts with me - would love to hear from you.
Arry

this is for the guys. 

i have never heard any of my friends articulate the following theory.  i came up with it after observing my friends.  i also have some personal experience that backs up this theory, because sometimes life just doesn't turn out the way you think it will.  below are what i think are the two reasons why you won't see your buddies anymore after they get married.

reason #1: you don't see your friend any more because he is miserable and unhappy.  he probably doesn't have anyone to turn to.  he is trapped in a bad marriage.  hanging out with his buddies might even be forbidden.  the absence of your friend who has gotten married is a natural byproduct of a bad marriage.  generally, one of the taboo aspects of a bad marriage is that a person can't really talk about it with the former family (former family = parents, siblings, etc).  his siblings and parents will immediately take his side and the wife becomes the evil one (whether she deserves it or not).  if he talks to his former family about his wife negatively, then it will only divide his new family (new family = him + his wife).  he can't talk about his problems with his friends because they will also take his side.  maybe his friends will be diplomatic and try to give good neutral advice.  but overall, you will be put in an awkward position if you ever hang out as a couple with your friend and his wife because you will know their dirty laundry.  and if you are an unmarried person, you will be shocked at how much time and effort it takes to be in an unhappy marriage.  all of your friend's spare time will be spent fighting, or mending their marriage, in front of a marriage counselor, or reading books to try and fix his bad marriage.  your friend simply will not have the time to hang out with you like he did before.  all his spare time will be preoccupied with working on his bad marriage.

reason #2: you don't see your friend any more because they are happy!  he spends all his spare time with his new wife because they have common interests and activities.  he genuinely likes talking to his wife and spending all his spare time with his wife.  when he gets off work, he can't wait to go home to his new wife to hang out with her.  the absence of your friend who has gotten married is a natural byproduct of a good marriage and ideally, his new wife is the person who will be with him for rest of his life.  you should be EXTREMELY HAPPY for your dear old friend.  in this scenario, your buddy is moving on into the next stage of a typical guy's life.

already, look up above.  reason #1 even took more explanation than #2!

i once heard a pastor say "a good marriage takes a lot of time and effort.  a bad marriage takes even more time and effort."  i thoroughly believe that.  so in summary, it might sound too simple, but the reason why you don't see our buddy anymore after he got married is because he is  either #1 miserable or #2 happy.  that's it.  and you probably will never really know the complete truth until it all unwinds in a divorce, or you find that his marriage endures happily forever as long as you know him.  if he is caught in a bad marriage, you cannot count on your friend to tell you the truth.  the lie is not malicious.  don't take it personal.  It's just the sad way he has to exist temporarily.  he might say life and marriage is good until you suddenly find out they are getting a divorce.  so they lied to you!  it was partly their pride that probably wouldn't let him admit to a failed marriage.

and your friend who is in a good marriage will also tell you life and marriage is good!  (surprise! - it's the same statement your friend who is in a bad marriage will say).  and only until a very, very long period of time has passed will you know whether he was telling the truth the whole time.  the test of time is the only reasonable way you can remove the doubt that he is truly in a happy marriage.  one of my all time favorite lines: you can hide crazy for a little while, but you can't hide it forever!

-dhy