I hate neck ties in general, but love these specifically.
If you have to wear a tie, these strong gorgeous silk ones called Quindici by Ermenegildo Zegna are absolutely beautiful.
At a retail price of $285 each at Nordstrom’s, they are not cheap, but what a powerful and confident accent for any formal outfit.
These are all for me! 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Just in time for the New Year you can shop at Jewish fashion site Hot Chani.
“Sexy things for heimish girls.”
Hot Chanis are modest and proper Jewish women who are still unbelievably sexy.
You can truly be a “good Jewish girl” and feel and be gorgeous inside and out.
Find your confidence, feel sexy, be beautiful, find love and romance…shop at Hot Chani.
Spice up your New Year and your life.
Be a Hot Chani! 😉
(Source Photo: HotChani.com)
So it’s human nature to want to leave the world a better place than before we got here.
But you wouldn’t know it by how things are looking the last number of years.
Here’s just the latest from reports this week:
1) The Global Peace Index: “World is less peaceful today than in 2008…Last year alone it is estimated that 20,000 people were killed in terrorist attacks up from an average of 2,000 a year only 10 years ago.”
2) A Record Year In Misery: “The world has never seen a refuge crisis this bad…last year saw the total number of forcibly displaced persons rise to 59.5 million, an all time high.” This is due to world conflict, general violence, human rights violations, and persecution.”
3) Climate Apocalypse: “A child born today may live to see humanity’s end…[as a result of] overcrowding, denuded resources, and climate change…dangerous climate change is already here. The question is can we avoid catastrophic climate change.”
4) Americans Have Lost Confidence In Everything: “It not just Congress [and the President] and the economy that have Americans concerned these days…All in all, it’s a picture of a nation discouraged about its present and worried about its future, and highly doubtful that its institutions can pull America out of its trough.
Maybe the worst thing is that many people are deluding themselves that everything is hunky dory.
But isn’t it time for some real wins again?
To do that we need genuine good old fashioned elbow grease–that means we start with a strategy that actually tackles the issues rather than kicking the can down the road. We need honesty, not political upmanships and swell soundbite cliches.
What good is appeasement to the masses now, if it means their utter despair or demise later–for example, why should we be Greece on the brink of national bankruptcy, if instead we can be Norway with the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world?
Then comes the hard work, fortitude, and commitment to turn the tide on the bad news and losses. This mean personal and national sacrifice now in order to have better times for our children and grandchildren.
G-d is watching us, our children are questioning us, the needy are looking to us.
We are working hard, but it’s hardly working!
Maybe we need to make this real simple: “Little Johnny, now take your medicine, and stop fighting Mommy, p-lease!” 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So I saw this game called Taboo when doing the grocery shopping today.
(This one is the Jewish edition.)
Having never played this before, I looked it up and learned that it’s a word game, where you have to give clues to the other team for them to guess a word, but you can’t use the “taboo” words on the card.
So for example, if the word is baseball, then some of the taboo words may be sport, pitcher, hitter, etc.
So this is not an easy game per se.
Thinking about the premise of the game though, I started to reflect that this isn’t just a game, but in real life isn’t so much of our interactions with others not about what we can say, but also the “taboo” things that we can’t.
How many times do you want to tell someone off and explain what a jerk they have been acting lately or say your real feelings on a topic that you may feel passionately about, but it’s somehow taboo to get into those things–you don’t want to offend, be “politically incorrect”, or perhaps you just think others may not agree with you or understand your point.
What do we do?
We “beat around the bush”–we express our dissatisfaction or disapproval or the opposite, with facial expressions, non-verbal cues, or perhaps we take a deep breath, hold back, or mince our words, so as not to somehow cross a social boundary of some sort.
We want others to know us, accept us, respect us, and truly like us, but we can’t always really be ourselves fully, because our words or feelings may be seen as taboo.
In the end, sometimes we’re discreet and “hold our tongue” and occasionally we blurt out what we really think and maybe are proud we did or are sorry for it afterwards–but wouldn’t it be great if we could just be ourselves–without fear or retribution.
It shouldn’t be taboo! 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
It’s funny that people derive so much of their self esteem from others.
If someone says something nice to/about them, then they feel on top of the world–full of worth, productive, successful, confident.
And when someone says something negative, then they get down in the dumps–depreciated, questioning, can’t do anything right, like a failure.
Yet, it the same person inside–the same heart, the same soul.
Of course, we are impacted by our behavior (when we do good and not) and people’s reactions to it–and we should be–it’s a helpful feedback mechanism to let us know when we are messing up or as reinforcement to continue doing good things.
But at the same time, people’s feedback is not always correct or well-intentioned and certainly it doesn’t necessarily represent holistically who we are…it’s just a snapshot in time.
So we need to take what people say and reflect back to us with a grain of salt–listen, try to understand, but also look at the bigger picture of you.
You know yourself better than anyone else, so incorporate the feedback and use it to improve, but don’t get bogged down by any person, event, or cheap talk.
Yes, you can be a rock star, by reflecting from what others tell you, but more importantly by listening to that voice inside that guides you. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
This was a sign hung in a local high school.
And thought this was pretty good.
Think before you speak…
THINK = True + Helpful + Inspiring + Necessary + Kind
If it doesn’t meet those criteria…shush, or in plain language–keep a lid on it!
Remember, two ears and one mouth–so speak half as much as you listen. 😉
(Source Photo: Dannielle Blumenthal)
So the military got it right when they teach their cadets to stand tall “at attention.”
“Chin up, chest out, shoulders back, stomach in.”
The Wall Street Journal (21 August 2013) says that “posture can determine who’s a hero, [and] who’s a wimp.”
Research has shown that striking a power pose raises testosterone levels that is associated with feelings of strength, superiority, social dominance, (and even aggression at elevated levels) and lowers cortisol levels and stress.
Power poses or even just practicing these have been linked with better performance, including interviewing and SAT scores.
Body language or non-verbal communication such as standing erect, leaning forward, placing hands firmly on the table, can project power, presence, confidence, and calmness.
It all ties together where saying the right thing is augmented and synergized by looking the right way, and doing the right thing. 😉
(Source Photo: here with attribution to Official U.S. Navy Imagery)
BBC News Technology (9 July 2013) reports on how the U.S. Emergency Alert System (EAS) was hacked.
The EAS is a program of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and was set up “to allow the president to talk to the entire country within 10 minutes of a disaster.” It also provides the public with alerts on local weather emergencies, such as tornados and flash floods.
EAS replaced the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) in 1997 and with it came security weaknesses.
Earlier this year, those vulnerabilities were tested and exploited when the Montana Television Network was hacked with an alert of a zombie attack.
And it provided advice on how to survive–“Do not approach or apprehend these bodies as they are considered extremely dangerous.”
This is reminiscent of the hoax in 1938 when over the radio came a warning that a meteorite had smashed into New Jersey and aliens were attacking New York–an adaptation of H.G. Wells “War of the Worlds.”
Well yesterday it was aliens, today it’s zombies, and tomorrow it could be an phony announcement of an invasion by country XYZ or perhaps a imminent detonation of a thermonuclear warhead somewhere over the continental U.S.
Imagine the panic, confusion, and potential loss of life and property from the ensuing chaos.
It goes without saying that this is not a way to inspire confidence by the citizens in case of a true national emergency.
If we cannot count on the systems meant to survive an emergency then how can we be expected to survive the emergency itself?
The EAS may interrupt your regularly scheduled programming with those loud and annoying tests, but what can really ruin you day is a cyber attack on the system that broadcasts something much nastier and more ominous–and you don’t really know whether it’s the real thing or just another hack. 😉
(Source Photo: here with attribution to UWW ResNet)
Regularly in IT, we field new technologies and systems.
Often, we don’t pay enough attention to the details of change management and what that means to our users.
A great article in Government Executive Magazine by Dr. Victoria Grady really hits this right on.
Grady points out something that is often overlooked: people have an instinctual predisposition to attach to/lean on objects and intangibles–including things like office spaces, systems, business processes, organizational structures, leaderships styles, and so on.
If you take that away–excuse the simile, but it is like taking candy away from a baby–you are going to get a lot of (often understandable) whining, crying, and resistance.
The key is understand that people in a sense really all have a kid inside them, and they need to be listened to, understood, empathized with, and cared for.
Changing out IT systems, restructuring the office, or doing a reorganization (as much as they may be needed) can cause people huge amounts of stress and the organization productivity losses, if not done right.
Remember, you are changing up people’s status quo, what they know, their security blanket, and you need to be mindful of and implement a robust communication and change management strategy.
What I have found is that one thing that raises the stress tempo is when people don’t have enough information on the change that is coming, how that impacts them, and how “everything will be okay.”
The more unknowns, the more stress.
While you cannot share information you don’t yet have or perhaps that is not yet baked, you can be honest and tell people what you do know, what you are still investigating, perhaps what some of the options are, timeframes, and of course, solicit their input.
To the extent that people are kept in the loop and can influence the process–the more control they have–the better they can cope and adjust.
Not that adults are children, but the analogy still holds, when you take away a bottle from a infant, you better have a pacifier to keep them happy–in this case, the pacifier is the replacement thing that people need to attach to/lean on to feel secure in their jobs.
If you are changing out systems, make sure the new system is well vetted, tested, and trained with the end-users, so they know and feel comfortable with the change–and they have the confidence in you and your team, the new system, and in themselves to handle it.
Same goes for other changes in the organization–you can mitigate stress through communication, collaboration, testing, training, and other confidence building measures.
Adults and babies are a lot happier and better able to deal with change, when they are taken care of properly.
We are all somewhat change adverse and that is a basic survival instinct, so we sometimes need to take baby steps, walk before we run, and work together to change as a group and ensure that the “new” is indeed better than the “old.” 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
I watched an interesting TED video presented by Brene Brown, who has a doctorate in social work and is a author many times over–she talked about one book in particular called The Gifts of Imperfection: Letting Go of Who We Think We Should Be and Embracing Who We Are(2010).She said that from all her studies and research, what she learned is that purpose and meaning in life comes from the connections we make and maintain.
But what gets in the way is shame and fear–shame that we are not good enough and fear that we cannot make real connections with others.To move beyond shame and fear, we need to feel worthy as human beings–true self acceptance–and say “I am enough.”
However, she points out that as a society there is a lot of numbing going on (i.e. plenty of shame and fear) and that is why we are the most in debt, obese, addicted, and medicated society in history. I liked this presentation and thought about how hard we are on ourselves–we are never good enough.
Yet, as Brown points out those that are successful with relationships and have a strong sense of love and belonging are those that feel they are inherently worthy. They have self-esteem without having to achieve any of these things.
That sense of self-worth and confidence, Brown says, enables you to achieve three key things in life:
When you have that self-worth and confidence then you can embrace your vulnerabilities and make them beautiful, rather than numb yourself to constantly try to cover the disdain you feel for your frailties and weaknesses.
From my perspective, our growth and contributions to the world are good things–leave the world better than you found it!
However, the proving ourselves and amassing “things,” while milestones in life, are not a measure of a person’s true worth.
Sometimes it is fine to get over it all–accept yourself, be yourself, and stop worrying that you are never good enough.
In the Torah (Bible), when Moshe asked G-d his name–G_d replies in Exodus 3:14: “I am that I am.”
To me, this is really the lesson here–if we but try to emulate G-d, then “we are what we are.”
That is not defeat or giving up on bettering ourselves, but acceptance of who we are, where we came from, and wehre we want to go in our lives.
We don’t have to beat ourselves up for being those things or for making good faith mistakes along the way.
andyblumenthal