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